<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: VLM</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=VLM</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 05:28:38 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=VLM" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The purpose of a LLM ban is to encourage use of LLMs to submit PRs, not discourage.  The longer term effect is to eliminate FOSS competency from the hiring process.<p>It takes some human effort to set up a slop generator.  Have the slop generator make 100 buckets of slop, humans will work hard accepting or rejecting the buckets, somewhat less than 100 buckets will be approved, the payoff for the owner of the slop generator is now they have "verified FOSS developer contribution" on their resume which translates directly into job offers and salary.  Its a profitable grift, profitable enough that the remaining humans are being flooded out.  The ban makes successful submission to Redox even MORE valuable than before.  They can expect infinite floods of PRs now that a successful PR "proves" that Redox thinks the human owner of the slop generator did the work and should therefore be offered more jobs, paid more, etc.  Technically, they're hiring and paying based on ability to set up a slop generator which is not zero value, but not as valuable as being an Official Redox Contributor.<p>In the long run, this eliminates FOSS competency from the hiring process.  Currently FOSS competency and coding experience indicates a certain amount, however minimal, of human skill and ability to work with others.  Soon, it'll mean the person claiming to be a contributor has no problem violating orders and rules, such as the ones forbidding AI submissions, and it'll be a strong signal they actively work to subvert teams for their own financial reward and benefit.  Which might actually be a hiring bullet point for corporate management in more dysfunctional orgs, but probably not help individual contributors get hired.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 18:50:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327336</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327336</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327336</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Kuwaiti F/A-18's Triple Friendly Fire Shootdown Gets Stranger by the Day"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"AN/AAR-57"  Yes the small yellow subwoofer looking things that people speculate endlessly about.  Supposedly BAE systems marketing released a picture of the whole system LOL, who needs spies if you have a marketing dept, also supposedly just about everything about this is classified.  They supposedly come in four packs and there are "many" public pictures of them one under each cockpit rail on the F15 and the other two are unknown location? Or maybe the mythology online that they come in four packs is false and they actually come in two packs which seems more likely.  Plausibly they install 4-packs on helicopters not fixed wing.<p>I could see some logic in not putting cams pointing forward because theoretically the pilot is looking where they're going and not putting one facing back because flight time to impact is so low they can't evade anyway, but a side attack is survivable if detected early enough...  Also facing back they're going to be "seeing" their own exhaust most of the time.<p>The total non-reaction by the pilots in the public videos would indicate that if those planes even had -57s they were not working or not working well enough to matter or not working fast enough to matter.<p>I would agree some monster sized BVR missile will be easier to detect.  In practice does it matter if the missile detector works at short range if the attacker would likely be in guns mode at short enough range anyway?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2026 18:55:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313669</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313669</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313669</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Kuwaiti F/A-18's Triple Friendly Fire Shootdown Gets Stranger by the Day"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>DCS World to the rescue?<p>There's open source intel on google that Iran has SU-27s.  Under combat conditions you have an instant to tell them apart.  Clearly, its possible to misidentify them at least one time historically as the F-15s did get shot down.<p>I can assure you from having flown around a lot, if you are wildly outnumbered 3 SU-27 (err, F15) to your 1 F-18 you do not attempt a radar lock you do an IR only attack.  The article mentions getting a radar lock first but that is unnecessary for IR guided weapons and in a 3-1 situation will just get you shot down.<p>Waiting for confirmation from the ground means 1 of the 3 will surely notice and you will be shot down.<p>Ironically if it were a flight of 4 F-18 they'd probably not have been as skittish at radar locking a mere 3 aircraft and the IFF (assuming its probably configured and working etc) would have informed them they're friendlies.  IFF can only tell you if everything on both sides is working perfectly and powered up, if you don't get a friendly response all you know is it didn't work.  Not unlike a network ping command.  If ping works you know they're up and accepting pings from you, if ping doesn't work, you don't really know anything for sure.<p>Possibly the primary fault was the Kuwaiti lack of situational awareness. Somehow he's in shoot down range of three other A/C and he's got maybe 3 to 5 seconds to shoot them down or be shot down himself.<p>Somehow there is no discussion on what both A/C were doing.  Usually a landing on an airfield would not look like a bombing run but possibly the F15s were doing something "weird" for which they could be blamed.  The total censorship of what they were doing points to them being up to something dumb "lets buzz the airfield during active combat would could possibly go wrong" and they get shot down for looking like an attack run.  Or a mix up where there's a published ahead of time safe altitude window around 15K but these guys for who knows why were 1000 feet off the ground doing who knows what.  