rjh29

I guess that's why they work in particular niche spaces like a synthesizer where you have a max of 8 voices and every voice goes through the same pipeline (osc / filter / env / amp) and everything is necessarily running all the time. In that sense I suppose they're very good for modelling any kind of analog circuitry?

Even then, while there are some amazing FPGA-based synths available, companies like Korg just put their code on a raspberry pi and call it a day. The same is true for emulators (SNES Mini etc. are also just raspberry pis under the hood iirc)

Flash-Lite is unusable for anything other than search summarisation, imo. The interesting part is other providers are still offering Flash-level models for free. Now that Google have paywalled it, how will they respond?

The 2020s equivalent of using clip-art. Fine for most people but looks too generic for a b2b site.

Flash and Pro models are moving to paid plans, free users will only get Flash-Lite. Flash-Lite is the same model used by the Android phone Gemini app and AI Overviews in Google Search, which is very poor at reasoning and makes many errors.

Personally, I've been using the free plan quite a lot and never hit a rate limit, but noticed the quality dropping. Pro was almost never available. Perhaps they aren't able to deliver a good quality Flash model to free users.

Starbucks on Google can be added to Google Wallet. But then I went to use it and they told me to close wallet and open the app. Shrug.

I've had patchy success with adding boarding passes to the wallet too. Support seems half baked.

The Denuvo hack uses Windows Hypervisor to intercept cpuid, maybe that would work?

Not recently but when I was a teenager (2001-ish) my supermarket was using a DOS computer to handle stock, print new labels when prices updated each day, etc.

It's funny because everyone predicted this would happen back when Netflix had everything and was $5. "Eventually other companies are going to make their own apps, put in ads, increase prices and we'll be back to $80 a month"

Ever since I did the "The Science of Well-Being" coursera course way back when, and got into mindfulness, I always try to saviour my daily sandwich! And also mix it up a bit (cutting it differently, using new ingredients). Both of these are tiny things in isolation but if you do stuff like this throughout the day it makes a measurable difference to happiness.

Good memories of visiting used bookshops near Kyoto University with stacks upon stacks of obscure literary works and research material. Lots of interesting books about the Japanese language that were never digitized and I always left with 2-3 new books. So I'm not super happy about AI companies hoovering this all up and not making the scans available.

That's not a new thing. I bought my first apple product (an iPad) last year and the free trials and nagging to set up iCloud cause the Settings app to have a red dot all of the time.

^ Yeah I mentioned the OP had created a ton of different AI projects (based on history) but I deleted it because I have no proof OP is the author. It does seem likely though!

Mostly an advert for JIVX language learning tools. The entire site seems to be AI generated and there is no real trace of a human involved in the writing or curation.

Dropbox is 2TB for the same price as your 40GB. Cool idea though.

It's true. But I'm just happy it's not another AI post

I know that feeling. I had it with Resident Evil 4 and other full games in VR. It's almost too immersive and I can't play more than an hour or so.

There are two use-cases. Already sitting at a PC and you just pop your headset on - your idea makes sense. But traditional VR means standing up in a dedicated space (2m x 2m) and demands uninterrupted time. That's a high friction activity, and adding setting up a PC and Oculus Link and Steam VR before you start playing makes that friction even higher to the point where it's a niche hobby. Most casual players are doing stuff like VRChat and Beat Saber which can run on low powered hardware, so having a basic game-playing ability is a good idea.

It is a nightmare scenario: you have a long tail of thousands of websites that are broken, a large complex codebase and you need hours of time per bug for a human to investigate and fix it. Some trickier bugs could take days to diagnose. It's not sustainable for a small team. Luckily, I think this is one of the cases where AI can be leveraged appropriately, and give them a fighting chance of catching up.

I agree with you, high frequency is a totally different domain. But for the majority of projects, you don't need to buy special equipment. It's very accessible and PCBs are super cheap to print nowadays.

I am definitely bitter (and biased) because I frequent a PCB review subreddit and increasingly people show up with zero knowledge expecting people to review their AI-generated projects for free.

If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd.

I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones)

The reason I'm being snarky is because it feels like you don't know what you're talking about. I know you're a mod so ban me or we but that's the impression I got.

You lost me when you referred to a multimeter as "costly equipment"

I'm still cold on this for two reasons

1. PCB review subreddit gets posts from people who use Claude to design the whole thing with 3D renders. Looks amazing. But uses auto router and 20 connections are left open. Claude said they needed to be fixed manually but the user didn't even read, just posted the whole GitHub and expected volunteers to fix it

2. Another project used Claude to design the PCB. After assembly the usb c port melted. I can see (via GitHub) photos being posted to Claude, Claude commenting that they're not sure if it's a current issue or a soldering problem (short), so " just leave the usb c port out for now". Zero evidence of the user using their brain or pulling out a multimeter.

PCB design is not that hard. People trying to offload this to AI are also unwilling or unable to put in the work to actually diagnose issues and finish the project. Unlike code, you cannot chuck hundreds of dollars at Claude until it "solves" PCB because it has no way to test its changes.

Or just order the parts with their sister company LCSC and assemble yourself. It's not that hard especially if you have a hot air gun!

I don't understand your argument. PCB design is not that hard you can learn how to do it in a month or so. JLCPCB can print (or even assemble) PCBs for next to nothing. Irrespective of AI it seems easier than ever to produce prototypes right now.

I use Gemini every day and I've noticed any subjective improvement. In many cases it feels worse because it does fewer Google searches than before. As a result I find it hard to get excited about it.

I do think Gemini is underrated on HN though!

Search grounding is expensive, you can't force the model to do it either. I use Gemini a lot and it often replies with out-dated data. The more detailed the information you're asking, the more likely it is to be wrong.

While Monzo are expensive their approach of rewarding loyalty (5% off per year for Monzo Mobile) is a good idea compared to the endless switching you have to do to get the best rates.

Compared to Lebara or other cheap MVNOs their offering is not great. While they eventually give you 30% off (after 6 years) their starting price is 30% higher.

"it should be so frustrating for a dev to work on a full core banking that is mostly useless and userless except maybe 1h every 3 years."

When other banks go down and Monzo stays up, even for 1 hour, that is a massive PR win and will bring in new customers. It's also been used multiple times as of the article (2025), and they are always exposing some users to it for testing.

Why does it have to be an iPad mini? It's not even oled and there are hundreds of other small tablets available for less money.