#but this is specifically about how i rode in a tesla for the first time

[thunderon]

i just love when a design is soooo minimalist that it’s completely unintuitive to the user. and by love i mean [mentally blasting a death ray at level 1000 while kill bill sirens go off in the background ]

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Field of Flowers

Written for the Kidge Spring Event! 

Prompt 7: Daffodil | Unequaled Love, New Beginnings

Summary: It was just another normal day for Youtuber Katie "Pidge" Holt. She and her boyfriend were going to spend a few hours recording some stuff in Minecraft for their channels and then probably wrangle their friends into a few rounds of Among Us. Except Keith has a question designed to derail all of those plans. 

Also posted on AO3 under the username Kishirokitsune

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Pidge settled in at her desk and took a look around to make sure there was nothing odd in the background of her webcam. There was only her cat, Tesla, who was relaxing in his carpeted tree, which was sure to thrill her viewers. On the desk in front of her were two monitors, one which displayed all of her recording details, as well as the service she and her boyfriend were using to communicate while they played. The bigger monitor was showing the main screen of Minecraft.

She put on her headphones and adjusted her mic. “Keith, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. Everything all set up?” he asked.

Pidge glanced up at her webcam as she nodded. “Yup! I'm just going to put you on mute to run through my intro and then we can get started. You can hop in if you want and I'll join once I'm ready.”

“Sounds good. I'll see you in a few.”

She quickly muted the audio for his channel and gave it a few seconds to make sure she couldn't hear him as he loaded up their game. Then she sat up straight and began recording. “Hey, everyone! I'm TechOwl and today we'll be jumping back into Minecraft with the always handsome KHawkins. As always, there will be a link to his channel in the description and I encourage you to check out his stuff as well.”

Pidge hit join and easily found their usual world, typing in the password so she could join. She waited to unmute until the world had loaded in and caught Keith in mid-sentence when she did.

“...tower and arming it with bows and arrows, so I'll need to expand the chicken farm. Pidge will probably – hi, Pidge – probably help with harvesting flint,” Keith said.

“I'll see what I can gather up while I'm mining,” Pidge said as she opened her inventory to try and remember where she left off. She had a whole row of iron pickaxes and plenty of wood and coal, so she had probably come up to drop off everything in the vault beneath their house and to grab some food. “Actually, let me see what's in the Vault first.”

“You're back at the house?”

“Yeah, I think I was getting food. My bar's pretty low,” Pidge responded. She directed her character through the trapdoor in the corner and rode the ladder down 25 blocks to a room she'd carved out during their first few videos together. Double chests lined the walls and also had signs to go along with them. She went to the section for stones and took a peek into the box labeled 'gravel'. “We only have a stack of it. I'll go find more once I get some food. There's probably a vein of it somewhere in my tunnels that I haven't bothered collecting yet.”

“It'll be a while before I need it, so there's no real rush,” Keith told her. “I still have to build the watchtower and I won't get to that until I'm finished with the gardens.”

Pidge frowned as she went back up the ladder to get into the food chest in their house. “I thought we had way more gravel than that. Have you used any?”

“I used a few stacks of that and the sand to make some concrete a while back,” Keith said.

Pidge guessed that meant they were nearly out of sand as well. It was a bit of a venture to get to the desert biome where she'd harvested most of it, but that could wait for a while. “Anything else I can mine for you, oh-masterful-builder-of-the-world-above?”

“No, I think that's about it,” Keith responded, his tone light. “I thank you for your service, oh-lady-of-the-deep-earth.”

Pidge snorted with amusement as she grabbed a stack of food and ate until her hunger bar was full. She kept a few cooked pork chops in her inventory and put the rest back before turning to go back down into the complex labyrinth of her mine. She got halfway down the ladder before she swore and turned to go back up and fetch more wood, filling up the empty slots in her inventory so she could drop off the extras into the Vault. She kept one full stack of 64 wood blocks on her and then ventured through the double doors leading into the mine.

Pidge spent the next hour combing over her tunnels and collecting any gravel she came across using the iron shovels she specifically built for that purpose. She also collected a decent number of chunks of flint and took all of it back up to the surface with her once she was through.

All the while, she and Keith carried on a conversation for the sake of entertaining their audiences – their banter was often something that was most talked about between their fanbases, with numerous jokes gaining meme-like status. Their friends were fond of quoting those memes back at them whenever they played games together.

“Hey, where do you want all of this gravel and flint?” Pidge asked once she was back in the house. Once again, she had to pause to grab a snack from their food chest as she started taking hunger damage.

“Gravel can stay down there. I have a double chest at the bottom of the watchtower. The flint... yeah, go ahead and bring the flint up to me. I'm at the top. You should look over the edge and check out the garden from up here too. I'll stand on the side you should look over,” Keith said, sounding as though he was leaning away from his microphone. “Hang on, I've gotta run and get something. Go ahead and come up.”

“On my way,” Pidge responded.

She left the house and then looked up, spotting the watchtower immediately. It was a massive wooden structure that stretched high into the sky, though it didn't look like it was all the way up to the build height. She stopped at the base to drop off the stacks of gravel and then hopped on the ladder and rode it all the way to the top. It was there that she found Keith's character standing motionless to one side.

“I'll just drop these off here first,” Pidge said, cracking open the single chest that was next to the ladder. She dropped off the 24 flints and then backed out of the inventory so she could enjoy the sky-high view of the gardens that Keith had spent several sessions working on.

She hopped up on the side where he was standing and looked down. She could see the food garden off to one side, stretching down along the plot of land they took the time to flatten out. To the left of them was a field of flowers and as she looked at them, she realized they spelled something out.

“Wait...” she breathed as her mind caught up with what she was seeing.

Spelled out with red flowers was the question: “Will you marry me?”

Pidge tugged off her headphones and turned in her chair, ready to run downstairs and confront her boyfriend, but he was already there in her office, waiting for her with that soft smile on his face. “Keith?”

He walked into the room and knelt down in front of her, taking her hand with his own. “I've been in love with you from the first day we met. I didn't know it at the time. It took a few people pointing it out to me. Or, well, a lot of people,” he chuckled, “but eventually I figured it out. I never thought I would have the opportunity to find such happiness in my life and it's thanks to you that I have. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without you in it.”

Pidge hiccuped as she tried to breathe in, reaching up to cover her mouth even as tears of happiness began to spill from her eyes. “Keith...”

Keith cracked open a tiny black box and held it out for Pidge to see the slender silver ring inside. It was inset with three green jewels – not the traditional diamond, but she'd never been fond of those anyway. “Katie Holt, will you marry me?”

She nodded, swallowing thickly so she could try and get the words out. “Yes! Yes, I will.” She slid out of her chair with a breathless laugh and into his arms, unable to wait until he could slip the ring onto her finger. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then another and another until Keith was shaking from laughter and had to ask if she even wanted the ring.

Pidge pulled away from him, a great big smile on her face as she held out her hand in response, allowing him to put the ring on her finger. And then she dove right back in, kissing him with all that she had to make up for her lack of words.

❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀

Bonus Scene

“Coran! Coran, you have to come see this!” Allura shouted in excitement.

She could hear him running down the hall from his office, where he was working on editing their newest video together, and was soon striding over to her side while asking if everything was alright. Allura responded with a smile and by hitting play on what she had been watching.

“...-ver the edge and check out the garden from up here too. I'll stand on the side you should look over,” Keith's voice came through the speakers.

Allura eagerly watched Coran and knew the exact moment when Keith's proposal was revealed by the way Coran suddenly squealed in delight. She glanced back at the screen in time to watch it fade away from the flowers and then fade back in with a photo of Pidge and Keith, who were smiling at the camera. Pidge held up her left hand so a beautiful ring could be seen. It was also accompanied by the words: “She said yes!”

“How exciting!” Coran said, grinning broadly. “We must do something to celebrate! Dinner, perhaps? I'll call Hunk and begin preparations!”

Before Allura could agree or disagree with his idea, Coran was gone. She laughed softly and took out her phone to send out a warning to the rest of the group so they wouldn't be too blindsided.

It was certainly an event worth celebrating.

[thewritershelpers]

Let’s Get Dressed (FULL)

A long, long time ago (2013, to be exact), H from TheWritersHelpers and C from WriteWorld (inactive) got together for a collaboration on how to write and describe clothing. This is the fruits of their labor.**

Anonymous asked: Any tips on describing clothing?

The Writer’s Helpers and WriteWorld have teamed up to create a series on clothing and fashion. These articles were primarily written in the context of how to write about clothing. 

Clothing is a term that is used to describe items worn by humans (and recently other animals, like tiny dogs), either for practical reasons or for reasons of style. Since humans have been wearing clothing for tens of thousands of years, it’s probably best to narrow down the timeframe for the clothing you’re describing to a particular era, year, season, etc. With that in mind, let’s talk about fashion!

Fashion (n): A popular trend, esp. in styles of dress, ornament, or behavior.

We’ll be discussing the dress and ornament portion of this definition. Now, there are a few ways that fashion might affect your description of clothing: Your character might be fashionable, ahead of the times, behind the times, or apart from fashion entirely. All of this is going to make a difference not only in what the clothing actually is, but also in what there is to describe about said clothing. Let’s have a look at these different positions for your character on the fashion scale:

1. Fashionable. Fashionable characters are insiders. They are usually very in tune with what is hip with the kids. Fashionable characters (for an example, read the booksThe Devil Wears Prada,,The Princess Diaries, and Confessions of a Shopaholic) can usually have a backstory where they once were not fashionable- perhaps the unpopular nerd- and with a little help or luck, improve their fashion sense. Magazines such as Vogue, Seventeen, or GQ can act as guides for your fashionista characters in present day. For more on eras, check out the “Links to Look At” section at the end of this article. If you’re writing a fashionable character, you might use clothing labels to describe your character’s clothes as opposed to just describing the color, size, etc. You might also want to thread themes through the character’s style, such as the season or a trademark for the character (think always wears yellow or channels Audrey Hepburn on the red carpet). Materials vary often in fashion, but fashionable characters are more likely to wear expensive fabrics and jewelry. After all, they have a reputation to uphold. 

2. Ahead of the times. These are the trendsetters, the fashion pioneers, the people who pave the way for others and push the boundaries in all the right ways. Trends come and go, but the fashion forward never look back. Characters wearing forward-thinking fashion (or couture) might find themselves in fur and duct tape and think nothing of it. Descriptions of their clothing might tend toward the bizarre and using eclectic words may help drive home the eccentricities of their style.  For example: Her aluminum coat sparked like Tesla coils in the firelight. Weird descriptors aren’t a problem for fashion-forward characters. The weirder, the better.

3. Behind the times. There are those unfortunate souls who do not keep up with the fashion popular at the time your story takes place. Whether it’s the 1580’s or the 1980’s, not all fashions are universal. Styles come and go, but if your character’s whole wardrobe was procured twenty years before the story begins, they’re probably not up with the latest fashions. This might arise from monetary constraints or because of isolation, but the simple fact is: not everything is retro-chic.

Retro-Chic (adj): pertaining to the fashionableness of the nostalgic revival of a style.

Characters who are behind the times might have old clothes that aren’t in the best condition. They may not have the vocabulary to describe the clothes they wear or that others wear with any degree of accuracy. This most especially applies to clothing labels or technical terms for the design of clothes as the character is not up on the popular designers and the newest fashions.

Apart from fashion altogether. There are many reasons why a character might be apart from fashion. Fashion is essentially self-expression, and some people don’t care. Take into consideration religious preferences (monk attire is pretty standard), strict parental figures (if your character is a youngster), or time travel (we’re lookin’ at you, Doctor Who). Characters who stand apart from fashion may also be unaware of the terminology to accurately describe clothing popular at the time and in the place of your story. These characters might not, for example, know the word “silk” and so must describe around the word. They might not have any concept for manufactured material and therefore have trouble describing nylon or faux leather.

Links to Look At:

“Why Do We Wear Clothes?” by vsauce

Glossary of Clothing Terms by allwords.com

Your Guide to Clothing Terms by EBay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let’s look at detail. What sort of descriptors could you use, how could you use them, and why?

Try not to go overboard with the description, but make your descriptive words count. Let’s look at an example of a simple description of the two largest articles of clothing on an example character:

She wore a top and a skirt. 

That’s pretty basic. “Top”, for example, isn’t very descriptive. After all, women’s fashion is complicated! So, let’s use specific terminology: 

She wore a blouse and a skirt. 

You might add color: 

She wore a black blouse and a gray skirt. 

You might add fabric descriptions (Remember, the color describes the fabric now, so it goes before the descriptive word for whatever material the clothing is made of):

She wore a black silk blouse and a gray tweed skirt. 

There are other descriptors worth mentioning such as how the clothing drapes or hangs, its age and general condition, its size and length, and the overall feeling toward it from the narrator. 

How it drapes: The dress was slinky; it clung to her curves and pooled like water at her feet.

Its age/condition: His jeans were faded and ratty at the seams, especially on the back pockets where there were inch-wide holes.

Its size/length: Her boyfriend’s XXL shirt nearly swallowed her up and fell to her knees like a shapeless potato sack.

Narrator feeling: It was an ugly gray uniform. 

With all of these descriptors around, the business of relaying useful information to the the reader about a character’s clothing can get pretty muddled. No one wants to read a description like:

She wore a boring black silk blouse that was over-large, a few years old, and hung blandly from the crest of her breasts. Her shin-length gray tweed pencil skirt was also old and too small for her hips. 

There is just way too much going on there. Too many descriptors. Cut out the adjectives and adverbs that aren’t absolutely necessary, the ones that don’t really add anything essential to character or the look and feel of the scene. You may think that the above example is so obviously bloated that it’s too easy for me to state offhand that you must hack away at its descriptors and leave only the bare essentials. Well, I agree, but it is possible to have a decent bit of description and still overshare. For instance, it might be way too detailed to embroider the blouse and skirt example thusly:

She wore a black silk blouse that shone in the flourescent light of the waiting room. It had loose sleeves that gathered at the crook of her elbows with a little bow and buttons covered in the same sleek material as the blouse. Her skirt was made of gray tweed and slightly out of fashion. The waist cut uncomfortably into her stomach just below her navel and the hem rode up past her knees when she sat. She couldn’t cross her legs in the skirt; it was too tight. 

Now, if the “loose sleeves that gathered at her elbows” are described for a purpose--maybe she has an injury or blemish she’s trying to conceal or she’s very modest--then details of this kind are great to have. Unless the details of the clothes are important to develop the character or the plot or the setting, you need not distract the reader with unnecessary description. 

There are a few methods to consider when describing clothing. 

Blocks. Block style moves from the biggest, most noticeable articles of clothing to the smallest. It describes in a similar order to what the eye sees. Since the largest piece of clothing at around eye-level will be covering the upper body, block style usually starts there with a shirt or jacket or the bodice of a dress. Layers in an outfit are described from the outermost clothing item to the innermost item, then go back to catch the accent items. 

For example: He wears a jacket, vest, and crisp white shirt with a checkered tie and matching blue pocket handkerchief. 

Another fun tip: If items match, you only need to describe one with the corresponding details. Notice that I was able to omit the color of the tie because I said the blue handkerchief matched it and that I didn’t mention the pattern on the handkerchief because we knew that it at least looked good with a checkered tie. 

In the instance of a dress, however, it is more likely that block style will point out the most noticeable (i.e. largest) part of the dress first. If the dress has a poofy skirt, you can bet block style will point that out. Regardless, if the article of clothing covering the upper body is separate from the article covering the lower body, block style usually describes the top first then moves to the bottom then to details like shoes, belts, and jewelry.

Colors. A large part of clothing is color. The color of what a person wears often depicts their mood without them realizing. It has a lot to do with color psychology (x), which describes how different colors affect a person’s mood. The human eye is also attracted to bright colors (some of which even cause headaches and irritation, such as bright yellow or red), though the average eye can see around seven million colors. For more information on color theory, click here. 

More likely than not, a person wearing orange might be noticed before a person wearing gray. The eye is drawn to the orange because it is bright and demanding. Weather also affects what colors a character would wear. For example, in winter months, many people wear darker colors such as black, navy, grays, and browns (termed neutrals) because the lack of Vitamin-D in the human body doesn’t allow for endorphins to be produced as largely, causing a decline in mood. It is commonly believed that darker colors represent darker or depressing moods. And in summer months, your character might be wearing brighter colors such as yellows, pinks, and greens because sunlight elevates a person’s mood.

It is also important to remember the cultures of your characters. Say a character is getting married and is of Irish descent. Assuming she’s traditional, she would wear a blue wedding dress because in ancient times, blue represented purity and was the prefered color for brides. In many cultures, such as in Sweden and China, the color white represents mourning or death. It is essential to research the culture of your characters. Otherwise, you may end up with a white wedding that feels like a heck-of-a-lot more like a funeral. For more on what brides wear around the world, click here. For more on color symbolism, try here and here.

Describing colors can be difficult and you don’t want to be put into the category of really cliche fan fiction descriptions. His green orbs watered and he blinked to keep the tears from spilling over... Not happening here. Generally, you’ll need another word to help describe the color of something (for a list, click here). For example:

His shirt was pastel blue.

Placing “pastel” in front of “blue” indicates that the blue that he was wearing was lighter, or closer to a neutral color than if he were to be wearing a dark blue shirt. 

Her jeans were covered in patches fabric with flamboyant pink bunnies.

What do you think when you see the word flamboyant? You think bright; you think colorful; you think brightly colored and decorated. It adds more than just saying “Her jeans had patches in them”. Don’t be afraid to dip into the Crayola Crayon color dictionary and use names of colors like “Mac n’ Cheese Orange” or “Sahara Desert”. Used in the right context, these colors can add another dimension to your regular oranges and browns. Though these fun words are great alternatives to your average colors, be careful not to overuse them. No one wants to read one incredibly-detailed clothing item after another. 

Fun fact: If you put a group of women in a room, those who are wearing red are most likely on their period. 

Reverse Order of Dress. This is a weird one. When in doubt, describe in the order that you put on your clothes--backwards. Obviously, you’d want to start with the visible items and work your way closer and closer to the body. So, if you put on your shirt then your pants then your cardigan then your shoes, describe in that order. 

** This is not to say that H will not continue this series later on. However, this is the extent of their collaboration. 

[privateplates4u]

2018 Nissan Leaf First Drive Review

“You know what I’d do if I were you guys?” The jet lag from the 11-hour flight to Japan had me talking in a stream of consciousness. “I’d build a NISMO version of the Leaf. Make it all crazylike, you know what I mean?” The young Nissan engineer sitting across from me stared back blankly. I tried a different angle. “The Leaf’s image needs a big shakeup. I mean, Elon Musk has had the press in the palm of his hand with his Insane- and Ludicrous-mode stuff, right? How about you do something like that!” Without a muscle twitch of expression, he replied, “Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll pass your views along to our team.” Then he gave me a polite, Japanese nod of the head. Well, that went badly. Was it too obvious that I think the Nissan Leaf is a car in need of a pulse? If done right, though, this redesigned 2018 version of the car has the makings of a NISMO EV heart-pounder. About 30 minutes earlier, maybe 50 of us were seated around the Leaf for its styling explainer at the Nissan Technical Center. But the whole time, I’d been staring at its profile, thinking that it reminds me of another car. Light bulb: the Faraday Future 91 I rode in a few months ago. I Googled its profile. The 91 is longer, but yes, there are some very similar ideas here. And what’s important about that statement is this: Whether that Faraday sinks or (miraculously) swims, it’s a seriously cutting-edge design. And here I am, comparing it to the descendant of one of this century’s most notorious oddballs. If Leaf 1 (my name for it) looked like a four-wheel amphibian, this Leaf 2 before us has not only flash-evolved into a svelte automotive shape, but it’s also learned to speak in the visual language of the rest of Nissan’s edgy designs. I must say, I’m not a fan of every word in its vocabulary—particularly Nissan’s Vmotion grilles. But for Leaf duty the rabbit-grin frames an interesting 3-Dish blue finish, which does pull you closer in to study it. And did you know that Leaf 1’s surprised-eyes headlights had an aerodynamic purpose? They did—to twirl air sideways and around the side mirrors. Now the twirling’s done by more elegant ribs on the hood, a trick Nissan’s aerodynamicists later demonstrated in a full-size wind tunnel where we watched smoke from the tip of a handheld wand magically bend sideways off the cowl. EVs are quiet, amplifying your awareness of side-mirror wind hiss; the ribs specifically hush that. There are additional noise defeaters, too, including greater rigidity of the inverter, a noise-blocking top for the integrated charger and DC-to-DC power inverter, and even a quieter motor. I looked back at the profile. There’s a lot going on here. But I’d characterize it as complex rather than busy. Although the Bolt shares many of these same EV-identifying cues, it’s a jigsaw jumble of pieces—some of them are a bit too forced into place. The Nissan’s elements are all aware of each other. Fit together like the neat rectangles in a Piet Mondrian painting. (Ironically, the Model 3 entirely dispenses with all these noisy little EV cues, being finished with starkly pure surfacing. To equate it to another painter, I’d pick my favorite one, Mark Rothko.) While we’re staring at the new Leaf’s profile, let’s use it to do a little automotive detective work. Imagine overlaying the current Leaf’s profile on it. See the match? The front and rear wheels exactly align—a giveaway that Leaf 2’s platform is fundamentally carryover bones not only in wheelbase but also in front track (its rear one is 0.8 inch wider), its essential suspension components, and the positioning of all the basic building blocks needed to assemble a modern EV. Consequently, its interior specs are a close match, too (it’s luggage space is more useful from ironing out small intrusions); externally, it’s 1.4 inches longer, 0.8 inch wider, and 0.4 inch taller. But don’t dis Leaf 2 as just some sort of overblown reskin. Nissan’s techs took the time to sprawl it out on their engineering operating table for a marathon multiple-organ transplant; the motor is all-new, spinning out a chunky 147 hp instead of 107 and 236 lb-ft of torque, up from 187 lb-ft. The electric power steering is more refined. Nissan is anxious to note that although companies are ballyhooing the births of their first EVs, Yokohama was there/did that back in 2010 and now has 270,000 customers, 2.1 billion miles of user experience, and programs such as 6,000 Leaf-to-home installations in Japan, where bidirectional charging/discharging coupled with solar roofs is slashing power bills. This ain’t Nissan’s first rodeo. It’s their second. And the show could be on the brink of going big time—the cost of battery storage has dropped from $300/kW-hr in 2015 to a projected $150 by 2020/23 and below $100 by 2025/26, according to a Morgan-Stanley analysis. (Nissan’s says they’re beating this.) And by the mid-2020s, battery-electric cars will be cheaper than internal combustion ones (in part due to the ramping complexity of internal combustion engines). So. Nissan should have anticipated the Bolt and base Model 3’s 238- and 225-mile ranges, right? Cue the drumroll. How big is the new Leaf’s battery pack (still underfloor and cooled with recirculated air, by the way)? Forty kW-hrs for 150 miles of range (S and SV trims). Eyes narrowed. Chins rubbed. True, that doubles the original Leaf’s 73-mile capability (from 24 kW-hrs) and is a 40 percent jump from its current 107 miles (from 30 kW-hrs). In a world without the Chevrolet Bolt, 150 miles would be a bold type headline. Now it’s a number in a math problem: How much less is it than 238? There’s going to be a lot of data thrown at you arguing that 150 miles more than matches most people’s real-world lifestyles most of the time. Let me ask you: How many gasoline-powered, five-passenger sedans could be sold with a 150-mile range? Maybe anticipating criticism, the Leaf will offer an even-better-chemistry 60-kW-hr pack next year (SL trim), likely extending its leash to about 225 miles (a two-tier strategy akin to the Model 3’s estimated 50 and 75 kW-hrs). Thus, the Bolt’s singular battery size will be bookended by its competitors, with the Nissan’s upgraded pack matching it and the Tesla’s smaller pack offering Bolt-competitive range due to better sedan aerodynamics. (One of the reasons, by the way, why I think Tesla controversially went with a mass-produced sedan first: A crossover’s worse aero would require a bigger, more expensive battery—something that’ll be more affordable by the time the Model Y makes its debut.) If carrying over the Leaf 1’s platform has painted Nissan into a corner, it’s these subsequently locked in battery dimensions that require expensive chemistry to keep it apace with the Bolt and base Model 3. (A plus for us is that it offers an insight into the march of ever-rising energy density; those additional 16 kW-hrs crammed in there mean 67 percent greater energy density in seven years, or 9.5 percent per year.) Another questionable call: clinging to the CHAdeMO standard for fast charging. Maybe it’s stubbornness, maybe Nissan’s got a giant investment in this thing, but CHAdeMO is a dead plug walking in the U.S., and Nissan would do the EV cause a big, fat favor by finally adopting SAE (or everybody going to Tesla’s standard). Time to drive. During their presentations, Nissan repeatedly emphasized twin messages: One, the Leaf is about making driving less stressful, and two, it’s about making driving fun. Not knowing what stress-free, fun driving exactly means, we headed out onto the test track to find out. The new Leaf’s most potent driving relaxers? ProPilot Assist is sort of a Tesla Autopilot light (at a fraction of the price). Relying on just a single forward-facing radar and a monocular video camera, ProPilot Assist provides single-lane, feet-off-the-pedals driving (what’s called adaptive cruise control). Alone, this is nothing unusual. Its dexterity in responding to slinkying traffic (including right down to 0 mph) is, though. Yet what elevates it to the same conversation as AutoPilot is how accurately it also threads down the center of the road. Like with other Level 2 semiautonomous systems, you need to keep your hands on the wheel, but here, there’s no need to give it periodic tugs. The electric power steering’s frequent and small corrections automatically sense their presence. I later tried the system in Detroit, driving for several miles on an expressway with my hands relaxed on the rim. No scoldings to put my hands back ever appeared (which, if persistently ignored, would ultimately result in the car stopping in its lane). Available later this year, ProPilot Assist is ordinary sensors doing an extraordinary job due to great software. Within two years, the system is expected to be even greater (perhaps with added sensors) by expanding to automated lane changing, and by 2020 it should have the skill to negotiate city scenarios, too. Next year it will joined by ProPilot Park, which highly automates parking, including selecting an empty spot not already bordered by a parked car (reading lane stripping). Remember this system as the tipping point when semiautonomous driving finally met the masses. (It’s had a 60 percent take rate in markets where it’s already available on other Nissan models.) The Leaf’s other driving simplification is its one-pedal EV-driving feature—what they call e-Pedal. Tesla has long offered a similar heavy-regen effect when you release the accelerator. But completing a stop requires a brake pedal dab at the bitter end. In its transmission’s Low mode, the Bolt will come to a one-pedal stop without touching the friction brakes, but the deceleration rate isn’t always enough. E-Pedal leapfrogs both with a deceleration rate of 0.2 g’s (covering 90 percent of real-driver stopping, Nissan says) and comes to a complete stop (including automatic friction braking, if necessary). If that stop is on a hill, the Leaf’s motor will just hold it motionless (after pausing, you can lift your feet from both pedals; no need to hold the brake). The new Leaf could quickly become the most popular car in San Francisco. E-Pedal and the availability of ProPilot Assist spotlight the intention to make the Leaf the tech standard-barer for the Nissan Intelligent Mobility Initiative, Yokohama’s campaign to destress driving. The notable destresser, though, is the car’s lowered MSRP of $29,990 ($30,875 including destination)—a $690 drop. Standard with that is a noticeable upgrade in interior materials, and when you option a nav system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, too. After incentives, this is a heck of a deal. But what about that driving fun factor? I can answer about 65 percent of that question. Without a doubt, its extra power and torque renders the new Leaf satisfyingly quicker and more responsive. Test-track recordings are yet to come, but given the Bolt’s and Model 3’s better power (and power-to-weight ratios) it’ll probably lag in a three-EV drag race. Interior noise is phenomenally hush—a nice complement to its supple yet controlled ride quality (absent of the bounding I’ve sometimes noticed in the Bolt). Indeed, it’s downright limousinelike compared to the Model 3’s German sport sedan tautness. However, the Tesla’s payoff is razorlike steering response, which is tough to compare to the Leaf’s because the suspensions of these Japanese prototypes were not yet tuned for Nissan’s intentions for the American market. Intentions? Sportier ones. Which circles me back to that styling walkaround earlier in the day. As it concluded, the chief designer had an impish look on his face. The one you have when there’s something you want to semaphore with minimal words. As he neared his seat, it finally came out: “Oh,” he paused, “and eventually, um, the letter N will be associated with the Leaf, too.” He had said too much, so out it came. “Not now, but eventually … there will be a NISMO version.” OMG! A NISMO Leaf. The last time I predicted something this correctly was in 1987 when I knew I’d regret selling my Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite. But here’s the deal, Nissan: Don’t screw it up. It’s your chance to permanently flip the Leaf’s librarian identity right on its peroxided head. With wings and flairs, there’s room between the rear wheels for a second motor, too. (I looked.) Ludicrous Leaf sounds like a villain in a Batman movie. Holy anticipation.   Chevrolet Bolt EV Nissan Leaf Tesla Model 3 BASE PRICE $38,370* $30,875* $36,200* VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-motor, FWD, 4-door hatchback Front-motor, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door hatchback Rear-motor, RWD, 4-door, sedan MOTOR permanent magnet, 200-hp/266-ft-lb rear (MT est) AC induction, 147-hp/236-ft-lb permanent magnet, 258-hp/317-ft-lb (MT est) TRANSMISSION 1-sp Auto 1-sp Auto 1-sp Auto BATTERY 60 kWhr, Li-ion 40 kWhr, Li-ion 50/75 kWhr, Li-ion (MT est) CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3580 lb 3433-3508 lb (mfr) 3,550-3,800 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 102.4 in 106.3 in 113.2 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 164.0 x 69.5 x 62.8 in 176.4 x 70.5 x 61.4 in 184.8 x 72.8 x 56.8 in TRACK, F/R 59.0/59.1 in 60.6/61.2 in 62.2/62.2 in CARGO ROOM, BEHIND 2ND ROW 16.9 cu ft 23.6 cu ft 15.0 cu ft DRAG COEFFICIENT 0.31 0.28 0.23 0-60 MPH 6.3 sec 8.0 sec (MT est) 5.6 sec (mfr est) LEVEL 2 CHARGE TIME 9 hrs 16 hrs, 3.6 kW/8 hrs, 6.6 kW na FAST CHARGE TYPE SAE COMBO, 50-kW CHAdeMO, 50-kW Tesla, 145-kW RANGE 238 miles 150 miles 220/310 miles *Before potential federal and state incentives The post 2018 Nissan Leaf First Drive Review appeared first on Motor Trend.

http://www.motortrend.com/cars/nissan/leaf/2018/2018-nissan-leaf-first-drive-review/

[olivereliott]

Review: Riding the (frankly bonkers) Arch KRGT-1

I’ve just swung a leg over the most exclusive production motorcycle we’ve ever tested: the $85,000 Arch KRGT-1. It’s a made-to-order performance cruiser, with unapologetic looks to match that hefty price tag.

But do Arch owners Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger actually know what they’re doing—or is this just a vanity project for a Hollywood star? And how much bike do you get for Tesla Model X money? I flew from Cape Town to LA to find out.

Along with a select few other media outlets, Bike EXIF was invited to Arch’s hometown of Los Angeles to ride the KRGT-1, visit the company’s headquarters, and pick the brains of Reeves and Hollinger.

The KRGT-1 concept came from Reeves himself: he wanted an American-made cruiser that would actually handle. So he commissioned Hollinger, an experienced custom bike builder, to customize his 2005 Harley-Davidson Dyna. By the time Hollinger was done, the motor was the only original part left.

Reeves loved the result. And after some initial resistance, Hollinger agreed to use it as a prototype for a production model. Arch Motorcycle and the KRGT-1 were born.

Reeves is the antithesis of the typical Hollywood type. He’s humble, passionate and deeply knowledgeable, and his investment in Arch goes way beyond just dollars. He’s also the company’s primary road tester, racking up more miles on development bikes than anyone else in Arch.

Hollinger and senior Arch staffer Ryan Boyd told me that every time Reeves takes a bike out, he comes back with a list of changes—often unrelated to the aspect of the bike he’s supposed to be testing.

Reeves’ uncanny ability to ‘feel out’ a bike, and provide usable feedback, is one of the things that persuaded Hollinger to pull the trigger on Arch. Hollinger himself talks about their projects in a steady, considered manner—giving away just how experienced he is, and how obsessive he is over every little detail.

Development at Arch is ongoing and never-ending. This new version of the KRGT-1 was born out of the constant drive to improve, and the need to meet Euro4 emissions standards. It’s hard to tell the old and new models apart at a quick glance, but it’s a huge step forward. There are over twenty major changes, with a total of 150 newly designed parts.

Each KRGT-1 is assembled like a giant Meccano set, by Arch’s ten-plus staff. It starts with a high backbone frame, which looks incomplete until you bolt on the CNC-machined aluminum subframe and tail structure. The fuel tank is also aluminum, and acts as a stressed member of the frame.

The new swingarm is a distinguishing feature; a curvaceous aluminum unit that’s visually bigger than before, but weighs five pounds less. It mounts directly to the rear shock with no additional linkages—a deliberate move to have fewer moving parts.

The shock itself is a custom unit from Öhlins, who also supplied the front forks. High-end parts tailored specifically to Arch’s needs are a recurring theme throughout the KRGT-1: the wheels are five-spoke carbon units from BST, but with hubs specific to the bike. And the brakes are a combo of ISR calipers, Bosch ABS electronics, and Magura master cylinders and controls.

Power’s handled via a proprietary six-speed transmission with a special high torque main shaft, and a hydraulic clutch. The final drive is via a chain.

The motor is a specially designed 124 ci 45-degree V-twin from S&S Cycle, and it’s both EPA- and CARB-certified. (That’s a two-liter engine, for those of you on the metric system.) But instead of breathing through a big fat filter that sticks out on the side, it sucks air through a proprietary downdraught system.

Air ducts in the headlight surround channel air down to the area between the two halves of the fuel tank, and into a K&N filter housing. Everything is specific to the KRGT-1: the filter, its housing, and even the rubber boot connecting it to the intake.

The exhaust is a combination of hand-built headers, and a muffler made in-house from parts supplied by Yoshimura. It’s a great system that adds sport bike style and gives off a forceful bark.

There’s no doubt that the KRGT-1’s aesthetic is seriously polarizing (we can’t even agree on it here at Bike EXIF), but I’m into it. There’s an undeniable flow from front to back, and nothing feels out of place. It’s also one of the cleanest production bikes out there, with not a single unsightly wire or tube, and is way less bulky than it looks in photos.

Since the KRGT-1 is usually made-to-order with a 90-day turnaround, Arch only had three next-gen bikes on test—in red, blue and grey, with varying parts finishes showing off the range of customization. If bright colors aren’t your thing, just order yours in black.

The bike I rode most of the test bore the initials ‘KRYK-1’ on the muffler, a reference to the International Klein Blue color that Reeves picked for the paint. The dash is from Motogadget, and the switches are made by Domino specifically for Arch.

They work well, but they’re plastic—and on a motorcycle laden with so much gorgeous metal, I think there’s potential for something special here. I can’t fault the rest of the parts spec though, which also features a lot of Rizoma trim. The headlight’s pretty neat too—it’s an LED unit from JW Speaker, with adaptive cornering lighting built in.

There are carbon fiber fenders at both ends too, and optional heat shields on different points along the exhaust headers. (The front heat shield bolts neatly to the motor, as an example of how well put together everything is.)

Every last finish is top grade—from the paint and anodizing to the seat upholstery. Even the mandatory license plate bracket, mounted off the swingarm, is borderline art.

Touring Arch’s Los Angeles manufacturing facility was a rare treat, and the sheer scale of the operation blew my mind. It takes about 1,200 pounds of aluminum billet to produce the machined parts for one motorcycle—but 90 % of that ends up as recyclable shavings.

Take the split fuel tank, for example. It’s made of sections that go through multiple phases of CNC machining, before they’re ready to be welded shut with insanely good-looking welds. All of that takes 40 hours, per tank.

All these parts have tooling marks that have been designed to create a feeling of motion across all surfaces. What’s more, when you strip the parts down, you’ll notice special cavities and cutouts all over—either for mounting other components into, or for channeling wiring.

The HQ is not open to the public, except when you’ve made an appointment to order your own KRGT-1. The order process starts with a consultation, so that Arch can tailor each bike to not only their client’s taste, but their body too. (No two KRGT-1s will ever leave the factory the same way.)

For ergonomics, the footpeg position can be varied via custom mounting plates and adjustable pegs, the seat can be set deeper or further back, and the bars can be adjusted too. There’s also a fair amount of freedom around liveries and the anodized and raw finishes.

There’s no option for mid-mount pegs though. I originally questioned the idea of a long wheelbase, fat rear tire and forward controls on a performance motorcycle. So I asked Reeves and Hollinger [above] if that was a deliberate move to maintain an element of cruiser DNA in the KRGT-1, and they confirmed it.

The truth is, this was never meant to be a sports naked—only a performance cruiser. A combination of the things Reeves liked about the cruisers he was riding before he approached Hollinger, but with performance turned up to eleven.

Riding the KRGT-1 To put that performance to the test, we rode from our hotel in sleepy Pasadena towards the endlessly meandering roads of the Angeles Crest Highway. Was I nervous riding an $85,000 motorcycle, of which only three prototypes currently exist? Little bit.

Hitting the starter button quickly reminded me that the KRGT-1 is a pure American muscle bike. That 124 ci V-twin is nothing short of monstrous, with ample bark and bite. And as you’d expect from a mill this size, it shakes. And it gets pretty hot, too. But Arch make no apologies for this—it’s all part and parcel of this type of bike, really.

That ethos is pushed further with the use of a traditional cable throttle. There’s no ride-by-wire, no traction control and no rider aids beyond ABS…which gives the KRGT-1 a refreshingly visceral nature.

The KRGT-1 weighs in at 538 lbs [244 kg] dry—over 100 lbs less than the new Harley-Davidson Low Rider S, and in the same ballpark as BMW’s R1250 GS. It’s a big bike, but not a total lump.

The weight, and the heat and shimmy from the motor, make it a bit of a handful from stop light to stop light in traffic. But the second I hit the open road, I whacked the throttle wide open, tucked into the deep seat and felt the KRGT-1 come into its own.

I found Arch’s six-speed transmission pretty stiff at first, and hard to get into neutral too. But then I rode the other bike on hand that day, and it was far more compliant. I discovered that the hydraulic clutch simply needed to be bled. It’s understandable—the bike I was riding was Reeves’ personal test mule; a prototype build with over 3,000 miles on it already.

The beastly S&S Cycle power plant is well tuned, with masses of usable torque. Arch and S&S didn’t just grab a motor off the shelf and pop it in the KRGT-1—they spent a lot of time fine-tuning it, and it shows.

There’s 122 Nm [90 lb.-ft] at the back wheel. But rather than peak at a tangible point in the rev range, most of it is on hand, most of the time. So while I was hustling the KRGT-1 through the endless blissful corners of Angeles Crest, I seldom had to hit the gear shifter. Instead, I could just roll on and off the throttle.

Cornering with the KRGT-1 is a revelation too. Despite the rider triangle and stretched wheelbase, it’s remarkably intuitive through turns. It takes hardly any effort to pitch it over—and once it’s there, it holds the line like it’s on rails.

How did Arch get this so right? I’d say there’s a few reasons. For starters, carbon wheels and an aluminum swing arm go a long way to reduce unsprung mass, and you really feel it through corners. But it’s also the fact that the KRGT-1’s a ground-up build, with every component front to back designed to work in unison.

The entire chassis feels stiff and connected. And the suspension works well too, keeping the bike planted with no vagueness or wallowing. And with the 19F/18R wheel combo and the KRGT-1’s relative tallness, you’ve got a lot more room to lean than you have on most cruisers.

There’s a ton of modulation (and power) in the brakes too. I grabbed a handful early on and sent the nose into a sharp dive, before realizing that all the ISR units needed was a gentle tap to slow the bike down. Once I’d figured that out, I was feathering the front with a finger or two while trail braking into corners. Yip: trail braking on a cruiser.

As someone who actually digs riding cruisers, I didn’t hate the forward controls at all. I get why the KRGT-1 is setup like this, and actually like it. And I really liked the setup of the bars and seat, too, though the tank contours weren’t in the right place, and I ended up sitting a bit wide-legged.

I also found that my butt and lower back were mad at me towards the end of the ride, just from sitting in a hunched position for long. I’m a big guy though, and my regularly-sized riding partner on the day had no such issues. The two bikes we were riding had tangibly different ergonomics too, so some setup time might yield improvements.

The ride was remarkably fun, but afterwards I wondered how many of Arch’s customers simply buy into the concept of owning an exclusive boutique motorcycle—and how many actually appreciate the KRGT-1’s ride dynamics.

So I asked Arch’s client and communications manager, Jordan Mastagni. He said that most customers are avid motorcyclists who are drawn to the bike specifically due to its capabilities.

Arch also have a strong focus on the ownership experience. They’re hands-on during the ordering process, and each bike ships with an ‘owner’s box’ with a custom-made key, a special tool for adjustments, and a book detailing the unique build process. Arch once even sent a technician all the way to Australia to fix what turned out to be a minor issue.

That level of obsession and dedication is written all over the KRGT-1. From the outlandish level of build quality to the unusually good riding experience, it’s a remarkable and special motorcycle.

Sure, it still has a lot of cruiser DNA, but my gut says that will be a selling point for Arch customers.

And ultimately, it rides unlike any other cruiser out there.

Arch Motorcycle | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Alessio Barbanti and Arnaud Puig

Wes’ gear ICON 1000 Variant Pro helmet | Harley-Davidson Trego riding shirt | ICON 1000 Nightbreed gloves | Saint Unbreakable stretch denims | ICON 1000 Varial boots

[andrewdburton]

The end of the road: Preparing to buy a new car

Yesterday, Kim and I joined my cousins for an afternoon trip to the Oregon Coast. Our aim was to harvest a bounty of clams. We came home with zero. We managed, however, to harvest a bounty of mussels. Plus, the dog had fun.

My cousin Duane carpooled with us to and from the beach. We rode in Kim's car: a 1997 Honda Accord that's showing signs of its age.

“It's a little warm in here,” Duane said about ten minutes into our drive. “Would you mind turning down the heat?”

“Well, I can't turn down the air,” Kim said. “It's stuck on high. But I can turn down the temperature.” She laughed as she demonstrated that the knob for the air volume has broken off at the post. The vents now permanently blow at full force.

“This car is falling to pieces,” I said. “Literally.” As if to prove my point, a bit of molding fell from a roof handle. I picked it up and wedged it back into place.

“I like my car,” Kim said. “I have an emotional attachment to it. But I've come to the realization that it's time to start searching for something else.”

More and more, it looks like our vehicles have reached the end of the road.

The End of the Road

Kim bought her car 22 years ago at a model-year closeout sale. It's lived with her in Minnesota, Arizona, California, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. In that time, the Accord has logged nearly 250,000 miles and never given her any major problems.

For a decade, I've been driving the 2004 Mini Cooper I bought as my first exercise in saving after I paid off my debt. In the ten years I've had it, I've put 90,000 miles on my Mini (bringing its total mileage to 150,000). We even took the Mini with us on our 15-month cross-country RV adventure!

Until the past couple of years, the Mini was trouble-free. During the RV trip, however, the fuel pump died. Then, when we got home, I funneled about $4000 into several repairs over a twelve-month span.

This winter, the Mini developed another problem: The sunroof began to leak (and in a big way). This isn't good during rainy Oregon winters. In fact, it basically means my little yellow friend is unusable until things dry out.

Meanwhile, the old reliable Accord has developed an oil leak. The leak is dripping onto the fan belt. Our mechanic says Kim's car needs about $1500 in repairs. That's not too bad, but it's more than the car is worth. Plus, we suspect that's just a small taste of what's to come.

Because I could see the writing on the wall — and because we need something to haul Big Stuff at our country cottage — I picked up a 1993 Toyota pickup at the end of 2018. I love it. (Seriously, I do. I just bought Taylor Swift's latest album on cassette so that I can make use of the tape deck, which makes it even more fun.)

But the truck is a stop-gap measure. Kim and I feel like it's time to pick up a newer, more reliable vehicle. Neither of us relishes this idea, but that's where we are. Last August, I asked you folks which new car I should buy. You offered a lot of great suggestions. But by purchasing a used pickup, I've put my own car dilemma on hold — for a time, at least. Kim's situation, however, seems pressing.

Fuzzy Math I found it surprisingly difficult to decide whether or not I should buy a 1993 pickup with 211,000 miles on it. The previous owner is a friend and colleague. I trust him. He says the truck runs great. And, so far, it does. But it's 25 years old! I worry.

I paid $1900 for the truck. How many miles and/or how much time do I want to get out of it before I consider I got my money's worth? I'm not sure. I paid $15,000 for the Mini and have driven it for ten years (and 90,000 miles). That's roughly $1500 per year and 17 cents per mile. Using these numbers as guidelines, I guess I hope that the truck will last a year or two, or that it'll get me 10,000 to 12,000 miles.

On the other hand, I just bought brand-new 45,000-mile tires for the truck, so maybe I'm hoping it'll last me for several years!

Kim's Car-Buying Priorities

Before the Accord started showing its age, Kim's plan had been to sell the car to a couple of young women we know. They're in the process of getting their driver licenses and will soon be looking for a cheap car. We thought the Accord was perfect! Now, though, we're not so sure. Is it really fair to sell them a car knowing it needs $1500+ in repairs? (Maybe we should just give them the car and tell them about its issues?)

Regardless what happens with her current car, we both agree that it's time to accelerate her timeline for buying a new vehicle.

“What are your priorities for a new car,” I asked last week.

“Well, I want something that fits our lifestyle,” she said. “Apparently, we take the dog everywhere, although I doubt they make dog-specific cars. I want something that lets us haul the kayaks and the bikes. I want to be able to make long road trips comfortably. Ideally, I'd buy an electric car or a hybrid.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“I want heated seats,” she said. “And a place to put my sunglasses and chapstick.” (If Kim could only take one thing with her to a desert island, it'd be chapstick.)

“Because our cars are so old, any reasonably new vehicle is going to seem like a massive upgrade,” I said. I've spent approximately thirty days in rental cars over the past year. They all seem like they're from the future. (And my friend's $150,000 Mercedes S550 I rode in last spring? Totally the Enterprise 1701-D!)

“What's your budget?” I asked.

“I have $16,000 in a targeted saving account specifically for a new car. If I sell my motorcycle, that would probably give me about $5000 more. So, I guess I'm looking at somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000.”

Preparing to Buy a New Car

Between us, Kim and I own three vehicles. Their average age is 21 years and their average value is maybe $1750 each. Obviously, we're not car people. We place no value in having the latest, greatest vehicle. Neither one of us is looking forward to the car-buying process. It sounds like an ordeal, not something fun.

Fortunately, we know better than to visit dealers until we're absolutely ready to purchase. (And truthfully, Kim is more inclined to buy a used vehicle from a private party.)

Kim had planned to put off buying a new car until sometime this summer. Now we suspect we'll have to make the move sooner rather than later.

To that end, she's started doing research. She asked her Facebook friends for their recommendations. I polled the people who subscribe to the weekly GRS newsletter (and received some terrific response!). Kim has been reading about different cars online. And soon — maybe next week — the annual Consumer Reports car-buying issue will land in our mailbox.

Over the past thirteen years here at Get Rich Slowly, I've shared many articles about the car-buying process. Here are some of the most useful:

How to find a good used car at a fair price.

How one GRS reader bought a new car.

The inner workings of a car dealership — and how to use them to your advantage.

A guide to certified pre-owned vehicle programs.

It'll be interesting to see which car Kim chooses and how we end up buying it. Deep down, I know she longs for a Tesla Model 3 but at $35,000+, they're far outside her budget. I suspect she'll end up with a Subaru Outback or something similar.

Maybe the next time we take Duane to the coast to dig clams, we'll ride in comfort…and actually catch some clams.

Ironic Footnote As I was writing this article, Duane phoned me. “Can you pick me up and take me to my oncologist appointment?” he asked. “My car just died.” I spent the next three hours helping him get things sorted.

My post about our dying cars was delayed by Duane's own dying car.

“Maybe I should buy Bob a new car,” Duane said as we waited for the tow truck to arrive. It was a morbid joke. Duane has terminal cancer. Bob is his brother. If Duane were to buy a new car, he wouldn't have it long. It'd soon get passed along to his Bob. This adds wrinkles to his own vehicle dilemma.

The post The end of the road: Preparing to buy a new car appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/preparing-to-buy-a-new-car/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[brianculmo]

My Hardboot Splitboard Setup

After a lot of research and pondering I decided to switch to a hardboot splitboard setup last April. Unfortunately there has turned out to be very little information on the subject, and diving into this whole hardboot world has proven to be quite the experience in tinkering and problem solving. I try to be an intentional as possible with my gear purchases and decisions, and building out my current setup has been exactly that. I realize that there is so little information out there regarding all this stuff, I figured I would share some of my thoughts on how I ended up with the setup I have now.

The obvious first question was why hardboots? This is a complicated answer and the reasons are many. My personal reasons are as follows:

- Uphill efficiency, significantly less weight swinging on feet each step

- Walk mode comfort while skinning, longer strides

- Lateral stability on the uphill for sidehilling and skinning confidence

- General weight saving

- Speed of transitions

- Crampon compatibility, mountaineering ability

- Lack of suitable suitable/appealing soft boot options

- Downhill sacrifice vs uphill sacrifice

- Never extremely impressed with downhill comfort of normal split bindings

Once I decided on hardbooting was the way to go, it has been a very long road to actually getting to a point where I can see the advantage. Things have finally come together after months of research, modding, setting up, testing, more modding and more adjusting. Here is my setup as it is now:

My Current setup includes:

-Arc’teryx Procline Boots (lite version, the non carbon ones)

- Spark R & D tech toes

- Spark R & D canted pucks

- Spark R & D Dyno DH bindings

- Jones Hovercraft 156cm

-Jones Pro Skins

- Phantom Heel risers

- Phantom Hercules Hooks

The Board/skins:

This is the least unique part of the setup. It’s simply a rad board that rips and is playful. The skins work great and didn't need to be trimmed at all. Jones has a nice proprietary tail clip/hook for the skins which is really simple to use and is lighter than a lot of other ski tail clip options out there. The only complaint I would have is that the skins don’t grip quite as much on really steep stuff compared to other High traction skins that I have used.

The Boots:

Upon first thinking about hardboots, I tried find as much info as possible about splitboard hardboots online; there was not much out there. I quickly realized my boot options were narrowed down to the Dynafit TLT6 and the Arc’Teryx Procline. The TLT6 has been a go to boot for boarders for a long time now, although pretty significant mods were needed to make them work better. I was able to go try on both the TLT6s and the Proclines, and my decision was pretty easy as soon as I tried both boots on. The Proclines felt significantly better in every way compared to the TLT6. The Proclines felt lighter, there was a much more free feeling walk mode, and the flexing seemed to be more beneficial to snowboarding. The boots split cuff works really well for snowboarding, with far less material above the ankle compared to the TLT6. Even out of the box, the boots felt in the range of being able to ride with. I knew mods would probably be necessary, but I wanted to ride in them to get an idea of the extent of mod needed. I thought about the carbon version of the Proclines, but they apparently weren't actually any lighter than the normal version. Plus the carbon version was apparently stiffer than the plastic version, and stiffness is the opposite of what I needed for snowboarding. Plus, saving a couple hundred dollars wasn't bad either. I also went with the “Lite” liner over the “support” liner. The Lite liner is thinner and less stiff than the support liner. Again stiffness is less important for snowboarding, so it was better to go with the lighter, more flexible, less stiff option.

I only had one serious concern with the Proclines, and it is a well established issue. The toe bail on the Proclines is very small and less than ideal for purchase with a splitboard binding. The general shape of the toe and its low profile has also been known to cause problems with certain bindings. There are some solutions out there to remedy this concern. I reached out to Phantom Splitboard bindings about the ability for Proclines to fit in their system, and they said it was possible with an extended set screw.

The Bindings:

Everyone in the hardboot splitboard world points to Phantoms as the go to choice. I was really interested in their system and did a lot of research on it. The shape of their toe bail connector was still suspect for me with the shape of the toe on the Procline boot. They assured me it would work, but from pictures and posts I saw, you would have to set the front angle quite high to accommodate the lack of purchase on the front. The security and confidence of that connection is super important, as it would be very bad if that failed. One more negative of the Phantom system is the inability to add a cant to the setup. Having a canted stance is something that was important to me with hardboots. With already limited flex, especially laterally, the ability to have a canted stance would really help with comfort and board control.

Enter the Spark R&D Dyno DH binding:

I was able to find some information on the 2019 Spark Dyno DH binding and the improvements and possibility made it a real contender for me personally. Spark had created a toe connector out of metal that was lower profile and fit the shape of the Procline much better than that of the Phantom. No odd set screw rigging was necessary. The Sparks are also compatible with their canted pucks. The bindings just slide in and click in just like the Tesla T1 binding system that I was previously riding. They are easy to transition and seem to clear snow well. Although every single ounce isn't super important to me and I am not sure on exact weight, but I remember reading somewhere that the Spark bindings are actually slightly lighter than the Phantom setup. There is certainly not a weight disadvantage in the Spark system. The setup for these bindings was also a process. The amount of adjustments to accommodate different sole lengths are a lot, but the instructions do make it pretty clear as to what you need to do. I was unfortunately right between 2 recommended lengths, so I had to do a mix of adjustments to get my boot to fit. Once they are dialed the bindings are solid, just don’t expect to rip right out the box.

Spark R&D Tech Toe:

It was rad to see Spark manufacture in house a splitboard specific tech toe. This is another step towards hardboots becoming more accepted in the splitboarding world. The quality of construction is great and it is nice to not have to use an adaptor plate in order to use a dynafit tech toe. This is truly the best option on the market for boarders as evidenced with Phantom partnering with Spark to make a co-branded version. I have the Spark version because the anodized blue looks cool and matched the Dynos and no other reason.

Phantom Hercules Hooks:

These hooks are super simple and really low profile. Having a static hook option is really appealing after dealing with other options flapping around and working to varying levels of success out in the field. I am all about the elimination of moving parts if possible, and Phantom came up with a bomber setup that just works. These things are super light and crank down the board great. The setup on these was quite a process of dialing in though. It took a lot to get the right tension for keeping the board tight vs being able to actually get the board apart. Once its dialed it is great and you don’t have to worry about it at all out in the field.

Phantom Heel risers:

These machined pieces are exactly what you want in a heel riser. They are well built, and solidly constructed out of metal. I can easily rise both levels with a pole. These things just work. The one wish I have with these is a simpler/ better solution for split skiing. They currently recommend looping a voile strap around the riser and your foot. While that would work, it does not seem like the kind of elegant solution that I have come to expect from Phantom. Hopefully Phantom or Spark can figure out something better there.

Boot mods:

I rode in the boots once completely stock and made some clear conclusions. They are great on the uphill. The walk more in the Proclines is leaps and bounds better than any snowboard boot out there and most ski boots really. The lateral stability while edging finally gave the splitboard the same stability that skiers take for granted and splitboarders yearn for. I left all the buckles loose on the way up which helped with more flexibility. On the downhill the boots performed better than expected with no mods at all. It was clear that the forward lean was way to severe for any comfortable riding. I ride my resort board with 0 forward lean, so the angle of the ski boots was aggressive on the calves and quads. The lateral stability was acceptable and the boots just rode like a really responsive soft boot.

I had to do a lot of thinking and staring at the boots in order to figure out how to decrease the forward lean as well as accommodate for forward flex. The Proclines have specific system for locking the boots in ski mode and adjusting the angle of this adjustment by even just a few degrees was going to make all the difference. The boot needed to flex backwards a few degrees while still being able to flex to a forward position about equal to where it sits stock.

Warning: doing any of these mods will void the warranty of your boots. None of this is approved by the manufacturer. This is what I did to my boots, but most people will find a solution that works for them. I just want to provide more info for people who want to get an idea of what can be done to mod the Proclines.

To achieve this I had to make a few adjustments:

1. Cut off/ grind down the rectangle on the inner cuff that sits inside the hole for the outer cuff when in ski mode.

2. Sand/grind down the top of the outer cuff on the top of the back. As the boot flexes backwards this part hits the strap/ plastic area above it, thus stopping the boot from flexing further back. I grinded down this area as much as I could before running into other functional hardware.

3. Dremel out the outer cuff hole to a larger size. Specifically the bottom edge of the rectangle shaped hole on both the left and right side. I took about a 1/4 inch of material off here.

4. Sand the lip down of the inside cuff on the side to allow the outer cuff to slide over it.

5. Drill out a larger hole for the wire to go through on the metal switch. This allows the spot where the boot stops going back to be further. This could be done by replacing the entire wire with a piece of paracord and lengthening it compared to the length of the wire. I did not want to go through that process and a piece of paracord would have much more flex in it (which might be better for flex, although I am not convinced). I might eventually go to a paracord for this piece, but for now this setup is working. I took maybe an 1/8 of an inch off of the hole. This might seem like a small amount, but it makes all the difference in allowing the boot to articulate further back.

6. Drill a hole on the top edge of where the old rectangle used to be on the inner cuff. I put a #8 bolt through the hole with about ⅜” sticking out the outside. I put a lock washer on the inside and a lock nut plus one regular nut on the outside. The space above the bolt will be the forward flex amount, and the space below the bolt will be the max the boot will be able to flex back. I found that I have to really weight the boot backwards in order to get close to the max backwards lean. I put a bolt on each of the inside and outside holes. I tried just one bolt on the outside and it actually provided a lot more lateral flex by doing so. I think it was actually too much lateral flex even, as it felt some control might have been sacrificed there as well as risk of the split cuff failing due to too much flex in a way it is not intended to flex at all.

As my boots are now I would say that the minimum forward lean is probably about 1 or 2 degrees, not the 0 I have at the resort, but well within the comfortable range for riding. This is probably compared to at least 3 or 4 degrees as the boot is stock. The flex amounts much better replicated a soft boot and high back. I think I would still like to be a little bit further back for the lean, but I can continue that evolution after some more testing. As mentioned before the lateral flex of the boot is quite good out of the box. This mod actually helps a little bit with lateral flex too. The amount of room the bolt has on the left and right side determines the amount of lateral flex. I didn’t dremel out the holes to the left or right at all, but the bolt is smaller than the stock rectangle, so there is a natural play in there which helps with lateral flex.

As with any new ski boot it definitely helped to break the boots in a bit and get the liners heat molded. The fit is getting more dialed now, and I can start to use the buckles more often on the up and down to lock down the fit a bit more without causing significant pain.

There are still some more upgrades and adjustments to be made with the setup, but for now this thing rips and I feel more confident than ever to get to new zones safer and more efficiently. I hope this information is useful to somebody out there.

[jeroldlockettus]

Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357)

Ford Motor plans to cut $25.5 billion of spending by 2022 — and to monetize the data its cars collect about drivers. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

The Ford Motor Company is ditching its legacy sedans, doubling down on trucks, and trying to steer its stock price out of a long skid. But C.E.O. Jim Hackett has even bigger plans: to turn a century-old automaker into the nucleus of a “transportation operating system.” Is Hackett just whistling past the graveyard, or does he see what others can’t?

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Stephen DUBNER: Okay, if I’m looking at your résumé, I’m not seeing C.E.O. of an auto firm.

Jim HACKETT: Oh God, you and me both.

And yet: he is.

HACKETT: I’m Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company.

DUBNER: I have to ask, how’d you get to our studio today?

HACKETT: A Lincoln Navigator.

DUBNER: When’s the last time you rode in a vehicle that wasn’t made by the Ford Motor Company?

HACKETT: Probably a year before I was the C.E.O. I actually had three other vehicles in my garage when I was on the board, and I got rid of all of them.

Hackett became C.E.O. of Ford in May 2017.

NBC 4: We begin with a big shakeup at Ford. Mark Fields is out and Jim Hackett is in.

NBC 4: I mean, look, let’s face it, Jim Hackett wasn’t on anybody’s radar when it came to automotive succession here at Ford.

One reason Jim Hackett wasn’t on anyone’s radar is that he’s not what they call “a car guy.” In Detroit, the world is pretty much divided into “car guys” and everybody else. Hackett is a 63-year-old Ohio native who started out in sales and management at Procter and Gamble; then worked for many years at the Michigan furniture company Steelcase, including 19 years as C.E.O.; and after that, he was interim athletic director at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, where he hired the football coach Jim Harbaugh. He did join the board of directors of Ford in 2013, while he was still at Steelcase. But, like we said: not an obvious candidate for C.E.O. of one of America’s Big Three automakers.

However, as it is often said: desperate times call for desperate measures. And the old-line auto industry definitely has an air of desperation about it. Consider the challenges. Decades of foreign competition; the rise of ride-share services and autonomous vehicles; environmental concerns and the rise of electric vehicles, especially the ones made by Tesla; the rise of urbanization, with all that bothersome walking and biking and public transportation; the steep decline in car ownership among young people specifically and, more generally, the fact that we seem to have passed “peak motorization,” as one transportation scholar puts it. So, yeah, welcome to the Ford Motor Company, Jim Hackett!

Most C.E.O.’s we’ve interviewed for our “Secret Life of a C.E.O.” series told us about their challenges and dramatic turnaround efforts long after the fact. Like Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo:

Indra NOOYI: [From “‘I Wasn’t Stupid Enough to Say This Could Be Done Overnight’”] A few months after I became C.E.O., there was a financial collapse. The retail environment changed, the U.S. market slowed down. So one had to learn in a hurry how to run this company through extreme periods of adversity. And there’s no book you can read.

But Jim Hackett and Ford aren’t reminiscing about tough times. They’re in the middle of it, right now.

CNBC: What wrong with Ford, what’s going on in Dearborn?

NBC 4: We’re now learning more from analysts who believe the turnaround is about to get very painful.

Bloomberg: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years; what’s going on with Ford?

What’s going on is … a lot. Hackett recently announced a huge restructuring plan, hoping to cut $25 billion in costs; this includes a lot of layoffs and a realignment of how Ford does business in Europe, South America, and China. Hackett also announced that Ford will cut way back on making cars.

NBC 4: Adios to the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on SUVs and trucks.

Hackett said at the time that Ford would, “focus on products and markets where we know how to win.” What will those products and markets be? Hackett, for all his old-school credentials, has long been enamored with the Silicon Valley growth mindset. Over the past decade, Ford’s research-and-development spending has nearly doubled, and Hackett shows no sign of slowing it down. This has led one industry analyst to say Ford is “burning a lot of cash in a lot of places”; another argued that Hackett will, “keep bleating buzzwords like ‘fitness’ and ‘mobility’ without any … real plan to remake the Blue Oval.” It’s recently been reported that Ford is considering some sort of merger with VW, the German automaker that’s got its own mountain of troubles.

If you had to make a bet on the future of Ford: well, the people who do make bets — stock-market investors — they’ve been pretty decisive:

BLOOMBERG: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years.

So how does Jim Hackett plan to turn things around?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system.

A “transportation operating system” sounds an awful lot like something a pure technology company might talk about. This leads to several questions. Can a traditional manufacturing company like Ford really turn itself into a modern tech company? What makes Ford think they can succeed, when the companies whose turf they’re invading — Amazon and Google and Uber — are already so good at what they do? And what, exactly, is Ford good at these days? Finally: will Hackett’s vision for Ford turn out to be a brilliant repositioning or a desperate grab for relevance?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that.

*      *      *

Ford C.E.O. Jim Hackett was visiting New York in late September, when we sat down with him in our studio.

DUBNER: Okay, so the late Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, was a great athlete and played center on the Michigan football team.

HACKETT: And an all-American as well.

DUBNER: And all-American, M.V.P. of the team, they won two national championships. You also played center for Michigan and are now the president of Ford. Tell me that’s just a coincidence. Come on.

HACKETT: That’s hard, isn’t it?

DUBNER: That sounds like conspiracy to me.

HACKETT: Yeah, and there’s a history there, quickly, with President Ford, because he was sitting in office when I played at Michigan. He loved the team, so he landed Marine One on the practice field, came and talked to the team, went to the training table with us. X-years later, when I’m running Steelcase in West Michigan, there happens to be a portrait of that evening. Someone brings it in, and it’s he and I sitting together. And so I became very close to him after he was president. I would talk to him often. Always before the Ohio State game, I would call him. And the one Ford story I love to tell is that when he was negotiating arms agreements with Brezhnev in Helsinki, they stop the negotiations so he can find out what the score of the Michigan-Ohio State game is.

DUBNER: Okay, so this is a parallel out of nowhere, but I think it’s appropriate. One of the reasons that football has become dangerous — on some dimensions, and less on others — the helmet was invented to prevent skull fracture, and it’s done a great job at that. Unfortunately, the helmet is such a good protector that it began to be used as a weapon.

Interestingly, with auto travel, cars have gotten so much safer over the generations, highways have gotten safer, etc. I don’t know if drivers have gotten any better, that’s hard to prove — and yet the last numbers I saw, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S., more than a million a year globally. It’s funny, when you talk to people, people are worried about terrorism. They’re worried about murder. But if you ask people how many people they know who’ve been connected with one of those things, very few have; whereas auto fatalities, we all know someone.

So I’m curious: you’ve taken over Ford Motor Company fairly recently and this is a way of transportation that totally changed the way that we live our lives — in many positive ways and some negative ways. So what I’d like to ask you is: consider for just a moment all the positives of auto travel to date, and all the negatives, and where you see the industry at the moment, and what are the big problems or what are the big challenges to address?

HACKETT: Well, only with you would I make a connection of football with that question, but like what happened in football, if we studied the mass of the players over that period: mass equals force, right? So the size of the players and your wise observation that they could move faster and not knock themselves out caused the brain to take 100 percent of the concussive shock. So all the design now in the future is about trying to push that outwards, and then change the techniques. Mass found its way in automobiles, too.

So the earliest one’s 1903 — 115 years, Ford is — Henry worked on an electric vehicle with Thomas Edison. He was a foreman in Edison’s factory. And the early models are really light, very small because they’re trying to use bicycle components and things like that. And then, as we’ve seen in history, as the mass gets bigger, mass production allows stamping tools to take really large sheets of metal and, for a fraction of the cost if you had to do this by hand, you get to have them wrapped around those skeletal structures. What’s cool about its is that the drive to get the vehicle more fuel-efficient means we’ve got to get rid of all that weight. In trying to do that, we actually are making the structures safer for crashes. And then, of course, this isn’t a reach prediction, but we won’t have crashes in the future.

DUBNER: Because of autonomous vehicles and software?

HACKETT: And sensing, and a third thing we’ll talk about, which is the cloud. A system that’s mediating the interactions of these objects. So, we have in computing, there’s packets that move really quickly. At an atomic level, they could run into each other and do harm, but they’re mediated in a way at the speed of light. So we can do this with the design of transportation.

At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, or C.E.S., Hackett and other Ford executives unveiled several components of what Hackett calls “The Living Street” and Ford’s vision of a “transportation operating system.”

HACKETT: Now, the power of artificial intelligence, the rise of certain autonomous, that are all going to be connected, for the first time in a century, we have mobility technology that won’t just incrementally improve the old system, but it can completely disrupt it. So a total redesign of the surface transportation system with humans and community at the center.

But he began by addressing the question that a lot of people had to be thinking:

HACKETT: You might wonder why a furniture guy would be asked to run an automotive company.

We did wonder, and we asked him.

DUBNER: So Steelcase was regarded as a great company to work for, which, I’m guessing, you had a little something to do with. And you were regarded as — the Wall Street Journal called you,“a pioneer of the open office,” and it really did change the way that we began to think about how an office should look and feel and work. So first of all, persuade me that the notion of the open office wasn’t just a commercial idea to encourage every company in America and the world to redo their offices so that you could sell more furniture. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

HACKETT: No, no, no. I’m going to endorse that notion, but I was not the father of it. By the time I came in as C.E.O. in the late 80’s, Herman Miller, Inc. was really the early purveyor of the open office, and it came from Germany. And the real movement really started here in New York. As the rents went up, it allowed you to get more density. That was really the underlying thing.

If I want to take credit for a movement, it was shifting the amount of space that you actually devoted to cubicles, and moving that to teams. So I call that “The shift between I and we.” But to make team spaces really cool and attractive, we had to do some unique things that weren’t being done. And I want to give credit here, I buy this really cool little company in Palo Alto called IDEO.

DUBNER: And they’re like a design consultancy? How would you describe them?

HACKETT: Yeah, that’s fair, and David Kelley, its founder, is noted for architecting the mouse with Steve Jobs in its first product. So Jobs hires IDEO to do design work from outside of Apple, forever. So right until when Steve passes away, he’s using IDEO.

I meet them and I start learning about the nature of a way work might be different watching how they work. I want to tell you, I was right about that. It actually changed the way teams work. And there’s another hour on that whole thing, but it leads to an important conclusion, which is that Steelcase needs to see itself beyond furniture and be about work. And if there’s anything that enticed Bill Ford about me, it was the notion that the company, almost as long-lived as Ford, finds a higher purpose that makes its market now bigger.

Bill FORD: I’ve known Jim a long time personally.

And that is Bill Ford, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, announcing Hackett’s appointment.

FORD: And we’ve always clicked in terms of thinking about the future. But make no mistake: he’s not just a futurist, he’s a very good operating executive.

Bill Ford said that Hackett had shown himself to be a “transformational leader” at Steelcase, that he’d made the company more profitable by seeking out a higher purpose.

HACKETT: I’m saying the same thing about Ford. I think our higher purpose is that the smart vehicle and the smart world have an interaction in the future that’s much bigger than it was in the past.

DUBNER: So as Steelcase is to being beyond more than work, even though it’s making office furniture, Ford is beyond transportation, being a mobility company, tech, etc.?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system that we can talk about.

Hackett’s involvement in the Ford overhaul began a few years ago, when he was just a Ford board member.

HACKETT: And it’s really straightforward. I’m on the board. I’m in Palo Alto with a meeting with the board and Bill, and we’re trying to get ourselves around the question of: how can we manage the core business and this emerging thing in parallel?

This “emerging thing” would come to be known as Ford Smart Mobility, a unit meant to boost the company’s role in ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles.

HACKETT: And I tell the C.E.O. Mark Fields — I have a great relationship with him — I say, “You know, you ought to get somebody to help you manage the emerging business. Your job is too big. You need to do this.”

DUBNER: And he said, “How about you, Jim?”

HACKETT: Within half a day, Bill came and said, “That’s a great idea, why don’t you do it?” And I thought, “Eh, I ran a company. I don’t want to run a company.” So it’s like two guys playing office. He goes, “Well, just be chairman and you can hire a C.E.O.” And as I look back on that, I was naive, because I couldn’t go in there and help invent it without running it. Then running it led to — I had nothing to do with Mark’s situation, I wasn’t in the boardroom anymore. I wasn’t reporting to them. So Mark’s evolution out surprised me.

DUBNER: You business guys and your business-speak. His “evolution out.” He was fired, right?

ABC-7: The Dearborn automaker parting ways with C.E.O. Mark Fields.

CNBC: If you look at shares of Ford since Mark Fields took over in July 2014, it’s down 36 percent!

HACKETT: Yeah. But he was ahead on a bunch of ideas and I would have loved the reverse role, could I mentor him — I was the old guy — could I teach him what we’re talking about. I mean, I miss having him right now with some of the issues that I’m facing, he really had mastery of.

DUBNER: Well, let me ask you a central question here, and I guess this speaks to your ascension as C.E.O. as well, because we tend to attribute failure and success often to individuals or to single events, when in fact the world is much more complicated, plainly.

HACKETT: That’s for sure.

DUBNER: Here you are, the older guy, as you said, coming in to the company, taking over when Mark Fields was put out. And you mentioned earlier that the big concern for the Ford Motor Company and Bill Ford was how to balance the core business — making vehicles — and the emerging business, which is this smart mobility, cloud-based, etc. My big question for you is: what made all of you think that Ford needed to be in that emerging business?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that, but I’ll tell you. The way you’ve got to think about competitive sets is: the nature of what makes a business win over time is not unlike any other kinds of system — the way our bodies win in the battles they have, or the way a football team wins, or the way a market moves. I’m a student of this, complexity theory, and what that tells you is that over time, you have to mutate and evolve, because the nature of random things is going to cause more things that come at you.

So let’s just be specific: in the auto industry, it’s the randomness of climate conflict. It’s a real science thing. We’re in support of meeting a really high standard. So this starts to birth Tesla and then you put a rocket scientist, truly, in charge of that, who has a computer background, understands design really well, and he starts to question the model of the way a vehicle’s ordered and built. So he’s got a lot of that right. And it’s just one. And then he gets copied and then all of a sudden there’s a company called Lucid Motors that Chinese companies put a lot of money behind. We looked at it. These are people that are redesigning the car business.

So the board sits there and sees this happen over and over again in other industries. You don’t want to be the one that does that. So the story I tell is: let’s play Kodak for a moment. And what you have to start with: the board is smart. They’re not dummies. They have the patent for digital photography.

DUBNER: They made one of the first digital cameras, right? They were there.

HACKETT: I know a board member who was there and the issue is: you make more money on chemicals and paper than you do this new idea. So if you’re just doing pure investment comparison, stay with the old.

So what a guy like me, having gone through this in another company, Steelcase, I’m trained now to look at that problem differently, and I frankly didn’t get to talk about that much in the boardroom, but maybe Bill picked that up. Now I’ve got to prove — I’m very confident here — but I have to prove to a lot of people that we can make the core business really profitable. We’re working on that and the disruption shouldn’t scare us at all because we can lead in some areas there. So when I’m done, no date on that, but I want to make sure we’re on the right track in both of those areas.

DUBNER: Before we get into the specifics, let me just, not challenge, but question the premise a little bit more, because if you look at business history, you just look at legacy firms generally, you see that technology and time are really tough on companies. Most companies don’t stick around for too long and when the technology changes enough, many companies try to adapt with the changes and very few do well.

G.E. is a really interesting example on a number of dimensions, they went very broad and so on. What makes you think that, with that substantial history, Ford is special, or that any legacy automaker is special and can adapt and add on the technologies that are so strong and powerful, but not get beat by the companies that are tech firms and telecom firms and so on?

HACKETT: Yeah. You’ve grabbed the essence of the challenge. The affirmation is: they did it before, we just forget.

DUBNER: What do you mean?

HACKETT: Well, we didn’t always have computing, in the way a factory was run. We didn’t have — the telephone wasn’t, I don’t think, in 1903, highly pervasive, right? So think of people being paid in the factory out of a paddy wagon with real cash instead of direct deposit.

So, actually, I have a theory about this, and I’ve not written, but talked to other C.E.O.’s and I get support. The notion is that over time, you have to think about the business over phases. You can say “past” but let’s hold that off. You think about “now” and “far” and I’m going to sneak a word in, “near.” “Now, near, far.” Now what separates those time spans, because we could just make up: what’s the future? Is it a year? Is it 25 years?

What I’ve bought into, it’s science-derived. In other words, what makes the increments grow in time is Moore’s Law. Reed Hastings is on a Charlie Rose interview, and Charlie says, “Reed, what do the people in Palo Alto know that everyone else doesn’t know?” And he said, “Moore’s Law.” And Charlie goes, “Well, I know what Moore’s law is.” And he goes, “Yeah, but Charlie, you don’t understand. We’re designing for the next iteration now.” That changed me, a number of years ago. So Moore’s Law only swallows you up when you don’t think about it. So imagine we’re in meetings right now where people are talking about technology and the vehicle and they go, “Jim, can’t afford it, it’s too expensive, people won’t pay for it.” Well, I know from my friend David Kelley that Steve Jobs would say, “I want it in now because I know the price is going to be one-tenth very quickly.” So he forced the design to adopt the next iteration.

And then, of course, in Apple’s case they made money right away. Ford’s got to find a way to make money faster on that kind of theory. So, in parallel, you’re not just trying to make the product adaptive, you’re thinking the business model is going to be under attack because the economic principles have totally changed over that time.

DUBNER: So what you’re describing now are the real economics, but added to your challenge, running a company like Ford, is stock market psychology — which is a whole other realm. It’s based on economics to some degree but then the market has its own ideas. So, I’ve read, and tell me if I’m wrong, I’ve read that one thing that led to Mark Fields’s firing from Ford was when Tesla, which makes many, many fewer cars than Ford does, beat it in market cap.

HACKETT: I never was in a discussion where that was cited. But let me just cite, I know about myself in this regard. There’s a fair amount of stress around: does Jim Hackett get that the market’s got to be rewarded for these great ideas? And I totally do. Because I did it once before, first of all. And the question is: is the design of the business such that there’s a patience factor here and you get rewarded? So let’s talk about Amazon’s profitability in its history. I mean, it took a while. Let’s talk about Apple. If you look at Apple’s stock price when Steve came back —

DUBNER: Took a long time.

HACKETT: Yeah, and what they want, which those two guys gave, which I know I’ve got to, is believable momentum. They could show the compounding of the number of customers, they could show the case of add-on revenue, they could show the case of users being delighted with products.

DUBNER: They’re also due — because their products were new though, I’m curious whether they get a novelty premium that you don’t get.

HACKETT: Fair. I think that happened with the automotive competitor.

DUBNER: So we should say, as we speak, Ford Motor market cap is about $37 billion and Tesla’s market cap is about $53 billion, which I’m guessing as the C.E.O. of Ford, whether you’re going to say it or not, is a little frustrating, perhaps?

HACKETT: We make a new vehicle every four seconds.

DUBNER: There goes another.

HACKETT: You get to observe — in their business model, they’re trying to get 20,000 of them — or whatever the number was built — in a quarter or something.

DUBNER: But if you were doing the business case: let’s say you’re teaching Harvard Business School right now and the case that you want to study is Ford Motor Company versus Tesla for the moment. And we know what Ford does, what they represent, how they make their money. And we know what Tesla does. And we try to project it into the future and see what the stock price is really all about. Make the best case that Ford is undervalued right now.

HACKETT: And I really believe this. You’re not supposed to, as a C.E.O., speculate on stock price, so all I can say is: I’m really optimistic about the price-earnings ratio that understates the real value. First of all, we’ve got an industrial price-earnings ratio of six or seven, something like that.

A company’s price-to-earnings ratio is a key metric used by investors to assess how the company’s share price relates to its true value.

HACKETT: And I asked Ginni Rometty today what theirs was at I.B.M. and I think she said 11 or 12, and we were discussing Microsoft’s probably in the 20’s, right? Now these three companies, all of them are actually dealing with bits and cloud structures and data, right? But one’s in the 20’s, the other one’s in the sixes. So the case I would make is that we have as much data in the future coming from vehicles, or from users in those vehicles, or from cities talking to those vehicles, as the other competitors that you and I would be talking about that have monetizable attraction.

Now, I talk to lots of investors and they go, “Got it. Boom. Thumbs up, Jim. Go for it. Can you just prove to us that you’ve got that working?” And what you and I just agreed when we saw some of the early tech startups, they could go to market with investors only seeing a fraction of what they were going to become, and that caused belief.

I mean, who am I speaking to, right? I think that’s unfair for industrial companies at 115 years old. We have a lot of talented people. We can generate returns on that invested capital. My belief is: we have 100 million people in vehicles today, that are sitting in Ford blue-oval vehicles. That’s the case for monetizing opportunity versus an upstart who maybe has, I don’t know, what, they got 120,000 or 200,000 vehicles in place now. Just compare the two stacks: which one would you like to have the data from?

DUBNER: I hear you entirely. But I also think, “Well, who are the companies that have been good at monetizing customer data?” And we can name them. There’s Facebook, there’s Google, etc. And have they already mastered or owned that market? So what makes you think that Ford can monetize that in any significant way, enough to invest in developing that whole scenario?

HACKETT: Well, first of all, we already know as a proxy that those really wonderful firms you talk about, like Facebook — we’re a great customer of Facebook, they love us. Google loves us, because Ford’s a big advertiser. So we talk to these folks all the time. But they don’t own the healthcare data market. They are not controlling aviation data today. They may be doing flight reservations. I mean, we can find proxies where there’s data and they don’t own it. Now let’s let that just be an argument that says they’re not everywhere. They’re very powerful.

The issue in the vehicle, see, is: we already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us. We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work; we know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house, because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we’ve got here with the data.

DUBNER: So the question I have is whether Ford necessarily has, not only a big role in that, but a big opportunity to monetize. So at the C.E.S. presentation, you rolled out a couple components of “The Living Street.” One is called the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

Marcy KLEVORN: Our Transportation Mobility Cloud, or T.M.C., will support the rapid development of services and applications that will enable people to move more efficiently and have access to smart, connected transportation.

DUBNER: Another was called C-V2X.

Don BUTLER: C-V2X, or Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology, has the potential to enable a city’s various components and applications to share information with each other, from vehicle to pedestrians and bicyclists, to the whole infrastructure, enabling collision-avoidance safety systems, traffic signal prioritization, and much more.

DUBNER: And one of the examples that your team gave was on the C-V2X component. They described a scenario in which a vehicle, “without requiring a network, can communicate when a driver needs help. Maybe he has diabetes and is going into shock … C-V2X can coordinate the response, the system can recognize the driver’s distress, send a signal to emergency responders … The vehicle can even send medical records for drivers who have opted in for that.”

So when I read that, why is this wonderful-sounding, but very-complicated-to-me-sounding solution — having the vehicle diagnose a medical emergency, for instance, rather than, say, a wearable medical device, which I’m wearing. My smartwatch is that now. And I saw a variety of examples of that in your vision whereby it seems like Ford is describing itself as a major player in this reimagining of the public square, the public space. I don’t understand what you bring to it that makes you think that you can be a big player in that space beyond the transportation component.

HACKETT: You mentioned the diabetic thing. I’ll give you a real one that’s working right now. The Los Angeles Police Department drives Ford Explorers. We have a high market share of police vehicles. In an application, that is one of our tests, they have this terribly sad story where an officer is on a mission, gets in a wreck. And the airbag knocks him out, so he dies. They can’t find him because they’re radioing him. I don’t know why they didn’t have G.P.S. or something like that, that positioned him.

What we’ve invented with them is that, every time the airbag goes off, it’s communicating its location. And now we have a team sitting inside L.A.P.D. right now, working on a dozen other ideas that we get monetized for because of the data they’re willing to share that helps build a response system for them. So that’s in use — like a person in their vehicle to the cloud.

The promise of the diabetic is: in India, this is really extreme, you can’t get an ambulance in to somebody that’s in trouble. The traffic’s too congested. The theory here is the vehicles give priority to that. So they’ll know where to go. So if you’ve been in an environment where the siren’s on, you go, “Do I go right or left?” The command will be the way air traffic is. They just tell a plane, if it’s on a collision course, they just go up or down, they don’t tell them to turn right or left. Our commands will tell you go right or left, and everybody’s moving the same way, and it knows what the oncoming traffic is doing. The simple transactions are Ford’s reducing the friction in somebody’s life.

*      *      *

Just a decade ago, Ford Motor Company was the most stable of the Big Three U.S. automakers. General Motors and Chrysler both declared bankruptcy during the financial crisis and received a government bailout; Ford didn’t, although, under then-C.E.O. Alan Mulally, it did accept some federal assistance. From both a financial and business perspective, Ford seemed to be in relatively good shape. But that’s no longer the case. Despite a strong economy and stock market, Ford has been struggling, even more than the other U.S. automakers, as evidence by its battered share price.

Ford is still the king of pickup truck sales, but Moody’s Investor Service, in a recent downgrade of Ford, cited “erosion in the company’s global business position and the challenges it will face implementing its Fitness Redesign program.” “Fitness Redesign” is Ford’s way of saying it’s downsizing and restructuring — a fate that Chrysler and G.M. had forced upon them during their bankruptcies. But which Ford, paradoxically, was able to avoid — until now. One big part of Ford’s restructuring has been Jim Hackett’s recent decision to phase out nearly all Ford sedans currently on sale in North America.

NBC 4 (DETROIT): Ford has decided to get out of the car game except for its iconic Mustang.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: So the sedan, as a platform, you’d be shocked at how the sales have dropped off globally for everybody.

It’s worth noting that just a couple decades ago, Ford’s Taurus was the best-selling car in America. But consumer preferences have changed; the price of gas is relatively low; and there may be something of an arms race among consumers, who feel that S.U.V.’s and trucks are safer — especially when you’re on the road with so many other S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: Yeah, well, definitely. I know with women buyers, they prefer the height, they just see better. It’s a function of seeing where you’re driving and the car’s relative position. But the other thing is: in the past, you would have to hedge if fuel prices went up, and the vehicles have gotten so fuel-efficient. Our F-150 — I give Alan Mulally a lot of credit for this, he aluminized the body of it.

DUBNER: Right, very controversial at the time. We should say that he was an airplane guy.

HACKETT: He was an airplane guy; he knew aluminum; he knew riveting; it was a really hard problem to rivet the panels. We have a lot of patents on that. But guess what: the vehicles — so this is a hard way to understand, but in the CAFE standards that are calculated for the world’s fleet, or in this case U.S. fleet, the vehicle that made the most progress in making it better is the F-150. Now it’s not as fuel-efficient as a smaller vehicle, but in contributing to global climate, it’s less of a problem.

DUBNER: But what about the profit margin; trucks and S.U.V.’s versus sedans?

HACKETT: Well, the reason you make more on them is because your price point’s higher.

DUBNER: Really? Pickup — I thought pickup trucks are cheap. We don’t have any pickup trucks in New York City, as you’ve seen.

HACKETT: So that’s the issue. But come with me to Texas.

DUBNER: No, no, no, I understand, I’ve seen the numbers.

HACKETT: I’m driving a King Ranch, which is the nickname of a luxury F-150. And I mean the leather seats and the ride —

DUBNER: That could run over the whole Ohio State defensive line, I guessing. Not that you would do that.

HACKETT: And the cool thing is: that frame — I don’t mean the physical frame of a vehicle but the idea of people sitting in vehicles like that — there’s another series below that called Ranger and it’s much smaller and it’s global and it’s very profitable. And we’re working on other ideas in that category, because people love these things.

This is the part of the Ford reboot story that you may find confusing. Which many investors seem to find confusing — or, to be fair, concerning. On the one hand, Ford talks about remaking itself as a technology firm, with their “Living Street” model and their “transportation operating system.” Earlier, you heard Hackett comparing Ford’s price-to-earnings ratio to those of I.B.M. and Microsoft, which are actual tech firms. So that’s the forward-looking part of the reboot mission.

On the other hand, Ford’s increasingly heavy reliance on truck and S.U.V. sales has more than a little throwback feel to it — especially in how the company markets itself. Jim Hackett says Ford is eager to collaborate with the Silicon Valley heavyweights in order to get a piece of their pie. But one TV ad in a new campaign called “Built Ford Proud” opens by mocking Silicon Valley. The actor Bryan Cranston, looking very Elon Musk-y or maybe Steve Jobs-y, takes the stage in front of a backdrop labeled “Future Talk.”

FORD AD: Thank you. Now let’s get started.

But then Cranston, switching out of that character, confides to the viewer …

FORD AD: The future isn’t created in a keynote address.

What does create the future?

FORD AD: Building does. Building like we have for the last 115 years. And building for the next century. Building cars. New technology. And transforming cities.

And by now Cranston is barreling through the desert in a Ford pickup truck, windows down, engine roaring.

FORD AD: So let the other guys keep dreaming about the future. We’ll be the ones building it.

The ad ends up looking like pretty much every other pickup truck ad you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t seem like the most convincing way to declare that Ford is the company that’s working on what Hackett calls “a total redesign of the surface transportation system.” By the way, these promises of new technology and transformed cities all happen atop an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones song “Paint It Black,” which came out more than a half century ago.

DUBNER: So one of the big changes in the world, but especially for your industry, is the oncoming autonomous vehicle scenario, which is incredibly exciting, and will probably have a lot of effects that many people can’t quite imagine yet, pro and con. But it strikes me that Ford is a little bit late to the starting line. And I’m curious to know, again, what makes you think that you’re going to do well in that realm?

HACKETT: I actually think it’s a myth that we’re behind. So robotics is not new; of course, they’ve been in the factories for years. Mark Fields deserves credit here. He decided that to get there faster, he was going to invest in a group of people who wanted to leave some of the notable firms working on it: Google, Uber, some others. They came to us and said, “We want to do our own startup.” So we’ve created that. It’s called Argo A.I. It’s in Pittsburgh, near Carnegie Mellon, of course.

DUBNER: Pittsburgh’s become the capital of autonomous vehicle research.

HACKETT: Yeah. And we’re the sucking sound there, because this is the who’s-who from that alumni. The guy leading our company was the number-two guy at Google working on Waymo, which, I give lots of credit to Google. I think they’ve done a great job. We believe we’re behind them, but the velocity of the vehicle’s learning’s ahead because we have people that worked there. So we’ve taken a different tact with the design of the software.

Just a quick lesson for the listeners. It’s only three years old that neural networks actually found their way into A.I. So, before that, robotics were making progress, but this is the breakthrough.

DUBNER: So let me ask you this. You recently led a team of Ford executives making a big presentation at the 2018 C.E.S., Consumer Electronics Show. And it is a huge multi-dimensional vision of how what I think of as an auto company is creating a large ecosystem that includes all different kinds of inputs. And I want to know, is that the kind of presentation you make at C.E.S. because it’s kind of good for business to invite those technology firms who come to come and play in your sandbox? Or is this a real part of your business model?

HACKETT: Yeah, I mean — and I did that in January of this year, and I’m really happy I did it because I was trying to get out the three parts of the technology evolution, which is: the nature of propulsion’s changing — to electric and hybrids. There will be gas, hybrids, and electric. There’s a robotic system. Let me give you the three letters: it’s called S.D.S., Self-Driving System is what they’re called. They’re trying to get away from autonomy and have it be labeled this way.

DUBNER: Because “autonomous” is a little too scary?

HACKETT: I think so. It’s not human-centered. It’s making the vehicle the celebrant, and we want the people inside. The third technology is this cloud structure.

DUBNER: Which you call the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

HACKETT: That’s our phrase. But all we really trying to do is orchestrate these three technologies to have an advantage for customers. The mere fact that 70 percent of the world’s population is going to be in city centers by 2050. It means we’ll be paralyzed. So I’m in New York this week, when the U.N.’s going on, and you can’t get around with the rain. President Clinton told me that he had to stay in town last night because he couldn’t get out to his home.

So we got to choreograph the system so that you reduce all this friction. The study after study that’s done about what causes jams and things like that show that a fallacy is: if you add more highway capacity, you get more throughput. The opposite happens. So there’s a famous story in China where there’s a month-long traffic jam on their biggest superhighway. Can you imagine getting in a car and you can’t get out of it for a month? So Chinese government and other places are dealing with it.

You’ve done a piece with Sidewalk Labs about smart cities. But I’m saying something different. I’m saying it feels utopian to talk about a smart city. Let’s start down the ladder and just get the transportation system to be smart. Let’s just coordinate mass transit, micro transit and your vehicles, and then the Uber-Lyft combinations, around what’s really going on in the lives of people.

And the opportunity here is enormous to change the way your life is in a city, because that system gives you the permission and the force of having what you want, when you want it. And you go, “How does it do that?” We took off 45 minutes earlier to come to you today, so I’m adding to the congestion. If I actually knew when I needed to be here, and the city mediated that, it would take all the people who are trying to get ahead out. Now that’s the traffic thing. Another quick one is parking. You lose more fuel efficiency trying to find a spot.

DUBNER: And then there’s just the real-estate question of parking.

HACKETT: I actually think a cool thing is the origami of parking, because the way lines are designed and parking lots that we’re going to be able to park really weird ways because the vehicles will negotiate their packing.

DUBNER: Well, and theoretically, with autonomous — or whatever we’re calling it, S.D.S. — we don’t need to hang on to our cars anymore, right? If you’re summoning the next one, to some degree.

HACKETT: Well, we’ve taken away the street from the people. Where’s your favorite city you like to visit? I mean, New York is one of mine. But when I go to Paris and the way the food spills out, the vehicles kind of destroy that. So we’ve painted a picture: there’s more green space, there’s more human interaction with the streets. How’s that happen? It’s because of this transportation mobility cloud, smart cars.

DUBNER: Before you go, I do want to ask you: in a recent interview you said that Ford has lost about a billion dollars in profits from metals tariffs, so a) just confirm for me I heard you right, and b) tell me if that’s true or if it’s even half-true, what are you doing about it?

HACKETT: Well, the number’s true if — the way I did the model in my head, and I should have been clear about this — you add the time the tariffs have started through next year. But still, it’s a billion dollars, and this is a really interesting thing. In my lifetime running another company, I never thought about trade. I never worried about it. So, now the C.E.O.’s time is tied up in something that they didn’t have to worry about. It needs to be updated because what happened is: those were emerging countries that are now. And the deficit’s got bigger and bigger.

So I think the administration has momentum from other administrations who likewise wanted to address it. All I’ve been asking for is that if you go in and you attack this problem, the winning state is a state of equilibrium, not a constant fight. A trade war will take away — these are stats that maybe you’ve read. The tax cut benefit to our citizens right now is going to get wiped out by this current inflation on what they’re calling the Walmart effect. So the goods that people are buying in stores have now been hit. So two-thirds of the tax benefit could be actually wiped out if we don’t get this fixed.

DUBNER: And as the C.E.O. of a car company, the uncertainty, I would imagine, can be very difficult, because we all know it’s hard to make even a personal decision when there’s that much uncertainty. So let me just really, finally, ask you the final question. When you look forward, do you see less uncertainty than I do? Do you see a clear path toward what Ford can actually accomplish based on these rather large dreams that involve everything from cloud computing to telecom in cars and so on?

HACKETT: Well, this gives you insight into me. My dad never had a bad day and he had a lot of challenges. But the optimism when he got up every day, that’s the way I was raised; as opposed to someone who heard, “Life’s going to hell in a handbasket.” I never heard that.

So I told a story to one of my colleagues today that said, “Why do you think there was a milkman in the day?” And, well, it was because we couldn’t refrigerate milk in our homes, so then they could get it to you because it had to be fresh. And then what happened was we had refrigerators, and to get scale, they moved the dairy farms further away. Then they started adding chemicals to them so they didn’t spoil, beyond homogenization. And today the average distance from farm to market’s 1,500 miles.

So the world’s looking at that and saying, “Was that the best design for humans?” What I’m optimistic about, based on the way we’ve talked today, is the transportation system caused some of that. It now can actually go backwards, so that you can have produce very close. You can send these objects of intelligence on missions for you. You can know where anybody you love is at any given time, if they want to tell you. And we can kind of know that now? But what you’re going to be able to know is going to be incredible. And in a way that I think is safe and helping humanity. So we can make Ford a really cool futuristic company in just building and making cars and selling them. We have a lot of great ideas there.

Whether these ideas are truly great, whether Ford will buck the trends of history and reinvent itself as a firm for the middle of the 21st century — I have no idea. Thanks to Jim Hackett, though, for taking the time to explain his vision for the Blue Oval.

*      *      *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Greg Rosalsky, with help from Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motors.

RESOURCES

“Has Motorization in the U.S. Peaked?,” Michael Sivak, U.M.T.R.I. (June 2013).

“Ford CEO’s Cost-Cutting Strategy in Focus During Earnings Slump,” Christina Rodgers, The Wall Street Journal. (April 2018).

EXTRA

“How to Build a Smart City,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“The Secret Life of a C.E.O.,” Freakonomics Radio.

The post Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/

[fitnesswomenshealth-blog]

The annual running of the ... burros?

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/the-annual-running-of-the-burros.html

The annual running of the ... burros?

The importance was that it was a popular man’s animal for the prevalent man’s king, alternatively than a additional usually royal steed. And its Sunday College lore that his mom rode a person into Nazareth when expecting, while which is not in the official cannon. I checked.

Domesticated for about 5,000 several years, donkeys have been place to work for humanity’s historically switching needs. They have been the family members vehicle, our U-Haul vans, engines pulling barges in canals and wagons out West, and they’ve been our workmates — if you function in a mine or on a farm. They are nevertheless used in armed service functions to carry floor air missiles above tough terrain.

Burros, as the Spanish phone them, walk at about a human’s foot velocity. They almost never kick or chunk. They seem to be to have a calming influence on horses and human beings. And they never get virtually the respect they deserve, the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal kingdom.

Like a cross concerning a Tesla and a wheelbarrow, donkeys are beasts of burden that can carry up to 300 lbs . for more than two weeks in the mountains, though needing really tiny meals or water. They are kind of the camels of the West. In fact, they’re the camels of the East, North and South, far too, as donkeys keep on to prosper in North and South The us, Europe, Asia and Africa.

As some industries faded, the donkey before long extra racing husband or wife to its resume. When the US mining marketplace began to dry up in the 1930s and ’40s, some enterprising Coloradans arrived up with the concept of attracting spectators to their cities by hosting an ultramarathon of human-donkey pairs — The Planet Championship Pack Burro Race.

“They train us so much,” mentioned pack burro race director Brad Wann. “They instruct us humility. They join us with character. Burros have the means to arrive at into your soul.”

The to start with race was in 1949, which helps make it, according Wann, the second-oldest constantly run marathon in the country soon after the Boston Marathon.

The race also lends itself to a wide variety of puns. For instance, the winner of the annual pack burro championship is the initially to get his or her ass more than the complete line. Wann’s title is media relations officer for the Western Pack Burro Ass-ociation. There are 8 of these eye-rollers in this posting if you would like to spot them all.

But it is even now a significant activity, even if it has a sense of humor. “Haulin’ Ass” is the title of a quite straight documentary about the activity.

A burro-ful working day

Initially the race prolonged concerning Leadville and Fairplay, situated in the middle of the state and only about 11 miles apart as the crow flies, but divided by a mountain. Legend holds that it was encouraged by two miners who struck gold at the same time and raced back to city to declare the discover. The serious story is that the race was motivated by a need to continue to keep former mining cities from turning into ghosts.

Now each cities have their own races, aspect of an annual series of eight in Colorado. Fairplay, is the longest (29 miles), tied for highest (much more than 13,000 toes), and the just one that retained the World Championship title. The town is also home to the Prunes Monument, perhaps the only monument in the earth erected to honor a donkey. Prunes labored together with a miner for a lot more than 60 a long time.

Race working day, in July, was a great a person of blue skies. This yr 89 — a document number — of human-burro pairs competed in the 70th earth championship, assembling in the Aged West-on the lookout Fairplay. Wann estimates at least 150,000 men and women showed up to check out the start out of the race.

The odor of excitement and excrement was in the air as the starter gun signaled a mass get started of two lengths. The 29-mile race had 20 pairs and 3,300 feet of elevation acquire and a short class of 15 miles had yet another 69 pairs.

The start of the race is important, explained Wann. “Really don’t crack their will, permit the burro set the speed early on in its place of shutting it down,” he stated. “Burros will pair up and want to go that rate, and you have to really feel that out. So run as rapid you can — sprint if the donkey does. If you can’t do that you can expect to have a gradual donkey the rest of the race. It can be a burro race, not a human race.”

The training course also ends in Fairplay, jogging by means of South Park (the present of the same title has in some way not finished a burro racing episode), and then heading up dirt roadways, trails and rocky terrain to the 13,185-foot summit of Mosquito Pass. (Or really should that be Mosquito P-ass?)

The age vary of the human runners at this year’s earth championship was 15 to 70, and they came from all above the US, Europe, Canada and even Africa. The California workforce brought in their personal donkeys. About 65% ended up repeat runners addicted to the niche activity which continually only can take put in Colorado, the point out the place it was born.

