HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

eigen

353 karma · joined August 11, 2019

submissionscomments
eigen··on iPhone Duo
> Ford makes the Bronco Sport anyway, and they make money on it.

The current Bronco Sport generation was introduced in 2021 with minor changes in the ensuing model years. Ford USA sold 134k Bronco Sport in 2025, of 783k SUVs (17.2%) and 2.1M total USA vehicles (6.4%). the Ford E-series truck with 3.2% Ford Truck sales or 2.0% total vehicle sales may be a better comparison. It also is a design introducted in 2021.

phones are more likely mostly new designs in each model year, but we can wait for the teardowns to see.

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/usa/2025-full-year-usa-for...

eigen··on iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
are these videos larger than the iphone SSD or TB SSD DRAM buffer and will need to drop to NAND erase/write speed?
eigen··on Apple Watch Ultra 4
isnt that how the modern telephone system works? digitize your voice, encode, transmit, decode, convert to analog audio. with buffering or keeping bits in memory all along the way?

is a telephone call a recording?

eigen··on Apple Watch Series 12
from the video I thought the wearer had to enable it, just as today where the wearer has to enable the audio recorder app.
eigen··on Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business
its not unheard of for large public companies to do spinoff. a few examples that seem to have worked out fairly well

Phillip Morris / Altria / Kraft / Mondelez

HP / HPE / Agilent / Keysight

eigen··on Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
I assume for something like a phone these things are non-linear. going from 2 PCIe lanes (nand, radios) to 3 (another radio) may cause an SOC to jump from entry-level to mid-level, larger PCB and increased layer count, more antenna for simultaneous use, etc. so its not just the cost of the chip but all the secondary effects.
eigen··on New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper
I think the Rd pulldown options are for 0.9/1.5/3A without PD negotiation.
eigen··on Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
> Grocery stores have very small margins, as little as 1%.

Looking at the Kroger 2024 Annual report shows that they have 22.3% gross margin . they pay dividends, had a stock buy back, etc so its entirely possible that they had a very low margin but gross margin seems to be similar to a home builder.

Sales $ 147,123

Merchandise costs $113,720

Rent, Depreciation, Amortization $655

Gross profit $32,748

for a gross margin of 32.7/147 = 22%

eigen··on MacBook Neo
> certain cables won't charge certain devices

not sure how you can make a cable that doesnt connect power from end to end. I can see if it doesnt charge as fast as others if it doesnt have the bits required for higher current support. and if a device requires >5V to charge, thats on the device not the cable.

> other cables won't transfer data

again, not sure you can make a cable that doesnt connect the USB2 pair from end to end. but if device doesnt use USB2 and requires something else without mentioning it then that again seems to be on the device not the cable.

eigen··on I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams
> Year over year price hikes with minimal improvements

did you have a specific example in mind? It seems that the price of the hardware generally stays the same from year to year.

for example, from iphone 3g to iphone 6s was $199. and iphone 12 through today's iphone 17 is $799. I think the change in the middle was due dropping carrier subsidies and going to full-screen with face id.

eigen··on Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires
> 1000Base-T uses two pairs per direction, actually. It's full duplex. Each port sees two TX and two RX pair.

you may be thinking of 1000Base-TX (TIA‐854) which uses 2 pairs in each direction, similar to 100Base-TX (IEEE 802.3u). whereas 1000Base-T (IEEE 802.3ab) uses all 4 pairs in both directions.

basically, the -TX are dual simplex with a set of wires for each direction and -T are full-duplex with the same wires used in both directions at the same time.

eigen··on Immigration Agencies Are Openly Defying Federal Courts
> For example, consider a president who dies in office a few days into the term. The VP becomes president, serves out the remainder of that four-year term and then be elected for two more terms

text of the 22nd amendment covers that. serving more than 2 years of someone else's term means you can only be elected once.

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

eigen··on Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades
random web correlation calculator shows it has deviated since around May this year and is currently around 0.3

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/asset-correlations#analy...

eigen··on The Economics of Duke University
I mean this is an issue in private industry as far as I've seen as well. as a company grows layers of middle management are added to translate and implement policies from other management layers
eigen··on USPS announces changes to the postmark date system
from the IRS (https://www.irs.gov/filing/individuals/when-to-file)

Your return is considered filed on time if your envelope is properly addressed, postmarked and deposited in the mail by the due date.

eigen··on I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone
> Windows XP sold for $200 in 2001. In 2025, that's $364

I assume you used the overall CPI rate rather than the software rate. but using the Software CPI its more like $58. and that seems like an easier sell (for the user, maybe not the developer).

http://data.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEE0...

Software CPI-U

2001 Oct 77.0

2025 Nov 22.182

eigen··on X-59 3D Printing
lots of other 3D models available at https://science.nasa.gov/3d-resources/

Hubble 3D Models

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/multimedia/3d-hubble...

Curiosity Rover

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/curiosity-rover-3d-model/

eigen··on High-income job losses are cooling housing demand
I'm sure you read the footnote that goes along with the spike in 2020 where the definition changed.

and looking at the numbers, I see declining increaes over previous 5 year periods

39.1% increase from 2010-06 (8628.1) to 2015-06 (12004.6)

30.8% increase from 2015-01 (11787.8) to 2020-01 (15416.3)

21.0% increase from 2020-06 (18140.6) to 2025-06 (21942.4).

eigen··on Ground stop at JFK due to staffing
> But it seems like certain jobs are funded for the duration anyway (infamously, members of Congress are one).

