Hacker News: UFOFlyer

New comment by UFOFlyer in "Claude Duet"

UFOFlyer — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:43:00 +0000

One use case I've been having a lot of success with is using Muse's browser use capabilities to cut through annoying web UIs. I subscribe to a meal delivery service but the web app is slow and I often forget to pick the next week's meals (being stuck with unappetizing defaults), so now I have Muse crawl through the app weekly and surface the options I care about (taking into account my dietary preferences). I think most people have a few places where they could replace a habitual multi-step flow with a single button/prompt like this.

Another great use case for me has been richer search. I'm looking for a new apartment to rent right now so I gave Muse all my (long) list of requirements and preferences and every day it searches Craigslist and Facebook marketplace to see if any new places pop up that fit my needs. It only pings me if something worthwhile comes up. I've stopped short of actually having it email the landlords and arrange showings for me, but that's theoretically possible.

I've been using Muse for all of the above, but I'm trying to move off of it onto a self hosted hermes to avoid giving Zuck the keys to my personal life. I've really been inspired by this personal super app blog post and I'm trying to get my personal agent to create some custom UIs on demand for the above use cases instead of just interacting via a chat window.

https://wilhelm.substack.com/p/building-a-personal-super-app...

New comment by UFOFlyer in "Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages"

UFOFlyer — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 18:57:46 +0000

Okular from KDE project, they have a windows release too.

New comment by UFOFlyer in "Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage"

UFOFlyer — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 08:47:05 +0000

You lean back as hard as you can and the regen breaking stops you. It works pretty well actually, if you look up "EUC braking test" on YouTube you're likely to find some videos that will give an idea of their braking performance.

New comment by UFOFlyer in "Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage"

UFOFlyer — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 22:49:01 +0000

I think the niche of "personal vehicle that you can take on the metro" is better filled by PEVs. Shrinking down a bike's drivetrain size is harder than just putting together a single wheel, some circuit boards, batteries, and an electric motor to make an electric unicycle.

A big advantage EUCs have is you don't have to bother with folding like a bike, just hop off, grab the trolley handle and walk on.

Electric scooters have similar advantages but they have to compromise range, performance, and compactness for their ease of learning.

New comment by UFOFlyer in "New York City bans natural gas in new buildings"

UFOFlyer — Sat, 25 Dec 2021 23:21:43 +0000

The big problem with piping natural gas to buildings is that the miles of pipes that deliver the gas leak. Gas leaking is a real issue since an equal amount of un-burnt methane has 25x the climate change potential as CO2. Even if the power plants supplying electric heat pumps/radiators is natural gas, the shorter supply chain (only to power plant and not to every building in the city) go some way to offsetting extra emissions. Then you have the obvious benefit that once the NYC grid transitions to renewables there won't be as many natural gas ovens and heaters that need to be replaced.

The commenters pointing out that natural gas stoves don't have a significant effect on emissions are right, but once a building gets a gas hookup installing natural gas heaters and water heaters becomes more attractive and economical. That's something we don't want to be incentivizing

Climate town recently released a new video talking about this issue as well as the decades of marketing and lobbying the natural gas industry has paid for to neuter or outright kill legislation like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54

New comment by UFOFlyer in "Signal is having technical difficulties"

UFOFlyer — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 23:09:44 +0000

IIRC Signal doesn't have a web app for security reasons. With a iOS/Android/Desktop app, you can verify the checksum of the binary against what signal provides.

But with a web app you redownload the application everytime which means you'd have to recheck that checksum every time you use the app. I guess that WhatsApp, Discord, et al have decided that this is a reasonable risk. But the privacy oriented Signal team disagrees.

I don't think it's a prioritization issue, the desktop app is currently running via electron which means it's effectively a web app already.

How the Netherlands Feeds the World (2017)

UFOFlyer — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 07:34:54 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18768073

Points: 84

# Comments: 57