So what has that got to do with the advertising campaign and calling it a shame and dystopian?
Technology is an enabler. If you want to work, the advertised technology enables you to work. If you don't want to work, the technology does not hold a knife to your throat and force you to work. This is coming from someone who refuses to take a smartphone from work because it raises expectations about answering phone calls and emails over evenings and holidays.
I do appreciate VPN though, because it means I can leave early on Friday evening if I have something fun to do, and catch up on the work on Sunday night. And that's why DHH argument comes across as so silly, because it is dystopian not to allow technology that allows me to time shift my work.
By DHH's same metric, the following are dystopian because they enable you to work outside your office: Remote desktop, VPN, Google Apps, SaaS offerings, web based tools, smartphones with work email.
Google even has a similar pitch for their Google apps:
>Need to attend a meeting from your kid’s soccer game?
>Access your work from any device with a web browser – your computer, phone or tablet – and stay productive even when you’re away from the office
>Google Apps makes it easy to stay connected to projects you’re working on and the people you work with, no matter where you are or what device you’re using.
Perhaps because history has shown advertising to be an effective tool for shifting perceptions and turning previously unacceptable things into the expected norm.
Ads like these can have a funny effect, such as making the idea of working during your child's recital or soccer game okay. Notice the specific example Microsoft provides, where the child is about to score a goal while the parent is turned away while on his cell phone (presumably doing "work"). This is ghastly to me.
As I noted in another comment[1], Google's pitch is this:
>For your business, this means every employee and everyone you work with can be productive from anywhere, using any device with an Internet connection.
>Free your team from cubicles
>Access your work from any device with a web browser – your computer, phone or tablet – and stay productive even when you’re away from the office.
>Need to attend a meeting from your kid’s soccer game?
The ads with the silhouettes are a lot more in-your-face about fostering a lack of work/life balance, though. I wouldn't characterize it dystopian so much as it is tone-deaf, out-of-touch, and heavy-handed. Which is par for the course for Microsoft marketing. To me, it's less egregiously disagreeable than it is benignly mediocre. Oh MS, you're so corporate.
>For your business, this means every employee and everyone you work with can be productive from anywhere, using any device with an Internet connection.
>Free your team from cubicles
>Access your work from any device with a web browser – your computer, phone or tablet – and stay productive even when you’re away from the office.
>Need to attend a meeting from your kid’s soccer game?
Edit a spreadsheet while at the airport waiting for a flight? Respond to an email from a hotel business center computer? Google Apps makes it easy to stay connected to projects you’re working on and the people you work with, no matter where you are or what device you’re using.
Putting Microsoft and dystopian into the headline does get a lot more clicks, upvotes and outrage though.
>Mobile carriers could offer the Moto G profitably at a negative price
Doubt US carriers are going to let that happen, I haven't seen many negative prices except on feature phones.
Only Tmobile seems to be willing to let the consumer take advantage of lower handset prices. Also, wonder how much Motorola makes(or loses) per Moto G at these prices.
Anyway I hope the Moto G does better than the Moto X. Even with the massive hype and the continuing ad blitz on TV(I see around 3 to 4 Moto X ads in about 2 hours TV viewing) about customization and the always-on voice features, it doesn't seem to be selling well[1].
Starting from the 500K sales figure in the 3rd quarter and generously adding, say, a million more in Q4, the rumored ad budget of $500M [2] would mean Google is spending ~$333 per handset in advertisements.
That would probably add more to the already heavy Motorola losses[3] and Google shareholders would soon be questioning the merits of subsidizing Motorola's losses.
That seems to be more the result of the overzealous flame-war detector rather than the effect of flagging. Only PG can truly tell, though.
The flamewar detector brings the story down if it has a lot of comments, and if not paired with lot of upvotes, takes it quickly off the front page. So, while you're right about the HN bias(lack of upvotes), you're wrong about the reason(flamewar detector rather than flagging).
It also tends to happen to Gruber articles, articles positive or neutral about Microsoft, and anti-Samsung or anti-Google articles.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA. HN headquarters was forced to shut down earlier today when a Tesla Model S (discussion) spontaneously caught fire. Responding the the event, the mountain view polic chief was on the scene within minutes. According to source, PG tried to put out the fire using water (in line with TSLA protocol), but the stubborn flames kept re-igniting. Finally, he had to revert to "flipping the server over" and drilling a hole in the bottom to finally douse the flames. No injuries were reported in the incident, and PG will be writing an essay later this week on the subejct. Extolling the cirtues of the Flamewar detector, as well as the excellent design of the electronically powered server at the heart of the matter.
That's like saying the fire alarm waking you up at the middle of the night allowing you to safely escape does not mean it is OK that there is a fire burning your house down.
