HN user
Hi! I'm Nate Hill, the founder of Vuplex, a mixed reality web browser and Unity plugin. Based in Chicago.
- https://vuplex.com
- https://nate.org
Marketing stunt. If they actually cared about this as an experiment, they wouldn't have broadcasted this so early, because now that the public knows that the store is designed and run by AI, many people aren't going to support it (i.e. many people who would have shopped there now won't).
My comment was specifically about the question of morality, not about whether it's a wise business decision.
In my opinion, if you agree to a deal and then decide not to fulfill your end of the deal, that is immoral. Like if you agree to pay me to make you a sandwich and then you take the sandwich but leave without paying, that is immoral.
unpaywalled: https://archive.is/kkKUW
posters on artist's site: https://www.thechicagoneighborhoods.com/shop
At a friend's party recently, I met someone who told me that they had worked in data for Meta's glasses division and warned me never to get Meta glasses for this very reason—that the workers can see everything. They told me of a comical case where a guy pulled down his pants to look at his penis, asked "Meta, what is this?", and the AI responded that it was a thumb. XD
For a fair comparison, you need to compare audio of David as a broadcaster rather than being interviewed: https://youtu.be/W-uGqHXoSRw?t=5 . As someone who has listened to Greene's voice on NPR a lot over the years, I hear the similarity.
Rollerblade technology has come a long way since then! Modern skates are much more comfortable and often use bigger wheels that make it easier to roll over rougher terrain and go fast. I get around Chicago almost exclusively through a combination of inline skates & trains (it's easy to wear skates on the trains here).
Although developers may be hesitant to embrace this out of fear of Google eventually killing it off, an upshot is that if you develop an XR app with Unity (and its XR Interaction Toolkit library), it ends up being quite portable across different XR devices / operating systems (e.g. Meta Quest, Pico VR, HTC Vive).
I haven't upgraded to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass, mostly because I've read that it causes performance degradation on older devices (I use an iPhone 13 Mini because I have zero interest in using a larger phone). So, it looks like I'll be using iOS 18 for the foreseeable future.
As humble as Michigan City is, it's also a popular vacation destination for Hoosiers seeking an inexpensive summer getaway. I grew up in Indiana and have many fond memories of going to Michigan City in the summer: swimming at the beach, walking to the lighthouse and zoo, and looking at Chicago's skyline from across the lake. As a kid, I thought the power plant tower was cool, too.
Clarification: Unity's "Industry" license is only for non-gaming and non-entertainment applications (e.g. automotive, architecture, etc.). So this doesn't impact developers developing games with Unity.
Video that includes the radio communication between the control tower and the pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Mp9aUJaTY
Same with my 13 mini. Small size + lightweight is a killer feature. I want the 5x camera zoom of the iPhone 16 Pro, but it's not worth the tradeoff. And none of the other new features matter to me.
It appears your name is Alex, so I'm not surprised that the Alexa product name doesn't bother you. I suspect you would feel different if your name was Alexa. If the product was named Nate, it would bother me. There are plethora of other options for product names that companies can use besides common first names.
Am I the only one who laments this trend of using a common first name as a product name? When I see this, my first reaction is that the company lacks any empathy for people who have the name they're co-opting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2021/p...
I meant to post the tweet that this tweet is responding to: https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1860524784498647307
HN doesn't allow me to update the URL or delete this post, so I changed the title of this post to deleted and made a new post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42233102
As a long time Pixelmator user, this really worries me. I loved DarkSky and then Apple acquired and killed it without a good replacement (I switched to Wunderground because Apple Weather is inaccurate, especially for precipitation predictions).
It's ironic that the example he gives for driving across LA already has a fast train connection:
People that live in LA, I mean try to get from Pasadena to El Segundo during rush hour. You can fly to another city faster than you get to crosstown LA. And you have to drive the whole way.
You can take the Metro A line from Pasadena, then transfer to the C line to get to El Segundo. No driving necessary. Musk sells cars, so of course he has a massive incentive to say more cars are the solution to peoples' transit woes. But it seems like throwing more cars at the problem will simply make traffic worse, and from my experience living in Chicago, the best solution to avoid traffic (and parking!) is to take an alternative mode of transit that can bypass it (e.g. train, bike, electric scooter).
In the early 20th century, warehouse pickers at the Montgomery Ward mail order company wore roller skates to get around their warehouse quickly:
https://www.leanblog.org/2006/11/old-timey-roller-skate-prod...
I think roller skates are an underrated mode of transportation, but there is a learning curve for people new to skating. If these Moonwalkers are easy to use with no prior experience, I think that's a big step (or roll) forward.
That's how I feel, too. And I do think that the city has a midwestern friendliness (especially in the neighborhoods, outside of the loop). I haven't been to Monteverde, but I'll check it out!
The audiobook version was also just released today:
https://www.amazon.com/Poor-Charlies-Almanack-Essential-Char...
But there are many neighborhoods that are not that lucky
I think this is probably the most important point. Much of the crime is concentrated in the city's far west and far south sides, where I generally don't go. These stats are old, but the map is roughly correct and shows the disparity I'm talking about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago#/media/File:2...
The effect is that most of the city is safe, but people on the far south side are impacted by crime. Not to defend the situation—I of course wish that all of Chicago was safe and want to see our city make progress on that. Just trying to provide nuance.
Have you spent much time in Chicago? I've lived here in Lincoln Park and the loop (downtown) and haven't had any issues with crime, unless you count people smoking on the CTA train. Obviously it's not perfect, but conservative media's portrayal of Chicago as a crime-ridden city doesn't match my experience at all.
Chicago
Pros:
- Beautiful lakefront, architecture, & parks
- Dense, walkable, & easy to get around by train or bike
- Tons of cool things to do & people to meet (festivals, concerts, meetups, clubs, museums)
- Relatively inexpensive, especially compared to NYC or LA
- Within driving distance of my midwestern family
Cons:
- Car traffic is often bad (I don't drive in the city)
- I often have to switch CTA train cars because of people smoking on the train
- Winters are cold (I'm used to bundling up)
- Property tax rate is relatively high
Commenters here are overreacting due to misunderstandings:
- the per-install fee doesn't kick in until you've passed BOTH the annual game revenue and install thresholds (i.e. >$200k annual revenue on the game and >200k lifetime unique downloads)
- the fee isn't monthly, it's per unique download (poor wording in Unity's chart)
- you only pay the fee on the number of downloads over the threshold
This new pricing will actually decrease the price of using Unity for many developers. Before, if your company's total annual revenue was >$100k, you had to buy a paid Unity license no matter what. Now those company's can use Unity totally free until their game reaches $200k annual revenue and 200k lifetime downloads.
This licensing scheme is actually very similar to licensing the AVC/H.264 video codec from Via LA (for example, if you want to ship a build of Chromium with MP4 enabled). In their case, licensees self report the number of units they've distributed per year and pay a small fee on the number of units over 100k. If you ship under 100k units, there is no fee.
RSS feed URL for other podcast apps: https://api2.wondercraft.ai/feeds/podcasts/1589ba25-4f39-4ed...
Honestly, this seems like a win-win for humanity. We get entertainment, money's raised for a charity, and Musk & Zuck get a unique experience and maybe a reputation boost. Unless one them is killed or seriously injured, in which case that might alter the course of their companies—but it seems like the benefits outweigh the risks (for us).