Hacker News Reader

turbonauton Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

The price of gold is not equal globally, there is a ‘loco swap’ price differential, reflecting the price of moving the metal, eg flights, security, tariffs that may be attracted, whether the location can service futures delivery etc

turbonauton A Physicist Rigged His Pet Hamster’s Wheel to Upload to Strava

Isn’t this uncomfortably close to the premise of the Matrix?

turbonauton US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2026...

Seems to substantially disagree that the average person in the U.K. is worse off than the average person in the U.S.

turbonauton S&P downgrades Oracle to BBB – only one notch above junk level

The ask was not how to make money, it was how to hedge.

I’d argue that it is very normal for hedging to be giving up expected value in return for a reduction in volatility of returns.

If you have a lot of exposure to the market already one could say not buying the option is more akin to roulette.

turbonauton Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/voting-elections/bu...

Gives more details on the ability of companies to vote in City of London elections.

turbonauton iBook Clamshell

Compare the prices vs a Neo…

1499 usd for the cheapest clamshell!

https://www.ibook-clamshell.com/index.php/en/model-overview

turbonauton Michelangelo's first painting, created when he was 12 or 13

A certain type of modern day artist voraciously consumes art in order to develop its taste, skill and style. More so than ever in history.

The names of these artists are less traditional, however, eg Nano Banana.

turbonauton Find a pub that needs you

The Lamb and Flag has faced previous financial challenges.

It in fact closed temporarily in the pandemic due to UK law preventing their then owner / operator, St John’s College, a charity, subsidising a loss making business, despite having the wherewithal to do so.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-55763746.amp

turbonauton Six-decade math puzzle solved by Korean mathematician

Ironic. In Korea sofas would often bypass the corridor by way of a ladder lift (which can be scarily high).

https://centers.ibs.re.kr/html/living_en/housing/moving2.htm...

turbonauton 2025 Letter

Median wealth per adult in the UK is 176k. In the US it is only 124k.

Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2025

Of course US does has a much higher mean wealth…

turbonauton Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

UK and DE appear to use different punctuality metrics with a train being late after 3 minutes in the UK but 6 in DE.

Latest punctuality figures for UK are 84.8% and DE 88.1%. Making an assumption on distribution I’d guess UK comes out slightly better.

Of note, DE long distance stats are pretty bad!

UK: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/ebmnxxih/performance-sta... DE: https://zbir.deutschebahn.com/2024/en/interim-group-manageme...

turbonauton Invader: Where to Spot the 8-Bit Street Art in London

Tangentially, Fleet Street has some other space invaders in the form of a plaque.

https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/4-st-dunstan-s-cou...

turbonauton Accepting US car standards would risk European lives

A topical piece from the BBC… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvl2531o

turbonauton Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright

“Only a fool breaks the two second rule.”

It’s a UK thing:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-highways-urges-d...

turbonauton Four strange places to see London's Roman Wall

For further confusion, ‘London’ does not exist at all as a well defined entity and the UK has no de jure capital.

turbonauton Gemini Diffusion

> I'm from the UK originally.

No need to go as far as California for penguins!

https://www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks/st-jamess-park/pel...

turbonauton A single line of code cost $8000

‘Simple’ bugs get a bit more expensive than this…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#2012_st...

440m usd

turbonauton Leaking the email of any YouTube user for $10k

England is just one example of a country of native English speakers who use dd/mm/yyyy.

turbonauton Penguin Random House underscores copyright protection in AI rebuff

Authorization and forbidding are both explicit actions.

Unauthorized refers to the absence of authorisation.

‘Unauthorized use is forbidden’ means ‘all use must have explicit permission.’

Clearly it is a bit disingenuous as it usually means ‘all use I don’t like / is not inline with norms’.

turbonauton One of Florida's most lethal python hunters

Particularly with snakes… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

turbonauton The Making of Micro Machines

A story about reverse engineering the Micro Machines v3 format to create an editor… http://bradders.org/MMs/

(not my work)

turbonauton How Gyms Make Money (2015)

These days you can get passive ‘waste water heat recovery’ systems that sit beneath a bath or shower tray - warming your inbound cold water with your outflow, so you use less new hot water (or have to heat it less).

turbonauton Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

English remains an official language in the Republic of Ireland and Malta.

turbonauton Is Y Combinator worth the money? Brutally honest review of W22 batch experience

In some businesses selling earlier at a higher price is also acceptable. It’s only the delivery that is later (or indeed concurrent).

turbonauton They say that stocks go down during the day and up at night

Weird or not, it happens in spot foreign exchange.

For example, if there’s a US holiday on a Friday then EUR/USD trades conducted on the Wednesday and Thursday would both typically settle Monday.

turbonauton Argentina Wins the World Cup

And from the relevant FIFA regulations: “For FIFA men’s competitions, only men are eligible to play. For FIFA women’s competitions, only men are eligible to play.” https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/3950e57162ea513d/original/ihf3...

turbonauton Hacker News Parody Thread (2013)

Doesn’t [-] set it to zero?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

turbonauton Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

Failure or going temporarily out of use does not necessarily imply bad engineering. Engineering also has to assess the cost of a solution and weigh this against the risk and impact of any failures. In this case the prior on risk of a ‘melting event’ may have gone up since the runway was designed. The impact of closing for one day in x years may also have been explicitly deemed acceptable.