Hacker News Reader

jefftkon Cuba is skipping its November 1, 2026 clock change and staying on DST until 2027

Whether we call it "permanent summer time" or "aligning with the political region to the east" it's the same thing: late sunrise, late sunset.

(Spain is effectively using single-double DST, based on the delta from solar)

jefftkon Cuba is skipping its November 1, 2026 clock change and staying on DST until 2027

Many places are permanently ahead by at least an hour, including Spain, western China (+2), and Argentina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone#/media/File:Solar_ti...

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

This seems like it's also an argument against heating rooms in winter?

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

An AirFanta 3Pro on low (2) is 5W, which is $10 on average (but more like $15 in high $/kWh places like MA and CA).

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

IQAir HyperHEPA is substantially worse than the AirFanta 3Pro. The 3Pro gives you about 10x more clean air per dollar (2 CFM/$ vs 0.2 CFM/$), and 2.5x more clean air at a given noise level (45dBA: 213 vs 86 CFM).

I agree big fans moving slowly is better all else equal, and something AirFanta-like that used a 12" fan could be even better.

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

My aunt is immunocompromised and carries one around with her in crowded situations, keeping it pointed right at her face 8-12in away. It works well for her, especially since she's had a lung transplant and doesn't do well with a mask.

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

It just looks grey, but the housing is also grey, so I don't think it generally reads to people as dirty.

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

I have three in my living room, and while they're not fashion they blend in fine: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wvRc4hEYqQep4zgd9

I leave them on setting 2 (unless someone is sick or we're having a lot of people over), and we get ~425 CFM for about $40/y in power (~5W each).

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

> ~50-100W of power

That sounds too high? An AirFanta 3Pro on "2" is 141 CFM at under 5W https://www.jefftk.com/p/running-an-air-purifier-on-batterie...

jefftkon Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

There's either a typo or something wrong with your sensor: you can't have pm10 < pm2.5.

(Equivalent to saying you have more people under 2.5 years old than under 10 years old.)

jefftkon eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business

There's only a ~1 in 17 chance that they'd all be below 256 if 384 was the limit. My money is on accidentally generating a 1-byte random number.

jefftkon Ukraine claims first drone evacuation of wounded soldier

> for now the autonomous flight control software is incapable of complex, dynamic missions

I give it 1-2y.

jefftkon Let's Encrypt is adding two additional remote perspectives for domain validation

The 2010 change was only for gmail. Search was 2011 [1] and other changes were post-2013. I was there at the time, and there was a huge internal reprioritization in response to the Snowden news, especially for internal traffic.

[1] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-s...

jefftkon Tesla 'Cannot Guarantee' Roadster Reservation Holders Will Ever Get a Car

If you have not watched the ramp video, I really recommend it. It's very impressive, even if it doesn't make any sense in a consumer vehicle.

jefftkon Tesla 'Cannot Guarantee' Roadster Reservation Holders Will Ever Get a Car

If you mean one that can do the stunts from the demo I'm in, but not for $10k: that's more than I'm willing to bet with people I don't know. How about $100, since most of the point of a bet is formalizing a disagreement and showing that you're serious?

jefftkon Tesla 'Cannot Guarantee' Roadster Reservation Holders Will Ever Get a Car

> Insane acceleration to get up the ramp

It climbed the ramp very slowly. It doesn't require insane acceleration at all, just a reasonable amount of power at the wheels combined with a fan that can hold it to the track.

jefftkon Tesla Roadster

This is why they temporarily spot weld manhole covers before street races.

jefftkon Overdose Offsets: Why Every Bag of Fentanyl I Sell Is Net Life-Positive

AI-written satire, but reasonably funny.

The math doesn't work, though: 21k bags at $1.80 donated is $37,800 in donations, but you could clearly donate much more than that working at Jane St.

jefftkon AI coding agents generate more code, but not more software

Today I can write what I'm looking for, as if I'm writing a design doc, and the models can do the rest. A year ago it was faster for me to just write the code myself. Models today are enormously better than what we had in 2025.

jefftkon AI coding agents generate more code, but not more software

As is standard for academic papers, this is an attempt to describe the state of the world as of when they did the research. But then it takes time to write it up and get it out, after which newspapers report it as current events.

In this case, we're looking at a picture from 2025. The models involved in the main agent results were primarily Claude 3.5 through Sonnet 4.5, GPT-4.1 through GPT-5, and Gemini 2.5. And the paper's design means you're mostly looking at the very initial effects of deployment, before companies developed good review processes.

jefftkon QGIS bans AI assisted contributions

Sorry, "baby" was a typo for "many"! I've fixed it now.

jefftkon QGIS bans AI assisted contributions

> most software companies have an outright ban on GPL software

That doesn't sound right: most software companies, for example, make extensive use of Linux.

The standard I'm used to is:

* Internal use of GPL software is fine.

* SAAS products with GPL software are fine.

* GPL software leaving company infra is fraught. Either just don't do it, or bring in legal if there's a strong business need.

This is different from, say, AGPL, where many companies do just ban it outright.

jefftkon I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall

$20k on $500k is 4% annually, which is really high. I'm not seeing any Chicago neighborhoods that are this high (looks like a max of maybe 2%) but perhaps I'm missing something about how Chicago works?

jefftkon Frog and Toad and the Increasingly Capable Machines

Parody doesn't have to insult the original; the key thing you need is commenting on the original. This piece is on the border between using the setting and style of F&T to make an unrelated point (not parody) and commenting on how the F&T cookies story, despite being written for children, makes a broader point about incentives and control that adults would do well to internalize (parody).

jefftkon Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

Seems like if you learn you have too many experts in X and instead need experts in Y you should be able to have layoffs for X but still hire for and get visas for Y.

jefftkon Wood Tape (2004)

AI got it from us ;)

jefftkon Wood Tape (2004)

Kid would be 26 now. Wonder what he's up to?

EDIT: electrician, then project manager apparently: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guynesin

jefftkon The evolution of effective altruism

This sounds close to a thing I've heard EAs argue for, though your version is missing important parts. A big one is that if the good the job allows you to do only barely outweighs the moral harm you caused by taking taking the job, then probably there was some other job where you'd have caused much greater net moral benefit.

I think the closest there is to a mainstream EA view on this is https://80000hours.org/articles/harmful-career/ , which argues that "it's a mistake to pursue a career in which the direct effects of the work are seriously harmful, even if the overall benefits of that work seem greater than the harms".

jefftkon Clipboard Normalizer

That's weird, I thought I selected all the regions. Where are you based?

jefftkon Clipboard Normalizer

You can't put rich text on the clipboard with pbcopy.

But this is basically what I tried first: https://www.jefftk.com/p/clipboard-normalization