151–160 of 163 posts
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Well, the term "army" implies a great deal more control and coordination than I currently see in place. Mind you, if we did organize, it would scare the bejezus out of the authorities.
Unlikely: a standing army is a lot easier to squash than a load of unrelated, unconnected individuals.
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With Tesla you'll help rich people use less gas. With Tesla, you slowly eliminate gas and help the environment. Imagine in 20 years a world where Tesla cars are the norm, all electric, travelling forever, no payment for gas, free charging. That is an incredible world change and shift. It is so much more than helping people use less gas.
Tesla exists because environmental groups managed to get subsidies, tax credits, green-grants and (as terrible a feather in cap as they are) trade-able carbon credits. Also in 20 years electric cars might be the norm for new cars, but people are still driving >50 year old cars today, unless some one manages to pass a bill where the government buys everybody's ICE cars for some ludicrous multiple of their value most c…
Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service? In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go…
I can't agree more. My family has one of each: I write code and am the technical weenie where my wife is a do-gooder trying to change laws to treat kids differently than adults. I'm absolutely in awe of what her tiny four person organization is able to accomplish: they do research, talk to legislators, write reports, testify in the state senate, organize with other groups. They do all this while watching and analyzin…
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> Unfortunately, the pollution caused by the production and disposal of personal computers has not only become an ecological disaster, it's destroying the health and habitat of human beings around the globe. The biggest challenge today is not in creating a new gadget, it is how to clean up the damage done by the industry and prevent it from continuing. I am not a fan of the guy, and they don't focus on ecological dam…
I agree the BMGF has done wonderful things. But what specifically are you saying they have offset, and how? I am not very aware of anything they do other than working on malaria and perhaps food/aid assistance. The PC industry has kids living in toxic waste dumps and farms are growing crops and animals with high levels of toxic substances, to say nothing of cancer killing off families in droves.
> Between 2000 and 2010, malaria mortality rates fell by 26% around the world. In the WHO African Region the decrease was 33%. During this period, an estimated 1.1 million malaria deaths were averted globally, primarily as a result of a scale-up of interventions. [1]
Malaria is a far bigger problem than e-waste. I'd suggest that you are the one with the backwards priorities, not the BMGF (though I disagree with some of their methodology, their goal makes a lot more sense than "eliminating e-waste" would).
[1]: http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report...
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These things do need clever people to work on them. And yes, there are better people out there. But those better people are not working in droves to solve public issues. If you think there's an army of genetic engineers working on food shortage in an effort just to feed more people, you're crazy. The ones working in the field are working for private companies for profit so they can make a buck, not to help less fortu…
I get that you don't think "hacker" implies developer. But you said: "Can you imagine how much we could improve the quality of life of everyday people if everyone in Silicon Valley focused on economic, environmental and social issues for a couple months?" Those "Silicon Valley people"... what are they going to do? Do you really think "Silicon Valley people" are going with a crash course in genetic engineering are goi…
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no payment for gas, free charging Wait, what? When did Tesla's vision become "free electricity for everyone"?
Elon Musk wants to cover the country with charging stations that are free to use so that you can travel forever, for free. No more gas refills. Nine stations now provide free electricity for Model S owners, and the company has said it wants 100 along U.S. and Canadian highways by 2015.
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Elon Musk wants to cover the country with charging stations that are free to use so that you can travel forever, for free. No more gas refills. Nine stations now provide free electricity for Model S owners, and the company has said it wants 100 along U.S. and Canadian highways by 2015.
I thought the free electricity was only for people who bought the most expensive model of the Model S?
Model Xs will have a similar situation, I think.
I haven't yet seen a commitment that the "third-gen" cars (currently touted as aiming for a $30k price-point, though we shall see in a few years), but it's certainly how Elon talks about it. He's also said that OpEx on the supercharger stations is very very low: little or no rent, little or no power costs. And it's obvious that a major goal for him is moving personal transport off of fossil-fuel; charging at home off the grid doesn't _actually_ achieve that, but giving away solar-powered juice at stations does. So we'll see.
If only there were a way, on the internet, to spend half a minute researching one's uncertain theories, before posting comments on HN. Yes, half a minute is all it would have taken to learn that your claim was mistaken.
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A good hacker is wasted in public service. Why bother working for an environmental non-profit when you can make many orders of magnitude more difference by founding Tesla Motors or Nanosolar? Who has more impact on education, a good elementary teacher or Sal Khan? Why campaign for privacy when you can write PGP or Tor, why work as a fundraiser when you could build Kiva or Watsi? The hacker skillset is a lever big eno…
Most 'good hackers' are wasted in Silicon Valley. You're right in that you can accomplish a lot more good in the world by focusing on solving problems at a higher level of abstraction than ground-level work, but at the same time most people working in tech aren't focusing on problems that are anywhere near as important as those that public service tackles.
Government doesn't have a pressure on profit since it can print money and can back projects whose objective is not measurable in dollars.
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I thought the free electricity was only for people who bought the most expensive model of the Model S?
All existing Tesla vehicles that can use the superchargers can use them for free. Unfortunately that means no Roadsters, for reasons involving AC-vs-DC charging (c.f. Q&A at the 2013 shareholder's meeting). You also only get the supercharger gear for free with your car if you buy one 85kWh models (which does necessarily not mean the most-expensive... 85kWh models start at $72.4k but go up from there, into six-figure…
Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service? In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go…