petewailes

Joined 17 years ago

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1,918
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550
Member since
Jan 15
Founder of a marketing/tech company in the UK. Games designer, marketer, programmer and writer.

Writing and things at https://hirund.in/

Email is first name at watson-wail.es

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Recent submissions

Comment · 3 years ago
I'd absolutely love that opportunity. I'll be out there with my wife and son next year. Would love to drop by and meet a hello HN-er.

I'm pete hat watson-wail period es.

Comment · 3 years ago
I could go into the physics, but in short, no. Two hard contact patches just grab way more than a propeller can on air.

In water it'd work, but then you've made a boat and the wheels are irrelevant.

Boats have always been capable of faster acceleration in theory. Problem Child, for example, did 0 to above 250mph in about 3.5s.

Comment · 3 years ago
You're not wrong, but not entirely right either.

They've not done it on a road surface from standing start. I know a reasonable amount about the tests that have been done to make those numbers, and Tesla require a foot rollout on VHT to get a 1.99/1.98 time. That's not the same as from standing on tarmac or concrete.

Rough rule of thumb is that starting from stopped on tarmac costs you about 25-.3s depending on conditions.

Comment · 3 years ago
Not the OP.

You're right, it was always 1.9. They're still talking out of their backsides though. If the Rimac supercars can't do it without a fan to suck the car to the ground, Tesla sure can't.

Without a fan you just can't get the traction you'd need. There's no tyre on the planet which could grip that hard.

Additional detail - I suspect with a one foot rollout, on a VHT surface, on a hot day, in ideal conditions, they might be able to get down to a 1.95/1.93 sort of area. But on actual normal road surface, from stationary, with the tyres it comes with? Not a chance. I'd be astonished if they got to a 2.05. 1.90? Not a hope.

Source - knowing far too much about tyre/road interaction.

Comment · 3 years ago
Rural person here. We've been having this argument in the UK for the last... Oh, 400 years at least. It basically boils down to, some muppet in Whitehall shouldn't be making laws about what to do with sheep/cattle/pasture/abattoirs/grain coatings...

There's a lot of truth in it. You think there's bad regulation in tech? It's nothing compared to regulation on farming and ag generally.

In terms of solutions, the only one I've ever seen proposed which I think could work would be to have governing bodies for rural areas (and this could apply more broadly to areas of society), where they are free to make laws as it pertains to the area of responsibility of the group, with a coordinating body overseeing the groups to design for efficiency and arbitrate where conflicts arise.

Comment · 4 years ago
I'll put together a list. Ping me an email - you can find it on my profile.
Comment · 4 years ago
You looking for help with pricing? Or just looking for reading material?
Comment · 4 years ago
You looking for help with pricing? Or just looking for reading material?
Comment · 4 years ago
I'd say it's worth noting that this only applies to SAAS. There's a giant pile of things missing from this if you have inventory, manufacturing or anything else more complex than software and developers.

Pricing is an unbelievably complex subject which this doesn't get close to discussing properly.

Comment · 4 years ago
I'd second this. It's a bit waffle-y, but the shout for starting with a Van Westendorp PSM is pretty solid. Would like to have seen a mention of Gabor-Granger as that then helps bring a secondary element of profit maximisation into the mix.

Van Westendorp is great for understanding what prices the market will accept, but not great for allowing you to model what will maximise your returns.

Overall though it's a good intro to the subject.

Comment · 4 years ago
Every successful company. Segmentation, targeting and positioning 101.
Comment · 4 years ago
It's likely being used in place of a propane set up for heating something like chicken houses, or maybe lambing sheds if it's somewhere cold.

Propane bills generally run about $30-60k for a decent sized operation, whereas if you burn bales (especially in something designed for it), it'll run you about 25-40% of that, depending on the year and price of straw.

It's a cheap source of likely locally available fuel.

Comment · 4 years ago
Obviously Ethan knows this and just isn't going into it because this is more a history lesson than a theory lesson, but the same applies to white keys. So B♯ and F♭ are perfectly valid notes. C♯ major for example contains B♯, despite that there's no black key between B and C.
Comment · 4 years ago
You're missing 37-38, 45, 53, 58, 73, 81 and 90, and that's just the ones I can't think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's probably double that number I can't remember, because they don't intersect with my areas of professional study.

29 was huge (way bigger than 08), but many of those others were in the ballpark of 08 or larger. As far as I'm aware, it's unlikely we'll ever see another as large as 29, but 08 sized? I'd expect another within 30-50 years of it.

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