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robcohenon How many EV charging stations does the US need to replace gas stations?

Which makes sense, imagine only have shoes that worked on 95% of the floors you walk on. Imagine a fridge that only cools 95% of your food, and it’s a fun surprise when it doesn’t.

This is entirely rational, and reminds me of people who can’t understand why everyone doesn’t bike everywhere. It just reeks of solipsism.

I own a Tesla, and I have to tell you it’s a massive pain to own an EV and live in an apartment complex. It’s honestly frustrating to the point that I regret getting it. The performance is great, but the interior, significant price drop in the year I’ve owned it, and the constant anxiety about the battery has not made for a pleasant experience.

If I could go back I’d get a Mercedes S class that’s 5-7 years old.

robcohenon Netflix is removing offline downloads from its Windows app

Personally, I have a conscience which informs me not supporting platforms. Why can’t I pay the artist directly, with no middlemen taking a cut? Distribution is easy. Put a QR code which links to some industry website that has crypto wallets for each of the artists involved on a project. I want my money to go to them directly.

Until the day where artists start posting their wallet addresses, I’ll keep pirating. The guilds should really get on with being the equivalent of a Patreon.

robcohenon World Password Day. Join the Fight Against Cybercrime, One Password at a Time

The article asks users to make sure passwords include upper and lowercase and special chars.

This is just wrong. Diceware passwords are better for passwords that need to be memorized.

robcohenon Tesla driver arrested for homicide after running over motorcyclist on Autopilot

I vote for letting numbers be literal.

robcohenon Smart TV is snooping on you. How to limit the personal data it gathers

Well, I think it’s ok to connect it to WiFi (with temp password), update it, then disconnect it and change the WiFi password. Yes I know it’ll try to phone out with unprotected WiFi but those are increasingly rare. You won’t be able to update it later without a usb stick though.

It’ll probably be fine. Probably.

robcohenon BeagleY-AI: a 4 TOPS-capable $70 board from Beagleboard

One thing that comes to mind is AI detection in Frigate https://docs.frigate.video. I’ve not played very much with AI but I’ve dabbled with Coral this past month and it would definitely be nice to have a fully integrated machine that could be dedicated to my security video feeds.

robcohenon The Unlisted: people without an address (2020)

I did RV life during covid for almost two years, and it became very apparent that the government is just not able to handle the kind of arrangement where you are constantly moving.

First of all, every state requires you to order a new drivers license within 30 days of moving. So now you’re breaking the law if you don’t order 12 licenses a year. Next, if the address is wrong, there go your voting rights. Don’t forget that if the IRS sends you a notice, or the state sends you a jury summons, you’ll never get it. Oh and also you need to update all bank addresses immediately, because of KYC AML laws. If you move states often, yeah you’re pretty much screwed.

It’s a rather sad state of affairs.

What needs to happen is the USPS needs to manage identity, preferably using wallets of some kind, like DID wallets. Then you could just log into USPS and tell them where you want your mail delivered.

Won’t happen though, because the government is too inept and has no incentive to make people’s lives easier. Maybe someday it’ll get better.

robcohenon Ask HN: Better Alternatives Than Passwords?

Passkeys. You're looking for passkeys.

robcohenon Punk is dead and so are we

I’m doing this, and yes you are still dependent on corps, but the dependency is different. There’s something very different about buying a skid loader at auction and repairing it yourself than there is with living in an apartment complex where maintenance feels it’s ok to come into your apartment whenever they please (after “trying” to call). Merely owning things that corps make isn’t bad. It’s bad when it becomes feudalism and you lose all control over the things you “own”.

robcohenon German Bundestag Passes Cannabis Legalization

I could see that being an effect in the short term, but I don't think there's a fixed amount of criminality in a given society. I'd bet there's a significant linear correlation with the size of the black market in society (in terms of annual revenue) and the amount of criminality. Reduce the amount of revenue, reduce the amount of criminality. Source: Nothing.

robcohenon Show HN: Wiwo – Find events happening around you. Google Maps, but for events.

This is very cool. I had a similar idea recently but I had no idea how to correctly parse various sources of event information other than writing custom beautiful soup or similar code for every single source.

Actually, I was thinking that event information could maybe be correctly pulled using AI tools. Admittedly, I'm no AI expert, so I am unsure what open source tools would be best for this.

Anyone know of models that could be given a url, and parse any website and scrape the event data and return it in json with a very high degree of accuracy?

What would be cool is to just give the app a list of bookmarks and get a map like this or even automatically have it parsed into ical format.

robcohenon I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday (2011)

Lots of crypto tech doesn’t use this much energy. Proof of work is pretty obsolete by now, so it’s just no longer a relevant argument.

Sure Bitcoin is expensive energy-wise, but criticize Bitcoin for that not crypto.

robcohenon The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest (2015)

I’m just curious, you keep referring to it as a battle rifle. Do you think a non-battle rifle is more appropriate, or are you saying that battles should never be engaged in.

robcohenon Meta documents show 100k children sexually harassed daily on its platforms

You see the same problem with universities, the military, the peace corps, etc.

