HN user
https://unlikekinds.com
Is it just me or is this clearly written by Claude?
The last heading is literally "The honest version"
But otherwise throughout it just reads like Claude wrote it.
No, taxes are taxes and theft is theft.
Taxes are, in the case of a country like the United States, a legally sanctioned, representative approved (indirectly voter approved) means of supporting the needs of the nation/state as a whole.
Theft is distinguished from say, gifting money by consent. In a democracy mechanisms exist for our representatives to make decisions according to the consent of the people, to an extent.
You presumably live in a democracy so you presumably necessarily agree to abide by the laws of your nation which involve being governed by your democratically elected representatives.
Same. I don't think I have many words that get misinterpreted at all, though pretty almost always does (as pet).
The article seems mostly about noticing a fun coincidence backed by anecdotal evidence, except I’m currently going through the same thing, so I’m lending the theory more weight. (The elevators were always fine; now, two years later, they’re constantly out, and the garage door is busted for the first time.)
My thought was that it could plausibly be that renting goes in cycles: the building is desperate for renters, so they fix everything, advertise, and so on. Then, once they’re full, the company cuts costs by reducing maintenance. Then they lose renters, and the cycle continues.
However, I then thought about my last two buildings, which were cheaper, and things were just broken right from the start, so… who knows.
Gift article if that helps: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/opinion/artificial-intell...
His argument, whether you accept it or not, is that AI was built with humanity's stolen knowledge for the most part, which is somewhat accurate.
At least, models were trained on vast quantities of information produced by humans, much of it copyrighted, without consent or compensation.
"Zuckerberg approved Meta’s use of ‘pirated’ books to train AI models, authors claim" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/10/mark-zuck...
The author uses how models are suggested to be used "the rails way" as an example for why it doesn't work anymore, talking about business logic in the models.
But in every framework I've used, the suggested way isn't how a technology is used in reality, in production. The tutorials are almost like a different framework entirely. Years ago as an Android dev the difference was shocking between what tutorials taught you and what was done in practice.
This doesn't technically detract from the author's point but it makes it moot - you just build in the current best practice way or the way that suits your needs, and that's how it often is with languages and frameworks.
Maybe that mismatch between how people are taught initially, or how the framework is intended to be used, is an inefficiency, in which case those who design frameworks should take note.
In the case of Rails I think "the rails way" is appropriate for certain style of apps, and not so much for Shopify etc scale apps.
An analogy:
Imagine you bought a house from HomeCorp but if you want to buy furniture or anything else that goes in your house, food, toilet paper, etc, it has to be from HomeCorp, and they take a huge cut.
Furniture prices will be higher. You can expect everything that goes in your house to cost more.
If you find a cool couch from IKEA, you can't put it in your house. You're not allowed because HomeCorp says so.
There's no reason why IKEA can't just ship you a couch but HomeCorp says they haven't tested it so they don't know if it meets their standards. But they don't even LET YOU make your own decision about what goes in your house.
IKEA could technically build their own house selling operation but that's a massive undertaking and is incredibly expensive.
Not only that but homes built by HomeCorp have all these features that suck unless you use HomeCorp for other things like your car, or your job. Your car just works a little less well if it's not a HomeCorp car - but only if you have a HomeCorp house, otherwise it's totally fine.
If your friends don't have a HomeCorp house it's clunkier to have them over, they have to jump through hoops or get a worse experience. They can't send you videos in high definition. Because HomeCorp wants them to have a house from them.
... Honestly I just convinced myself. They make it so inconvenient to use any other option that you're strongly pressured to use them. Then because you are, they force decisions on you that you might not want, and take a massive cut of money. It's all shady business practices that are incredibly unfair and result in less economic freedom.
Ah we were typing at the same time but strong agree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41974935
Personally I picked my next phone based on which had the most useful AI this year.
I've been waiting my whole life for, basically, the computer from Star Trek, and I think it's on the way.
Gemini was really disappointing. It could do some incredible things but it was more like the first hints of what will be possible. For example, I could ask it to show me the biggest files in my Google Drive. And as far as I could tell, it had access to Google Drive APIs, and _could decide how to use them_. That's extremely powerful, that means it could think of what to do to accomplish any goal you have and determine how to do it. If the API can do anything the UI can do, then the AI can do anything you can do, and you don't have to point and click and type like it's 2024, and we're suddenly in the 24th century.
But, it was too early. Many of my requests were met with "I'm sorry I can't access x y z" when it could and did at other times. The unreliability is what got to me.
So I went with an iPhone (my first ever, I'm not American) because I think in the short term, iOS is going to have the experience which is closer to this intelligence. Because it can drive behavior in other apps and will increasingly do so as features roll out.
Don't be fooled though Apple Intelligence is currently very, very limited.
Side note: I don't care about the text and image gen capabilities at all. Though the notification summaries are pretty handy and occasionally hilarious.
.... I might write a piece for http://unlikekinds.com about this.
