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Scottn1 commented on The new geography of stolen goods   economist.com/interactive... · Posted by u/tlb
decimalenough · 5 days ago
I know this opinion is anathema on HN, but this is one reason I like Teslas.

Keyless unlock over Bluetooth keyed to the owner's phone is very difficult to spoof, making it hard to steal the car.

If you manage to steal the car somehow, it's wired to the gills, meaning it can tracked and bricked remotely (the apparent fate of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov's Cybertruck).

And if you do manage to take it offline and bring it to another country, the navigation won't work and you'll have a very hard time finding spares outside the official dealer network.

Scottn1 · 5 days ago
I have a Tesla. It is trivial to steal; you just get my phone and you have my car. It is tied to the car through Bluetooth that auto unlocks AND drives without any other security measures beyond just being close to it with the devise. You don't even have to unlock my phone. Getting my phone would be the harder part, but it just would take a lapse in paying attention (like left in on the table to get a drink refill).

The comforting part (unless you consider the immense privacy issues) is, as you mention, how tied the auto is to Tesla and my account. I could have the car disabled and tracked probably less than 10 minutes of discovering it was taken. I could also lock/erase my stolen phone remotely which would then disable driving the car again once it was put into park for the first time.

Scottn1 commented on Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights   twitter.com/WyzeCam/statu... · Posted by u/computer23
Scottn1 · 4 months ago
Tarrifs have started to hit the boardgame industry pretty hard already, and as an enthusiast, I have started to really worry. Within a very short span, several companies have already announced drastic slowdowns in product production/shipments and staff, to some outright closing.

https://stonemaiergames.com/we-are-suing-the-president/https://www.cmon.com/press/an-update-on-our-internal-teams-a...https://www.greaterthangames.com/blogs/news/greater-than-gam...

Scottn1 commented on Whats your max wpm in typing?    · Posted by u/KeyboardGamer
Scottn1 · 7 months ago
81 WPM is my highest. Can hit low 70's any given day. Self taught inefficient style. Never learned to Touch type. Mishitting keys often enough is my barrier. So keyboard does matter. I need tactile to cut down those errors. Red switches (Linear) I can drop into the 50's.

Funny enough we had a party day after Thanksgiving and I had a typing competition for friends and family using 10fastfingers. First place I awarded a $10 Starbucks gift card. Surprisingly the majority were faster than I thought and I am not that much faster overall despite being into computers since I was 9.

The fastest that night was a 22 year old ex-gamer now in IT that scored 91 WPM. Slowest we saw was 8 WPM for a 9 year old and some seniors also were under 10 WPM. The majority fell in 40-65 range and these were mostly career corporate types and a few public school officials. The surprises for me were my 14yo son who got 77 WPM and a 25yo female nurse that got 71wpm.

My wife's 36yo cousin wasn't there for the party but I have seen him several times coast at 110WPM and his highest I've seen is 132WPM.

Scottn1 commented on CDC data are disappearing   theatlantic.com/health/ar... · Posted by u/doener
cmriversepi · 7 months ago
I’m an epidemiology professor and I write a weekly “weather report” outbreaks [1]. These communication and data blackouts are coming at a bad time. We’re having an unusual flu season—activity has rebounded unexpectedly. I’ve been having to scramble for data, last week by visiting each state health department website. It’s really troubling and consequential.

[1] https://caitlinrivers.substack.com

Scottn1 · 7 months ago
Your Twitter was one of several I followed to get trusted information during most of Covid. Just wanted to say "Thanks".
Scottn1 commented on New Tesla Model Y   tesla.com/modely... · Posted by u/plun9
Scottn1 · 7 months ago
Tesla Model 3 Owner here for a year now. There is no question in my mind that was a Sieg Heil on stage, at our nations capital while standing behind the Presidential seal and being watched by millions. Twice!

I am currently shopping for alternatives and would gladly trade mine in even at a small loss. I wasn't a fan of his before, really, but didn't pay much to it, his company produces a product I drive.

My M3 is the most buggy car I ever owned and has had warranty service three times in that year. Little stuff like seat-belt sensor warning, window switch and foam-dislodging in one of the tires causing major shaking at speed. Service department has been friendly as they come out to my house for two of them, so that is nice. They also quickly gave me a loaner for the tire issue without even prying. The road noise is also horrible on the car. Way worse than even my Mazda6 I had before it. Whistles in the driver window area on the highway. Lose pillar trim.

But I'm not finding much STILL that competes with Tesla in the USA really. In price or looks as an EV. I still love the way it drives/handles and would have a difficult time leaving EV back to ICE at this point. I haven't had to change oil, stop for gas, check fluids, etc.

Scottn1 commented on Ask HN: Which RSS reader do you use?    · Posted by u/ulam2
Scottn1 · 7 months ago
https://bazqux.com/

Five years now.

Scottn1 commented on Tesla reports 1.1% sales drop for 2024, first annual decline in at least 9 years   apnews.com/article/tesla-... · Posted by u/nancyp
babyent · 8 months ago
Lucid Air is quite a nice car.

My next EV will be a Lucid if I choose to start driving again.

Scottn1 · 8 months ago
Lucid is majority controlled by Saudi PIF.

https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64...

