Hacker News Reader

motionlessvelocon Singapore govt dating app uses Gale-Shapley stable marriage algorithm

Starting out at the second richest city in Asia after Shanghai, you mean.

The PAP likes its "fishing village in a swamp" trope, and post-war Singapore certainly had its share of problems, but it was already a wealthy trading entrepot long before Lee Kuan Yew came along.

motionlessvelocon Singapore govt dating app uses Gale-Shapley stable marriage algorithm

The current prime minister is unrelated to the Lee family, and none of the third generation Lees seem particularly interested in politics.

motionlessvelocon Singapore govt dating app uses Gale-Shapley stable marriage algorithm

A reminder that Singapore has plenty of history with government-sponsored dating, notably the Social Development Unit (SDU), aka "Single, Desperate and Ugly".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Development_Network

Created appropriately enough in 1984, it had explicitly eugenicist goals (discussed at length in Wikipedia), since Lee Kuan Yew was quite worried about the Idiocracy scenario where the lower classes out-procreate top talent and lead to societal decline.

motionlessvelocon U.S. postal inspectors shut down website selling counterfeit postage labels

Osama bin Laden had friends in high places. I doubt this is true for our stamp counterfeiter, although if he earned even a fraction of the US$126M loss USPS allegedly suffered, I'm sure he can buy some.

motionlessvelocon How Delhi cut electricity loss from 50 to 5 percent

I wonder how many HNers recall life in Delhi even 20 years ago? Cutting electricity loss is one thing, but getting rid of "load shedding" (unplanned power cuts) is the really revolutionary part. It was not uncommon for the power to go out several times a day and you had to rush to unplug expensive appliances (TV, laptop), because when the power came back it was often accompanied by a surge. My office was wired with two sets of electrical sockets, one connected to grid mains and the other connected to the UPS (for important equipment only).

motionlessvelocon California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

My dad spent a lot of time in Spain back in the day and was a regular at a local cafe, where he'd get a coffee and a tortilla (Spanish omelette) for breakfast. The cafe was popular with construction workers too and they would order the same, only they would top it off with a shot of Carlos Tercero, the cheapest brandy.

motionlessvelocon California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

The reason you go to kids' birthday parties because your child was invited and they're too young to go alone.

You can socialize and you kind of have to, but they've probably invited every classmate from preschool or whatever, so there's 20 people you probably haven't met before, have nothing in common except having kids the same age, and will probably never see again (except maybe at the next birthday party). And often the parties are held in a McDonalds or something, so catering is chicken nuggets and shitty cake with a Paw Patrol motif.

motionlessvelocon California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

Finland definitely has a history of binge drinking and straight up alcoholism. However, I don't think the state can take credit for consumption going down, since the decline in drinking among younger generations seems pretty much global at this point.

motionlessvelocon Nissan's third generation e-POWER powertrain

The canonical American setup of a house with a garage where you can charge your car is exceedingly rare in Tokyo. Most people live in apartments and don't have cars, and even suburbam houses rarely have garages. If they have cars, they're parked in the apartment garage or a monthly contract parking lot, neither of which has charging.

It's a solvable chicken and egg problem, and China cracked it, but for time being Japan is way behind the curve in EV adoption.

motionlessvelocon SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today

Starship's commercial viability rests almost entirely on whether it can orbit Starlink satellites more cheaply than Falcon. Falcon is around $3000/kg, Starship was promised at $100/kg, I doubt even Elon believes that number but it does mean they have plenty of buffer and cutting capacity from 50T to 100T is not the end of the world.

I agree that the Human Landing System plan for the moon is a shitshow, but it's almost a distraction for SpaceX at this point, and it would not surprise me if the whole program gets axed by whoever comes after Trump.

motionlessvelocon SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today

Abort confirmed :(

Update: Or maybe not? They're reviewing the status now.

Update 2: Go for orbit!

Update 3: Orbital insertion complete!!

Update 4: First Starlink satellites successfully deployed!

motionlessvelocon Intellectuals Are Fucking Idiots

Don't worry, the heresy has been flagged already.

motionlessvelocon Intellectuals Are Fucking Idiots

This is written by the author of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck", so gratuitous cursing is his schtick.

