srb-

Me too, I'm really hoping that electrics get rid of a lot of annoying and completely unnecessary vehicle noise.

I know they won't kill the tire/wind sounds, but if they break the mental association of loud == fast == cool for men, it could be a game changer.

No more ridiculously loud acceleration from 'modded' cars and bikes...

Also heavy trucks / buses under acceleration can be loud too, hopefully those'll go away as well.

Nothing here yet, but saw a couple invites celebrated on Twitter.

For a while he was saying "on there" all the time too. But I think that has been reduced in his recent talks.

Public speaking well is hard. Most are not good at it, myself included.

That said, I'll take a poor speaker (Musk, older Carmack) over a PR drone any day.

As a CoffeeScript fan things were looking pretty bleak a year or two ago. In particular there was zero momentum for new features.

How things have changed! Major kudos to Geoffrey Booth and all involved. Coffee's beautiful syntax combined with async/await has taken a lot of the 'ick' away from coding in JS, at least for me.

My guess is frequent, automated, battery swaps.

I'd be glad to be wrong! But according to [1] LG's factory might get to 3 GWh output in a few years. At 60 KWh per Bolt that is 50,000 cars, in a few years.

Tesla is planning 150GWh eventually, but starting at least in the 10's of GWh's to start. Lets say 30. At 30 GWh that is potentially 500,000 Model 3s.

Obviously, this is all speculative on both sides. Let me know if my calculations are off or I missed something.

[1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20151214/OEM06/312149992/lg-...

As a fan of all electric cars, I really hope the Bolt does well. However, my understanding is that GM/LG only have enough battery manufacturing capacity for 50,000 units a year. So that puts a major cap on how much success it can have, at least initially.

This is why Tesla longs are so bullish on the stock... even if the other car companies instantly switched all their models to electric, there wouldn't be enough battery supply to meet that demand for years. Tesla, on the other hand, should be sitting pretty with their Gigafactory 1.

Big fan of the old Podcast and looking forward to the new ones! As for a suggestion:

I wouldn't want this to be every episode, but a themed episode on a specific 'hot' industry could be neat, i.e. interviewing founders of three companies in related fields. e.g. drones, crypto-currencies, bio, etc...

Often there's so many promising directions in a new industry that existing founders don't have time to explore all the opportunities.

YC should encourage them to share these avenues of potential in a discussion format... because who knows, maybe someone listening could grab an idea and run with it (and be in the next batch.)

I agree, the quick-charge is astonishing sometimes. And I love how with Thinkpads you can limit the max battery charge to 80%, to maximize the lifetime of your battery.

I've been saved by the on-site service a couple of times, it's really good (just wish 3 years of it was still included by default - those were the days!)

I'm running a 2016 Lenovo X1 Carbon with Mint 18 Linux on a Samsung 950 NVME SSD.

I've never had such a flawless Linux desktop experience. Almost everything just worked out of the box, it's super-zippy, and the laptop is so light and portable. Never heard the fan yet.

But if you want to an external GPU, this is not the system for you. Also, if you get the hi-res screen, you're forced to play the LCD lottery (LG vs. Panasonic, one has PWM, and you don't get to pick.)

Desktop Linux has really come a long way. Just in time too, now that MS is probably gonna force us to 'subscribe' to Windows, send us ads, etc...

the plank (an exercise to help lose excess fat round the stomach)

Cringe. Hard to take the writer seriously after this statement. The rest of the article seemed fine so I googled around to see if there was some stunning new research showing the plank (or any specific movement) spot-reducing fat. Nope.

Yep, me too. More productive, and as a bonus I no longer have 'mouse hand' RSI wrist pain. People are missing out.

You must not be a programmer. Being able to move the mouse and scroll without your hands leaving the home row is genius.

Ah, thanks for putting some numbers out there everyone. Very interesting. That's why I love HN.

Musk has said several times that if he wasn't working on space and EVs, he'd be working on hyperloop or electric planes. Wonder what potential he sees in the latter.

Like most, I originally assumed that because batteries have poor specific energy compared to fossil fuels, there was no point in considering them for aircraft.

But Musk's assertion has made me reconsider. Has anyone here done the math? What I think he's talking about is NOT a conventional plane with a battery simply replacing the gas tank, but instead essentially a flying battery, where 90% of the plane's mass is battery.

This sounds ridiculous at first, but when you consider how cheap electricity is compared to jet fuel, as well as the other benefits the OP mentioned, there might be something to it (for short-haul flights.)

I agree. Another crazy thing is that there is a shortage of Tesla-level batteries in the market right NOW. Yet aside from Tesla/Panasonic, no one else is ramping battery production to be able to produce millions of cars a year!

So when Tesla's $35k car becomes a mainstream hit in 2018, I have no doubt big auto will react with compelling competitive vehicles. The problem is they won't have the battery infrastructure in place to sell more than 50,000 units, and it'll take them several years to catch up to Tesla's production volumes!

That or purchase their packs from Tesla.

Musk has addressed this a few times. If I recall correctly Cobalt production will be more of a constraint than lithium... for example, from the Q1 2014 earnings call:

the lithium, although lithium is sometimes thought of as a bigger thing than it really is for lithium ion cell.

It’s like using maybe a couple percent of the cell mass, but the biggest cost constituent is nickel

There's a great analysis of material constraints here [1].

1. http://seekingalpha.com/article/654441-ev-myths-and-realitie...

TrackPoint user of 10 years here. I used to get repetitive strain in my right hand/wrist, mostly from reaching for the mouse. I switched both my laptop and desktop to TrackPoint keyboards and have been pain-free ever since. Less-crowded desk too.

Honestly, if you're a heavy programmer/writer, the TrackPoint is such a superior choice ... having to move your hand off the keyboard all the time is inefficient and kills flow!

Also, TrackPoints are fantastic for reading web pages. Scrolling is very intuitive and almost motionless - just hold the middle button with your thumb while applying a bit of down pressure on the stick.

n.b. Not all pointing stick are created equally! I've used HPs and Dells - both are inferior to TrackPoints, and I wouldn't recommend them. (kinda like how Apple trackpads are superior to the competition.)