I really hope you've had some good legal advice on your international returns policy: In particular I imagine that "our policy cannot cover damage incurred during shipment" is not going to prevent CC chargebacks if that were to happen.

They're using a CACert (a kind of community-based CA) certificate, that isn't trusted by default on most systems.

If the root certificate you're getting is from "CA Cert Signing Authority" and matches the details given on http://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3 then you're probably not being MITM'd.

Anyone know what the timeframe is for the test of the first-stage soft landing? The livestream was just showing the Dragon and seems to have ended now.

It'll already have happened by now. We'll see if they release footage or not. Usually the footage isn't very clear because of condensation and water spray.

Elons wife: Not sure what happened to main stage. Trying to confirm a visual, I think.

https://twitter.com/TalulahRiley/status/457245124406165505

Huh, I could've sworn I read somewhere that he and Talulah had divorced a while back.

According to her wiki page, that either was a hoax or they reconciled.

From Musks wiki page: Also, in a 60 Minutes interview on Mar 30, 2014 with CBS journalist Scott Pelley, Musk and Talulah are still happily together in their marriage with Elon's five children from his first marriage with Justine Musk. [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

They got back together.

I can't believe we wasted time on this. Never underestimate the power of trying to correct someone on the internet chuckle

Even more worrying is the fact that it appears that he was tipped off about the police investigation by senior Downing Street figures.

He resigned from his post at the policy office several hours before the NCA came to arrest him at his flat, which meant that he could potentially have had the opportunity to destroy evidence.

This isn't a Tesla-specific point but this article does highlight some of the downsides of cars (both ICE and electric) becoming more high-tech.

In an older car, even if there's an engine failure, it should be possible to get the car into neutral and either let it roll or propel it with the starter motor to the side of the road. Similarly the brakes will still work, although they'll be very heavy once the assisted-braking is depleted.

Once everything is electronic and drive-by-wire you lose this redundancy - I've heard of new Range Rovers, as one example, being very difficult to tow because if the electrics fail then it's impossible to take it out of gear and to remove the parking brake.

I heard that the Range Rovers need a tow vehicle equipped with a crane because it's impossible to move them. It's one of those "happened to a friend of my friend" stories so it may be not 100% correct.

Even if it is true, as the technology advances, I think it is normal that it needs different and more complicated tools for support.

Nearly all flat-bed tow trucks here in the US have a winch. Be it a dead Tesla, broken Ranger Rover, or a wrecked car with it's wheels pointing in different directions, the winch will just drag the car up the ramp.

You should be able to put dollies under the wheels individually (jacking or lifting with the tow vehicle), even if the axles on a car are utterly seized, and then drag it onto a flatbed in the normal way. Not quite a crane, but still obnoxious.

> propel it with the starter motor

Name a car that supports this. Genuinely curious.

Just put the car into 1st gear and keep cranking the key and it'll lurch forwards even if the engine won't start.

It's not exactly healthy for the starter motor but can be useful in emergencies for getting the car over to the shoulder or out from the middle of a junction.

I'm not sure how it'll work with automatic gearboxes (a small minority of cars here in the UK) but no reason why it shouldn't work on any car with a manual gearbox and key ignition.

It won't work on any manual made since maybe 1990. The starter won't engage unless the clutch is in.

Note that it is possible (with some luck) to start a car with a clutch that won't disengage this way and you might be able to limp to a garage.

You would have to have a starter with quite a lot of torque for this to work.

I have actually tried this before, in a 1972 J-4000 with a 258. The starter on that truck would make most other starters look like wind-up toys, but the truck would lurch, but not roll.

>> propel it with the starter motor

> Name a car that supports this. Genuinely curious.

Over six decades of driving, I cannot tell you how many times I have successfully moved a misbehaving car a short distance by doing this -- a car that had a healthy battery attached to an unhealthy engine or out of fuel.

The article said that the error message was 12V battery low; my understanding is that's the same sort of battery as in an ICE car, not the main electric power-pack.

Since the 12v battery is (presumably) powered from an alternator from the drivetrain the only way it could get flat while driving is if there's a fault with the car.

...and a python 2 print keyword instead of the python 3 print function.

There are a bunch of these. There's the Python 2 specific string formatting as well:

    # Input, assignment
    >>> name = input('What is your name?\n')
    >>> print 'Hi, %s.' % name

Why so Python 2 specific? Why not Python 3? : (

However, they also used an example showing that integer division returns a float, which is a behaviour specific to Python 3.

Not completely, this has been available in python 2 for a long time:

>>> from __future__ import division

%-based string interpolation still works in python 3.

Huh, you're right. I could have sworn it was taken out in favor of '.format'; I wonder where I got that idea from...?

I believe they were going to but were met with stern resistance from the community and caved.

I concur. % formatting is extremely cute and I miss it in every other language.

% formatting is not Python 2 specific, plans to remove it from 3 have been deferred.

They had better not. I much prefer it to .format()

Me too; .format() is too verbose.

Just as another datapoint, my bank charges the same £15 fee for a failed transaction regardless of whether it's a debit card payment or direct debit.

Yes - there isn't much consistency around this. Failed transaction costs are really down to each individual bank.

