4 ms·

I really dislike these type of stories. Basically saying "Investor buys lotto ticket; outperforms DJIA by 5 billion percent." Or a more realistic example, the

by parfe 13y ago

I really dislike these type of stories. Basically saying "Investor buys lotto ticket; outperforms DJIA by 5 billion percent." Or a more realistic example, the stories that flow when gas prices spike. Like the person with the diesel engine running off waste grease from restaurants. It's nice this person found a profitable niche but the concept itself doesn't lend itself to even linear growth.

Mikeb85 13y ago
Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.
- pyre 13y ago
  > Running a diesel engine off waste oil is > a great idea Once enough people are doing it, it will be classified as a fuel and politicians will be tripping over themselves to regulate and tax it. Also, at some point there won't be enough waste grease to fuel the market, and the prices of unused vegetable oil will go up possibly limiting its use for food.
  - vecinu 13y ago
    To add to this, has anyone actually tested the diesel engine to make sure it meet all emission standards? How safe are the fumes to be burned around cities? Remember when we found out lead in gas was unsafe to be inhaled from exhaust pipes?
    - dubfan 13y ago
      From Wikipedia: "Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have successfully completed the Health Effects Testing requirements (Tier I and Tier II) of the Clean Air Act (1990)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_biodiesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_biodie... Either way the tetraethyl lead situation was completely different. It was very clear early on that the stuff was extremely toxic. Lead was already known to be toxic, and workers at the refineries were dying left and right due to exposure.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        Slow down there. Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is thus distinct from the vegetable and waste oils...
    - parfe 13y ago
      Unfun fact, the person who invented tetraethyl lead gasoline additive also invented chlorofluorocarbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        Why is it unfun? Is he evil for inventing things that later turned out to be harmful?
        brazzy 13y ago
        I believe the grandparent was merely stating a piece of possibly interesting but not particularly useful knowledge that might normally be labelled a "fun fact", but didn't want to use the word "fun" when mentioning inventions that caused thousands of deaths.
        aaimnr 13y ago
        Apparently he indeed was evil: "On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever. Midgley himself was careful to avoid mentioning to the press that he required nearly a year to recover from the lead poisoning brought on by his demonstration at the press conference."
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      I have no idea - but my anecdata point relates to a school friend who converted a van. It smelt like a fish and chip shop from a fair distance. It ran great until the home-brew water injection failed. It was parked on a slope and the water filled the cylinders. Turning it on was a rather violent attempt at compressing water.
  - bandy 13y ago
    Not to mention the simple fact that it's hardly a waste product in most places as-is.
  - samatman 13y ago
    I've seen about six people go through this journey. Burning waste veggie oil, or even biodiesel, is considerably more annoying and labor intensive than merely filling a car. Unless this changes, it's unlikely to scale in the way you indicate. The real threat is actually blends that use a small amount of biodiesel mixed with rock diesel. These can be burned in any engine, and there is so little food oil (animal and vegetable) compared to the demand for liquid fuel, that this practice can easily lead to the kind of effects you describe.
  - scotty79 13y ago
    In Poland it's already taxed. If you burn oil in your engine that was not intended for that purpose (and not taxed for that purpose) you should go to your tax office and pay the missing tax. Of course this is met with silent "piss off" from all the people who are doing it.
- ufmace 13y ago
  Running a diesel engine off of waste oil works great, as long as there's enough waste oil. They usually seem to be talking about restaurant frying oil. A medium-size city generates enough waste frying oil for, what, a couple of dozen people to fuel their vehicles? Maybe a few hundred? That's nice for them, but what will the other 99% of the city use? Try to scale it up to fuel their vehicles too, and it'll rapidly get much more expensive and much worse for the environment than ordinary gasoline and diesel.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. I'm not really a fan of running diesel cars off waste oil. To be clear, when I say "not really a fan" I mean I hate with a passion. In my experience, driving behind a vehicle running on waste oil is an absolutely foul experience. It doesn't just smell like fetid garbage, it tastes like it too.
lnanek2 13y ago
Considering it is a gaming industry site I think the idea was mainly to bring up how low paid many game programmers are and how poor their lives are due to the long hours. I know at China related events particularly it has also been mentioned you can get pretty much free office space in the right areas thanks to the government incentives as well. So if anything, the publicity on the low pay and long hours for game programmers might encourage investors/companies to start their own out sourcing branch over there/etc..
dmlorenzetti 13y ago
Also annoying: the focus on money. The article basically says he wrecked his body working punishing hours, so he quit, found a girlfriend, started collaborating with her on a mutual goal, and plans to get married. Headline says "he doubled his salary!" If he doesn't care whether he's on the path to linear growth, why should we?
- rhizome 13y ago
  Nerd moves in with girlfriend, doubles household income!
  - makeset 13y ago
    "Nerd has girlfriend!"
    - MoreConsiderate 13y ago
      "Just because you hide in her closet does not make her your girlfriend"
kamakazizuru 13y ago
this is another classic example of the HN echo chamber - "wait there are non white collar professions outside of programming - where people can make a lot of money too?!? :O".. there are "n" ways to make more money than a programmer in most parts of the world outside the valley (heck even in the valley) - and not just as a banker / consultant etc..

by parfe 13y ago

Mikeb85 13y ago

Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.

pyre 13y ago
> Running a diesel engine off waste oil is > a great idea Once enough people are doing it, it will be classified as a fuel and politicians will be tripping over themselves to regulate and tax it. Also, at some point there won't be enough waste grease to fuel the market, and the prices of unused vegetable oil will go up possibly limiting its use for food.
- vecinu 13y ago
  To add to this, has anyone actually tested the diesel engine to make sure it meet all emission standards? How safe are the fumes to be burned around cities? Remember when we found out lead in gas was unsafe to be inhaled from exhaust pipes?
  - dubfan 13y ago
    From Wikipedia: "Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have successfully completed the Health Effects Testing requirements (Tier I and Tier II) of the Clean Air Act (1990)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_biodiesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_biodie... Either way the tetraethyl lead situation was completely different. It was very clear early on that the stuff was extremely toxic. Lead was already known to be toxic, and workers at the refineries were dying left and right due to exposure.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Slow down there. Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is thus distinct from the vegetable and waste oils...
  - parfe 13y ago
    Unfun fact, the person who invented tetraethyl lead gasoline additive also invented chlorofluorocarbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Why is it unfun? Is he evil for inventing things that later turned out to be harmful?
      - brazzy 13y ago
        I believe the grandparent was merely stating a piece of possibly interesting but not particularly useful knowledge that might normally be labelled a "fun fact", but didn't want to use the word "fun" when mentioning inventions that caused thousands of deaths.
      - aaimnr 13y ago
        Apparently he indeed was evil: "On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever. Midgley himself was careful to avoid mentioning to the press that he required nearly a year to recover from the lead poisoning brought on by his demonstration at the press conference."
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    I have no idea - but my anecdata point relates to a school friend who converted a van. It smelt like a fish and chip shop from a fair distance. It ran great until the home-brew water injection failed. It was parked on a slope and the water filled the cylinders. Turning it on was a rather violent attempt at compressing water.
- bandy 13y ago
  Not to mention the simple fact that it's hardly a waste product in most places as-is.
- samatman 13y ago
  I've seen about six people go through this journey. Burning waste veggie oil, or even biodiesel, is considerably more annoying and labor intensive than merely filling a car. Unless this changes, it's unlikely to scale in the way you indicate. The real threat is actually blends that use a small amount of biodiesel mixed with rock diesel. These can be burned in any engine, and there is so little food oil (animal and vegetable) compared to the demand for liquid fuel, that this practice can easily lead to the kind of effects you describe.
- scotty79 13y ago
  In Poland it's already taxed. If you burn oil in your engine that was not intended for that purpose (and not taxed for that purpose) you should go to your tax office and pay the missing tax. Of course this is met with silent "piss off" from all the people who are doing it.
ufmace 13y ago
Running a diesel engine off of waste oil works great, as long as there's enough waste oil. They usually seem to be talking about restaurant frying oil. A medium-size city generates enough waste frying oil for, what, a couple of dozen people to fuel their vehicles? Maybe a few hundred? That's nice for them, but what will the other 99% of the city use? Try to scale it up to fuel their vehicles too, and it'll rapidly get much more expensive and much worse for the environment than ordinary gasoline and diesel.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. I'm not really a fan of running diesel cars off waste oil. To be clear, when I say "not really a fan" I mean I hate with a passion. In my experience, driving behind a vehicle running on waste oil is an absolutely foul experience. It doesn't just smell like fetid garbage, it tastes like it too.

lnanek2 13y ago

Considering it is a gaming industry site I think the idea was mainly to bring up how low paid many game programmers are and how poor their lives are due to the long hours. I know at China related events particularly it has also been mentioned you can get pretty much free office space in the right areas thanks to the government incentives as well. So if anything, the publicity on the low pay and long hours for game programmers might encourage investors/companies to start their own out sourcing branch over there/etc..

dmlorenzetti 13y ago

Also annoying: the focus on money. The article basically says he wrecked his body working punishing hours, so he quit, found a girlfriend, started collaborating with her on a mutual goal, and plans to get married. Headline says "he doubled his salary!" If he doesn't care whether he's on the path to linear growth, why should we?

rhizome 13y ago
Nerd moves in with girlfriend, doubles household income!
- makeset 13y ago
  "Nerd has girlfriend!"
  - MoreConsiderate 13y ago
    "Just because you hide in her closet does not make her your girlfriend"

kamakazizuru 13y ago

this is another classic example of the HN echo chamber - "wait there are non white collar professions outside of programming - where people can make a lot of money too?!? :O".. there are "n" ways to make more money than a programmer in most parts of the world outside the valley (heck even in the valley) - and not just as a banker / consultant etc..