Hacker News Reader

mikeryanon Material Theme has been pulled from VS Code's marketplace

It's a new publisher https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/publishers/fanny

If you dig into the code on GitHub [1] , you can see it's the same author as the Material Theme. But I'm not sure how the marketplace folks are supposed to track that.

[1] https://github.com/fanny-theme/fanny-theme-support

mikeryanon Show HN: Check Supply – Send Checks in the Mail

Not to rain on your parade, but my Chase app already has this ability. Don’t other banks as well?

Whats the upside of this option?

mikeryanon Global variables are not the problem

That abbreviation of count is an interesting choice. ;-)

mikeryanon Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest

The guides practically carry them up the mountain, make their beds, maybe put a little mint on their pillow. It's an absolute joke. They try to bring the mountain down to their level.

From: https://www.tpl.org/resource/conversation-yvon-chouinard-lan...

mikeryanon Google’s OAuth login doesn’t protect against purchasing a failed startup domain

There’s an interesting question on service providers responsiblity who use Oauth for primary auth.

Should they reset all access to a company account if a domain transfers or becomes publicly available?

mikeryanon Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

Tom Conrad didn’t have anything to do with Quibi’s failure. The app was actually pretty cool. That was a bad business model which a good product couldn’t fix.

He’s a product guy going back to being CTO at Pandora. He seems like a pretty good interim choice all things considered.

mikeryanon Disappointed with the TVs at CES 2025

Look at Samsung commercial displays. Usually no smart features - but pricey.

mikeryanon uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind honey browser extension

I think you’re missing the point. Honey is stealing affiliate credits from influencers who don’t have any relationship with them.

If a YouTuber posts an link with their own affiliate code and during checkout the user uses the Honey extension to look for coupons Honey steals the affiliate credit even if they don’t have a coupon the YouTuber gets nothing.

mikeryanon Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

Agreed. That comment was just a response to the parent who commented that they hadn't seen RAN chargers often.

Of note, right by the Shasta station was a large Supercharger bank, so the planning for this was probably done before the Rivian deal to use Tesla chargers and the free adapter program Rivian implemented. They may have kept that one anyway, considering the Shasta Area is probably underserved and fits Rivian's target market for their stations ("adventure" areas)

mikeryanon Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

I've got a Rivian and have only used their chargers on a road trip to Whistler from the Bay Area. One was in Shasta behind a little hotel—you'd not see it if you weren't looking for it. The other was at a Homewood Suites lot somewhere in Southern Oregon. Unsurprisingly, these were back-to-back stops. So, I think they were specifically put there to help bridge a gap between Northern CA and Southern OR.

mikeryanon Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

I've only used the RAN chargers once, but IIRC, they don't really have an interface for allowing third-party transactions (i.e., paying with a credit card).

You have to register your vehicle through their app, which may also make this a bit more difficult.

mikeryanon The correct amount of ads is zero

Infowars is an interesting example it’s (was) basically a health supplement company masquerading as a media company. Most of its ad load was selling supplements that it produced.

All shadiness aside it’s an interesting model. Cuts a lot of the middlemen out.

mikeryanon MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project 1974 (2016)

I got down to the bit about Sheldon Brown being Harriet’s husband and was “wait that Sheldon Brown?”

That was when I realized what site I was on.

mikeryanon MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project 1974 (2016)

How’s it compare to carbon which is the most common high end, lightweight bike material these days?

mikeryanon Netflix buffering issues: Boxing fans complain about Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson

The big difference of all the examples you’ve mentioned is dedicated full-time crews on the ground where the events are produced.

I’m pretty confident that when the post mortem is done the issues are going to be way closer to the broadcast truck than the user.

mikeryanon The Onion buys Infowars

The "Global Tetrahedron" site already has an Infowars Web 1.0 slant, the Everytown for Gun Safety ads are great.

https://global-tetrahedron.com/

mikeryanon Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

In related news Bluesky added 700,000 new users in the week after the election. Count me in the group who deleted Twitter as soon as the election was over - (I had planned to do so however the election went)

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/11/24293920/bluesky-700000-...

mikeryanon Hokusai's five ghoulish prints for the series Hyaku Monogatari (ca. 1830)

These are all from the Library of Congress you can download high res TIFFs for them and print them yourself.

Here’s one. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g08749/

mikeryanon Strava was used to locate the most powerful people

The vast majority of Strava users are only competing with themselves or, at best, to be atop a daily leaderboard for a somewhat popular segment.

mikeryanon Strava was used to locate the most powerful people

Along these lines some cyclists have had their gear stolen by thieves who figured out where they live from Strava data.

They have a feature to block part of your route when near your home but some folks aren’t aware of it (or learn the hard way)

mikeryanon Microsoft and OpenAI's close partnership shows signs of fraying

I had to go back and scan it but usually there are at least a few named sources and I didn’t see any in this (there’s third party observer quotes - and I may have missed one?) so I’d not be surprised if this is a case where they double down on this.

mikeryanon Microsoft and OpenAI's close partnership shows signs of fraying

It’s a relatively common way to provide journalistic bonafides when you can’t reveal the sources names.

mikeryanon Microsoft and OpenAI's close partnership shows signs of fraying

While technical AI and LLMs are not something I’m well versed in. So as I sit on the sidelines and see the current proliferation of AI startups I’m starting to wonder where the moats are outside of access to raw computing power. Open AI seemed to have a massive lead in this space but that lead seems to be shrinking every day.

mikeryanon Redbox left PII on decommissioned machines

The end of Chicken Soup for the Soul media (who owned RedBox and Crackle at the end) was a complete shit show. I’d be unsurprised if they just walked away from the DVD boxes leaving the whoever had them on their property with the job of dumping them.

CSS just stopped paying vendors before the Redbox acquisition to make their balance sheet look better then just never paid after that until going bankrupt a year later. (My company was a vendor who had to get our attorneys involved to reclaim some payment prior to their bankruptcy and will never get the rest)

I’ve seen a bunch of these SPAC style (there’s usually some sort of penny stock starting point so the company is publicly traded from the jump) rollups of bankrupt or failing media and entertainment brands over the years and they all blow up.

mikeryanon The Atlantic Did Me Dirty

Having the desire to be able to choose doesn’t change the available choices. This seems to be a false equivalency.

mikeryanon California bans legacy admissions at private universities

There’s what two schools an applicant can be a legacy to? This isn’t rocket science to begin with.

mikeryanon Redbox Owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Files for Chapter 11

They also bought Crackle taking on another 360M in their debt.

mikeryanon Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

In the late 90s, I managed the EA Tech Support website. The support/QA* teams would have massive after-hours gaming sessions playing Serious Sam. It was the only FPS that ran consistently on our work PCs, and it was a ton of fun.

* At least at that time, EA QA and Tech Support had a lot of overlap; support guys would be come in-house beta testers in the Summer when they were trying to get games done for the holidays and do Tech Support in the Winter around Christmas when the calls went up.

mikeryanon Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

I agree with this 100%

I even said so at the time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372451#38373194

mikeryanon Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

It’s not good form to bad mouth someone you’ve fired. They did, in fact, release a statement which aligns (in PR speak) with what Toner is claiming now.

Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.

https://openai.com/index/openai-announces-leadership-transit...