Maybe they had a good tactical reason to do it but its damning that nothing is being reported as an excuse.<p>Clearly any passive IR detector thats theorized to exist for years either doesn't exist or doesn't work very well.  In theory, a smart enough IR camera should be able to notice something very warm indeed is getting rapidly brighter as it approaches you.  In practice, these don't exist, or don't work.  "Oh yeah they didn't have those when I was in, but they totally have them now" for the last 30 years.  Apparently, not yet in 2026.<p>I find it unfortunate that people who do this for a living can't legally comment, people who do this for a hobby are not asked or actively ignored despite extensive practical experience, and people who mostly have a grift of looking authoritative for legacy media get automatic blind belief despite sometimes spouting total nonsense.  This is the typical journalistic response in ALL disaster situations not just military aviation.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:51:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312618</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312618</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312618</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>400 yen for a ten pack is more like $2.50 than $5<p>Typical markup in the USA is 100% from wholesaler to retail.  Running brick and mortar is very expensive.  So if Walgreens were selling this, the wholesale price would be $1.25.  I think it reasonable to expect the Yakult Ladies are pulling in the same $1.25 per package that walgreens gets.<p>The key, I think, is "Most of them are self-employed".  Its a gig economy idea.  You have to eat.  If you're walking home from the store anyway (or kids school or on the way home from work or whatever), you may as well deliver packages for $1.25 each on the way home.  You're walking home anyway, you may as well make free money on the walk.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:58:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288752</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288752</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288752</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "UUID package coming to Go standard library"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's been a lot of historical work done in the past and I used NIST FIPS181 to implement this.<p>Note: FIPS181 was intended for passwords and I was using them as handy short human-readable record IDs as per your post.  You probably shouldn't use FIPS181 for passwords in 2026 LOL.<p>Describing FIPS181 as pronounceable is optimistic.  However its better than random text wrt human conversations.  They start looking like mysterious assembly language mnemonics after awhile.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:39:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288586</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288586</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288586</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "UUID package coming to Go standard library"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Its a small tech bit but a big architecture / management decision.<p>Basically, who runs golang?<p>The perfectionists are correct, UUIDs are awful and if there's a pile of standards that all have small problems the best thing you can do is make a totally new standard to add to the already too long list.<p>The in-the-trenches system software devs want this BAD.  Check out <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#Uses" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#...</a>
They want a library that flawlessly interops with everything on that list, ideally.  Something you can trust and will not deprecate a function you need for live code and it just works.  I admit a certain affinity to this perspective.<p>The cryptobros want to wait, there is some temporary current turmoil in UUID land. Not like "drama" but things are in flux and it would be horrible for golang to be stuck permanently supporting forever some interim thing that officially gets dropped (or worse, under scrutiny has a security hole or something, but for reverse compatibility with older/present golang would need permanent-ish reverse compatibility)  Can't we just wait until 2027 or so?  This is not the ideal time to set UUID policy in concrete.  Just wait a couple more months or a year or two?
<a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9562" rel="nofollow">https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9562</a><p>I think I covered the three groups that are fighting pretty accurately and at least semi fairly, I did make fun of the perfectionists a little but cut me a break everyone makes fun of those guys.<p>So, yeah, a "small technical bit" but its actually a super huge architectural / leadership / management decision.<p>I hope they get it correct, I love golang and have a side thing with tinygo.  If you're doing something with microcontrollers that doesn't use networking and you're not locked in to a framework/rtos, just use tinygo its SO cool.  Its just fun.  I with tinygo had any or decent networking.  Why would I need zephyr if I have go routines?  Hmm.<p>I've been around the block a few times with UUID-alike situations and the worst thing they could decide is to swing to an extreme.  They'll probably be OK this is not golangs first time around the block either.<p>It'll probably be OK.  I hope.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:10:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288320</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288320</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288320</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "A standard protocol to handle and discard low-effort, AI-Generated pull requests"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Cheap, nearly free voice phone calls killed old fashioned phone service.  Once the incoming spam exceeded 95% I shut off the ringer and no longer use voice phone calls.<p>Once the cost of generating push media drops low enough (close enough to zero) the media is dead.<p>Pull requests are (ironically) a push media, and infinite zero effort PRs can be generated, therefore PRs are dead.