Hacker News Reader

nimoson MyPowerbank hacks Santander bikes so London's homeless can charge their phones

Assuming my exercise bike wattage is accurate I think most decently fit people could average 100 watts for an hour with a bit of sweating but not like, full on panting. 20 watts is low enough that it's awkward to generate that little power in terms of speed/resistance.

nimoson MyPowerbank hacks Santander bikes so London's homeless can charge their phones

iPhones charge at 20watts. Doing that sustained by hand is probably fairly tiring but would be trivial wattage for say biking. From my experience the hand crank radio's would be pretty futile for charging a phone. There are some charging specific devices out there that can generate decent power.

https://www.amazon.ca/Powerhouse-Watt-Hand-Crank-Generator-Q...

nimoson Kids’ competitive activities lead to debt for parents

Lots of people coach and referee. It also says "could" which seems like basically just a true statement in that it has a probability built in? It's not clear to me what the question actually asked was.

nimoson MGM Seeks Contractors to Repair Infra in 3 Weeks

100 dollars an hour seems like roughly the perfect amount of money to get spammed by unqualified people but get basically no one qualified... I mean maybe people already in Vegas who aren't working it makes sense? If they were paying flights/hotels/food maybe? But I assume they'd mention it if they were.

nimoson YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

The Monetization Window is the new Overton Window. I think people underestimate how much Youtube's monetization policy influences what popular creators put in videos. Because it's not just the money - it also effects how videos are promoted by the algorithm.

nimoson The truth about nitro-meats: my seven-year search for better bacon

The worst is salt because iodine deficiency actually isn't that rare and is increasing.... The cheapest generic salts tend to have added iodine but most of the "fancy" stuff doesn't.

nimoson Breakfast cereal is in long-term decline

I think you are overestimating how healthy those are. Cheerios and rice krispies both have added sugar(yes UK versions). Shredded wheat is better but all three are still a very carb heavy meal, even with milk.

nimoson Unity's Self-Combustion Engine

Any reason to not consider a "web-native" engine(ie Phaser)? Just curious.

nimoson Calif. passes strongest right-to-repair bill yet, requiring 7 years of parts

As much as I kind of like this it seems like this is basically another freebie for random offshore companies like BEEMOK and JOOBLE that are spamming stuff via amazon/temu/et all. There is basically 0% chance they even exist 7 years later and then another basically 0% chance you could actually get any remedy against them even if they did.

nimoson The U.S. housing market vs. the Canadian housing market

Taxes are a pretty big difference too. Even though the California top federal + state isn't that far off of Ontario the income bands are much wider. At 300k USD(410 CAD) you'll have about an extra 21k USD take home in California. Then sales taxes are 13% in Ontario vs 7-10% in Cali(local taxes).

nimoson Show HN: Conway's Game of Life in TypeScript's type system

Ha! More performant than I'd have guessed. I tried commenting `PrintBoard<EvolveN<GosperGliderGun, 100>>` in and out and it took about 3 seconds (in the ts playground).

nimoson Tell HN: JPMorgan Chase forcing arbitration agreement to log in

Eh I've been a part of a bunch of class action law suits and I think the most I've gotten was a 10-20 dollar gift card? The only time I've started arbitration a) my problem got fixed almost immediately b) I walked away with an extra 1000 dollars (which probably could have been more but again I was lazy and instantly settled)

IIRC I filled out 1 online form and had previously sent 1 copy-paste demand letter.

nimoson Tell HN: JPMorgan Chase forcing arbitration agreement to log in

Honestly I prefer arbitration agreements. My lazy ass aint making it down to the court house but you bet your ass I can fill out a form online. But yeah they and every other company are basically counting on no one ever doing anything.

I'm really hoping it blows up in some company's face where there are a lot of individuals with claims and it goes viral. Would tickle me funny if a Fortune 500 company got bankrupted by some zoomer on tiktok doing a stupid dance while telling people how to file for arbitration. AFAIK it is actually FAR FAR more expensive than a class action lawsuit if a non-trivial number of people actually file for arbitration.

nimoson Honda targeting 50% weight reduction with EV solid state batteries

Yeah weight also has all sorts of knock on effects on other components. Suspension, tires, brakes, frame all need to get beefed up for extra weight and/or wear quicker.

nimoson Fi now opts you into the use of your CPNI by Alphabet affiliates

Interesting - yeah does work for me now but last night just redirected to the home page and was still enabled when I checked privacy settings.

