HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

pfranz

3,715 karma · joined March 30, 2012

submissionscomments
pfranz··on GM's CarPlay replacement software is off to a disastrous start
I was kind of expecting some magic button combination, too, but was told there wasn't one.

The car was actually a manual transmission and the thought did occur to me. My worry was something like steering lock or some other issue while trying that while driving down the road would cause a horrible accident.

pfranz··on GM's CarPlay replacement software is off to a disastrous start
It's odd you go straight to a trope about a cult. If I'm happy with something I don't always have the time, energy, or interest to seek out something better.

It's completely unsurprising to expect the first generation of something like this, even if it was amazing, to have annoying flaws. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound amazing. Car companies have a long track record of disappointing infotainment systems and there's zero reason to expect anything better here. In fact, the problems in this article sound identical to the ones I had with Honda's most basic level infotainment system just a couple years ago. It would freeze and the only fix was turning off the car...a difficult solution on road trips. Asking the dealer about it, they said there was no update process for it--maybe a newer model year wouldn't have that issue?

pfranz··on Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments instantly
I don't think Zelle is the same thing at all.

> The initial release of the FedNow Service provides baseline functionality supporting market needs for a range of use cases, including those growing in demand such as account-to-account (A2A) transfers and bill pay.

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....

I've never seen Zelle suggested for bill pay. I've tried to use Zelle for account-to-account transfers, but it was obvious this wasn't the intention; I think I had one bank account tied to my email and another to a bank account tried to my phone number so I could send money to myself (the intention seems to be a person only sends/receives from one bank account) and the limits are very, very low. When I was trying this, the cap seemed to be secret and vary institution to institution.

[1] https://www.zellepay.com/faq/there-limit-how-much-money-i-ca...

pfranz··on Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers
I wouldn't be surprised if branded partnerships have minimal profit and are mostly intended to keep a premium market perception.

Lego was pretty famous for doing branded partnerships and still struggling [1]. This lead them to come up with more of their own IP like Bionicle and Ninjago.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionicle#Concept

pfranz··on I kind of killed Mercurial at Mozilla
> I watched a number of developers do that and it was about as much work to go from SVN to either Git or Mercurial, and if they learned the other DVCS it was always easier since they were mapping concepts rather than learning them for the first time.

We recently adopted a tool that uses Perforce as a backend. It's been interesting to try and describe centralized version control to younger engineers who have only used a dcvs like git.

pfranz··on De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon
> I'll try to set a keyboard shortcut (not a global one mind you) in iTerm2 and suddenly I need to enable iTerm2 to have accessibility access?

Maybe this could be more clear in iTerm's UI, but the reason it needs accessibility access is in scenarios where it's stomping on Mac OS' system shortcut keys. I would expect Windows or Linux would need special privileges to do the same.

pfranz··on Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
I had the same issue with crock pot meals and instant pot meals. The biggest culprit for me is a homogeneous texture (I have the same annoyance with making stuff in higher end blenders). You'll notice "high end" recipes suggest something to change up the texture; like add something crunchy after cooking. I think that makes a huge difference.
pfranz··on JPMorgan CEO says our children will only work 3.5 days a week thanks to AI
If doubling the labor force halved wages why would productivity increases have a different effect?
pfranz··on JPMorgan CEO says our children will only work 3.5 days a week thanks to AI
If you're rich and still working long hours you're not working because of the money. If you can be the CEO of multiple companies, those companies are not getting a full-time workweek and that person very likely isn't doing it for the money.
pfranz··on macOS Sonoma is available today
Just think of how fast you'll be with a1z26 ciphers!
pfranz··on Breakfast cereal is in long-term decline
Yeah, you should be careful when picking a brand, but I don't see muesli with loaded sugar at those places. Are you looking at granola? First off, I haven't seen them in my local stores (outside of Bob's Red Mill[1]). Walmart's website also mentions Familia Swiss Muesli Cereal, says "No added sugar" on the front and the nutritional values don't look far off. Trader Joe's also looks comperatble to Bob's Red Mill[2]

[1] https://www.bobsredmill.com/old-country-style-muesli.html

[2] https://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com/2021/01/trader-joes-mu...

pfranz··on Apple introduces new AirPods Pro (2nd gen) with USB‐C charging capabilities
It's ridiculously annoying you have to make an appointment, but you can get a replacement case. I haven't checked with how compatible the models are between earbuds and cases. The USB-C replacement case is quoted at $99. The same price as the lightning version.

https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair

pfranz··on Altering Python attribute handling for modules
I get where you're coming from, but those lines aren't equivalent (which may be why its confusing). "as" changes the name and can be used for both:

    import mpmath as mpmath_module
    from mpmath import mp as mp_context
"import" and "from" always address modules (directories and files) from/import extracts objects from modules and "as" swaps out the name.

