penglish1

Here's hoping they all last longer than 18 months.

Worth a read: "Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks" by Arthur Benjamin, one of my wife's college professors.

In which the Uber stockholders discover that extremely aggressive, sometimes illegal behavior is no substitute for a proper economic moat, and that "an app that calls a nearby taxi" is not too hard for someone else to do. And that building a market based on brand reputation only works if your brand really IS good, and people never find out that you've always been a bunch of "just wanting a C-Class" dickbags.

Please change "password reuse is bad okay" to "password reuse is bad mmmmkay"

Thank you.

Just one more reason to get a motorcycle. Or two. Maybe three. Did you know you can fit several motorcycles in the same space as just one car in your garage?

Also, I feel compelled to point out that you can get a Porsche, or Lotus or whatever and feel pretty cool with your francy sports car. Or you can get _several_ top of the line motorcycles for the same price. Just sayin'

It seems like it would be worth shopping with whoever has a "normal" CNC machine nearby, and seeing if you can get your stack of plywood machined for less for a given project. If you make a mistake with DIY, you're potentially out a sheet of plywood, not to mention time and effort.

Your project will involve plenty of time and effort at other stages than the plywood cutting bit.

Still, I'd consider getting one (perhaps on v2 after the Kickstarter has played out, and v1 gotchas figured out). It is cheap enough to get "just for fun."

I agree - the predictive power of social sciences (including economics) is pretty terrible.

But as you point out - computer scientists don't know what people want _either_, so.. predictive power itself is not necessary for a thing to work.

But _working_ isn't sufficient either. Facebook _works_. As I understand it is WILDLY profitable. But the way it works is a matter of economics and social sciences. Building a social networking website is a SOLVED PROBLEM in computer science. (yes, I realize they're doing some creative research on scaling it up).

Someone could clone Facebook tomorrow, and offer it for free, right? But.. could they charge $10/mo for it, and say "Facebook but without the spying and advertising?" - Probably not.

I'm not saying computer science is useless here. New algorithms WILL be needed. Bitcoin or any form of distributed ledger seems extremely unlikely to scale as needed, for instance. Perhaps provably unable to scale as needed - I'd welcome a paper proving this with solid math / computer science (and there probably is one, I don't keep up).

But what IS necessary is a working economic model that is not the current economic model. You're saying that nobody can predict the future (true), so just try a bunch of stuff - so far, so good. But then when you find something that works.. how do you pay for it? Nobody in computer science is trying to figure it out... that is a consideration "for later" - the point the article is making! What happens "later" when money needs to be made.. well.. advertising and surveillance. That is literally the only answer anyone has come up with.

That is why, FIRST, predictive or not, someone (probably in the social sciences) needs to come up with the idea(s) about how it _might_ be paid for, that don't include advertising.

The article was a response to the big decentralized web conference "web 3.0" that happened recently. It was all CS people, technologists who got together to enjoy talking about technology. But economics is what will shift this, and _innovation_ perhaps will be needed in economics. And other social sciences - nudging, gamification, etc.

It is the hubris of computer scientists to think that if we can just build it (again!) that THIS time people will surely use it, pay for it etc.

If we just make a better algorithm, people won't find our UI design intolerable.

If we just offer them some privacy, they will pay real money for it.

Long before there was a web, people were giving up privacy and freedom for the convenience of credit cards.

If the decentralized web is going to fly, it needs to START with the social sciences.

We can all nerd out over algorithms that make it happen, or use math to prove that it can't be done, only once the economists have created a model in which it might, theoretically be done. And the social scientists have created a model in which a critical mass of people will make the necessary choices, when presented with them.

As it stands, most people are not willing to pay: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11047801/Would-yo...

I would be willing to pay that _and more_ in a heartbeat if given the option. But, in social science terms - I understand the problems with centralization much better than most, I'm willing to put up with much worse UI than most, and I'm wealthier than average.

Heck I'd probably pay just because I think the underlying technology is neat! But that makes me a pretty extreme outlier on the broad spectrum of humanity that are choosing, en-masse to use Facebook, which means that I either need to use Facebook, or nothing.

Best of luck! Sage is fantastic, and the world needs it.

I just know there is a "There Will be Blood" joke in here somewhere..

AMD has the size such that making it happen may be easier for them. But they are also hungry for something, anything to give them an edge against Intel. Fingers crossed.

That may be correct, but I chose the word "platform" very carefully. Most ARM platforms to date, whether dev kits or final product have been aimed at smartphones, tablets, consumer devices (wireless routes, NAS etc) or fully embedded systems (SD cards?, hard disk controllers, etc). Apparently in those applications, nobody cares enough about ECC to bother.

Well, that and the fact that the memory is soldered on in most cases and the total device cost extremely low (compared to servers). So you are expected to simply replace your system entirely in the event that there are memory errors you notice. And hopefully nothing goes wrong that you don't notice.

Also, I suppose technically if you were only worried about bit flips due to solar activity, then a tiny amount of RAM on a tiny chip has less surface area and fewer bits TO flip than your standard full sized DIMM.

Finally, an ARM platform with ECC support. Well, and reasonable performance networking one presumes. And PCI-Express!

I think ARM has a lot of potential in the "smartphone priced" server market, particularly in an age where physical isolation (vs VMs or containers) and legal ownership of the server might theoretically provide some advantages against state surveillance. At least post-facto in the sense of "one could conceivably build a lawsuit on this" vs. "now I need DigitalOcean/Amazon/Google to sue the govt for me."

Wow - that really is quite impressive. And I think it is "plenty technical" for Hacker News. After all - hacking isn't just about computers per se. This is some pretty solid hardware hacking.

Your "story" is so amazing - half the price of Cessna's attempt at the same thing?!

However, Cessna's variant does have a second seat and a fair bit more load capacity.

Q1) Could one sacrifice some pounds of baggage for a bigger pilot? I'm currently (sadly) ~240lbs.

Q2) Is there a single factor which dominates the huge difference in price? It appears the Cessnas were produced in the US, until they moved production to China - making (apparently) a ~$71k difference in labor cost! But they still are selling for $150k instead of the original target $110k. So is it labor? Materials? Design? Engine? I'm very (hacker) curious!

Q3) You mention the market being uninterested in "bare-bones" planes without radios, lights, navigation, iPod jacks etc. But while the "top tier" of those items are certain to be expensive, the "non-aviation grade" version of most of the sensors, GPS, radios etc have plummeted in cost in the years since the LSA category was created. An in-car GPS unit used to be $500+ minimum - now it is < $100 - with a bigger, brighter, higher resolution display, more CPU and map storage memory and fancy 3D navigation stuff to boot! Altimeter sensors are now basically "freebies" integrated into all sorts of consumer electronics. I find it disappointing (though unsurprising) that the aviation market hasn't pushed harder such that these systems are not such a major cost driver. Do you have any insight into why this is? Or have they really dropped in price, and a system which would have formerly added say, $50,000 to an aircraft now adds "merely $10,000?"