Hacker News: petewailes

New comment by petewailes in "Bach’s Accidental Masterpiece"

petewailes — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 13:02:20 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "How the McMurtry Electric Fan Car Clocked a 7.9-Second Quarter-Mile"

petewailes — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:24:20 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "How the McMurtry Electric Fan Car Clocked a 7.9-Second Quarter-Mile"

petewailes — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:13:05 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "How the McMurtry Electric Fan Car Clocked a 7.9-Second Quarter-Mile"

petewailes — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:05:16 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "Designed for Rural Living"

petewailes — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 08:42:13 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "Principles of Pricing"

petewailes — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 16:40:04 +0000

I'll put together a list. Ping me an email - you can find it on my profile.

New comment by petewailes in "Principles of Pricing"

petewailes — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 11:02:39 +0000

You looking for help with pricing? Or just looking for reading material?

New comment by petewailes in "Principles of Pricing"

petewailes — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 11:02:33 +0000

You looking for help with pricing? Or just looking for reading material?

New comment by petewailes in "Principles of Pricing"

petewailes — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 11:18:03 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "Principles of Pricing"

petewailes — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 11:15:31 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "Niches are overrated"

petewailes — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 19:09:05 +0000

Every successful company. Segmentation, targeting and positioning 101.

New comment by petewailes in "The absurdity of Europe burning wood for energy"

petewailes — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:38:25 +0000

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.

Are drying rivers a warning of Europe's tomorrow?

petewailes — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 17:23:51 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220912-are-drying-rivers-a-warning-of-europes-tomorrow

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32827393

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by petewailes in "Why are D-sharp and E-flat considered to be two different notes?"

petewailes — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 07:04:51 +0000

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.

New comment by petewailes in "US Mortgage Lenders Are Starting to Go Broke"

petewailes — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 17:33:32 +0000

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.