Hacker News Reader

B1FF_PSUVMon Tesla Roadster

Some smart cookies put up a scam video topping Google searches for the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lmBq00utE

AI Elon pressure selling "act decisively, double your money" by transferring crypto to some wallet and getting 2x back - yeah, right

(PS Google shut it down)

B1FF_PSUVMon New gTLD Application for .lan

Thanks, appreciated. Forgot that wiki is good at this (and TV series ;-)

B1FF_PSUVMon New gTLD Application for .lan

> use search domain

I don't know what this means, and searching is thorny. Help?

B1FF_PSUVMon Yes, and

I'm struggling for a clever analogy with manual screwdrivers and electric drills ...

(I know, I'll ask ... oh well ...)

B1FF_PSUVMon Inception-style curved map for turn-by-turn directions

Does it come with barf bags, or at least a discount coupon?

B1FF_PSUVMon A Man Who Saw Humanity from Two Billion Years Away

Progress (as in The Pilgrim's Progress) used to mean just moving along in some travel, no positive or negative connotation to it.

It was only after the XVI century (when they still debated if the ancients or moderns were greater) that it acquired its present quasi-religious meaning, because on a short-term scale "historical progress" meant improvements in living conditions.

B1FF_PSUVMon Science fiction is a serious matter

Not a great piece, but the comments and the perspective are interesting (and first-hand, instead of retold)

B1FF_PSUVMon How credit card rewards became a $9.2B wealth transfer

It's a bullshit guilt-trip piece, already paraded here last month. Might as well be talking about supermarket coupons.

Just the 150 billion from "interchange" (merchant fees) would be enough reason to fund the 15 billion (estimated) rewards.

B1FF_PSUVMon Where did all the public bathrooms go?

Cafes/restaurants are required by law to provide toilets to customers, afaik

B1FF_PSUVMon Where did all the public bathrooms go?

> boot marks

"So, Inspector Lestrade, ..."

B1FF_PSUVMon Show HN: A puzzle I couldn't solve for a year – cubers cracked it in an hour

Darn, got to https://skimmiq.com/about/ (the making of) it's a good story too.

B1FF_PSUVMon Show HN: A puzzle I couldn't solve for a year – cubers cracked it in an hour

Hit the r/Cubers page, thing is humbling ...

B1FF_PSUVMon Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded

"Two bald men fighting for a comb", both in demographic collapse and set afire for the usual reasons.

B1FF_PSUVMon [dead]

"He who pays the piper calls the tune." A known known.

B1FF_PSUVMon John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

> stewards of the planet

The 99.99% of the planet that isn't the surface bio film rejects this unwarranted arrogance ;-)

In other news, Terry Bisson's 1990 story "They're Made Out of Meat" is a similar take.

B1FF_PSUVMon Tom Stanton's supersonic trebuchet breaks sound barrier with gravity alone

Not to be that guy, but this recent XKCD is suspiciously relevant: https://xkcd.com/3276/

B1FF_PSUVMon Who Is America's Homer?

> the real answer might very well be a musician or filmmaker, not a writer.

Walter Disney, obviously.

Well, it will probably take at least another century for the fact to hit.

B1FF_PSUVMon Credit Card Points Are a Transfer from the Broke to the Comfortable

> make a lot of money off of interest

Looking at the debt numbers (something like 150 billion over 90 days delinquent) that may not even be the case, if you cover unpaid defaults with interest paid.

The mentioned idea of capping interest at 10% would probably mean credit cards not being issued to a large swath of the population.

B1FF_PSUVMon Credit Card Points Are a Transfer from the Broke to the Comfortable

Bullshit guilt-tripping logic. Just the 150 billion from "interchange" (merchant fees) would be enough reason to fund the 15 billion (estimated) rewards.

What next, supermarket coupons as a wealth transfer mechanism?

B1FF_PSUVMon I also filed the corners off my MacBook

And car engine control software.

Bosch developed the "experimental" ECU software that VW used in the Dieselgate vehicles.

B1FF_PSUVMon Nokia's 14 Years of Mobile-Phone Supremacy Ended in an Afternoon

> In September 2008, the first Android phone went on sale—the HTC Dream,

Excursion: HTC would later sell the HTC HD2 with WindowsMobile (a predecessor of WindowsPhone), which could be "dual-booted" with Android ROMs from the XDA-developers forum or similar.

The 2009 HTC HD2 was basically the modern glass slab, except for a discrete bottom line of physical buttons, which hadn't yet been eaten by software at the time.

B1FF_PSUVMon Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

Not far. Not even MS had the clout to impose a third alternative in phones, and it was needed.

And WindowsPhone was actually a good design for user interaction, with the exception of some underlying clunkiness of settings.

B1FF_PSUVMon Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

> my identity got stolen

I've seen it argued that "identity theft" is the way businesses with poor fraud detection make that your problem.

I.e. there's no "identity theft", there's fraud, and the company that was defrauded tries to weasel out like it's not their laxity at fault.

B1FF_PSUVMon Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)

Not Mary Berry, then. Or anyone else who ever baked a cake. Or cooked, really.

I hate sugar in food, but some recipes use sugar to balance acidity (e.g. tomato ketchup).

B1FF_PSUVMon Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)

> imagine the possibilities!

Space elevator?

Does a 35,786 km "strand of [slug-tooth] spaghetti" hold its own weight?

B1FF_PSUVMon Meta pulls new AI image feature after days of backlash

"They trust me, the dumb fucks"

B1FF_PSUVMon Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

> this form-factor

"It must be pointy".

The photo is so murky you only notice the shiny propeller cones.

B1FF_PSUVMon Holes

It was erroring out 12h ago.

B1FF_PSUVMon The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

Toss P.K. Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" at that essay.

(Hey, sixty years of publication. And it may not even be the first "implanted memories" story around, googles give an 1892 precursor.)

B1FF_PSUVMon The Permission Slip

> scale will solve

I have a bad feeling about this, and it's about us, not AIs ...

(I fear that we're #$&@%!## most of the time, and just oblivious about it)