I'd argue a hyperlink 4 paragraphs deep in the middle of a sentence doesn't meet the standard of "reply directly" but I'm sure Google's lawyers feel different.

nimoson Fi now opts you into the use of your CPNI by Alphabet affiliates

Seems like this violates a few of the notice requirements most clearly:

(ii) Carriers must allow customers to reply directly to emails containing CPNI notices in order to opt-out;

As it came from a no reply address.

They have "If you prefer to opt out of letting Fi use and share your CPNI with Alphabet and Google services, you can do so by replying here" text in the email with "here" being a hyperlink that takes me to my main google fi profile page but doesn't even turn off the opt-in.

Looking forward to absolutely nothing happening! Is there even a private right of action?

nimoson Wagner coup in Russia? Wagner declared war on the Russian army

Maybe cover for a Russian withdrawal? Create some internal issue that gives troops a reason to retreat without losing face. Wishful thinking perhaps.

nimoson Amazon duped millions of consumers into enrolling in Prime, US FTC says

Interesting, I complained to the California AG about not being able to cancel the auto renew in 2019.

Got this great line from Amazon customer service:

"Unfortunately, currently we don't have an option to turn off the prime membership. However you can turn off your prime membership in your Account (www.amazon.com/your-account). Just click "Manage Prime Membership" under "Settings," and click the "Do not continue" link."

FWIW the "Do not continue" thing didn't seem to actually exist. I had to wait for the renewal to happen then cancel after.

nimoson Benzene Exposure Alters Endocrine Activity

A lot of chemicals seem to have effects on the endocrine system. I wonder if there is potentially an issue with them in aggregate. Such that the dose of any single chemical isn't problematic but all of them together with similar effects causes a problem.

nimoson Unison Language and Platform Roadmap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCWtkvDQ2ZI&

This video is a little old but I remember finding it really interesting and I think dives into it a bit.

nimoson Debunking the Myth of Dollar Cost Averaging

Five years is a fairly long time to DCA and you would presumably park the rest of the money in a tbill ladder or even something slightly riskier. Not taking that into account is pretty significant considering the time period in question. ex 3 month tbills were yielding 12% at the start of the period.

There is a fairly significant body of work around this idea by professionals in the field and a pretty well established set of trade offs between lump sum and DCA.

This isn't really a "debunking" so much as it's a fairly naïve and uncharitable comparison of DCA vs LS.

nimoson Apple Vision Pro Is Apple's New VR Headset

~100 bucks a month financed over 3 years. IMO the question is "can most people wear this for hours on end for both work and play" If that is actually yes (skeptical) I'm probably a buyer.

Adjusted for inflation it's actually cheaper than most early computers (Apple II ~6500 to start at launch).

nimoson Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset is finally here

Curious if this will give a viable mobile workstation. If I can get the experience of a 4k ~32 inch monitor while traveling I'd consider buying it just for that. They seem to be promoting that..... getting nervous about price though.

nimoson PayPal has restricted our account after we invoiced a key containing “ALEP”

Unless something changed recently CAN-SPAM has no private right of action for individuals.

nimoson Maybe treating housing as an investment was a mistake

Basically correct - fixed is fixed over the 5 years, variable changes within those 5 years.

nimoson [dead]

502 for me. Back now.

Interesting question though. What would happen if gmail just straight up lost all data?

The deluge of people trying to change their email accounts and logins across so many businesses.

A modern horror.

nimoson IRIS²: The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink

That Falcon 9 success rate is for the first stage boosters landing. The current gen of Falcon 9 is 149/149 for launch success which would be comparable to the Ariane stat.

Looking at both recently they basically have a 100% success rate.

nimoson J&J can’t use bankruptcy to resolve talc-injury lawsuits, appeals court rules

I was actually just wondering what is stopping companies from forming separate LLCs for every product line or even product? I mean at some point the administrative overhead is not worth it but 100-1000 individual LLCs seems pretty trivial to manage for a fortune 500 company and that cuts your liability massively if you are able to effectively distribute assets.

nimoson US startup's bladeless VTOL can reach up to 0.8 Mach

Electric->Mechanical is much more efficient than Fuel->Mechanical so that is probably where the difference is coming from.

nimoson A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on the ground

Texas is pretty far south. If you use https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php there is about a 9% increase in total output over the year for optimal tilt(27 vs 0) but then you also need to space modules.

There is hourly data if you are interested but even Jan 1 the panels produce for ~7-8 hours. The 3 hour around noon it's about 1/2 the output for the day (for Jan 1).