Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | quintushoratius's commentslogin

> A CEO will set the grand vision, long term goals, and direction for the company

I thought determining vision/goals/direction was the responsibility of the board. The Chief Executive Officer is supposed to execute the board's wishes.


A board is often a consulting group. They're there to see the 30,000ft view of what's going on, areas that need focus, and suggest grand strategy/guidance. A board is usually comprised of executives from other companies. The CEO is usually the one selling the board on their vision and execution. The board acts like guard rails for that vision.


Nope, it's not. From your own link:

> In 1991, scientists at Bell Labs published a paper demonstrating the possibility of using a wavelength of 13.8 nm for the so-called soft X-ray projection lithography.[4]

> To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA).[3]


This is a pointless pissing match. It took decades to develop EUV into a high volume tool with R&D effort from different regions that each now contribute to some key part of the tool and supply chain. ASML or Zeiss does not make it a EU technology, the mask and resist does not make it a Japanese technology and Applied Materials does make it a US technology.


Which countries have exercised veto power over sale of EUV technology?


Are you sure it's the caffeine and not another substance in coffee?


It's a mixed bag.

During pregnancy the mothers immune system is muted, which prevents "rejection" of the fetus.

However, in an almost "parting gift" fashion, the departing fetus actually leaves behind immune cells that can provide years of boosted immune activity.


As if presidential elections are the only elections, or even the only ones that matter.

What the prior commenter meant is that in some jurisdictions it's pointless to vote against one of the parties because they win so overwhelmingly.

For example, I live in Massachusetts. The legislature is 95% one party. There's no point in being in another party, you'll never get elected and your vote won't change the outcome. It sounds like a dream if it's "your" party but without inter-party tension there are a lot of shenanigans that go on.

Your municipal and state elections are, by a wide margin, the most consequential to your daily life. Congressional representatives have a moderate importance.

Who is elected president has the least impact to your daily life, and to the laws and politics of the country, of any person you ever vote for. It's actually tiny, even if some people would like you to think it's everything.


There are down election solutions, unfortunately most are as likely to succeed as the electoral compact. Non-paetisan definition of district boundaries for US and state legislatures, and ranked choice voting for these and more local elections.

Gerrymandering is a cancer on our democracy. Unfortunately it is self perpetuating.


Two possibilities come to mind:

1. They're not properly licensed for other markets. Something equivalent to selling a radio transmitter in the US that's not registered with the FCC.

2. They price units outside of Asian markets much higher and don't want to allow/encourage arbitrage that they don't control.

This is definitely a case of "porqué no los dos" (or more).


From a link in the article:

> The contracts we sign with all dealers clearly stipulate that products that are not UL certified and listed by local power grid companies may not be sold or used in the United States, because the products do not meet US UL standards. If used in violation of this policy, the devices may pose significant-safety risks. To address this, Deye has built a verification mechanism into the devices. The pop-up alert is automatically triggered by the device’s authorization verification mechanism, rather than by any human intervention.


Yeah, which is garbage. UL is a certification body, not a legal requirement. Your insurance might want it, your utility might want it.

But there's plenty of ways to use solar inverters where neither of those factors applies.

And furthermore, you can buy tons of non-UL-certified junk at Harbor Freight and plug it in yourself. It's not like there's a magic forcefield at the border that these Deye units somehow slipped through. Using that as an explanation for disabling their hardware is so insubstantial as to be just this side of an outright lie.

And I'm astonished that the linked article isn't calling them out on it.


UL is a certification body, yes.

When the local building code requires that grid-connected devices are UL listed, then it becomes a legal requirement. I suspect this is probably the case in most jurisdictions across the US.

edit: NEC section 110.2 indicates all equipment must be "approved" and delegates this to the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) locally; and the majority of them are going to defer to a "NRTL" (Nominally Recognized Testing Laboratory, such as UL, CSA, ETL, etc) instead of doing all the expensive and tedious testing themselves. So when it comes to grid connections, some sort of approval is nearly always a de facto legal requirement.


Mobile installations (RV’s, construction trailers, etc.) and off grid are two very common types of installations for solar inverters. And do not have to meet those requirements.


There are _many_ ways that all of this doesn't apply. Nevermind the fact that people that but things have the expectation of using the device with out interference.


Let's assume there are some people using these devices in a way that is not compliant with the local codes, because they haven't met the testing/certification requirements.

Genuine question. Which of these options do we prefer? (Choose any number)

1. Deye proactively bricks all the devices

2. US governments compel Deye to brick the devices

3. Local authorities penalize people using the devices illegally

4. No one does anything


1000% #4. No thought is even required to answer that.


#4.

If something actually burns down, authorities will circulate a bulletin and move to #3.

Anyone using the hardware in an off-grid, mobile, or other situation where the cited regulations don't apply, should sue the crap out of #1 and I will contribute to a gofundme for their legal battering ram.


The problem with giving people choices is that sometimes they make the wrong choice.


Indeed. Democracy is "least bad" because it at least allows people to choose, but don't be surprised if they make the wrong choice. Evidently one problem outweighs the other, and for advocates for democracy it's that the latter issue is outweighed (the former is that the people have no choice, this is people making the wrong choice). If men were angels, a nominally totalitarian government could be absolutely ideal.


