Recent submissions

Comment · 11 days ago
I think the overwhelm is kind of the point. If you want a well-balanced video game, where everything is optimized to help you learn the ropes and to get you into a flow state, the classic versions of SimCity provide exactly that. But this game's implementation of a full-fledged city builder is quickly drowned out by the fact that it's shoving resident petitions and requests for variances in your face every 20 seconds. It's an attempt to put the player into the shoes of an actual city planner, mayor, or city councilor that is drowning in interruptions and paperwork.
Comment · 13 days ago
Public space is precious, but I’d just like to make it clear for the casual HN reader that suggesting “Singapore-style” punishment for antisocial behavior implies a pro-caning stance. Caning is a violent, abhorrent, and cruel practice that violates the fundamental human rights of the convicted person. It leaves the victim of state violence with permanent scars and long-lasting trauma. Time and again it has been shown that capital punishment is not any more effective at preventing recidivism than rehabilitation or compulsory community service.

If you want positive, lasting change, you have to start at the start, modeling positive social and emotional programs in public schools and community programs. Our society is only as healthy as the core beliefs that are willingly held and practiced by its population. Raw state power through fear and intimidation does not change people’s minds as much as widespread belief about what is inherently right and wrong.

Comment · 15 days ago
I’d categorize it as ballistic flight. While it was able to control its pitch, yaw, and roll in midair, it did not have sufficient upward propulsive thrust to balance out or exceed the force of gravity while airborne. So it wasn’t the propulsive kind of flight, where altitude can be readily adjusted in the sense that we would expect from an “flying car”.

And let’s keep in mind this is 100% vaporware; the cars sold to actual buyers may differ significantly in their design and capabilities from what was demonstrated here. It is possible that the COPVs in the car on display took up the entire passenger compartment.

Comment · 15 days ago
I see nothing strange about questioning the reality presented in a highly controlled on stage demonstration of a literal rocket car.
Comment · 25 days ago
Assuming financial liability is an option, but because the risk profile of having an agent making purchases for a cardholder will never be zero, the companies making these guarantees will simply price the risk in to the cost of service. It’s the same basic mechanic at work with credit card reward points, the brands are all fighting each other for a share of customer debt so they slowly increase the rewards rates to one-up each other, and make up the cost on the back end by increasing merchant fees. It’s a dumb, unnecessary price war that ultimately increases the cost to the consumer and drives up the profits of the businesses providing risk/cost-burdened services.
Comment · 2 months ago
Comment · 3 months ago
I don’t see how this is complicated, it’s simply a technique. The creator of the video has no stated agenda, and it’s on the viewer to decide whether or not they want to learn and apply this method. Lots of people find joy in solving the little things in life that would otherwise cause them frustration. One of the top comments on the video is a nurse saying they’d been tying their scrubs with bunny ears for 30 years and always had to keep adjusting them. Certainly it isn’t overly complicated for them.
Comment · 6 months ago
Possibly AI, possibly younger folks (18-24). “Mental health incident” is only one step removed from algospeak like “unalived”, “seggs”, and “neurospicy”. A detached, memetic phrase that has been implanted into the lexicon by a toxic brew of algorithmic social media moderation and heavy exposure to LLM conversational patterns.
Comment · 6 months ago
> versus going into producing TV shows and movies because Hollywood people are fun to hang out with

I disagree with this take quite a bit. Yes, software could be better, but Apple TV+ has given dozens of shows the budget and freedom to produce some truly generation-defining art. Ted Lasso, Severance, and For All Mankind are huge stand-outs in their scope, depth, and ambition. For instance, the latter is produced by Sony, yet you see nearly zero product placement, which has been a hallmark of the studio for over a decade now. Putting gobs of money into storytelling yields purer, and therefore more compelling, narratives that will hold up well over time and represent the best of what we are capable of. At the same time, Apple TV+ as a subscription service is also a very convenient way for Apple to weather any ups and downs in the physical product categories.

Comment · 7 months ago
I don’t understand your point. You’re saying that online predictive markets are bad, but perverse incentives are bad in general, so there must be worse things out there. While that may be true, the scale and reach of these betting sites is massive, on the scale of hundreds of thousands of daily users with tens of millions of dollars on the line daily. The fact that a small number of people cheer for bad things to happen is no excuse for a betting apparatus that has captured a significant chunk of the global population.
Comment · 9 months ago
Satellites. Are. Fragile. People really don’t seem to intuitively understand this. Earth based assets are orders of magnitude more difficult to attack simply by virtue of being able to be placed inside of fortified structures anchored to, or inside of, the ground. The cost to deploy hardened buildings at scale is peanuts compared to orbiting constellations.
Comment · 9 months ago
Has it occurred to anyone that you can put computers underground? In this apocalyptic scenario you are describing, how do you expect the ground based command and control infrastructure to survive? Satellites are 100% reliant on ground based operations. That is a hard requirement. And if you put the command and control underground, might as well just skip the whole space based plan and just put the data underground.
Comment · 1 year ago
This rule only applies to a single adult + child pair, and not the entire traveling party. For instance, if you have a party of 1 child and 2 adults, the airline is well within its rights to charge seat selection fees to the second adult. It’s incredibly frustrating that I have to pay an extra $40-$50, per journey, to United to sit next to my wife and child. And that’s with the current “consumer friendly” rules in place.
Comment · 1 year ago
I feel like our planet’s long-term academic health would dramatically improve if something resembling the following statement was posted on the wall of every K-12 and college classroom:

ChatGPT is not a primary source. Wikipedia is not a primary source. Google Search is not a primary source. Microsoft Encarta is not a primary source. The Encyclopedia Brittanica is not a primary source.

Information aggregators are not primary sources. Identifiable people are primary sources.

Comment · 1 year ago
Creepy is subjective of course, but it’s pretty high on the list for the most isolated and/or inconveniently-located platform in the country. The only access is via a narrow footbridge leading to a 486-step staircase that goes 70m underground (230ft). Unlike most other 50+ meter deep train stations, there are no elevators and no escalators. The only way in or out of the station is via those stairs, which makes platform-to-street time a non-trivial part of the overall journey.

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