Hacker News Reader

timidiceballon Andrej Karpathy – It will take a decade to work through the issues with agents

That was an impressive takeaway from the first machine learning course i took: that many things previously under the umbrella of Artificial Intelligence have since been demystified and demoted to implementations we now just take for granted. Some examples were real world map route planning for transport, locating faces in images, Bayesian spam filters.

timidiceballon The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

Well by next year it won't be available for anyone so no one will be dissatisfied with what it can and can't do!

timidiceballon Cars suck, man

VW’s e-Up comes very close to that modern but minimal EV I wish someone would keep making. No touchscreen, just a smartphone mount. Analog HVAC controls. Even the battery-remaining gauge is an analog needle (though the usability of that detail is debatable!).

timidiceballon A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

it conveys that you know what ex post and ex ante mean

timidiceballon Notes on Vision Pro

This ability was demoed in the third or fourth minute of the intro. (NBA 2K23 with a PS5 controller)

timidiceballon The death of self-driving cars is greatly exaggerated

Your odyssey has a radar component not a LiDAR sensor. (Big gap in resolution)

timidiceballon CarSized: A way to visualise car dimensions

Yea the first thing I looked up was Hongqi (specifically the E-Hs9) as they’ve grown popular here.

timidiceballon EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

NIOs are very much for sale in Europe and Oslo, Norway has two battery changing stations (more coming supposedly).

Very interesting what happens to car depreciation when decoupled from any particular battery pack.

timidiceballon The first Geely was a fake Mercedes-Benz E-Class based on a real Audi 100

Something like one third of new vehicles sold in Norway last month were Chinese EVs. All internet connected, always on like all new EVs

timidiceballon Paris mulls e-scooter ban in global test for micromobility industry

kind of the same direction here in Oslo -- they reeled in how many scooters any given operator was allowed to have in distribution and started applying real road rules to the scooters.

Being caught drunk driving an app-based e-scooter is as serious as any motor vehicle violation and will result in your car license being revoked.

timidiceballon The Restaurant Industry’s Worst Idea: QR Code Menus

> rather than one per waiter

Just want to correct this idea which has been repeated several times on this topic: You only need 3 or 4 for a larger restaurant. The entire restaurant does not pay simultaneously.

When you (the server) are done with them you just put them back in a charging dock or some other communal space.

timidiceballon Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

Norway has no inheritance tax at all; property taxes are microscopic (relative to other places that levy property taxes with intended market effects).

timidiceballon The Reason Mortgage Rates Are Dropping at a Record Pace

The us is unusual in offering fixed rates that are fixed for 30 years. They mean fixed rate.

timidiceballon How Oslo Learned to Fight Climate Change

I would just like to say how much I appreciate the whole No-ICE-Construction-Vehicles thing as an Oslo parent who has to squeeze by a long-term waterworks project site every morning and afternoon for daycare dropoff. There's only a narrow pedestrian passage to get around the dig site.

The backhoes, augers -- even the dumptrucks -- are all full electric (!). It's a small, older street with narrow pedestrian detours on either side, but the noise levels are so low I can continue speaking at normal volume to my kids the whole way.

timidiceballon In 2019 40% of San Francisco traffic fatalities are from left turns

Have you seen roundabouts of this scale in person? They aren’t meant for people to be around at all

timidiceballon Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles

In Norway, sales of new gasoline and diesel cars ends in 2025. No exceptions for hybrids, plug-in or otherwise. Norway is a microscopic market but it still is astounding to me that Toyota will likely be shut out of the country in four years as they have almost nothing in the pipeline except an as-yet nameless crossover using some GM EV platform.

Must be weird to be a dealer in Oslo now, considering the RAV-4 and Yaris hybrids still sell in ok numbers.

timidiceballon FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

I got the impression that with Shareplay HBO Max subscribers could only watch HBO content with other HBO Max subscribers. (And then all involved parties are streaming from HBO, not the share initiator)

It wouldn’t make any sense any other way, given you can sync TV to TV.

timidiceballon WWDC21

Many many models of macs and iPads have been announced at WWDC keynotes. Including the iMac Pro and the original Mac Pro.

timidiceballon Show HN: Giving my mother-in-law an easy internet radio with real icon buttons

https://www.amazon.com/Urbanears-Multi-Room-Bluetooth-Connec...

These came quite close to this (but have since been discontinued by Urbanears). Physical knob presets to internet radio stations (or turn it to “airplay/Bluetooth mode”)

timidiceballon I swapped my iPhone for an Apple Watch to live in an audio-first future

> I'm now curious how blind people manage these things.

The key ingredients that make iOS an excellent computing platform for those hard of sight are

* enforcement of UI guidelines that enable the screen-reading to work well

* a collection of accessibility gestures meant for no-screen operation.

NOT Siri.

timidiceballon Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

My organization has been slowly rolling out the use of Cisco Desk Pros which are hardware endpoints that connect to Webex but are in a practical sense essentially monitors with very nice camera modules and microphone arrays built into the bezel. Laptops connected to the monitor with USB C can use the camera/mic. These cost like $4000 though.

I find the video flattering (camera angle/focal length?)

timidiceballon Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

I thoroughly enjoyed American Factory's take! It presented many aspects of such a venture without taking too strong of a narrative one way or the other. Petty politics big and small, cultural mismatch, the rich getting richer, union busting. But also the very real attempts at bridging the culture gap and the stories of some imported foreigner workers who develop a serious fondness for life in America.

timidiceballon French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

An under-reported pattern I see in larger Norwegian organizations:

- Someone leaves for 8 months of maternity leave

- Org hires a replacement with determined-end contract

- Org loves this new person

- New person also enjoyed their time in this position, made new contacts and learned new skills which they can leverage elsewhere

- Org also now knows who to contact immediately when there is another opening or new full-time position

A growing company or government office can absolutely benefit from the "overhead" of such extensive parental leave, it's just subtle.

timidiceballon Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

I always felt the film minority report was onto something with regard to this: the vehicles depicted in the movie are (non-optionally) self-driving within dense urban regions and drivable by humans in the country

timidiceballon What Happened to the West Village?

It’s a problem at the high end (which is most of what’s been built lately) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-developmen...

timidiceballon System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

There are a lot of great deals on MacBook 12's now that it's end of line. I think you'll probably find the Pinebook 11" seriously lacking in power.

Otherwise consider a Surface Laptop! The 3:2 aspect ratio is surprisingly sticky

timidiceballon Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

It really isn’t. Between the existence of Norwegian Airlines and the fact that the Norwegian crown is hovering at 9 to a dollar, flights are almost never over $200 one-way from New York and it’s now cheaper for an American to drink an Aperol Spritz here than in Manhattan.

timidiceballon Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

I’ve lived in Oslo for six years now and repeatedly talked myself out visiting Tromsø for a long weekend because of this.

At some point I need to accept that it’s really the primary way to get around the north.

timidiceballon Uncap - Map Caps Lock to Escape on Windows, Linux, and macOS

Why does one need this on macOS (which has had a dedicated toggle for this in System Preferences for a few versions now)?

timidiceballon Tech recommendations for transit systems (2018)

Oslo uses roving fare inspectors and has a wonderfully-unified time-based card system that applies to all subways, trams, buses and ferries. No gates anywhere.