Hacker News Reader

icson Two pilots dead after plane and ground vehicle collide at LaGuardia

16 hours is generally not allowed unless there are severe adverse conditions, but it's only recently with ELD (Electronic Logging Device) mandates that these rules are being forced to a degree. Before that, many drivers would simply go as many hours as they humanly could to keep moving.

See: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-...

icson Postal Arbitrage

It was like that in NYC at the time as well. I'm not sure when it stopped but have not seen add-on items in a long time and most things seem to ship immediately regardless of price (with Prime).

icson Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

Liquid (Gl)ass

icson Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

Yes but when I tried to switch to liability only it was $20 cheaper. What I pay seems to be the floor, it’s definitely the lowest of anyone I know so far who isn’t claiming to live outside of NYC. Meanwhile my motorcycle insurance, liability only, for an older sport bike was only $400/year with Progressive.

icson Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

In NYC with clean 15+ year driving record my premium is $270 a month after discounts with USAA. Geico, Allstate, Progressive all quote me $400/mo minimum. Have driven everything from old beaters to brand new economy cars with little difference. Friends who also drive are paying around $350/mo on average.

icson In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

Parking garages: the OG congestion fee.

icson Amp, Inc. – Amp is spinning out of Sourcegraph

Is Amp the thing that supplanted Cody (which was either developed or acquired by Sourcegraph, can't remember)?

icson You already have a Git server

With bare repos? I was bit by this a few years ago when work switched to "everything on OneDrive" and it seemed fine until one day it wasn't. Following that I did tests with Dropbox and iCloud to find that all could corrupt a regular repo very easily. In the past few months though I've been trying it again with bare repos on iCloud and not had an issue... yet.

icson Björk on nature and technology (2016)

I was introduced to Richard Brautigan by a chance encounter with The Tokyo-Montana Express from the used book shelf, highly recommend it as well.

icson Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

Probably more health zeitgeist of the '90s than any real concern. Your bed, body type, and sleep style might make one more appealing than the other.

I was a restless sleeper though and had/have extreme difficulty getting to sleep often; learning to sleep on my back helps. Expressed another way, if my brain says I have to be on my side for comfort, and I have to achieve comfort to sleep, then if that comfort isn't achieved no sleep for me. Getting my brain to accept "and now we lie down for sleep" without thinking about comfort let me be actually comfortable in more positions/settings.

icson Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

I started doing it as a kid in order to break my reliance on side sleeping and help general posture. These days I'm less strict but benefit from being able to find a comfortable position anywhere. I'd recommend not resting your head on a pillow but using firm cushioning under your neck; that will very slightly lift and relieve pressure from your head and keep head/neck/shoulders adequately separated. A straw cushion (common in Japan, maybe elsewhere) is nice but a tightly rolled hoodie is almost as good.

icson Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

Setup is just a thin rain mat, tent, sleeping bag, and inside dressed mostly in wool. If traveling with a parka and it's clean/dry, I might wear it inside but suppose it could be laid underneath as a pad. With colder but not sever temperatures coming up I might give that a try and see what difference it makes.

icson Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

I’m from the US but a “floor sleeper” and have never camped with a pad like these even in near-freezing temperatures. I’m sure it helps but these days I get the impression from people around that they just like gear, don’t like being uncomfortable, and any other benefit is just a bonus to rationalize spending money. Maybe I’ll try it some day and be a convert, until then…

icson Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

Unique Selling Point?

icson ‘Overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI

This is not going to be as deep/specific as you want but a starting point from one of the companies that handles this sort of work is here: https://humandata.mercor.com/mercors-approach/black-box-vs-o...

icson ‘Overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI

Look up Mercor, DataAnnotation.tech, and Outlier. You create a profile, upload a resume, and do some required tasks for each job posting they have. It may involve a combination of interviewing with an AI, doing a few trial tasks, and submitting a portfolio or Github profile.

icson ‘Overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI

I have been a generalist annotator for some of the others you mentioned, due to NDA will not specify which. I would venture to guess that basically all major models use some degree of human feedback if there is money coming in from somewhere.

icson Microsoft PowerToys

If only Microsoft could make it part of Windows by default instead of those lucky users who discover what PowerToys needing to submit their request to corporate IT and enduring either incredulity or dumb jokes about the naming.

Gatekeeping as "power user features" is silly, it's 2025 and many of these features have been built-in on other operating systems for a decade or more.

icson All of our lives overlap in the Network Of Time

Is there an easy way to report inaccuracies?

I tried a connection with John Frusciante (guitarist in Red Hot Chili Peppers) and while he was in the photo, his face was tagged as Chad Smith who was not in the photo and a woman with a mask covering her face was tagged as John. I didn't see an obvious way to identify a unique image except for an attribute in the HTML which was "15552" if that helps.

icson Claude Code: Now in Beta in Zed

I agree with the main point but I am on battery often and the difference between native vs. one or multiple Electron apps in "doing my job" is easily several hours lost to battery life or interruptions for charging. Not a huge deal, but it's not my ideals that make me frown at charge cycles occurring twice as often.

icson Researchers find evidence of ChatGPT buzzwords turning up in everyday speech

I have mixed feelings about the liberation but am glad that there are at least two of us.

icson Why is choral music harder to appreciate?

John Browne (1453-1490) - O Regina Mundi Clara (Tallis Scholars Ensemble)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28FW6JBd7w

icson 1910: The year the modern world lost its mind

At what age did you notice that? My daughter is 5 and more often than not assumes that life before her was exactly the same as she experiences. Once in a while though she’ll ask if we had iPads made of wood or something like that which is amusing.

icson Hannah Cairo: 17-year-old teen refutes a math conjecture proposed 40 years ago

IIRC Erik Demaine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine) started teaching at 20 and had his PhD. I can't remember if I first saw his name because of the MacArthur Grant or one of those science documentaries but one of his pages was on the frontpage here a week or two ago and it seems like he's been thriving.

icson Apple announces Foundation Models and Containerization frameworks, etc

Same applies to “families” and it’s somewhat bizarre that this is still ignored in 2025.

icson Consider Knitting

Wheelbuilding in this case uses "building" to convey the measurement and adjustment required to assemble parts of the wheel. Building from parts, not from scratch materials.

https://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

icson Devstral

I was able to run it on my M2 Air with 24GB. Startup was very slow but less than 10 minutes. After that responses were reasonably quick.

Edit: I should point out that I had many other things open at the time. Mail, Safari, Messages, and more. I imagine startup would be quicker otherwise but it does mean you can run with less than 32GB.

icson Ask HN: How to Make Friendster Great?

Good luck then, I'm interested and will stay tuned! There are some interesting possibilities for doing the old thing with new technology but restraint is key.

icson Devstral

Maybe someone here can suggest tools or at least where to look; what are the state-of-the-art models to run locally on relatively low power machines like a MacBook Air? Is there anyone tracking what is feasible given a machine spec?

"Apple Intelligence" isn't it but it would be nice to know without churning through tests whether I should bother keeping around 2-3 models for specific tasks in ollama or if their performance is marginal there's a more stable all-rounder model.

icson Ask HN: How to Make Friendster Great?

This is a somewhat lame suggestion but in the spirit of Pinboard/del.icio.us or Bluesky/Twitter, a well-supported copy of OG Friendster or Facebook could just work to some degree.

I don't use social media outside of old.reddit if that counts but would strongly consider something like this. It would be easy to describe to friends; my friends/family over 30 are nostalgic and those under 30, especially those living on their own now, are curious about alternatives to the current state of things.