>> Automotive batteries have been demonstrated as >90% recyclable, far better than most materials we consider "recyclable" today such as plastic

> Citation needed

It shouldn't be hard to believe. The components of a battery aren't consumed during operation. An old battery weighs the same as a new battery, and the chemical reactions taking place inside are reversible (because that's how a chemical battery works).

I believe, though, the the previous commenter erred. 90% of _batteries_ are recycled.

According to Wikipedia, lithium battery recycling can see up to 96% recovery rate of material. Lead acid is over 98% of the lead.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling

> However if you travel lots and are heavily use charge stations at super markets et al, then EVs will be much cheaper to run than ICE.

This statement is confusing to me.

In my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive.

Charging at home has added an average of $10/month to our electric bill. Charging at a commercial charger can easily cost $5-$10 _per charge_.

At home I have a 3kw charger, one of the lowest options you can buy. I prefer to take time and keep the battery cool. Heat kills batteries faster.

Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.


> in my experience in the US, charging away from home is far more expensive

We have lots of free charging points in the UK. Or at least they do around me.

> Your statement about your cost comparison doesn't mention maintenance, which is a significant savings. No oil changes, no rusted exhaust pipes, no spark plugs, etc. Over the life of the car, that's tens of thousands of dollars unspent.

In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.

Oil changes and spark plugs are cheap. Never had an issue with my exhaust pipe but I’m sure that’s a thing. Have had clutches burn out but that’s always been more specific to manual shifts rather than ICEs. Cam belts is definitely one big ICE consumable that EVs wouldn’t require though.

I’m sure EVs will have their own specific areas of maintenance as well, but I’ll admit I haven’t done much research in that specific area.


> In my experience the maintenance costs is usually more tyres, suspension, breaks, and other similar things that would equally need to be maintained on EVs.

You'll go through tires _slightly_ faster because the cars are heavier. With the exception of some standouts like Tesla's Cybertruck, which reportedly is only getting 6k miles on a set of tires, the wear rate is slightly higher. Low rolling resistance tires are slightly more expensive. Plan on whatever you're paying now plus 20% to cover the difference.

I've never had to change the suspension on any of my cars. I wouldn't even consider it in a maintenance list unless you live somewhere with truly shit roads, but the mileage and repair cost would be the same in EV or ICE.

Brakes last forever in an EV. 100k miles easily.

Oil changes in the US cost $50+, and are done every 3-4k miles (or $75+, 7-10k miles if you choose synthetic oil).

Spark plugs are cheap, but paying someone to replace them is not.

Some EVs have liquid cooling, but it lasts longer than coolant in an ICE.

I'm so used to people around me driving automatics, I forget to consider a clutch - but I get >100k per clutch so it's not a frequent or predictable cost for me.

Most recent cars, even the small ones, seem to have swung back to using timing chains rather than belts, and don't need regular changes. You can consider it if you like, but you have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

Unless you don't keep your cars long enough to notice, your exhaust system will rust. Water is a byproduct of combustion, after all, and steam corrodes faster than liquid water. It's worse if you make lots of short trips - which is where an EV shines.

Also consider non-regularly-replaced things in your maintenance list: oxygen sensors, water pumps, thermostats, heater cores, etc. You can't predict when these things will fail, but over 10 years you'll almost certainly have to replace some of them.

Consider, also, downtime while your car is in the shop getting the work done.

Contrast to an EV: none of that. A new battery in 150k-200k miles for $5k, unless you're still satisfied with the reduced range.


You’re drastically overstating the differences between ICE and EV there. But that might be a side effect of American cars vs European cars.


I don't think I'm overstating anything.

My wife and I have owned an EV since 2019. We also still have a couple of ICEs for me and my daughter. I'm not going to throw a car away just because.

I see the cost savings of an EV up close and personal. The only downside has been range for long trips, but 364 days of the year that's not a problem and for the remaining days my ICE does the job. When that car dies, I'll rent one when it's needed.


So you’re comparing EVs that are > 5 years old with ICE vehicles that are < 5 years old. Or there’s a massive disparity between American and European ICE cars under 5 years. But I definitely have never spent the kind of money on maintenance you’ve described on cars younger than 5 years old.


I think your last sentence is it: those track for American vehicles. Longer driving distances, worse road conditions, and people buy unnecessarily large SUVs/trucks so most parts are 30-50% more expensive.


> We have lots of free charging points in the UK

Wait, we do? There are people out there just giving away energy?

(I think I must have misunderstood you here).


Not every region of the continental US respects DST.


I know, but if it does, it switches on the same day as all the others, which could be encoded in the signal, and it seems like it is [1].

So instead of a switch to “add an hour”, there could be one that says “add an hour if the signal says DST is currently in effect”.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB#Amplitude-modulated_time_...


The real magic is not putting all the cells in one place. It's distributing them over the land mass.

A single solar power station can be taken out by a cloudy day.

A million little solar power stations spread across an continent average together into an even power source that provides power for longer than daylight hours.


There's a practical limit on how far you can ship power. Some while ago I tried to model what it would take to maintain continuous power worldwide with just looking at day/night. Nope, couldn't be done even if your cells were free. Just the wires became impossible--I was looking at the best wires to date and that still translated into a number of nines (I forget how many) on the loss percentage--and some mechanical bottlenecks were you simply didn't have enough land to run the wires.

The higher you run the voltage the more corona loss, the higher you run the current the more resistance loss. And there's a limit to how close you can put the wires to each other before they interfere. The band of land required for the massive power bus is gargantuan.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: