Hacker News Reader

leyfaon Porsche is showing off an electric sports car

The original press release contains more information. It seems like they are already using the drive system in race cars right now. The “Porsche Turbo Charging” seems to require special charging stations though.

http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mis...

leyfaon Stanford Statistical Learning Theory – Lecture Notes [pdf]

This seems interesting. There are exercises on the corresponding course page. Unfortunately, the solutions are not public.

leyfaon Man Walks Nearly 3000 Miles Through China

I've read parts of his book. He had already been living in China as a student for a few years when he decided to start his trip, if I remember correctly.

leyfaon Russian startup to release a smartphone with e-ink display on the back [video]

In the engadget video [1], they claim it will be priced as a top end android phone.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnO0p5XAl9Y

leyfaon If the world’s population lived like... (infographic)

Many European cities have height restrictions for buildings within the old city center to preserve the traditional architecture. The financial district just outside the center has no height limit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense

leyfaon Buffett Says Berkshire Has Bought About $10.7 Billion in IBM

Revealing my ignorance on this topic: Why would IBM care who owns their stocks, assuming the specific shareholder doesn't try to take influence on the development/direction of the company?

leyfaon The New Asimo Robot

What's the state of the art in humanoid or multi-pedal robots in terms of robustness and flexibility of their movement and balance? I assume ASIMO isn't as stable and stress resistant as the robots of Boston Dynamics, for example http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_petman.html

leyfaon Don't be rich, Live rich

He mentioned that they don't spend any more money than they would have in the US. It shouldn't make a difference for the retirement plans then, I assume.

leyfaon 25% of Students Say College Loans Have Impacted Their Career Choices

"Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $27,293 per year in tuition and fees" [1]

And that's just the private schools. The public schools are considerably cheaper: ~8k USD for in-state students and ~12k for external students. 50k USD is the full prize for the top private schools like Stanford or the Ivy League. Imagine how expensive some schools would have to be for the average to come out at 50k USD.

[1]: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

leyfaon VC per capita, Europe: $7, U.S.: $72, Israel: $144.

I have no doubt that VC money is the lowest in Europe of those three. I wonder though how significant this metric really is, especially if the large developping countries of eastern Europe are included. Wouldn't a VC money per startup/founder be more interesting?

leyfaon Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle

Fortunately, there are sparks of cultural changes lately, especially with the younger folks, but it's a change that won't happen overnight for sure.

I would like to contribute my personal data point on this. I'm a student in a smallish Dutch town at a university that's mostly focused on economics/business and medicine.

It feels like there's a considerate entrepreneurial spirit among the students here. Many seem to wish to found a startup and there are some there doesn't seem to be the mentioned aversion against success and making it big. From what I can tell, most of this is (still) just hot air, meaning that people have big ideas but don't dare start working on them. On the other hand, this might also be due to the lack of a bigger engineering or CS department with more people that can actually build something.

Maybe this is the beginning of a change of culture. I wonder if students in bigger tech-universities have similar experiences.