Hacker News: Peanuts99

New comment by Peanuts99 in "UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s"

Peanuts99 — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:04:57 +0000

Social media sites today are nothing like the forums and guestbooks of the 90s. Social media now is highly effective at developing addiction like symptoms as well as driving people to decisive topics and conspiracy theories. It has a measurable effect on teenagers wellbeing and academic performance too.

My bigger concern is the how rather than the why on this topic.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

Peanuts99 — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 19:43:56 +0000

Perhaps on that one axis. On the other hand Switzerland is probably about as far opposed as the USSR as you can get.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada"

Peanuts99 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:54:34 +0000

There's been a lot of study into this already and the forming consensus is that fast DC charging is less of an issue on battery longevity than was first thought. In cars with decent thermal management systems it seems to have a fairly limited effect on battery lifetime as opposed to natural calendar aging.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones"

Peanuts99 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:43:47 +0000

China has the largest intelligence programme in the world and likely has whole teams of people whose job it is to build this type of data. It's not surprising that they are cagey about it being hoovered up by other countries.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "AI is slowing down"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:05:44 +0000

Ultimately though it's those people's bosses who set the direction and from my experience those people are telling you to your face that you'll be replaced by AI as soon as they're able to do so while they continuously fail to see it's shortcomings.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "The iPhone's Last Stand?"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:04:03 +0000

This would not be a net benefit to society.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "CT scans of BYD car parts"

Peanuts99 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:13:22 +0000

This is false, the ID.3 was designed primarily in Germany but they sell a model customised to the Chinese market. They're two different cars from different production facilities.

All the control modules for the German model at least are manufactured by Bosch and Valeo in France and Germany - where the software is also produced.

As an aside, Bosch produces control modules and the underlying software for just about every western car manufacturer. 80%+ cars sold worldwide use their traction control system for example so I'm not sure where this so-called gap is.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "CT scans of BYD car parts"

Peanuts99 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:57:02 +0000

Considering decent portions of the F35 are built by BAE, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce and Martin-Baker - all of which are working on a 6th generation fighter which is due to be flight tested next year - this doesn't really ring true.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career"

Peanuts99 — Mon, 11 May 2026 19:20:01 +0000

I agree with the statement and think a lot of people miss this, but I also wonder how many people probably don't care for good, they only care for 'good enough'.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "The Car That Watches You Back: The Advertising Infrastructure of Modern Cars"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:49:34 +0000

I have a Polestar with a big touch screen on the dash. You can disconnect the cellular module in about a minute and everything still works fine. There are many such vehicles, I think this story is a little overblown.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "The Car That Watches You Back: The Advertising Infrastructure of Modern Cars"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:46:23 +0000

Think you're greatly underestimated how unreliable carburetors can be.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "UK Fuel Price Intelligence – Market analytics from reporting stations"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 05 May 2026 06:17:44 +0000

Pricing a product in an attempt to capture the cost of the negative externalities is probably not a bad idea. Also, the UK tax is supposed to raise every year to incentivise a move to EVs but they famously haven't increased it for years.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Scott Hanselman says he's working on Windows local accounts"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 12:51:21 +0000

I'm curious because Mac OS effectively has the same model. You can use local accounts but it's highly discouraged through dark patterns and selected features of the OS don't work correctly.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Honda is killing its EVs"

Peanuts99 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:50:34 +0000

I'll take the 30 seconds of plugging my car in when I get home than the 20 minute detour to the petrol station. Especially because my electric at nighttime is so cheap. But you do you.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Honda is killing its EVs"

Peanuts99 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:34:39 +0000

Woah hold on there. Where is the evidence for both increased dust and increased pollution levels?

EVs generate next to no brake dust due to regenerative braking, most EVs have mechanisms to forcefully use the friction brakes at some points to stop surface rust for this reason.

It's true they're generally heavier than the equivalent ICE vehicle, but this is usually around 200-300KG heavier - it causes a small increase in tyre wear and associated particulates but these are heavy large particles - the majority larger than pm10. That's a problem for water courses and micro plastics but nothing that'll get in your lungs or bloodstream. Anecdotally, my EV tyres (a particularly heavy model too) have lasted fine - my last set did 53k miles.

ICE cars produce plenty of pm10s, pm2.5s and smaller particles as well as nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and plenty of other harmful pollutants that EVs inherently don't. Even the power generated for them is usually produced away from the majority of the population.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'"

Peanuts99 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 07:22:45 +0000

Azures physical servers actually use a similar technology apparently. They both have some kind of proprietary HSM module that stores keys on the device and is resistant to tampering. I've read that Azure servers actually break this protection when removed from the rack so the server is made entirely useless if it's removed.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Home Assistant waters my plants"

Peanuts99 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:26:19 +0000

Seems pretty disrespectful to your wife and women in general to be honest.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)"

Peanuts99 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:38:31 +0000

They're also closing down coal plants faster than anyone else and actually faster than planned because of the price of solar. Check your facts.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran"

Peanuts99 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:47:02 +0000

South Korea has the capability to build nuclear weapons very quickly if needed, they're a nuclear threshold state.

New comment by Peanuts99 in "The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran"

Peanuts99 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:44:20 +0000

How do you even securely hold an election during a full scale war? Thousands are outside the country or on the front lines. You'd also be creating huge targets at polling stations. Luckily their constitution recognises it's a bad idea to try.