The book is actually more interesting than you'd think from the title, but (IMHO) the profanity still distracts from the message, and like most self-improvement books you could probably condense the 200+ pages into 10.

motionlessvelocon SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today

Ship will also have to be outfitted with a life-support system ahead of crewed missions, which could be coming relatively soon. For example, NASA picked Ship to the be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to land people on the moon for the first time in 2028 on the Artemis IV mission.

Don't worry, there is absolutely no chance this will happen in 2028. There are many detailed takedowns of why the "Human Landing System" schedule is preposterous, but here's HN's idlewords:

https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/how-should-we-think-about-...

motionlessvelocon Does Georgism work? Five years later

You are attacking a strawman of your own invention, since LVTs have nothing whatsoever to do with Austin.

motionlessvelocon Does Georgism work? Five years later

Austin does not have a land value tax.

motionlessvelocon Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

I stand corrected (for the EU), I didn't notice the data splits out PHEV and HEV into two buckets.

The trend is obvious though, as EV adoption increases hybrid adoption goes down.

motionlessvelocon Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

Norway is approaching 100% EVs, and while that's juiced by subsidies, the other Nordics are not far behind. Sure, the cold cuts the range a bit, but the vast majority of people don't need the full range every day.

motionlessvelocon Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

What do you need to "plan"? Plug it in when you get home, and it'll be charged by the morning.

motionlessvelocon Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

The cheapest car available in Australia is now an EV, and it's an EV-only platform.

https://thedriven.io/2026/09/16/australias-cheapest-new-car-...

motionlessvelocon Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

In all markets where Chinese EVs are available, BEV sales significantly outstrip hybrids in 2026. EU, Australia, you name it.

At the end of the day hybrids are a transitional technology, and it makes sense to ditch the ICE entirely as soon as you can.

motionlessvelocon Nokia Design Archive (2025)

And Nokia started making pulp and rubber in the 1800s, I don't see what that has to do with my point.

Nokia's rise started in 1990 when Ollila, who had been the mobile phone lead, was promoted to CEO. This was still very early on (Nokia's first GSM phone only came out in 1992) and a large part of the fief war was driven by the legacy telco people being unhappy about the upstart mobile people now calling the shots.

motionlessvelocon Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

A foreign nation shooting down a US satellite would be an act of war, regardless of whether it's a Google or CIA satellite.

motionlessvelocon Nokia Design Archive (2025)

Citation needed. Nokia Networks and Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) were run like entirely separate kingdoms within Nokia and their conflicts were legendary.

It's often forgotten that Microsoft didn't buy "Nokia", they bought the NMP division, and the Networks bit is alive and kicking to this day.

motionlessvelocon Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

The economics is constrained by physics. AI in space is not viable if it costs $1000/kg to launch to space. Starship promises to cut that down to $100/kg (more if you believe Elon, but most don't), but that's still not competitive.

Sure, things would be different if the cost was $1/kg, but short of somebody building a space elevator that's just not going to happen.

motionlessvelocon Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

Why would the CIA need Google's cover for any of that? The Feds have been flying spy satellites since the 1950s and there's plenty of classified satellite launches.

motionlessvelocon Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"

"Foreign influence is defined as receiving support, whether monetary, organizational, or advisory, from foreign sources, which include foreign states, organizations, nationals, and any individual or entity under foreign influence."

However, there is a second pillar: the agent has to " engage in political activities, gather information on military capabilities, or create and disseminate information intended for a broad audience." Which is why eg Gazprom is presumably not a foreign agent.

motionlessvelocon Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"

In Russia, receiving any funding of any kind from outside Russia (say, a $5 donation to an open source project) makes you a "foreign agent".

motionlessvelocon Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"

anyone furthering the “goals” of a foreign power in “any public activity” — including even “public demonstrations” — must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution

This is directly, line for line, copied from Putin's playbook. In Russia, if you do anything the government doesn't like, you can either declare yourself a "foreign agent" and live with the massive restrictions that imposes, or get designated as one anyway with flimsy or non-existent evidence, and then face those same restrictions plus criminal prosecution for non-compliance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law