Hacker News Reader

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

I would pay a premium to buy actual wine grapes instead of the boring green spheres that usually show up in the grocery store

rcpton Does Georgism work? Five years later

The problem is that the issue is rarely LVT vs market-rate property taxes.

It's usually up against some insane shit like Prop 13

rcpton Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

Amazingly unhinged response to the automated bird picture frame.

rcpton The EPA is planning to scrap public review rules for data center pollution

Public comment is bad. It gives people with time to comment far more power than those who can't. It's one of the major reasons we can't building housing or high speed rail.

rcpton Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

I am surprised that Alpoge wasn't using Anthropic.

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

I think you are mixing up a couple of things.

Income to rent ratio, which is what this thread is about, varies geographically. Rent eats 30-40% of income in prestige cities like NYC or SF or LA. It's only 25% in Kansas City or Columbus.

You seem to be thinking about overall cost burden over time.

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

That's not really true. Rent to income ratio varies quite a lot

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

And based on this comment section we get seriously offended when you point it out.

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

Housing is expensive in our prestige cities, but that's true in much of the world.

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

> downsizing in the current market basically means that you pay way more for way less

Can you elaborate on that? It's pretty common for people to sell their 4 bedroom family house and retire to Florida. But it's not "way more for way less"

rcpton Reflections on Americans' Net Worth

Really? Given you're on this site I imagine you know at least some technical people. And for the most part we're all very well off.

rcpton Algorithmic rent-pricing litigation expands under new state and local laws

I don't think that's true. Prop 13 for example is priced into the market. Buyers bid higher because their taxes are frozen. This doesn't take decades to correct.

Market reactions are instant. Once the policy is fixed we don't have to wait for a generation

rcpton Algorithmic rent-pricing litigation expands under new state and local laws

> prices for land go down, which means it is cheaper to build

By this logic San Francisco should be one of the cheapest places in the world to build

rcpton Oceans hit highest temperature on record

The federal government is paying energy companies to cancel plans to build wind farms:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o

Yes we're still building renewable energy, but goddamn is our government making it hard.

rcpton Oceans hit highest temperature on record

I'm sure that figure is accurate. And the other person in this thread who commented "the entire energy consumption of two Swedens or half a Thailand" is probably also accurate.

It's not about accuracy, it's about the units people choose when having these discussions

rcpton Oceans hit highest temperature on record

It's an unspoken rule in the data center debate that every metric is completely batshit.

Doesn't matter what side you're on, it's always "enough water to irrigate 27 soccer fields" or "as much energy as 1/5th of the average hamburger"

rcpton 'The Nerd Reich' tracks the 'unmasking of Silicon Valley's true politics'

Larry Fink exists. Wow I've just "unmasked" the true politics of banking.

rcpton 'The Nerd Reich' tracks the 'unmasking of Silicon Valley's true politics'

Aside from Elon and some crypto weirdos (if crypto even counts as tech) most of leadership went for Kamala in 24.

Today of course it's difficult because if you don't give Donnie a gift basket he blows a temper tantrum and hits you with tariffs.

rcpton 'The Nerd Reich' tracks the 'unmasking of Silicon Valley's true politics'

> union

The Teamsters went for Trump in 24. Having a union doesn't mean you're immune from facism.

rcpton Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

Look at the paper. There's a floor to mental work. Even if it's a nickel, having to make that decision is enough friction to kill the whole deal

rcpton Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results

Micropayments never work. It's too much friction for the median user to decide if they want to spend a quarter on an article.

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/micropayments-and-ment...

rcpton Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots

Mearsheimer & Walt (2007): The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

This is the standard source on the topic. They compare the dynamics vs other countries like Russia

rcpton Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction

Also wondering why you'd fly Spirit from Brazil to the US.

rcpton Pixel 11 Pro Fold

Meet the Vivo X300

https://www.vivo.com/en/products/x300-ultra

rcpton The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

That 8yo isn't allowed a voice. Why?

rcpton DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

Hurricane blast radius is very small

rcpton DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731

> RyanAir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_low-cost_airl...

rcpton DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731

The bet isn't that people will be able to automatically reply on bugs and rack up API charges.

The bet is on using AI to gain competitive advantage. You don't win the stock market or make the deadliest drone by switching to the cheap model

rcpton $100 AI Music Video: Claude Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol

Genghis Khan

https://youtu.be/P_SlAzsXa7E

rcpton Deadly bacteria found in city's wastewater system tied to Meta data center

Just to be clear this happened during construction. It has nothing to do with whether or not computers go inside of the building.