<p>The proper way to handle the situation is to no longer accept PRs.<p>In github, enter a repo, "settings" "General" scroll down to Features, then uncheck "Pull requests".  Or at least set to collaborators only.  Probably need to shut off issues.<p>It gitlab, (I'm not as certain about this) enter a repo, "Settings", Visibility, "Merge Requests" change to "Only project members"<p>Its a post AI world, those features cannot be enabled on the internet anymore.  Anything that accepts push from the public will get spammed into inability to use it.  As a social activity PRs are dead.  They were nice, but they are dangerous to leave enabled on the internet now.  Oh well thats the cost of AI.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:19:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275990</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275990</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275990</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"The law" There is no "The law" there are multiple levels of government implementing multiple solutions all different and somewhat incompatible.<p>Honestly, probably by intention.  Its sort of a SLAPP attack on the entire world population.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:56:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275646</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275646</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275646</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Two meta observations about the comments:<p>1) The issue doesn't matter much.  Corporate takeover of the internet caused severe damage, but overrunning social media with LLM generated content is a mortal wound.  Roughly the same number of humans will be using social media in 2030 as currently use CB radio.  Remember near a fifth of the population was using CB radio at the peak in the late 70s.  Its too little, too late, closing the barn door after the horses have left is pointless.  Like re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic after it hit the iceberg.  Once the advertisers get wise to the scam that nobody is seeing their ads except bots, the problem will kind of fix itself.  I think TPTB want to use "protecting kids from social media" as the public face of why social media will crash and burn soon to avoid discussion of how LLMs actually killed it, because authoritarians love LLMs and they're in charge (although seemingly everyone else hates LLMs, so I'm sure this will end well).<p>2) Most of the anti commentary reads a lot like addict speak IRL.  Talk to a drunk about how it would be a great idea not to drink or a carb addict about how they should not eat donuts and you'll get absolutely rage blasted in return for threatening their addiction, which in the case of an addict, is their identity.  "Well it would be the end of the world if people (me) were not drunk and other people (projection of me) will do anything to feed their addiction so obviously no effort should be made to limit addictions and it won't work anyway because other people (me) will even drink mouthwash or homebrew their own moonshine to get drunk" etc.  Note I'm not completely against the anti's and they make some very good points that should be considered, but raging like an addict after their drug of choice is threatened is a VERY bad look and is not helping their case at all, if anything it strengthens the case against the anti's.  What the pro's don't understand is you can't fix an addiction externally, addicts gotta addict and punishing them and making them miserable might help the pro's feel superior or at least thankful they're not addicted, but it never helped no one.  Social media is "an ill of society" and should be treated as such including sensible regulation, protection of threatened groups, treatment for the addicts, and some compassion and acceptance of the addicts either returning to the real world or dying in the addicted world.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:54:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275627</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275627</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275627</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A better analogy would be regulation of addictive activities like gambling and regulation of addictive substances like painkillers.  Given that the platforms being regulated were intentionally engineered to maximize addictive potential, this seems a fair and reasonable response.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:38:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275420</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275420</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275420</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I would assume its fake and an attempt at identify theft at some level of the system.  Is their PC infected at the OS level or just a fraudulent browser extension or something more like a popup ad masquerading as a system dialogue?  A less trusting person would assume any request made by a computer is totally non-fraudulent and would gladly submit any requested private information.<p>"Dad, I can't do my math homework, a pop up says you need to provide a copy of your bank statement, your mom's maiden name, and a copy of your birth certificate, SS card, and drivers license, and can you hurry up Dad, my homework is due tomorrow morning."  And people will fall for this once they get used to the system being absurd enough.<p>The fraud machine must be kept fed...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:32:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275342</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275342</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275342</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Big Breakfast Alters Appetite, Gut Health"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They would have needed 20 participants, which is too many.<p>Soon we will have more participants in the HN comments for the study, than were studied in the study.