Hacker News Reader

mouse_8bon Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

Why did birds evolve flight and people didn't?

The other apes are intelligent enough for their niche. At some point in humanity's past, the environment was harsh enough that the less intelligent ones died.

mouse_8bon Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

They do have a common ancestor, it's just not a marine mammal.

mouse_8bon Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

That's just creationism.

mouse_8bon Illinois to become first US state to abolish cash bail

If they are violent and need to be kept in check, why not just keep them in jail? Otherwise, people with money get better treatment than those without.

mouse_8bon Illinois to become first US state to abolish cash bail

It has to do with bail being viewed as "letting criminals go free". If there is a high conviction rate, then most of the people being arrested are eventually found guilty, and I would expect bail being viewed less favorably there. On the other hand, if conviction rates were low, it would mean the police were arresting a lot of people that did not break the law, and I would expect bail to be viewed more positively.

mouse_8bon Just got a MacBook Pro for work; what are your tips?

Get a better text editor and file browser, and probably terminal.

I use Sublime as my text editor, but there are other options.

I use PathFinder for a dual-pane file explorer.

I use iTerm2 for my terminal.

Otherwise, I don't recommend customizing too much out of the gate. If you are continuously hitting a pain point, then it could be worth it, but you'll learn the Mac way soon enough.

mouse_8bon Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans (2006)

Maybe a little hyperbolic, but I've seen other studies that show humans can differentiate between odors better than dogs.

Dogs seem to be great at detecting odors in low concentrations. Once they are detectable by humans, however, it seems we have some pretty good olfactory skills.

mouse_8bon Ask HN: What niche task/tool websites have you built?

https://www.bandtr.com

Play a random album from your Spotify collection

mouse_8bon Building a digital music collection in 2023

I collect vinyl to own my music and a lot of modern vinyl releases include a download code.

mouse_8bon W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

I get it. I was really into fantasy as a teenager, but now I'm on the wrong side of 35 and nonfiction is all I'm interested in. I feel like there is so much stuff that has happened in real life that fantasy seems hollow.

mouse_8bon Too Many Vacant Lots, Not Enough Housing: The U.S. Real-Estate Puzzle

Buy the lot and build a house? Home builders and realtors are pretty established business models. Land developers can do both.

mouse_8bon US takes $1.2B gamble on carbon-sucking vacuums

It takes a lot of energy to pull carbon out of the air. The energy needs to come from somewhere, but if it involves burning oil then it's going to create more mess than it cleans up.

mouse_8bon Dear Spotify, can we just get a table of songs?

That's a pretty good UI.

I made a simple app to shuffle Spotify albums that you might like. Check it out at www.bandtr.com

mouse_8bon Spotify was down

Yup. I turned on the record player instead. I'm glad I still have a dumb machine I can fall back on when all of the technology fails.

mouse_8bon A short history of Bigfoot sightings and lore

I like to think that Bigfoot did exist at some point. There is fossil evidence of large upright walking apes in Asia (gigantopithecus) contemporary with early homo sapiens. Those creatures could have come to North America the same way humans did. When Europeans showed up, the indigenous humans were ravaged by Old World disease. It seems logical that any contact between humans and Bigfoot would have similar consequences. I could believe that some small populations survived long enough to inspire stories. If there are any left, I imagine they would be spread pretty thin. In any case, there are no verified bodies to study, so we are left with our imaginations.