HN user
I've been thinking along these lines for a while.
It isn't just about building an alternate cheaply, it is about convincing people to switch. I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying, just that building the thing is just the beginning of a long journey.
Most of the environmental cost of plastic happens when it’s made. Once it exists, burying it in landfill isn’t nearly as bad as many people think.
95+% of the carbon footprint of plastics comes from production and manufacturing.
The most astonishing thing to me about the AI boom is that nobody really has managed to establish vendor lock-in. Switching is so easy.
China is watching world sentiment shifting away from USA. Doing many small things that show both strength and openness is surely very intentional.
There is an unfortunate cycle that has been playing out this year in USA. Insurance companies are arming up with AI to deny billing codes charged by providers. Providers are arming up with AI to listen in on provider-patient sessions to prove the billing codes are legit (And teach providers to use keywords in session).
The loser, as always, is the patient's quality of care.
Sydney Opera house comes to mind as something that might still be curious to people in 1000 years.
I have two Bosch powered e-bikes (gazelle Modeo and Turn GSD) and one DJI Avinox (Amflow PL carbon)
A few years between each bike and very different bikes. But Avinox feels like it has come from nowhere to be on par or superior to Bosch. The charging plug egonicis is 100x better too.
In my experience, rental cars are the worst. They are configured to make so much noise. My kids sleep in rentals more than daily driving too (longer commutes when traveling). My 2022 Volvo treats me like a adult and makes very little noise. Heads up display shows things that might be important.
libraries full of books about making stuff
Any standouts you recommend? My 6 year old son loves all those David Macaulay books. Haven't taken that to the next level of "How to build stuff" yet.
This won't age well. You just need to code in a way that has fallbacks. Whether that is to older models, different companies. It's going to be a commodity (if it isn't already).
If members of Google Project Zero team are involved then I have hope. If they are not then I have many doubts.
The director that did the announcement tweet may have provided some authority. He seems to have left Google voluntarily recently after 14 years.
Paid starting it. Paid during it. Paid to end it.
Political capital + diplomatic reputation + military reputation + strategic reputation.. and cash.
WRT to how it was done in Australia.
"Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, began closing teen accounts from 4 December last year. It said anyone mistakenly kicked off could use government ID or provide a video selfie to prove their age."
So the bulk is done as you say but they still need* an age verification system for when they over-stepped.
* need here is because of the way the laws were written AFAIK.
I think you’re proving my point a little. You’re treating the costs as obvious and enormous, while treating any potential benefits as essentially zero.
A lot of issues require holding two ideas in your head at once. Age verification chips away at privacy and internet freedom. It likely also reduces harm to some/many/whatever children, even if it’s imperfect and won’t stop everyone. The interesting question is where the right trade off sits. People often end up arguing only one side.
Four day working weeks would be nice.
I outsource a bunch of things in life. Different things at different stages of life. Some of those things I have outsourced I don’t dislike doing myself. But often it comes down to freeing up time and, to some extent, keeping money flowing back to people in my community.
I think a key goal of senior management at any big company in the last 6 months is to make rank and file fungible or obsolete. It’s one big experiment. There are precedents like the Industrial Revolution. Things get worse for the workers for a generation or so.
I'm glad a very wealthy company is investing in hard tech R&D. Irrespective of the projected financial outcome.
I'm curious how much you have tuned your CLAUDE.md file. You can get very specific and direct about what your expectations/desires are. You can also have another agent do a critical review with your expectations/desires and feed that back.
Economist article on it https://archive.is/ddS6X
Parallel construction poorly executed.
This article shows them being used for offense.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/20/europe/robots-ukraine-bat...
Really good to know. That should have made it into their update letter in point (2). Empowering the user to choose is the right call.
Not marching, but Ukraine uses continuous track machine gun robots seemingly very effectively. They aren’t suicide ones.
Their UX has been getting worse. No arguments there. But I feel the nuts and bolts under the covers slowly prods along in the right direction.
At the moment, cruise speed and manufacturing price.
Solutions like https://bugherd.com/ might make the issue context capture part more accurate.
I spec'd up an implementation of this that uses a hardware button with colors that is in reach of either party. The customer went with a different vendor based on price/"complexity"/training.