It is a true statement, but the situation is definitely preferable to having no notification.
>Yes, normal combustion engines catch on fire, but they don't explode in a fireball when they hit debris on the highway (there is absolutely nothing rare about hitting debris on the highway).
That is not true. Here's a case of a car catching fire after being hit by cardboard boxes.
I find it very surprising that you think it's common for cars to run over things like that on the road and keep going. I or the people I know have never driven over something like that.
From Wikipedia:
>Road debris is a hazard[5] that can cause fishtailing and damage like a flat tire or even a traffic accident with injury[6] or death. Road debris can cause loss of control crashes, rollover crashes, or penetration of the passenger compartment by the debris.[1][7]
>Released in early 2013, NHTSA data for 2011 showed over 800 Americans were killed that year in vehicle collisions with road debris. Mississippi, Wyoming, Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana were the top five states for these crash deaths to most likely occur. Also in 2011, New York and Massachusetts saw significant increases in road debris-vehicular crash deaths, unlike other big, populated states.[8] In 2004, a AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study revealed that vehicle-related road debris caused 25,000 accidents—and nearly 100 deaths—each year
That news story of the conventional car catching fire after an encounter with road debris is the perfect comparison. It happens, and the same outcome often happens as well.
This is not surprising. It's a little surprising that we've seen so many stories of Teslas hitting road debris, but my hunch is that the problem is caused not by being electric, but by a low bottom clearance designed for drag efficiency, battery space, and low center of gravity.
A gasoline car with such low clearance would encounter similar problems, as they surely do every single day. This is completely normal. The way it affects an electric battery is kinda crappy, but it's not necessarily worse than debris hitting a tank of flammable fuel, just different. A tesla would have gone right over cardboard, for example, and been unharmed, while it might get stuck in the underbody of an ICE car and catch on fire.
Different technology, different problems, but the sample size is still too low to make real conclusions. One thing we do know is that there have been no deaths in a Tesla vehicle yet; that can hardly be said for traditional cars.
Yes this has been standard design for a good while now. The fuel tank is typically above the rear axle and between the rear seat and the trunk. I don't think there's been a car with the fuel tank right over the road and right behind the rear bumper since the 1970's. The Pinto in particular taught us that was a bad design.
Note: either the battery didn't catch fire in the said tesla (see picture), either the battery is extremely well isolated and the fire exhaust point was in the front of the car.
Note2: how do you think the fuel goes from the fuel tank <REAR> to the <FRONT> motor.
That is not true. Here's a case of a car catching fire after being hit by cardboard boxes.
Are you seriously saying that the car exploded into a fireball? Because of course it didn't, and in fact the combustion was primarily the incendiary material of the cardboard box, just as it would ignite near high power electric motors. That has zero relevance to this story.
I find it very surprising that you think it's common for cars to run over things like that on the road and keep going.
You entirely misinterpreted my post. I stated, nor implied, absolutely no such thing.
>The issue under discussion isn't the safety of the passenger versus road debris, it's the vehicle catching fire after colliding with road debris.
Says who? You? The issue under discussion is the safety of a Tesla versus other cars in similar circumstances. If I was evaluating the relative safety of cars while purchasing a car, a fire after a few minutes of striking a big piece of debris seems to be safer than major damage or loss of control(if that's the case).
Whether an equivalent non-Tesla car would actually be more dangerous is certainly up for debate, but I don't see anything insightful in your post. We can already see the domain name even before clicking on the article and we know this is Tesla publishing the letter so it's likely to be one sided. In fact, the current top comment on HN points it out.
Your comments shouting "PR! misdirection!" add nothing to the discussion. Are you arguing that a non-Tesla car would not catch fire in similar circumstances? Can you share your reasoning?
Technology is an enabler. If you want to work, the advertised technology enables you to work. If you don't want to work, the technology does not hold a knife to your throat and force you to work. This is coming from someone who refuses to take a smartphone from work because it raises expectations about answering phone calls and emails over evenings and holidays.
I do appreciate VPN though, because it means I can leave early on Friday evening if I have something fun to do, and catch up on the work on Sunday night. And that's why DHH argument comes across as so silly, because it is dystopian not to allow technology that allows me to time shift my work.
By DHH's same metric, the following are dystopian because they enable you to work outside your office: Remote desktop, VPN, Google Apps, SaaS offerings, web based tools, smartphones with work email.
Google even has a similar pitch for their Google apps:
>Need to attend a meeting from your kid’s soccer game?
>Access your work from any device with a web browser – your computer, phone or tablet – and stay productive even when you’re away from the office
>Google Apps makes it easy to stay connected to projects you’re working on and the people you work with, no matter where you are or what device you’re using.