I think thats due to the 27th Amendment [1]

> No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

can't change (or stop) congressional pay until an election. guess it's a double-edged sword they can't give themselves in immediate pay raise, which I think was the point of ratification in 1992, but also can't cut their pay for failing to pass a budget.

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-27/

eigen··on Trump pardons convicted Binance founder
technically, he is currently scheduled to be president for the entirety of 2028 because the election is in November 2028 and the presidential term ends on January 20, 2029.

but that's probably not what he meant.

eigen··on AppLovin nonconsensual installs
> The two options are reach over all else, or control of its customers and overcharging them at every turn over all else.

do you have an example of "overcharging them at every turn"? looking at the Google One [1] vs Apple iCloud [2] pricing it seems pretty similar.

------ Google Apple

5 GB: free free

50 GB: N/A $0.99

100 GB:$1.99 N/A

2 TB: $9.99 $9.99

6 TB: N/A $29.99

[1] https://one.google.com/about/plans?hl=en&g1_landing_page=0

[2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/108047

eigen··on About the security content of iOS 15.8.5 and iPadOS 15.8.5
> Pixels 8 and later get 7 years.

looks like Pixel 8 was released October 2023, so not even 2 years ago. not sure I'd put much stock in what Google says about support after <30% of the stated time.

> Pixels 6-7 got 5 years.

looks like Pixel 6 was released October 2021, so not even 4 years ago.

eigen··on Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
> A Staff and Sr manager would be paid the same

do they report to the same level? every place I've seen a "technical track" and "management track" it seems the higher level technical people report to someone on the same or even lower level in management. I.E. a manager can have technical reports that are equal level or higher. that obviously doesn't happen in the management track.

not that these are first level managers but if a principal engineer not reporting to a VP, the it doesnt seem like the tracks are equal.

eigen··on Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling
median home price was 410k in 2025Q2 [1] so it may take most/all the net gains to purchase a median house.

1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

eigen··on Atopile – Design circuit boards with code
title says design circuit boards, but it looks to just be netlist generation which is used as input to an external layout tool. step 5 is to use kicad to do lay out.

https://atopile.io/atopile/quickstart#a-typical-workflow

A typical workflow

1. Sketch your circuit on paper.

2. Search https://packages.atopile.io and GitHub for pre-existing modules you need, and use ato install to install them.

3. Design a module and do its calculations using ato code.

4. Run ato build to compile your project, choose components to suit your design, and update your layout (PCB) file.

5. Use KiCAD to lay out any changes

6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you’re happy with your design.

7. When you’re done with your design, push your changes to your repo.

8. CI will automatically build and test your project, and generate the manufacturing files you need to order your PCBs.

9. Take these manufacturing files to your PCB manufacturer to get your PCBAs.

eigen··on Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase
> The numbers have been so consistently wrong in the same direction.

summary of mean revision for seasonally adjusted numbers, since 2003 are

2nd-1st: 8

3rd-2nd: 2

1st-3rd: 10

but 2025 has been consistently, so far, be negative revisions. Dec 2024 has some positive revisions but 2023-2024 on the whole was negative while 2017-2022 were on the whole positive revision. so I dont think that there is data to support consistently wrong in one direction.

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm

eigen··on More assorted notes on Liquid Glass
Looks like the currently 3 versions of mac OS are supported. current is macos 15, macos 13-14 are supported.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases

macos 13 supports hardware back to 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardwa...

looks like only 2 versions of Windows is supported. current is windows 11 and windows 10 support ends in October. of course, windows 10 was released in 2015 so comparing version support isnt a fair comparison.

eigen··on Touching the back wall of the Apple store
> the average American new car purchase costs 65 times the average American new phone purchase

and you keep a phone 1-8 years but a car 3-20 years or 4x as long? seems like a bad ratio

eigen··on How renewables are saving Texans billions
> They just dont want the state to fund the cause and don’t consider it the state’s role or problem or the state as a solution to a problem that isnt wholly solved by the proposed expensive solution

Texas Senate Bill 819 "relating to renewable energy generation facilities; authorizing fees." would have made it the states role to create an expensive solution.

> (1) for a solar power facility, ensure that all facility equipment is located at least: (A) 100 feet from any property line, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of property located less than 100 feet from the facility; and (B) 200 feet from any habitable structure, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of the habitable structure; and

> (2)for a wind power facility, ensure that all facility equipment is located at least 1,000 feet from the property line of each property that borders the property on which the facility is located, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of property located less than 1,000 feet from the facility

Texas Senate Bill 388 "relating to the legislature’s goals for electric generation capacity in this state." would have made it the states role to create an expensive solution.

> (a) It is the intent of the legislature that 50 percent of the megawatts of generating capacity installed in the ERCOT power region [this state] after January 1, 2026 [2000], be sourced from dispatchable generation [use natural gas].

are the Texas bill sponsors not part of the aggregate conservative position?

eigen··on Fintech founder charged with fraud; AI app found to be humans in the Philippines
> Lawyers, judges and juries understand the intent of the law, and are not bound like we software engineers are to the exact commands in front of them.

a good example is O'Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy, No. 16-1901, also known as the Maine Dairy oxford comma case. the District Court followed the intent but the Appeals court followed the law as written.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-com...

from the Appeals Court ruling

> The District Court concluded that, despite the absent comma, the Maine legislature unambiguously intended for the last term in the exemption's list of activities to identify an exempt activity in its own right. The District Court thus granted summary judgment to the dairy company, as there is no dispute that the drivers do perform that activity. But, we conclude that the exemption's scope is actually not so clear in this regard.

https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/16-190...

Page 1 of 7Next →