It's confusing because "from/import" reaches inside a package and Python uses the same delimiter for Namespaces/Modules, Classes, and Properties.

urllib.request.HTTPBasicAuthHandler.auth_header is Namespace.Module.Class.Property You have to use each one differently...but you just have to know. You get some small context clues based on capitalization or knowing the first thing at the top of the file is a Namespace or Module.

pfranz··on The old have come to dominate American politics
How is a minimum age not ageism?

> There are great advantages to age, and people age differently.

The problem is the health of elected officials can't be trusted--their medical staff explicitly mislead or omit issues. "A pharmacist says he has filled Alzheimer's prescriptions for members of Congress" A single news article from a handful of years ago (and a huge ethical breach) is often brought up because there's a problem. That's the only reason anyone is interested in finding another proxy.

pfranz··on Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
Most cuisine-based cookbooks have a bunch of chapters on ingredients, technique, equipment, and storage that easily get overlooked. Since it's difficult to share those things in a recipe format (but often come up in videos of preparation) I'm not surprised most people are finding them on YouTube.

I find cookbooks completely ignore is "kitchen management"--preparing a meal with entree and sides being cooked concurrently so they come to the table at the same time or reusing leftovers into new meals and meal prep. Thankfully, there's a bit of this on YouTube (mostly meal prep).

Like you mentioned knife skills are a giant ignored thing. I'm a huge proponent of sharpening your knifes (because odds are they've never done it) and taking a knife skills class. It pays dividends almost every time you cook, cuts prep time at least in half, and reduces frustration and friction to cooking.

pfranz··on Sag-AFTRA votes unanimously to expand its strike to include the games industry
> I wonder if this might backfire. In the age of ai when animated characters can be almost created wholly by ai, actors can be replaced by AI, the age of the movie star might be over.

From what I've seen the conversation is a lot more nuanced. It's not "yes AI" vs "no AI." It's more around can you use my likeness, writing, or artwork to train AI with minimal to zero compensation (what studios want) or with compensation structure both sites negotiate (what unions what). Or can the result of AI be used to undermine labor. Currently, the output of AI isn't up to expected standards for much of anything. Studios are obviously trying to use that output to replace "writing credit" which has a historical structure with higher compensation. The person they pay to go "punch it up" won't get that. The resulting product would be mostly the same, but the person polishing and finishing it does a lot more work with less compensation.

AI is also just a relatively minor part of what unions are trying to negotiate.

pfranz··on Airport Pianos: Find Pianos in Airports
https://airportpianos.org/pianos/

Searching by airport code only seems to work in a few airports (perhaps by coincidence?). I see airports like Salt Lake City International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport on the search page, but none of their codes work. DUB and MEX work, but that could be because they're the long-form names as well.

pfranz··on Changing its name tanked X's downloads in App Store and Play Store
Especially since I think they botched the whole splitting up of iTunes (which should have happened years earlier). I want to buy a digital movie from Apple. It does not occur to me to open the TV.app then click on Store and look for it there. What do you call the iPhone syncing and backup part on the Mac? I guess they were demoted to features in the Finder with nothing to refer to it.

Then there's Apple TV (the app--just shown as TV in many places), Apple TV (the set top device), AppleTV+ (the subscription service)...with the Apple icon swapped out in some places adding to the confusion.

pfranz··on An abandoned cabinet full of Kodachrome slides in San Francisco
You see convenience jump and quality (temporarily) regress over and over in the short time photography has been around. Black & white film and photos look amazing. When color started coming around you needed more light and the quality dropped for awhile. In the 70s you can see faster film become available to filmmakers. This let them move out of the studio with more outdoor footage instead of large studio lights and hand-held instead of being locked on a tripod or crane. In exchange, the quality of the picture dropped. Then again, with digital scanning and vfx. I remember hearing vfx studios would sometimes get away with 1k images for theatrically released feature films if the effect was fast or blurry enough.
pfranz··on Who’s Afraid of Lorne Michaels?
I've always heard that Lorne is famously against improvisation while shooting. There have been numerous examples over the years of people getting in trouble for doing it. Here's one article [1]. There are very minor changes that don't seem to cause problems. Bill Hader talked about Fred Armisen's delivery of "What are you doing here?" in the first Californians sketch being different when shooting causing him to have trouble keeping from laughing.