About a 3rd of the runners were ladies this year. In fact, the first girl to at any time compete was Edna Miller, with her burro Pill, in 1951, nearly 20 years prior to the to start with woman ran the Boston Marathon (against the procedures, even then).

The donks — as insiders may well refer to them — that competed this 12 months have lovable and delightful names these as Buckwheat, Hershey and Sweet Pea. Previous winners have incorporated BonBon and Product Puff. My preferred name for a competitor this yr was ReDONKulous. This year bundled 16 mini-donkeys on the short study course.

And you should not get in touch with donkeys mules, which are basically half donkey and fifty percent horse breeds. Individuals 50 percent-assed animals are not authorized to race in the pack burro circuit.

Regulations condition that the donks (I am an insider now) ought to have mining equipment: a select, gold pan, shovel and saddle. This weighs about 16 lbs and for the mini-donkeys that is all they will need standard-sized donkeys should include weights to a bare minimum of 33 lbs .. The rope attaching the crew are unable to be for a longer time than 15 ft and the runners never gown as miners, even though the occasional cowboy hat could allude to an before era.

Like any ultramarathon, specifically with elevation, endurance calls for training. And in this circumstance some animal husbandry expertise as very well. As a outcome, there are, of program, comical times for bystanders watching when the donkey protests. Occasionally a burro will just shut down. In previous races, groups have experienced to fall out when this takes place.

The air may be skinny on oxygen up on Mosquito Pass, but the mountain views are astounding. Inexperienced and grey peaks are in all directions, the views as wild and West as some of pack animals.

This year’s profitable workforce was Kirt Courkamp and his burro Mary Margaret, finishing the 29 miles in just about 6 hours and profitable the $1,000 first area prize. These two locals received the past two decades and this calendar year won in Leadville and Buena Vista as well, collectively recognized as the Triple Crown.

Breaking in

“In the entire entire world, there are most likely much less than 1,000 folks who have ever competed in a pack-burro race,” the late Denver Submit columnist Ed Quillen wrote in 2007, arguing for it to be the state’s formal sport. (In 2012, pack burro racing was specified a summertime heritage sport of Colorado.)

If you want to be among the this elite crew, your training is two-fold. You will need to ailment yourself to operate lengthy distances — placing in the hrs on trail operates and at higher altitudes — as the pack burro race is a very hard program.

Then there is driving a donkey. They really don’t need to acclimate to the altitude or understand how to properly fuel themselves with calories and hydration to go the distance. But runners even now gain with acquiring as many miles together as probable.

There are approaches and character discrepancies among the the animals that need to be m-ass-tered to have a prosperous operate. “If the burro will not trust you, or like you, or you are pushing much too difficult,” stated Wann, “it can be not heading to function.”

Organizers will not advocate it but you can show up the working day before a burro pack race and rent a donkey. Amber Wann, a self explained “donkey matchmaker” and wife of Brad, rents them for races and attempts to match functioning velocity and equine encounter.

“Burro racing is a really psychological sport,” he additional. “We are navigating by way of some of the roughest terrain in the world and you have to create a romantic relationship with your ass to make that materialize.”

Managing with a donkey is a bit of give and choose, virtually. At times you’re pulling them, other times they are pulling you. Uphill they can be a actual ass-et if they are in the guide and pulling a little bit. But heading downhill, runners want to be in the lead lest they come across them selves obtaining dragged by a speedy and enthusiastic 900-pound burro which can haul ass at speeds up to 40 miles for each hour.

On flats, either teammate can be in the guide, or aspect-by-facet, but human runners are however accomplishing the steering.

You control a donkey by means of their nose, pulling back again on the rope to slow down, like a fuel pedal of pressure-and-release to modify pace. A whistle or a “hup-hup!” can get ’em goin’ and the typical “whoa” can gradual ’em down. The donkey of class does not know where by it can be heading. Human beings are the “GPS for the critters,” Wann mentioned.

Gear-wise, runners need the right shoes, dresses, working vests and gas for an ultramarathon. And the burros, in addition to finding a clean bill of wellness from a vet, have to have the old timey mining devices and additional excess weight to have.

Ass-essing chance and reward

As with any ultramarathon trail run, accidents are usually probable. In accordance to a 2015 examine involving 1,212 lively ultrarunners, they endured about the same frequency of accidents as shorter-length runners, even though some wounds ended up inflicted by the road blocks of trail functioning. The most popular accidents had been of the knee and foot pressure fractures.

Remaining tethered to a donkey provides hazard of personal injury to runners, of system. If you excursion, you can get severe highway rash from acquiring dragged together. 1 12 months a runner bruised or broke some ribs when her burro kicked her in the upper body.

The policies will not let runners to ride the donkey, but in the race’s historical past, injured runners have been carried down the mountain on their partners’ back, as they’re out of the race anyway.

Donkeys get hurt far too, but in 70 years of racing, not a person animal has died or been hurt further than restoration.

Animal legal rights groups have lifted eyebrows about the activity but organizers anxiety the humane cure of the burros. “Any contestant mistreating his animal may be disqualified,” the race rules state. “No needles, electric prods, narcotics, golf equipment or whips, other than the halter rope, may perhaps be employed.” But the runners’ love for their donkey associates will make this rule seemingly superfluous.

Organizers also position out that donkeys appreciate the race as a great deal as the ultra-runners. “If you observe donkeys in the wild, they aren’t sedentary creatures,” wrote Western Pack Burro Ass-ociation member Sheri L. Thompson on the sport’s race website. “In the wild, donkeys are really trim athletic animals” and “they exercising all working day prolonged.”

“They are ready members,” Thompson writes, alluding to the burro’s renowned stubbornness. “If they never want to go, you are unable to make them do just about anything.”

Source link

[samanthasroberts]

This Trader Made 295% on Cryptocurrency Derivatives

Jay Smith has little doubt the cryptocurrency market will crash.

The price of bitcoin has increased sixfold in the past year, despite a 25 percent plunge this month triggered by Chinas crackdown on digital tokens. Not a week goes by without startups launching new ones to fund everything from dentistry to Las Vegas strip clubs. Even Paris Hilton is tweeting to her 16 million followers about her cryptocurrency investments. If that isnt a jump-the-shark-moment, what is?

Jay Smith

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Yet Smith, the No. 1 cryptocurrency trader at online brokerage eToro, shrugs all that off as he plays the markets from his home in Basingstoke, a suburban town west of London. Every day he looks for reasons to buy more bitcoin and other digital tokens — computer programs that use cryptography to create artificial units of value. He doesnt have much information to size up the prospects of Blackmoon Crypto, Steem, FirstBlood and other coins that have caught his eye, but thats cool with Smith, a high school dropout and onetime professional video-game player. His portfolio is up 295 percent in the past 12 months.

“I just put in an order for a Tesla, and I dont even know how to drive,” said the 29-year-old Briton.

Copy Trading

Smith isnt playing with just his own cash. More than 9,000 retail investors heed his advice and copy his trades on eToro, which is licensed in Cyprus and by the U.K.s Financial Conduct Authority. Its a social trading network that enables clients to track their favorite cryptocurrency traders. In an unregulated, ultravolatile market that few investors understand, eToro injects even more risk into the mix.

The firm is one of several that use contracts for difference, or CFDs, derivatives that allow investors to speculate on the price of cryptocurrencies. Plus500 Ltd. offers leverage of 30 to 1 on such bets, while XTB International Ltd, registered in Belize, touts its award as the best cryptocurrency trading provider of 2017.

Unlike futures contracts, CFDs dont trade on exchanges and are largely illiquid. Investors can suffer big losses because they have to put up only a percentage of the value of their trades on margin. While the U.S. largely prohibits retail investors from trading CFDs, regulators in Europe are only now beginning to address the peril they pose.

In June, the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Union watchdog for capital markets, said it was concerned about the suitability of CFDs and was weighing measures to restrict their use. Combining CFDs with cryptocurrencies is reckless, said Rainer Lenz, chairman of Finance Watch, a Brussels-based public-interest organization, who serves on an advisory group at ESMA.

“We have to put a stop to this,” said Lenz. “This is selling a synthetic instrument on top of another synthetic instrument. This is the highest form of speculation. You just cant do that to retail investors.”

Read more: Why contracts for difference face scrutiny – a QuickTake Q&A

The fine print in eToros risk-disclosure statement warns that “If the market moves against you, you may sustain a total loss greater than the funds invested in a specific position.” But Iqbal Gandham, head of eToros London office, said that in practice the firm uses mandatory stop-loss orders to prevent investors from losing more than their initial deposits. He denied that mixing CFDs and cryptocurrencies is harmful to retail investors.

“You cant lose more than you put in,” Gandham said. “And if you dont know what youre doing, just copy someone who does.”

School Dropout

Thats where Smith comes in. An easygoing man with the air of someone dazed by his luck, Smith dropped out of school at 14. He threw himself into eSports, a competitive form of video gaming thats huge in Asia. Soon enough Smith, who goes by the online handle Jaynemesis, was day-trading tech stocks and then bitcoin. He started buying dozens of them at $25 each (they cost $3,944 on Sept. 26).

Smith rode out the currencys first big crash in 2013, when it lost half its value in less than three weeks. By early 2017, hed built a portfolio of coins from Ethereum, Litecoin and other issuers. He also discovered eToro, co-founded in 2007 in Tel Aviv by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia.

The brokerage handled stocks, currencies and other securities. In 2010, Yoni Assia became infatuated with digital tokens and provided office space to Vitalik Buterin, the brains behind Ethereum. Four years later, Assia added bitcoin trading to eToro, which is based in Cyprus.

In February, the firm expanded into other cryptocurrencies. It also launched a marketing campaign aimed at retail investors with push notifications sent to customers mobile phones, instructional videos on YouTube and ads in the London subway proclaiming “Crypto Neednt Be Cryptic.”

Copy trading is what separates eToro from other CFD firms offering cryptocurrency trading. EToro pays Smith, whos not an employee, at least 2 percent of the money that follows him. As of Sept. 26, that meant he was earning about $230,000 annually on the $11.5 million in assets held by his 9,143 copiers. Smith, who allocates about half his portfolio to stocks and the rest to cryptocurrencies, makes more money with every investor he draws to the site.

Digital Tokens

The fusion of derivatives and cryptocurrencies was probably inevitable in a market that appears to be spinning out of control. Thanks largely to Ethereum, a three-year-old open-source software project inspired by bitcoins blockchain technology, anyone can create a digital token.

Thats spurred startups worldwide to fund their development by minting tokens and selling them to investors via initial coin offerings, or ICOs. The bet is that once an issuer prospers, the value of its company scrip will soar. At the beginning of 2013, there were only seven digital coins worth $1.6 billion. Today there are 1,228 coins with a market value of $136 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, a firm that tracks digital tokens. Bitcoin accounts for 48 percent of the total.

Read more about the bitcoin bubble

“What we are seeing is pure unlicensed capitalism,” said Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation and chairman of Globitex, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Riga, Latvia. “And you just cant keep up with the market anymore.”

Cryptocurrency Crackdown

Regulators are scrambling to catch up. On Sept. 4, China outlawed ICOs and moved to shut down exchanges as well. In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission required companies to register ICOs like IPOs. Russia and Japan are also eyeing new rules.

To many finance pros, cryptocurrencies look too ephemeral to become a real asset class. This month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon likened them to the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb mania and called bitcoin a fraud.

Yet Wall Streets embrace of blockchain is one reason bitcoins price has soared. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Banco Santander SA and JPMorgan are some of the institutions investing millions of dollars in related startups and joining industry research groups.

Shoreditch Basement

With Ethereum up more than 3,562 percent this year, the euphoria was running high at a July reception eToro hosted in Londons tech haven of Shoreditch. Investors and entrepreneurs jammed into a dimly lit basement space to drink Mexican beer and swap gossip on the hottest ICOs. One impresario handed out fliers for a new token like a promoter at a rock concert.

Smith, with a shaved head and a silver ring embedded in each earlobe, was holding court as eToros star. A Goldman Sachs analyst sought his views on recent moves in bitcoin. Smith, shouting above the din, was happy to oblige.

EToro strives to make trading cryptocurrencies as simple as possible for retail investors. Its as easy to bet on digital tokens as it is to buy merchandise on Amazon.com. You just point and click a “buy” tab to go long or “sell” to go short. The firms algorithms do the rest. While the FCA requires eToro to ascertain whether its products are appropriate for retail customers, theyll have to read the fine print on its website to learn that CFDs arent good long-term investments.

On Sept. 6, eToro announced that investors can buy bitcoin and four other cryptocurrencies directly, so they will no longer have to use CFDs to go long. But customers still have to utilize the derivatives to short the tokens or copy the trades of Smith and others.

Twitch Sessions

For most of the year, Smiths followers have been pumped when he livestreams his trading sessions on Twitch, a social media site.

“Feeling cryptocrazy,” one user wrote in the chat box on Sept. 5.

“Me cryptodrunk,” replied another.

“Just put 10K with you,” said a new follower.

Ten days later, with bitcoin and Ethereum having lost more than a third of their value, the mood of his followers had darkened. Smiths eToro portfolio had skidded more than 10 percent and hed lost a few hundred copiers. Those sticking with him wanted to know if this was the shakeout everyone, including Smith, had been fearing. Humming to himself as he tapped the keyboard, the trader paused and told them to relax.

“Hopefully you can tell from my calm attitude that Im not in the least bit phased by this,” Smith said. “It will be over in two weeks time, and then the market will start rallying again. Nothing has changed. This just means that the Chinese cant buy tokens so easily now. All thats going through my head is buy the dip.”

As Smith talked, bitcoin started surging. Over the next few hours, it skyrocketed 30 percent from its low of the day.

“Look at it go,” he gushed. “Its going insane. Lets buy some more.”

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/18/this-trader-made-295-on-cryptocurrency-derivatives/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/this-trader-made-295-on-cryptocurrency-derivatives/

[adambstingus]

This Trader Made 295% on Cryptocurrency Derivatives

Jay Smith has little doubt the cryptocurrency market will crash.

The price of bitcoin has increased sixfold in the past year, despite a 25 percent plunge this month triggered by Chinas crackdown on digital tokens. Not a week goes by without startups launching new ones to fund everything from dentistry to Las Vegas strip clubs. Even Paris Hilton is tweeting to her 16 million followers about her cryptocurrency investments. If that isnt a jump-the-shark-moment, what is?

Jay Smith

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Yet Smith, the No. 1 cryptocurrency trader at online brokerage eToro, shrugs all that off as he plays the markets from his home in Basingstoke, a suburban town west of London. Every day he looks for reasons to buy more bitcoin and other digital tokens — computer programs that use cryptography to create artificial units of value. He doesnt have much information to size up the prospects of Blackmoon Crypto, Steem, FirstBlood and other coins that have caught his eye, but thats cool with Smith, a high school dropout and onetime professional video-game player. His portfolio is up 295 percent in the past 12 months.

“I just put in an order for a Tesla, and I dont even know how to drive,” said the 29-year-old Briton.

Copy Trading

Smith isnt playing with just his own cash. More than 9,000 retail investors heed his advice and copy his trades on eToro, which is licensed in Cyprus and by the U.K.s Financial Conduct Authority. Its a social trading network that enables clients to track their favorite cryptocurrency traders. In an unregulated, ultravolatile market that few investors understand, eToro injects even more risk into the mix.

The firm is one of several that use contracts for difference, or CFDs, derivatives that allow investors to speculate on the price of cryptocurrencies. Plus500 Ltd. offers leverage of 30 to 1 on such bets, while XTB International Ltd, registered in Belize, touts its award as the best cryptocurrency trading provider of 2017.

Unlike futures contracts, CFDs dont trade on exchanges and are largely illiquid. Investors can suffer big losses because they have to put up only a percentage of the value of their trades on margin. While the U.S. largely prohibits retail investors from trading CFDs, regulators in Europe are only now beginning to address the peril they pose.

In June, the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Union watchdog for capital markets, said it was concerned about the suitability of CFDs and was weighing measures to restrict their use. Combining CFDs with cryptocurrencies is reckless, said Rainer Lenz, chairman of Finance Watch, a Brussels-based public-interest organization, who serves on an advisory group at ESMA.

“We have to put a stop to this,” said Lenz. “This is selling a synthetic instrument on top of another synthetic instrument. This is the highest form of speculation. You just cant do that to retail investors.”

Read more: Why contracts for difference face scrutiny – a QuickTake Q&A

The fine print in eToros risk-disclosure statement warns that “If the market moves against you, you may sustain a total loss greater than the funds invested in a specific position.” But Iqbal Gandham, head of eToros London office, said that in practice the firm uses mandatory stop-loss orders to prevent investors from losing more than their initial deposits. He denied that mixing CFDs and cryptocurrencies is harmful to retail investors.

“You cant lose more than you put in,” Gandham said. “And if you dont know what youre doing, just copy someone who does.”

School Dropout

Thats where Smith comes in. An easygoing man with the air of someone dazed by his luck, Smith dropped out of school at 14. He threw himself into eSports, a competitive form of video gaming thats huge in Asia. Soon enough Smith, who goes by the online handle Jaynemesis, was day-trading tech stocks and then bitcoin. He started buying dozens of them at $25 each (they cost $3,944 on Sept. 26).

Smith rode out the currencys first big crash in 2013, when it lost half its value in less than three weeks. By early 2017, hed built a portfolio of coins from Ethereum, Litecoin and other issuers. He also discovered eToro, co-founded in 2007 in Tel Aviv by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia.

The brokerage handled stocks, currencies and other securities. In 2010, Yoni Assia became infatuated with digital tokens and provided office space to Vitalik Buterin, the brains behind Ethereum. Four years later, Assia added bitcoin trading to eToro, which is based in Cyprus.

In February, the firm expanded into other cryptocurrencies. It also launched a marketing campaign aimed at retail investors with push notifications sent to customers mobile phones, instructional videos on YouTube and ads in the London subway proclaiming “Crypto Neednt Be Cryptic.”

Copy trading is what separates eToro from other CFD firms offering cryptocurrency trading. EToro pays Smith, whos not an employee, at least 2 percent of the money that follows him. As of Sept. 26, that meant he was earning about $230,000 annually on the $11.5 million in assets held by his 9,143 copiers. Smith, who allocates about half his portfolio to stocks and the rest to cryptocurrencies, makes more money with every investor he draws to the site.

Digital Tokens

The fusion of derivatives and cryptocurrencies was probably inevitable in a market that appears to be spinning out of control. Thanks largely to Ethereum, a three-year-old open-source software project inspired by bitcoins blockchain technology, anyone can create a digital token.

Thats spurred startups worldwide to fund their development by minting tokens and selling them to investors via initial coin offerings, or ICOs. The bet is that once an issuer prospers, the value of its company scrip will soar. At the beginning of 2013, there were only seven digital coins worth $1.6 billion. Today there are 1,228 coins with a market value of $136 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, a firm that tracks digital tokens. Bitcoin accounts for 48 percent of the total.

Read more about the bitcoin bubble

“What we are seeing is pure unlicensed capitalism,” said Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation and chairman of Globitex, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Riga, Latvia. “And you just cant keep up with the market anymore.”

Cryptocurrency Crackdown

Regulators are scrambling to catch up. On Sept. 4, China outlawed ICOs and moved to shut down exchanges as well. In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission required companies to register ICOs like IPOs. Russia and Japan are also eyeing new rules.

To many finance pros, cryptocurrencies look too ephemeral to become a real asset class. This month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon likened them to the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb mania and called bitcoin a fraud.

Yet Wall Streets embrace of blockchain is one reason bitcoins price has soared. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Banco Santander SA and JPMorgan are some of the institutions investing millions of dollars in related startups and joining industry research groups.

Shoreditch Basement

With Ethereum up more than 3,562 percent this year, the euphoria was running high at a July reception eToro hosted in Londons tech haven of Shoreditch. Investors and entrepreneurs jammed into a dimly lit basement space to drink Mexican beer and swap gossip on the hottest ICOs. One impresario handed out fliers for a new token like a promoter at a rock concert.