People have an agenda to push and they want to construct a simple narrative that supports that agenda. Simple as. Thanks for taking the time to point out that the narrative may be flawed, we need more people to do that.

robcohenon Officers Are Less Intelligent: What Does It Mean?

While I can understand your concerns here, there is something profoundly damaging about thinking a democratically-led military is no longer serving the public interest. Essentially it's a no-confidence vote in the political system, which if you really consider from a moral perspective, requires correcting the system. What's wild to me is that people can essentially have no confidence in their political system, but do almost nothing to change it.

It seems deeply wrong to continue to participate and to pay taxes into a system that one has no confidence in. What seems more likely is that morality never played a role in this decision, and instead its a scapegoat for not taking personal responsibility for one's role in the system.

robcohenon Librum: Open-Source e-book platform

This sounds great. I personally like to use SyncThing/MobiusSync to sync my devices, then I use Okulus or KyBook to read. It’s a bit clunky but only because Apple is a closed system.

robcohenon Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17

I agree. It’s easy to see how a user hostile setting would go unchecked by a large corporate company that doesn’t benefit from protecting the privacy of its users.

robcohenon Senate bill introduced to ban TSA use of facial recognition in airports

Interesting. Thanks for the anecdote, I had no idea this was possible.

Further validated by https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification....

I find it pretty funny that the top of the website says "Adult passengers 18 and older must show valid identification at the airport checkpoint in order to travel." Yet later in the page it says you can still travel without it.

robcohenon Mechanic shortage means longer waits, $100k salaries for some technicians

I mean there’s more sources but ok.

robcohenon Mechanic shortage means longer waits, $100k salaries for some technicians

I think you misinterpreted my point. Of course mechanics are doing side jobs, that doesn’t account for the fact that their primary job pay is low. I have my ASE certs, I also get paid to fix auto and heavy machinery on the side.

robcohenon Mechanic shortage means longer waits, $100k salaries for some technicians

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html

It’s not that low, it’s higher according to many sources.

robcohenon Mechanic shortage means longer waits, $100k salaries for some technicians

Average pay for a mechanic in NY is $52K. Average nationwide is about $49K. Average nationwide salary by some estimates is $59,428. Plus, it's a job that isn't considered "cool" or "attractive" to anyone but teenage boys.

Yet somehow we still get articles like this that are basically saying "wow, the top 1% of a mediocre-paying field gets 6 figs, why oh why are people not clamoring to work?

So tired of this low-intelligence conversation.

robcohenon Grimoire: Open-Source bookmark manager with extra features

Nix works together with docker: https://nix.dev/tutorials/nixos/building-and-running-docker-...

robcohenon Senate bill introduced to ban TSA use of facial recognition in airports

Laws don't have to be enforced, but it's still the law. You asked for a law, and REAL ID is one. Although it isn't fully enforced, the provision for an ID is fully enforced. It's just not required to be a REAL ID, but an ID is required.

robcohenon Senate bill introduced to ban TSA use of facial recognition in airports

REAL ID act: "OFFICIAL PURPOSE- The term `official purpose' includes but is not limited to accessing Federal facilities, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft, entering nuclear power plants, and any other purposes that the Secretary shall determine. "

https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real-id-act-text.pdf

robcohenon Grimoire: Open-Source bookmark manager with extra features

Have you given Nix a try? It's fully solved this problem for me, and it also has Dockerfile generation down great. Nothing else comes even close

What's really nice is using direnv to cd into a directory and having a flake.nix file in it which changes the entire system to what I need to do in that folder. So I don't need any of my dev environment to be system-wide, everything is per project. That alone has cut my system down to pretty much just system tools (replacements for shell commands), productivity tools (Obsidian, bitwarden, etc), and my browser. It's just so nice.

robcohenon Email.radio – Free Email Domain for Licensed Ham Radio Operators

Check out the ARRL website. They have a few ham radio Technician class (lowest class) books that you can study and take the test with. https://www.arrl.org/getting-your-technician-license

Once you pass, you can use some of the ham radio bands. Plenty of guides on reddit on how to start.

robcohenon Email.radio – Free Email Domain for Licensed Ham Radio Operators

They are using Mailcow, so no, your emails are not encrypted.

In general, unless you're using PGP, email is not reasonable to assume that it's encrypted ever. I use Protonmail, and I still don't trust it at all.

robcohenon Air Force and Space Force raise top age for new recruits to 42

Yes, I served in the Marine Corps after joining at 23. It was shocking how little freedom enlisted folks have, even after basic training and technical schools. I had lived on my own since I was a teenager, and all that independence was stripped away for the entire enlistment. Not even for any particularly good or useful reason, just so officers wouldn’t look bad if someone got in trouble.

I could not even fathom making that choice now at 38. That would be insane. You might as well volunteer to go to prison.

Again, there’s not even a hypothetical benefit to completely stripping freedom away from grown men. It just makes no sense—-intelligent people won’t serve if they have to put up with that nonsense.