We really hate this practice, and don't feel there is any legitimate justification for it. One of the many reasons we are strong believers in disruptions to the banking industry.

I was wondering that as well.

I guess many foreign founders will be from countries that are part of the visa waiver program, but my understanding is that it doesn't strictly allow working (as opposed to business meetings) within the US, which would seem to rule out being actively involved in a YC startup.

This is actually one of the things that made me not apply. So I'd be curios what people came up with.

Most of them probably just cheat. I've known half a dozen people in the country illegally working on startups. (With values of illegal from "left company sponsoring them but didn't leave the US" to "founded company on visitor visa and stayed in country for ten years without getting the visa updated.")

That is exactly the sort of risk I wouldn't take - how can anybody invest in them when they can be deported at any time for a long stretch of time?

This might be a little harsh, but I feel like this kind of risk-aversion is actually a negative signal/filter for YC and other investors. The fact that someone would let a small risk (<1% chance of getting caught if you're smart about it) deter them from applying in the first place. That's just the illegal route. I know founder who have found ways to make the legal route work (O1, finding a co-founder who will stay in the US while the other co-founder travels back and forth, etc. etc.)

Risk aversion isn't bad. A founder is already taking significant risks in other parts of their lives, controlling the remaining risk is just smart.

Of the successful founders I know personally, each and every one is incredibly risk averse in anything ancillary to the startup itself.

It's not about risk, it's about overcoming obstacles. Dealing with US visas is a pain, but it's nowhere near as painful as everything else you need to do to make a startup succeed. If you're going to give up because of a visa obstacle, you're not cut out to be a founder.

I was talking specifically about working in the US illegally, not overcoming visa troubles themselves.

Those two issues are one and the same.

How viable is it to legalize your stay after staying in the US illegally for a while?

The point is that the government does not know you're staying illegally.

I meant that since you have to eventually legalize your stay (say, you have a big exit for the company), how much would being illegal affect everything afterward?

The government wouldn't know you were illegal, that's the point. Is it that hard of a stretch to think of answers to your questions before asking them?

I misinterpreted your answers. My question was under the assumption that the government wouldn't know about you being illegal until you tried to do something related to immigration. At which point the USCIS would know after doing their due diligence. I guess that was a bad assumption to make.

Under that assumption, trying to think of answers isn't any better than a random guess. And I was asking the question for that specific situation, even if it's unlikely, just to know how things could potential be. Furthermore, in the case the government doesn't know about your staying illegally, you would be the same as any random non-citizen trying to immigrate to the US, and it's fairly safe to say that the task is non-trivial (paperwork-wise). In that case, it would still be helpful to know if a founder-but-can't-tell-government would have any advantage at all.

Not every question can be answered by just thinking hard enough, especially those related to laws - that's why there is a whole profession dedicated to it. And it will serve you well to be more careful before going passive-aggressive.

Yes, but YC/investors/moving to the US is hardly ancillary to startups. And this was enough to dissuade someone from even applying!

The fact that there's an "Is this safe" link next to the button for signing the petition is itself a telling indicator of the chilling effects of this sort of surveillance.

A couple of years ago people wouldn't even have imagined the possibility that there'd be consequences from this sort of very low-level, very legitimate, democratic participation.

There will be absolutely no consequences.

It can be said unequivocally that the US government will not punish people for signing an online petition. Believe it or not, members of government like to see people getting involved in the political process. Even if said people are actively protesting against the current administration's policies. As they say, negative attention is better than no attention at all.

We live in a culture of political apathy. Most people understand government in terms of caricatures only. Any issue that grabs people's attention can lead to more involvement, which is generally good for everyone. Many of today's political figures, including Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hiliary Clinton got their start by protesting and signing petitions.

The biggest outcome from this NSA kerfluffle might be a new generation with a passion for politics. This could be the Vietnam of our time.

Have you read the accounts of people in Wisconsin having their signature on the "Recall Walker" petition begin retaliated against by state officials? This is the most well-known case, but not the only one.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-with...

In this case, it seems that Walker was nominating someone for a state position, and decided not to after finding that person signed a petition to recall him. That's not exactly being retaliated against by state officials, that's just politics. Of course you're going to appoint people that you like. That why, for thing that matter, we vote directly.

The organization opposing surveillance is the one putting the button there. Its pure propaganda on their part.

Honestly, if you had to bet, would you bet for or against the following hypothesis?

hypothesis: A significant amount of people nowadays think twice before writing or voting on something that could be interpreted as critical of government surveillance. They fear they will be included in some list and that this may have future negative consequences.

I don't know how you're defining "significant." I don't think its appreciably higher now than it ever was. I think the latest news just validates people who have always been paranoid.

Under Recent Signatures as it is at this moment, I count 29 signatures with names and 24 anonymous or redacted. Looks like quite a few people have concerns about signing the petition and are grateful for the anonymous/redacted options.

That doesn't necessarily mean those concerns are valid, of course, but it suggests that the organization has a good read on people's feelings at the moment.

It is about 30% redacted at the moment. We've done everything reasonable to protect signatory privacy. We hash and discard email. We don't retain log files.

But yes we think this is necessary.

Anyone involved in activism against the national security state needs to do their best to protect their comrades against threat living on the Internet Backbone.