This article [2] says, “Oh, ’cause we Black?” was added ahead of the run-through, but camera direction changed and not everyone was informed who the camera would be showing as it was delivered.

[1] https://www.slashfilm.com/1225418/why-lorne-michaels-doesnt-...

[2] https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/02/snl-lisa-from-t...

pfranz··on Exploring the Internals of Linux v0.01
I believe the traditional resource is Dinosaur book (OS Concepts by Silberschatz). I've also seen Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ come up.

Another common recommendation is to find a hackable existing OS/kernel. You already have a working OS, but you can inspect and rewrite portions without having to do everything yourself upfront. http://www.minix3.org/ seems to be a popular one. Various BSDs seem to be mentioned, as well.

pfranz··on Unity Weta Tools
Here's a HN thread asking the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169143

Anecdotally, I've heard the same thing. Lots of articles will say things like, "ILM increased the resolution of StageCraft with its in-house renderer, Helios" but never explicitly say they dropped Unreal or exactly what changed.

pfranz··on It’s not only NY, LA, San Francisco. Retail crime has hit Kansas metropolis
Wikipedia has a pretty good description, sources, and recent US-based examples.

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

pfranz··on Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale
If it's easy to prevent, why is it so much more of a problem than for wine? Budweiser had a “born on date” and later switched it to a "freshest before" date. Other breweries insist on cold shipping--that's quite expensive.
pfranz··on Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale
Beer is incredibly difficult to keep shelf-stable. International beers, unless very specific efforts are taken, will taste off. I heard a story that Austrian beer enthusiasts just assumed American beers tasted "skunky" because that's how they tasted after importing them. Time, temperature, and light are enemies. Anheuser-Busch has a dozen breweries across the US.

I'm not a fan of hops, but the PNW grows 96% of hops in the US--so it makes sense local breweries up there are known for IPA. Historically, beer styles leaned into local water mineral content; Pilsners from Germany/Czech Republic and Stout/Porter from Britain/Ireland.

Regional wines (local wines shipped widely) make sense and local beers do, too.

pfranz··on Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit
I completely agree. I've been asked to stay on an extra week or two and I think it was a terrible decision. Nobody really cared or paid attention in hand off meetings (I'd like to think careful documentation was later appreciated when someone had to take those things on later) and I was interested in moving on.
pfranz··on Federal Housing Administration greenlights 40-year mortgages
You're right about not getting much equity (unless the market keeps going up!) The videos says, "Hardly anybody stays in a house 30-40 years anymore. In fact, the average is 7 years before sell and move on." After 7 years you would pay about the same in interest, but close to 50% less towards the principle.
pfranz··on CGI Renders Are Real Photos (2017)
I think for building anything (art, code, furniture) the tools help you find the result. Building it a second time is much easier and requires a lot less sophistication.
pfranz··on IRS builds task force to explore running its own free e-file system
So many countries already have it figured out. My understanding is by law income already needs to be reported to the IRS (from your employer or by you). I would imagine that's all you'd be legally signing off on. That's all I remember confirming when living abroad. If your income is accounted for correctly is there a scenario that would increase your tax liability assuming you already qualify for a standard deduction?
pfranz··on IRS builds task force to explore running its own free e-file system
> Nothing special happened in 2010. Beginning 2018 there was a temporary change (TJCA) that increased the standard deduction, but that ends in 3 years unless extended by Congress.

My understanding was that the personal exemption was temporarily removed, but the standard deduction was changed moving forward...but what do I know? I want the government to give me a default option that has a correct answer.

> No, there is a third, much larger group, of taxpayers who want to keep loopholes, grey areas, and little things you can cheat on and get away with. This is only possible with the current system.

Huh? All people are asking for is that the IRS fill out your 1040 for you as one option for paying taxes. No loopholes, grey areas, or enforcement changes. If you're talking about possible knock-on effects; people not paying attention to taxes, therefore paying more, or not paying enough attention that taxes get raised with out noticing--that's literally Grover Norquist's position.

You say a "much larger group." When California had a pilot program[1], the only opposition was from Intuit. "99 percent stated they were satisfied with ReadyReturn, 97 percent stated this is the type of service government should provide, 96 percent stated it was more convenient than how they filed in the past, 95 percent stated it saved them time, and 98 percent stated they would use it again."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalFile#ReadyReturn

← PreviousPage 2 of 34Next →