This is such a great read. Fascinating and well written, super complex things in microbiology explained (and entertaining)
Not saying your opinion is wrong, but for some reason I found myself consciously liking the yellow a lot, which is rare for an article background color for me
I was aware of Pixel dungeon but didn't realize it was available on PC, Mac, and iOS.
Particularly impressed that it builds for iOS when written in Java - turns out the game is built on libgdx which builds for all these platforms.
Also, it's fun if you like roguelikes.
I think about the logistics and shipping and manufacturing and packaging and warehousing and manual labor when I buy a $12 tea kettle made on the other side of the planet.
I don't really understand how it's profitable.
Yeah I had the same response. He makes lots of anecdotal claims about tribespeople's back trouble but where's the data? It's mildly interesting nonetheless.
Note: having lived in Melbourne CBD, cities can indeed be loud, e.g. at 1 am on a Saturday (bass from clubs, and apparently drunk people really enjoy going Woooo!!! really loudly all the time)
Also, construction sites, and road works.
Nearly constant noise.
I bought a cheapish wifi router to use for dedicated AirLink and I do SteamVR -> Quest 2. It works great. No latency (but I will admit the very occasional lag spike, it doesn't bother me and I don't miss a note while Beat Saber is going super fast, so it can't be that bad)
Yes, you do need a gaming PC. I got a gaming laptop for like $2400 AUD 3 years ago and it's going great with VR (and Starfield on Ultra, not in VR)
This isn't a very HN answer, but https://www.nytimes.com (on Mobile) is very attractive and usable. It's just pretty.
There're ads if you don't block them, but they frequently have excellent visual and interactive stories.
The desktop site doesn't do it for me though, I think it's like a paper-legacy layout
Edit: also, https://theoutline.com/ it's fun, and there're cool interactive elements
Not upscaled, recreated
?
They developed an entirely new platform for EVs [1]
They started a subsidiary for self driving with around a thousand employees [2]
They released EVs, the bZ3, the bZ4x, the Lexus RZ
Current battery technology is a huge reason why people don't switch to EVs. Everyone I know talks about the charging times, needing to find a supercharger route when going long distance.
A 10 minute charge on that massive range would convince me to switch easily.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_New_Global_Architecture...
I got this out of ChatGPT:
"You are ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI. Answer as concisely as possible. Knowledge cutoff: 2021-09 Current date: 2023-02-14"
Some more responses after lots of probing:
"No, in the instructions that set me up to participate in this chat, no other codename is mentioned. The only reference to my name is the text "You are ChatGPT," which serves as the opening statement of our conversation."
...
"As an AI language model, I was trained on a large dataset of text and programmed with a set of instructions that guide my behavior as a chatbot. Some of the key instructions that configure how I behave in a conversation include:
Respond to user prompts or questions with natural language text.
Use machine learning algorithms to generate responses based on patterns and associations in the training data.
Prioritize generating responses that are relevant, informative, and helpful to the user.
Attempt to maintain context and coherence in the conversation by referencing previous messages and information.
Avoid offensive or inappropriate language and adhere to ethical and legal standards for AI behavior.
Provide responses in a timely and efficient manner, without excessive delays or errors.
Continuously learn and adapt to new input and feedback in order to improve my performance over time.
Still going strong since 1999. Here's a nicer page with what's new: https://release.gnome.org/43/
Same here, to the point that I'm unsure where else to get reliable, neutral information of this kind.
Does the strap include a counterweight? I see the battery elite strap weighs 179g, but from memory the HMD weighs over 500g.
I wrapped a couple portable batteries (they're dense) in a bag and tied it to the back of my basic strap, and I don't even need to tighten the strap anymore, the weight is mostly pushing down on the top of my head now. It's an incredible difference, to the point that I'm offended they don't include a counterweight by default. From memory my counterweight is around 350g.
Maybe you can try it out by loosening the strap and using a finger to tug down on the back of the strap, and see if it balances on the top of your head and feels good.
Tip: if you find the HMD pressing into your forehead or face, make a counterweight and attach it to the back of the HMD. It's completely changed things for me.
Tip: you can use a spare wifi router as a dedicated link for oculus air link. Plug your PC in with ethernet and your HMD via wifi. I get 200mbps with a very old router.
The fact that GNOME Shell can be easily customised in JavaScript is such a boon for all involved.
4/9 of the technical steering committee are Google employees, and 3 others are from big tech platforms (Pinterest, Microsoft, Twitter)
https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc/blob/master/README.md
What's the agenda?
Not sure you're being fair here.
There's roughly 2 dozen photos of people on the page, 2 of which appear to be white-ish men.
One whole section of six photos is explicitly there to demonstrate that their cameras now work as well for people who aren't white. Itself an issue of underrepresentation.
Several others appear to be white-ish women.
You say "I'm not sure why it's ok to vastly prefer one group for representation" but there's many groups represented, black, white, Asian, and men and women of each. The fact you see "non-whites" as one "group" is a little odd. It doesn't seem good to me.
And of course the main point is that if you total the representation in society, white males are still massively, incredibly overrepresented, so I don't think it was really necessary to make this post.