Smith, with a shaved head and a silver ring embedded in each earlobe, was holding court as eToros star. A Goldman Sachs analyst sought his views on recent moves in bitcoin. Smith, shouting above the din, was happy to oblige.

EToro strives to make trading cryptocurrencies as simple as possible for retail investors. Its as easy to bet on digital tokens as it is to buy merchandise on Amazon.com. You just point and click a “buy” tab to go long or “sell” to go short. The firms algorithms do the rest. While the FCA requires eToro to ascertain whether its products are appropriate for retail customers, theyll have to read the fine print on its website to learn that CFDs arent good long-term investments.

On Sept. 6, eToro announced that investors can buy bitcoin and four other cryptocurrencies directly, so they will no longer have to use CFDs to go long. But customers still have to utilize the derivatives to short the tokens or copy the trades of Smith and others.

Twitch Sessions

For most of the year, Smiths followers have been pumped when he livestreams his trading sessions on Twitch, a social media site.

“Feeling cryptocrazy,” one user wrote in the chat box on Sept. 5.

“Me cryptodrunk,” replied another.

“Just put 10K with you,” said a new follower.

Ten days later, with bitcoin and Ethereum having lost more than a third of their value, the mood of his followers had darkened. Smiths eToro portfolio had skidded more than 10 percent and hed lost a few hundred copiers. Those sticking with him wanted to know if this was the shakeout everyone, including Smith, had been fearing. Humming to himself as he tapped the keyboard, the trader paused and told them to relax.

“Hopefully you can tell from my calm attitude that Im not in the least bit phased by this,” Smith said. “It will be over in two weeks time, and then the market will start rallying again. Nothing has changed. This just means that the Chinese cant buy tokens so easily now. All thats going through my head is buy the dip.”

As Smith talked, bitcoin started surging. Over the next few hours, it skyrocketed 30 percent from its low of the day.

“Look at it go,” he gushed. “Its going insane. Lets buy some more.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/18/this-trader-made-295-on-cryptocurrency-derivatives/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/167638003072

[allofbeercom]

This Trader Made 295% on Cryptocurrency Derivatives

Jay Smith has little doubt the cryptocurrency market will crash.

The price of bitcoin has increased sixfold in the past year, despite a 25 percent plunge this month triggered by Chinas crackdown on digital tokens. Not a week goes by without startups launching new ones to fund everything from dentistry to Las Vegas strip clubs. Even Paris Hilton is tweeting to her 16 million followers about her cryptocurrency investments. If that isnt a jump-the-shark-moment, what is?

Jay Smith

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Yet Smith, the No. 1 cryptocurrency trader at online brokerage eToro, shrugs all that off as he plays the markets from his home in Basingstoke, a suburban town west of London. Every day he looks for reasons to buy more bitcoin and other digital tokens — computer programs that use cryptography to create artificial units of value. He doesnt have much information to size up the prospects of Blackmoon Crypto, Steem, FirstBlood and other coins that have caught his eye, but thats cool with Smith, a high school dropout and onetime professional video-game player. His portfolio is up 295 percent in the past 12 months.

“I just put in an order for a Tesla, and I dont even know how to drive,” said the 29-year-old Briton.

Copy Trading

Smith isnt playing with just his own cash. More than 9,000 retail investors heed his advice and copy his trades on eToro, which is licensed in Cyprus and by the U.K.s Financial Conduct Authority. Its a social trading network that enables clients to track their favorite cryptocurrency traders. In an unregulated, ultravolatile market that few investors understand, eToro injects even more risk into the mix.

The firm is one of several that use contracts for difference, or CFDs, derivatives that allow investors to speculate on the price of cryptocurrencies. Plus500 Ltd. offers leverage of 30 to 1 on such bets, while XTB International Ltd, registered in Belize, touts its award as the best cryptocurrency trading provider of 2017.

Unlike futures contracts, CFDs dont trade on exchanges and are largely illiquid. Investors can suffer big losses because they have to put up only a percentage of the value of their trades on margin. While the U.S. largely prohibits retail investors from trading CFDs, regulators in Europe are only now beginning to address the peril they pose.

In June, the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Union watchdog for capital markets, said it was concerned about the suitability of CFDs and was weighing measures to restrict their use. Combining CFDs with cryptocurrencies is reckless, said Rainer Lenz, chairman of Finance Watch, a Brussels-based public-interest organization, who serves on an advisory group at ESMA.

“We have to put a stop to this,” said Lenz. “This is selling a synthetic instrument on top of another synthetic instrument. This is the highest form of speculation. You just cant do that to retail investors.”

Read more: Why contracts for difference face scrutiny – a QuickTake Q&A

The fine print in eToros risk-disclosure statement warns that “If the market moves against you, you may sustain a total loss greater than the funds invested in a specific position.” But Iqbal Gandham, head of eToros London office, said that in practice the firm uses mandatory stop-loss orders to prevent investors from losing more than their initial deposits. He denied that mixing CFDs and cryptocurrencies is harmful to retail investors.

“You cant lose more than you put in,” Gandham said. “And if you dont know what youre doing, just copy someone who does.”

School Dropout

Thats where Smith comes in. An easygoing man with the air of someone dazed by his luck, Smith dropped out of school at 14. He threw himself into eSports, a competitive form of video gaming thats huge in Asia. Soon enough Smith, who goes by the online handle Jaynemesis, was day-trading tech stocks and then bitcoin. He started buying dozens of them at $25 each (they cost $3,944 on Sept. 26).

Smith rode out the currencys first big crash in 2013, when it lost half its value in less than three weeks. By early 2017, hed built a portfolio of coins from Ethereum, Litecoin and other issuers. He also discovered eToro, co-founded in 2007 in Tel Aviv by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia.

The brokerage handled stocks, currencies and other securities. In 2010, Yoni Assia became infatuated with digital tokens and provided office space to Vitalik Buterin, the brains behind Ethereum. Four years later, Assia added bitcoin trading to eToro, which is based in Cyprus.

In February, the firm expanded into other cryptocurrencies. It also launched a marketing campaign aimed at retail investors with push notifications sent to customers mobile phones, instructional videos on YouTube and ads in the London subway proclaiming “Crypto Neednt Be Cryptic.”

Copy trading is what separates eToro from other CFD firms offering cryptocurrency trading. EToro pays Smith, whos not an employee, at least 2 percent of the money that follows him. As of Sept. 26, that meant he was earning about $230,000 annually on the $11.5 million in assets held by his 9,143 copiers. Smith, who allocates about half his portfolio to stocks and the rest to cryptocurrencies, makes more money with every investor he draws to the site.

Digital Tokens

The fusion of derivatives and cryptocurrencies was probably inevitable in a market that appears to be spinning out of control. Thanks largely to Ethereum, a three-year-old open-source software project inspired by bitcoins blockchain technology, anyone can create a digital token.

Thats spurred startups worldwide to fund their development by minting tokens and selling them to investors via initial coin offerings, or ICOs. The bet is that once an issuer prospers, the value of its company scrip will soar. At the beginning of 2013, there were only seven digital coins worth $1.6 billion. Today there are 1,228 coins with a market value of $136 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, a firm that tracks digital tokens. Bitcoin accounts for 48 percent of the total.

Read more about the bitcoin bubble

“What we are seeing is pure unlicensed capitalism,” said Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation and chairman of Globitex, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Riga, Latvia. “And you just cant keep up with the market anymore.”

Cryptocurrency Crackdown

Regulators are scrambling to catch up. On Sept. 4, China outlawed ICOs and moved to shut down exchanges as well. In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission required companies to register ICOs like IPOs. Russia and Japan are also eyeing new rules.

To many finance pros, cryptocurrencies look too ephemeral to become a real asset class. This month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon likened them to the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb mania and called bitcoin a fraud.

Yet Wall Streets embrace of blockchain is one reason bitcoins price has soared. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Banco Santander SA and JPMorgan are some of the institutions investing millions of dollars in related startups and joining industry research groups.

Shoreditch Basement

With Ethereum up more than 3,562 percent this year, the euphoria was running high at a July reception eToro hosted in Londons tech haven of Shoreditch. Investors and entrepreneurs jammed into a dimly lit basement space to drink Mexican beer and swap gossip on the hottest ICOs. One impresario handed out fliers for a new token like a promoter at a rock concert.

Smith, with a shaved head and a silver ring embedded in each earlobe, was holding court as eToros star. A Goldman Sachs analyst sought his views on recent moves in bitcoin. Smith, shouting above the din, was happy to oblige.

EToro strives to make trading cryptocurrencies as simple as possible for retail investors. Its as easy to bet on digital tokens as it is to buy merchandise on Amazon.com. You just point and click a “buy” tab to go long or “sell” to go short. The firms algorithms do the rest. While the FCA requires eToro to ascertain whether its products are appropriate for retail customers, theyll have to read the fine print on its website to learn that CFDs arent good long-term investments.

On Sept. 6, eToro announced that investors can buy bitcoin and four other cryptocurrencies directly, so they will no longer have to use CFDs to go long. But customers still have to utilize the derivatives to short the tokens or copy the trades of Smith and others.

Twitch Sessions

For most of the year, Smiths followers have been pumped when he livestreams his trading sessions on Twitch, a social media site.

“Feeling cryptocrazy,” one user wrote in the chat box on Sept. 5.

“Me cryptodrunk,” replied another.

“Just put 10K with you,” said a new follower.

Ten days later, with bitcoin and Ethereum having lost more than a third of their value, the mood of his followers had darkened. Smiths eToro portfolio had skidded more than 10 percent and hed lost a few hundred copiers. Those sticking with him wanted to know if this was the shakeout everyone, including Smith, had been fearing. Humming to himself as he tapped the keyboard, the trader paused and told them to relax.

“Hopefully you can tell from my calm attitude that Im not in the least bit phased by this,” Smith said. “It will be over in two weeks time, and then the market will start rallying again. Nothing has changed. This just means that the Chinese cant buy tokens so easily now. All thats going through my head is buy the dip.”

As Smith talked, bitcoin started surging. Over the next few hours, it skyrocketed 30 percent from its low of the day.

“Look at it go,” he gushed. “Its going insane. Lets buy some more.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/18/this-trader-made-295-on-cryptocurrency-derivatives/

[robertkstone]

2018 Nissan Leaf First Drive Review

“You know what I’d do if I were you guys?” The jet lag from the 11-hour flight to Japan had me talking in a stream of consciousness. “I’d build a NISMO version of the Leaf. Make it all crazylike, you know what I mean?” The young Nissan engineer sitting across from me stared back blankly. I tried a different angle. “The Leaf’s image needs a big shakeup. I mean, Elon Musk has had the press in the palm of his hand with his Insane- and Ludicrous-mode stuff, right? How about you do something like that!” Without a muscle twitch of expression, he replied, “Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll pass your views along to our team.” Then he gave me a polite, Japanese nod of the head.

Well, that went badly. Was it too obvious that I think the Nissan Leaf is a car in need of a pulse?

If done right, though, this redesigned 2018 version of the car has the makings of a NISMO EV heart-pounder. About 30 minutes earlier, maybe 50 of us were seated around the Leaf for its styling explainer at the Nissan Technical Center. But the whole time, I’d been staring at its profile, thinking that it reminds me of another car. Light bulb: the Faraday Future 91 I rode in a few months ago. I Googled its profile. The 91 is longer, but yes, there are some very similar ideas here.

And what’s important about that statement is this: Whether that Faraday sinks or (miraculously) swims, it’s a seriously cutting-edge design. And here I am, comparing it to the descendant of one of this century’s most notorious oddballs.

If Leaf 1 (my name for it) looked like a four-wheel amphibian, this Leaf 2 before us has not only flash-evolved into a svelte automotive shape, but it’s also learned to speak in the visual language of the rest of Nissan’s edgy designs. I must say, I’m not a fan of every word in its vocabulary—particularly Nissan’s Vmotion grilles. But for Leaf duty the rabbit-grin frames an interesting 3-Dish blue finish, which does pull you closer in to study it. And did you know that Leaf 1’s surprised-eyes headlights had an aerodynamic purpose? They did—to twirl air sideways and around the side mirrors. Now the twirling’s done by more elegant ribs on the hood, a trick Nissan’s aerodynamicists later demonstrated in a full-size wind tunnel where we watched smoke from the tip of a handheld wand magically bend sideways off the cowl. EVs are quiet, amplifying your awareness of side-mirror wind hiss; the ribs specifically hush that. There are additional noise defeaters, too, including greater rigidity of the inverter, a noise-blocking top for the integrated charger and DC-to-DC power inverter, and even a quieter motor.

I looked back at the profile. There’s a lot going on here. But I’d characterize it as complex rather than busy. Although the Bolt shares many of these same EV-identifying cues, it’s a jigsaw jumble of pieces—some of them are a bit too forced into place. The Nissan’s elements are all aware of each other. Fit together like the neat rectangles in a Piet Mondrian painting. (Ironically, the Model 3 entirely dispenses with all these noisy little EV cues, being finished with starkly pure surfacing. To equate it to another painter, I’d pick my favorite one, Mark Rothko.)

While we’re staring at the new Leaf’s profile, let’s use it to do a little automotive detective work. Imagine overlaying the current Leaf’s profile on it. See the match? The front and rear wheels exactly align—a giveaway that Leaf 2’s platform is fundamentally carryover bones not only in wheelbase but also in front track (its rear one is 0.8 inch wider), its essential suspension components, and the positioning of all the basic building blocks needed to assemble a modern EV. Consequently, its interior specs are a close match, too (it’s luggage space is more useful from ironing out small intrusions); externally, it’s 1.4 inches longer, 0.8 inch wider, and 0.4 inch taller.

But don’t dis Leaf 2 as just some sort of overblown reskin. Nissan’s techs took the time to sprawl it out on their engineering operating table for a marathon multiple-organ transplant; the motor is all-new, spinning out a chunky 147 hp instead of 107 and 236 lb-ft of torque, up from 187 lb-ft. The electric power steering is more refined. Nissan is anxious to note that although companies are ballyhooing the births of their first EVs, Yokohama was there/did that back in 2010 and now has 270,000 customers, 2.1 billion miles of user experience, and programs such as 6,000 Leaf-to-home installations in Japan, where bidirectional charging/discharging coupled with solar roofs is slashing power bills. This ain’t Nissan’s first rodeo. It’s their second. And the show could be on the brink of going big time—the cost of battery storage has dropped from $300/kW-hr in 2015 to a projected $150 by 2020/23 and below $100 by 2025/26, according to a Morgan-Stanley analysis. (Nissan’s says they’re beating this.) And by the mid-2020s, battery-electric cars will be cheaper than internal combustion ones (in part due to the ramping complexity of internal combustion engines).

So.

Nissan should have anticipated the Bolt and base Model 3’s 238- and 225-mile ranges, right? Cue the drumroll. How big is the new Leaf’s battery pack (still underfloor and cooled with recirculated air, by the way)?

Forty kW-hrs for 150 miles of range (S and SV trims). Eyes narrowed. Chins rubbed. True, that doubles the original Leaf’s 73-mile capability (from 24 kW-hrs) and is a 40 percent jump from its current 107 miles (from 30 kW-hrs).

In a world without the Chevrolet Bolt, 150 miles would be a bold type headline. Now it’s a number in a math problem: How much less is it than 238? There’s going to be a lot of data thrown at you arguing that 150 miles more than matches most people’s real-world lifestyles most of the time. Let me ask you: How many gasoline-powered, five-passenger sedans could be sold with a 150-mile range?

Maybe anticipating criticism, the Leaf will offer an even-better-chemistry 60-kW-hr pack next year (SL trim), likely extending its leash to about 225 miles (a two-tier strategy akin to the Model 3’s estimated 50 and 75 kW-hrs). Thus, the Bolt’s singular battery size will be bookended by its competitors, with the Nissan’s upgraded pack matching it and the Tesla’s smaller pack offering Bolt-competitive range due to better sedan aerodynamics. (One of the reasons, by the way, why I think Tesla controversially went with a mass-produced sedan first: A crossover’s worse aero would require a bigger, more expensive battery—something that’ll be more affordable by the time the Model Y makes its debut.) If carrying over the Leaf 1’s platform has painted Nissan into a corner, it’s these subsequently locked in battery dimensions that require expensive chemistry to keep it apace with the Bolt and base Model 3. (A plus for us is that it offers an insight into the march of ever-rising energy density; those additional 16 kW-hrs crammed in there mean 67 percent greater energy density in seven years, or 9.5 percent per year.) Another questionable call: clinging to the CHAdeMO standard for fast charging. Maybe it’s stubbornness, maybe Nissan’s got a giant investment in this thing, but CHAdeMO is a dead plug walking in the U.S., and Nissan would do the EV cause a big, fat favor by finally adopting SAE (or everybody going to Tesla’s standard).

Time to drive. During their presentations, Nissan repeatedly emphasized twin messages: One, the Leaf is about making driving less stressful, and two, it’s about making driving fun. Not knowing what stress-free, fun driving exactly means, we headed out onto the test track to find out.

The new Leaf’s most potent driving relaxers?

ProPilot Assist is sort of a Tesla Autopilot light (at a fraction of the price). Relying on just a single forward-facing radar and a monocular video camera, ProPilot Assist provides single-lane, feet-off-the-pedals driving (what’s called adaptive cruise control). Alone, this is nothing unusual. Its dexterity in responding to slinkying traffic (including right down to 0 mph) is, though. Yet what elevates it to the same conversation as AutoPilot is how accurately it also threads down the center of the road. Like with other Level 2 semiautonomous systems, you need to keep your hands on the wheel, but here, there’s no need to give it periodic tugs. The electric power steering’s frequent and small corrections automatically sense their presence. I later tried the system in Detroit, driving for several miles on an expressway with my hands relaxed on the rim. No scoldings to put my hands back ever appeared (which, if persistently ignored, would ultimately result in the car stopping in its lane). Available later this year, ProPilot Assist is ordinary sensors doing an extraordinary job due to great software. Within two years, the system is expected to be even greater (perhaps with added sensors) by expanding to automated lane changing, and by 2020 it should have the skill to negotiate city scenarios, too. Next year it will joined by ProPilot Park, which highly automates parking, including selecting an empty spot not already bordered by a parked car (reading lane stripping). Remember this system as the tipping point when semiautonomous driving finally met the masses. (It’s had a 60 percent take rate in markets where it’s already available on other Nissan models.)

The Leaf’s other driving simplification is its one-pedal EV-driving feature—what they call e-Pedal. Tesla has long offered a similar heavy-regen effect when you release the accelerator. But completing a stop requires a brake pedal dab at the bitter end. In its transmission’s Low mode, the Bolt will come to a one-pedal stop without touching the friction brakes, but the deceleration rate isn’t always enough. E-Pedal leapfrogs both with a deceleration rate of 0.2 g’s (covering 90 percent of real-driver stopping, Nissan says) and comes to a complete stop (including automatic friction braking, if necessary). If that stop is on a hill, the Leaf’s motor will just hold it motionless (after pausing, you can lift your feet from both pedals; no need to hold the brake). The new Leaf could quickly become the most popular car in San Francisco.

E-Pedal and the availability of ProPilot Assist spotlight the intention to make the Leaf the tech standard-barer for the Nissan Intelligent Mobility Initiative, Yokohama’s campaign to destress driving.

The notable destresser, though, is the car’s lowered MSRP of $29,990 ($30,875 including destination)—a $690 drop. Standard with that is a noticeable upgrade in interior materials, and when you option a nav system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, too. After incentives, this is a heck of a deal.

But what about that driving fun factor? I can answer about 65 percent of that question. Without a doubt, its extra power and torque renders the new Leaf satisfyingly quicker and more responsive. Test-track recordings are yet to come, but given the Bolt’s and Model 3’s better power (and power-to-weight ratios) it’ll probably lag in a three-EV drag race. Interior n

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[jesusvasser]

2018 Nissan Leaf First Drive Review

“You know what I’d do if I were you guys?” The jet lag from the 11-hour flight to Japan had me talking in a stream of consciousness. “I’d build a NISMO version of the Leaf. Make it all crazylike, you know what I mean?” The young Nissan engineer sitting across from me stared back blankly. I tried a different angle. “The Leaf’s image needs a big shakeup. I mean, Elon Musk has had the press in the palm of his hand with his Insane- and Ludicrous-mode stuff, right? How about you do something like that!” Without a muscle twitch of expression, he replied, “Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll pass your views along to our team.” Then he gave me a polite, Japanese nod of the head.