Scottn1 commented on Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks   forbes.com/sites/zakdoffm... · Posted by u/nreece
NemoNobody · 8 months ago
Why anyone would use Chrome blows my mind a bit. Brave is a superior browser in every single aspect of a browser and as of rn - you do not see ads on the Internet.

It's such a no brainer, I can't comprehend it.

Scottn1 · 8 months ago
Because Brave is just trying to build their own ad-network under the guise of being "privacy" oriented. It is a conflict of interest trying to get profitable selling user data while also claiming to block it. When first installed the their own ad and crypto stuff is enabled-by-default. Then throw in a few nefarious incidents, such as the affiliate link-hijacks a few years ago, and it is hard to trust them.

No browser is safe from capitalistic rot at this point.

Scottn1 commented on Beating the bookies with their own numbers   arxiv.org/abs/1710.02824... · Posted by u/hemant1041
lurkshark · 9 months ago
The strategy this paper seems to be describing is well known as “chasing steam”. You keep an eye on the odds at a “sharp” book, one that’s good at tracking which clients of theirs often win and adjust their odds accordingly, then find books that are slower to adjust their odds. There’s a long tail of “pay per head” bookies, basically your classic street corner bookie but with a SaaS for taking bets, and they’re often the slowest to adjust.

The problem is that identifying this is very easy for a sports book. Basically “show me all accounts that consistently make bets right before we adjust the odds” and then they ban/limit those accounts. In practice the heavy lifting for winning sports bettors is building a network of “outs” or players that will place bets on their behalf. The idea is that you have a recreational bettor (i.e. bets for fun and usually loses) that puts down a bet on your behalf with your money, and if it wins they get to keep a slice. This masks the sharp bets with their personal bad bets.

Really the strategy to beat the odds is one of the easiest parts of the equation. It’s good old fashion people management that’s the biggest part of what makes it work.

Scottn1 · 9 months ago
When I moved to Las Vegas in the late 90's, I became friends with someone in my new circle who was from Brooklyn, NY and a pretty active sports better. I mean this wasn't the recreational type doing for-fun $20 parlays on Sunday, he was routinely doing $500 and $1k bets ("dimes" he called them). I had been to Vegas on trips before and remember bringing $300 for gambling for a weekend and thinking that was a lot. I was in utter shock at how much he would be riding on a typical NCAA Football Saturday and NFL Sunday. It was one of my first true experiences in my life of what hardcore gambling was and a side I have never seen or known.

Anyway, I remember very clearly how serious his betting was and how he solely looked to find any edges he could. It wasn't about handicapping a game, he was a line sharp. Remember this was a time where Internet was still dial-up and wagering off-shore was still very early days. Many times he would be calling old-fashioned bookmakers back home. He was paying for a service called Don Best and at the time it was pretty expensive but was able to get line-moves almost in real time. He was "Chasing Steam" as you called it. Watch for big line moves in Best and place bets where he could that haven't caught it yet. He was pretty successful and quit his full time job while buying a house, cars, etc. Not flashy but just a living.

Eventually, as all things gambling, it started to turn bad for him. He was getting accounts suspended and getting listed as a sharp. He would call customer support playing dumb and I remember one guy at an offshore book on speaker-phone flat out told him basically no longer want his business as every time he places a bet with them the lines were moving shortly after in his favor and wanted to know what he was using.

I remember his downfall being pretty fast after that. It started with just getting blacklisted at some and the few reputable offshore books left wouldn't keep him long when they discovered he was a steam chaser. He tried changing phone numbers and fake ID's and they caught onto that. Eventually any book that did take his action he started to hear Don Best line moves in the background on the phone and they would tell him to "hold on something is happening" then just give him the new adjusted line. The edge was gone and he started to bet with shadier old-school bookies that didn't have the technology, but they just didn't pay him anyway.

He started to see the writing on the wall and the bill pressures started to effect him as he started to just push into trying to handicap and pick winners based on gut and dabble into some line making software. At one point he was in for a very large sum after a bad Sunday, something like $70k he owed. He struggled for a good 5 years after that, divorced and back to a 9-5. Last I seen him was right before Covid and he was out of that world not having placed a bet in a long while he said and was now into options trading.

I doubt betting line moves is even a thing anymore. Information just moves so fast now and books have evolved way beyond. Plus with how big sports wagering in in the US, lines probably only move now because of large public betting waves or injuries.

Scottn1 commented on Intel might be too big to fail   tomshardware.com/tech-ind... · Posted by u/rbanffy
Scottn1 · 10 months ago
I'm actually fascinated the rise-and-fall of some mega corporations over time as times/habits change. IBM, Sears, Etc.

At one point Sears was THE place to shop for everything from back-to-school clothes, appliances and Christmas. In the early 2000's I would have thought you were either a giant fool, or a time-traveler, had you tried to tell me by 2024 Intel would be de-listed from the Dow and talk of taxpayer bailout or bankruptcy. They had a monopoly on PC/Servers. As crazy as it currently may sound but one day we could be discussing the downfall of Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Does anyone know of good books about the business-cycle and life/death of companies?

u/Scottn1

KarmaCake day130June 22, 2009View Original