Well, that went badly. Was it too obvious that I think the Nissan Leaf is a car in need of a pulse?

If done right, though, this redesigned 2018 version of the car has the makings of a NISMO EV heart-pounder. About 30 minutes earlier, maybe 50 of us were seated around the Leaf for its styling explainer at the Nissan Technical Center. But the whole time, I’d been staring at its profile, thinking that it reminds me of another car. Light bulb: the Faraday Future 91 I rode in a few months ago. I Googled its profile. The 91 is longer, but yes, there are some very similar ideas here.

And what’s important about that statement is this: Whether that Faraday sinks or (miraculously) swims, it’s a seriously cutting-edge design. And here I am, comparing it to the descendant of one of this century’s most notorious oddballs.

If Leaf 1 (my name for it) looked like a four-wheel amphibian, this Leaf 2 before us has not only flash-evolved into a svelte automotive shape, but it’s also learned to speak in the visual language of the rest of Nissan’s edgy designs. I must say, I’m not a fan of every word in its vocabulary—particularly Nissan’s Vmotion grilles. But for Leaf duty the rabbit-grin frames an interesting 3-Dish blue finish, which does pull you closer in to study it. And did you know that Leaf 1’s surprised-eyes headlights had an aerodynamic purpose? They did—to twirl air sideways and around the side mirrors. Now the twirling’s done by more elegant ribs on the hood, a trick Nissan’s aerodynamicists later demonstrated in a full-size wind tunnel where we watched smoke from the tip of a handheld wand magically bend sideways off the cowl. EVs are quiet, amplifying your awareness of side-mirror wind hiss; the ribs specifically hush that. There are additional noise defeaters, too, including greater rigidity of the inverter, a noise-blocking top for the integrated charger and DC-to-DC power inverter, and even a quieter motor.

I looked back at the profile. There’s a lot going on here. But I’d characterize it as complex rather than busy. Although the Bolt shares many of these same EV-identifying cues, it’s a jigsaw jumble of pieces—some of them are a bit too forced into place. The Nissan’s elements are all aware of each other. Fit together like the neat rectangles in a Piet Mondrian painting. (Ironically, the Model 3 entirely dispenses with all these noisy little EV cues, being finished with starkly pure surfacing. To equate it to another painter, I’d pick my favorite one, Mark Rothko.)

While we’re staring at the new Leaf’s profile, let’s use it to do a little automotive detective work. Imagine overlaying the current Leaf’s profile on it. See the match? The front and rear wheels exactly align—a giveaway that Leaf 2’s platform is fundamentally carryover bones not only in wheelbase but also in front track (its rear one is 0.8 inch wider), its essential suspension components, and the positioning of all the basic building blocks needed to assemble a modern EV. Consequently, its interior specs are a close match, too (it’s luggage space is more useful from ironing out small intrusions); externally, it’s 1.4 inches longer, 0.8 inch wider, and 0.4 inch taller.

But don’t dis Leaf 2 as just some sort of overblown reskin. Nissan’s techs took the time to sprawl it out on their engineering operating table for a marathon multiple-organ transplant; the motor is all-new, spinning out a chunky 147 hp instead of 107 and 236 lb-ft of torque, up from 187 lb-ft. The electric power steering is more refined. Nissan is anxious to note that although companies are ballyhooing the births of their first EVs, Yokohama was there/did that back in 2010 and now has 270,000 customers, 2.1 billion miles of user experience, and programs such as 6,000 Leaf-to-home installations in Japan, where bidirectional charging/discharging coupled with solar roofs is slashing power bills. This ain’t Nissan’s first rodeo. It’s their second. And the show could be on the brink of going big time—the cost of battery storage has dropped from $300/kW-hr in 2015 to a projected $150 by 2020/23 and below $100 by 2025/26, according to a Morgan-Stanley analysis. (Nissan’s says they’re beating this.) And by the mid-2020s, battery-electric cars will be cheaper than internal combustion ones (in part due to the ramping complexity of internal combustion engines).

So.

Nissan should have anticipated the Bolt and base Model 3’s 238- and 225-mile ranges, right? Cue the drumroll. How big is the new Leaf’s battery pack (still underfloor and cooled with recirculated air, by the way)?

Forty kW-hrs for 150 miles of range (S and SV trims). Eyes narrowed. Chins rubbed. True, that doubles the original Leaf’s 73-mile capability (from 24 kW-hrs) and is a 40 percent jump from its current 107 miles (from 30 kW-hrs).

In a world without the Chevrolet Bolt, 150 miles would be a bold type headline. Now it’s a number in a math problem: How much less is it than 238? There’s going to be a lot of data thrown at you arguing that 150 miles more than matches most people’s real-world lifestyles most of the time. Let me ask you: How many gasoline-powered, five-passenger sedans could be sold with a 150-mile range?

Maybe anticipating criticism, the Leaf will offer an even-better-chemistry 60-kW-hr pack next year (SL trim), likely extending its leash to about 225 miles (a two-tier strategy akin to the Model 3’s estimated 50 and 75 kW-hrs). Thus, the Bolt’s singular battery size will be bookended by its competitors, with the Nissan’s upgraded pack matching it and the Tesla’s smaller pack offering Bolt-competitive range due to better sedan aerodynamics. (One of the reasons, by the way, why I think Tesla controversially went with a mass-produced sedan first: A crossover’s worse aero would require a bigger, more expensive battery—something that’ll be more affordable by the time the Model Y makes its debut.) If carrying over the Leaf 1’s platform has painted Nissan into a corner, it’s these subsequently locked in battery dimensions that require expensive chemistry to keep it apace with the Bolt and base Model 3. (A plus for us is that it offers an insight into the march of ever-rising energy density; those additional 16 kW-hrs crammed in there mean 67 percent greater energy density in seven years, or 9.5 percent per year.) Another questionable call: clinging to the CHAdeMO standard for fast charging. Maybe it’s stubbornness, maybe Nissan’s got a giant investment in this thing, but CHAdeMO is a dead plug walking in the U.S., and Nissan would do the EV cause a big, fat favor by finally adopting SAE (or everybody going to Tesla’s standard).

Time to drive. During their presentations, Nissan repeatedly emphasized twin messages: One, the Leaf is about making driving less stressful, and two, it’s about making driving fun. Not knowing what stress-free, fun driving exactly means, we headed out onto the test track to find out.

The new Leaf’s most potent driving relaxers?

ProPilot Assist is sort of a Tesla Autopilot light (at a fraction of the price). Relying on just a single forward-facing radar and a monocular video camera, ProPilot Assist provides single-lane, feet-off-the-pedals driving (what’s called adaptive cruise control). Alone, this is nothing unusual. Its dexterity in responding to slinkying traffic (including right down to 0 mph) is, though. Yet what elevates it to the same conversation as AutoPilot is how accurately it also threads down the center of the road. Like with other Level 2 semiautonomous systems, you need to keep your hands on the wheel, but here, there’s no need to give it periodic tugs. The electric power steering’s frequent and small corrections automatically sense their presence. I later tried the system in Detroit, driving for several miles on an expressway with my hands relaxed on the rim. No scoldings to put my hands back ever appeared (which, if persistently ignored, would ultimately result in the car stopping in its lane). Available later this year, ProPilot Assist is ordinary sensors doing an extraordinary job due to great software. Within two years, the system is expected to be even greater (perhaps with added sensors) by expanding to automated lane changing, and by 2020 it should have the skill to negotiate city scenarios, too. Next year it will joined by ProPilot Park, which highly automates parking, including selecting an empty spot not already bordered by a parked car (reading lane stripping). Remember this system as the tipping point when semiautonomous driving finally met the masses. (It’s had a 60 percent take rate in markets where it’s already available on other Nissan models.)

The Leaf’s other driving simplification is its one-pedal EV-driving feature—what they call e-Pedal. Tesla has long offered a similar heavy-regen effect when you release the accelerator. But completing a stop requires a brake pedal dab at the bitter end. In its transmission’s Low mode, the Bolt will come to a one-pedal stop without touching the friction brakes, but the deceleration rate isn’t always enough. E-Pedal leapfrogs both with a deceleration rate of 0.2 g’s (covering 90 percent of real-driver stopping, Nissan says) and comes to a complete stop (including automatic friction braking, if necessary). If that stop is on a hill, the Leaf’s motor will just hold it motionless (after pausing, you can lift your feet from both pedals; no need to hold the brake). The new Leaf could quickly become the most popular car in San Francisco.

E-Pedal and the availability of ProPilot Assist spotlight the intention to make the Leaf the tech standard-barer for the Nissan Intelligent Mobility Initiative, Yokohama’s campaign to destress driving.

The notable destresser, though, is the car’s lowered MSRP of $29,990 ($30,875 including destination)—a $690 drop. Standard with that is a noticeable upgrade in interior materials, and when you option a nav system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, too. After incentives, this is a heck of a deal.

But what about that driving fun factor? I can answer about 65 percent of that question. Without a doubt, its extra power and torque renders the new Leaf satisfyingly quicker and more responsive. Test-track recordings are yet to come, but given the Bolt’s and Model 3’s better power (and power-to-weight ratios) it’ll probably lag in a three-EV drag race. Interior n

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[ramialkarmi]

Today's hottest tech companies were founded by men born between 1981 and 1984 — here's why

Men born between 1981 and 1984 are highly overrepresented at the top of the tech world.

There are a number of factors to explain the pattern, beginning with the introduction of the PC in the mid-1980s.

Sexism in the tech world has made it harder for women to advance and young girls to be inspired.

Creating a billion-dollar company isn't the only thing the founders of Reddit, Quora, Dropbox, Venmo, Airbnb, Instagram, Palantir, Pinterest, Lyft, Wish, Sofi, and Facebook have in common.

The 17 people who make up that list also happen to be men who were born within three years of each other, between 1981 and 1984.

The question of why, exactly, seven of the top 10 billion-dollar-plus unicorns, along with a handful of publicly traded titans, were all launched by guys who could have been in the same high school class doesn't come with just one answer. But there are clear events throughout history that offer clues.

Going back to the 1970s

The arc of the early-30s techie actually began in the 1970s, with the prior generation of computer programmers, according to technology consultant Tim Bajarin. "The Bill Gateses of the world were actually the precursor to this," Bajarin told Business Insider.

People like Gates and Steve Jobs began working in the 1970s, alongside lesser-known luminaries like Mitch Kapor of Lotus and Fred Gibbons of Software Publishing. They mostly worked on mainframes and mini-computers, and they spent thousands of hours doing so. When the first personal computer debuted in 1975, these small-time programmers were poised to strike it rich.

As Malcolm Gladwell noted of this tech generation in his book 2008 "Outliers," they came of age in a special time. If they were slightly older, they would have left college to work for a large corporation, like IBM, and their career would have been set in stone. On the other hand, if they were born after the window, the wave would have already passed them by.

What's important about the latest generation is that they were born right when the PC was becoming available to the masses, in the early 1980s, which meant that many grew up with one in their home.

"That was huge," Bajarin said. "They already knew how a PC works, and in a lot of their cases they had PCs in their homes because their parents had PCs in their homes; whereas the generation before them, the production of digital technology was more of a product in the toy category."

The gender gap persists

However, the PC wasn't marketed to everyone across the board. In 2014, NPR used data from the National Science Foundation, American Bar Association, and American Association of Medical Colleges to show that computing companies stopped marketing their machines to girls around 1984.

It's had dramatic effects on female representation in computer science fields to this day. Women earn 57% of all undergraduate degrees but only 18% of all computer and information science degrees.

Underrepresentation is only the start, though. Sexism and sexual harassment scandals have plagued the industry for decades. Women also have a much harder time earning venture capital money. One study found that even if there was just one woman on a company's executive team, the company tended to receive less funding.

A recent manifesto written by a now ex-Google staffer that criticized the company's emphasis on diversity is only the latest example of how women can be dissuaded from staying in the tech world.

The factors come together

It wasn't all boys who used the first PCs — rather, those from predominantly affluent areas. In 1981, the average PC cost $1,565, or about $4,100 in 2016 dollars. And if you wanted to buy the first Macintosh when it came out in 1984, you had to fork over $2,495, or nearly $5,700 today.

Sam Altman, the 32-year-old president of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's largest startup accelerator, said growing up in St. Louis he had a Mac LC II at home, but most of his hacking took place on his elementary school's Mac IIGS. He would spend hours writing simple programs — a luxury kids living in poorer areas, with poorer schools, wouldn't necessarily have.

The mobile explosion was starting to take off. And the opportunity was very large.

"You could write a program to print all the prime numbers, and come back to school the next morning and the computer's run all night, and it's gotten to like to prime number a million-something," he told Business Insider. "And you think it's so cool."

When the dot-com bubble formed in the late 1990s, the kids writing these simple programs were now in their late teens. And since the internet's transformation was on display for all to see, through news media and the internet itself, these teens had a front-row seat, says Paul Saffo, a Stanford consulting professor and technology forecaster. This visibility, Saffo claims, is ultimately what separated the new tech generation from the old.

"During the dot-com bubble, when so many people are starting companies, you say to yourself, 'Well, that's not an aberration,'" which is how many viewed Gates' and Jobs' rise to prominence, he told Business Insider. Instead people said, "That's a career track."

That mixture — years of preparation as a kid combined with a budding tech landscape on the verge of tectonic change — ended up sending a slew of young tech geeks into a field that would write history books.

"The mobile explosion was starting to take off," Tim Bajarin said. "And the opportunity was very large."

Finding the next big thing

Not all of today's most prominent tech founders are in their 30s. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is 46. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is 53. Likewise, a number of younger founders born after that early 1980s wave are rising to the top. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, the cofounders of Snap, are 27 and 29, respectively.

Nor did every founder between 33 and 36 launch their company at the same time. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in his college dorm in 2004, for example, while John Zimmer didn't cofound Lyft until 2012.

More important are the experiences they had growing up, and the relationships they formed to technology at the time. Altman says he grew to have such a fascination with computer programming specifically because he could write simple code that would print out strings of prime numbers. It didn't matter he wasn't creating super-smart apps — the seeds of inspiration were getting planted at the right time, with tech that was sufficiently hackable.

"If you give a kid an iPad today, they'll have a great time," Altman said. "But if you want to go make an app for an iPad it's a lot of work. A 7-year-old is not going to figure that out for him- or herself."

According to Saffo, the same wave Gates and Jobs rode and which resurfaced for Zuckerberg and many others is poised to happen a third time in the field of genomics. He said technologies like CRISPR, a gene editing tool, are ripe for innovation in the coming decade.

Altman, however, said to look at whatever the smartest kids in the best universities are talking about, and ignore the hype. "Because everybody says that," he said, "I expect that it's wrong."

SEE ALSO: 32-year-old investor with ties to Elon Musk wants to upend America with a crazy utopian plan for the future

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Silicon Valley’s ultimate status symbol is the sneaker — here are the rare, expensive, and goofy sneakers worn by the top tech CEOs

[viralhottopics]

Apple is innovating, just not in the way you think

We know why Tim Cook is smiling.

Image: mashable

A good quarter for a company can make critics forget what they were talking about.

In the days leading up to Apples first quarter 2017 earnings report, which encompasses last years holiday buying season, many pundits were engaged in hand-wringing over Apples fortunes and futures. Questions included:

How big a decline would we see in iPhone sales?

Was the MacBook Pro and its lack of traditional ports a complete disaster?

Could Apple ever innovate again?

No one predicted the blockbuster quarter Apple ended up with, which included a record-breaking $78.4B in revenue. The champion product was none other than the once-flagging iPhone, specifically the bigger, pricier iPhone 7 Plus. Wed heard about supply shortages when Apple introduced the phone last fall, but most assumed this was due to orchestrated scarcity to inflate interest and keep demand high. In reality, demand was very high all on its own.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 8 concept combines camera with Apple logo

During the earnings call on Tuesday night, Apple boasted double-digit growth for iPhone sales in virtually every market. The company sold an astounding 78 million iPhones last quarter. And Apple CEO Tim Cook noted the amazing success of the iPhone 7 Plus.

In other words, Apple rode to this unprecedented success at least in part on the back of a smartphone that looks a lot like last years model (and 2015’s) and where the innovation is mostly found under the hood (as is often the case now). One has to assume that water resistance and the double cameras that enable one-button optical zoom (and that awesome Portrait Mode) were more of a turn-on than many thought.

Apple continues to win not by out-innovating competitors, but by grinding away at its corral of excellent products, polishing them with smart, new features that enhance but never confuse. Its a rational, risk-averse approach to success. Apple might remove a port, but it wont introduce a curved phone. It knows what its customers like and what they can withstand. The insanely good iPhone 7 Plus sales prove that Apple accurately predicted the negative impact of removing the 3.5mm jack (with there essentially being no impact at all).

A little help from a rival

The company has surely benefited from Samsungs astounding Note7 flameout, but thankfully not by using that companys hardships to drive people to Apples alternatives. Tim Cook never mentioned what happened to Samsung, perhaps smartly recognizing that the high road would allow Note7 refugees to come willingly to Apples shores.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus success acted as a kind of “Johnny Appleseed” for other parts of Apples business.

Even if the iPhone business wasnt growing, Apple is crazy rich.

IPhone sales are a big driver for the services business, noted Apple CFO Luca Maestri during the earnings call. That’s not a surprising statement: iPhones needs apps, music and content. The App Store, Apple Music and iTunes deliver that.

Eighteen percent year-over year growth in the service business this quarter is proof of that impact and, with Apple saying that the number of people transacting in the App Store is doubling, a sign that Cook may get his predicted doubling of Apple’s service business within four years, especially if it does go deeper into original content and adds a TV subscription service to the mix.

If there is pent-up demand for the iPhone 8, one can only imagine what will happen to the company’s services business if that phone ships next fall.

Even if the iPhone business wasnt growing, Apple is crazy rich.

The companys heap of cash is also an indication that Apple will continue to buy innovation where it cant find it internally. Naturally, $246 billion can buy a lot of relatively small companies (Twitter?) and maybe some big ones (Tesla, anyone?). (I’m basing this on cost to acquire, not the actual size of the companies.)

Mac in black

Another indication of just how well things are going for Apple is the Mac business. Its unit sales grew by a tiny 1% year-over-year, which might be seen as condemnation of Apples MacBook Pro port strategy. However, Mac revenue increased more robustly quarter-over-quarter, resulting in a 26% Mac revenue bump. Cook indicated on Tuesday that there were some supply constraints with the MacBook Pro with touch bar. If that didnt exist, perhaps the Mac picture wouldve been even sunnier.

Apple’s MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Even in the wearable markets, Apple appears to be winning. Though the company refuses to break out sales numbers, Cook said the Apple Watch is the best-selling smartwatch in the world and added that the company couldnt make enough of them to meet demand. The Apple Watch sales figures are grouped into Other Products, which fell 8 percent year-over-year. However, there was a massive spike, 70 percent quarter-over-quarter, which could be attributed to the smartwatch. Also blended into that number are the new AirPods, but they arrived late in the quarter and may have had little impact.

Even the iPad, which has been free-falling for years, saw a bit of a turnaround in the last quarter. With the allure of large-screen iPhones like the iPhone 7 Plus, I dont think iPads will fully come back, but Apple is working hard with the iPad Pro line to reposition the tablet as an office and even enterprise tool. It may succeed and, as ever, Tim Cook promised exciting things on the horizon for the iPad.

Is Apple as innovative as it once was? Thats probably a question of perception. After all, its best innovations the iPod, iPad and even arguably the Mac (it was the first consumer computer with a graphical user interface) were all smart re-imaginings of other peoples failed, stalled or still-in-the lab product ideas.

Apple will introduce new features and products and maybe even product categories in 2017. But it may be time to accept that Apples greatest innovation is figuring out how to build, maintain and grow a wildly successful consumer electronics business. Its not as sexy as boundless product innovation, but it works.

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from Apple is innovating, just not in the way you think