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 22:46:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211548</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211548</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211548</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"If you have a congested city"<p>I would agree with and extend your remarks that we also have problems where traffic patterns and geography don't match political boundaries and transit is traditionally locally run and locally budgeted.<p>So in the USA you end in scenarios where it takes 20 minutes to drive 20 miles but a bus would take four legs with three transfers across three separate city bus companies, figure at least three hours each way.  And again, as per your "mass transit" you can't expect taxpayers in my city to provide a special bus run into my neighboring adjacent city much less the city next to that one.<p>This results in people being very happy indeed to pay the financial and environmental costs of car ownership to avoid sitting in a bus for six hours of daily commute.<p>There are also interesting social issues; if you're late its a personal failing, even if you take mass transit.  I recall a friend at work getting fired because the bus was late too many times.  Oh well, should have bought a car.  The feeling of not being in control is further worse due to crime rates.  No one will sneak up on my wife and stab her in the neck in her car, but it certainly happens on buses and no one cares if it happens depending on local race relations.  None of the other passengers on the bus even cared, for racial reasons.  Its pretty messed up here.<p>Its easy for the public in general to advise others to do inconvenient or career ending or life threatening activities, to "save the planet" or whatever, but I wouldn't do it, and I'd certainly never let my wife or kids do it, so we own cars and avoid public transit at all costs.  Not taking that advice as been pretty nice so far.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:45:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156790</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156790</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156790</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You're making suspicions about suspicions without numerical data.<p>According to my cities 2022 annual report (where are 2023-2025?) they provided precisely 464344 unlinked pax trips (UPT) so someone stepped aboard a bus and threw money in the real or virtual fare box 464344 times that year.  "Sources of operating funds expended directly generated" which I read as annual fare revenue was $660748.<p>We have a very simple two tier system $2 for adults and $1 for seniors and disabled.  2(464344-x)+1x=660748 x=267940<p>So we only had 196404 healthy young adult bus riders that year vs 267940 senior citizens.  Your experience is not unusual but also is by far not the majority; a SUBSTANTIAL majority of the people on the bus in my city are too old or too sick or too blind to take long walks in the rain, snow, ice, heat, cold, etc.<p>Honestly the bus is so slow, if they could walk, they'd probably just walk.  So it should not be overly surprising that most on the bus quite literally can't walk, and really need bus stops close together for disability reasons.<p>So all of this theoretical "well it would be so much faster if there were fewer stops" is irrelevant if the served population is primarily physically disabled, and the system can't survive.  And we'd be talking about excluding one of the most powerful voting blocks in the city, that being old people.  Eliminating stops would eliminate or reduce 58% of the current riders which would shut the system down, I don't think it could politically survive a hit like that.<p>Ironically that shutdown might be good as everyone would be better off both financially and environmentally in cars than in buses.  Bus exhaust is not exactly perfume to mother nature LOL, and essentially our bus program is not a transit system, its a corrupt jobs program for drivers, mechanics, and especially for highly paid administrators.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:18:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156394</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156394</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156394</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>In 2022 according to the transit system annual report, the suburban quarter million person city I live in has ten routes and operates about 12 hours per day and per the annual report average weekday service consumed is 1556 UPT, so 1556 people step aboard the system and toss coins in the fare jar or pay with the app.  UPT means they're not tracking transfers and essentially 100% of trips require a transfer so the real number of people served daily is closer to 775 than to 1550, but we'll run the optimistic numbers.  Each of the ten hourly routes is about 4 miles long.  So the overall system drives 12 hours * 10 routes * 4 miles * 5280 feet/mile = 2.5 million feet per day and divide that by 1556 passengers per day that's a pax every 1628 feet driven on an average day.<p>So if we had a bus stop every 800 feet, on average half the stops would be empty and passed by.  If that high level of use is causing too much congestion and slow down at stops, if we had two buses running out of phase, pax arrive at the same rate, so we'd pick up a pax every 3000+ feet driven.  So if we had bus stops every 500 feet to keep people happy, on average the bus would drive right by about 5 out of 6 empty stops, which seems reasonable and would not result in unusual delays or congestion.  Also the bus would pass by every half hour not every hour, which would probably increase ridership a lot.<p>So if the only labor expense were the $23/hr driver, and we pay 10 drivers on 10 routes, to drive twelve times, thats $23/hr * 10 routes * 12 hours if everything except driver labor were free that means we spend $2760 per day to transport 1556 people, or about $1.77 per trip (assuming diesel is free, buses never wear out, etc).  If we doubled the number of bus that would be $5520 of driver labor to move 1556 people per day or $3.55 cost per pax trip.  On one hand the actual annual total "OE per UPT" counting weekends and maint and office people and dispatchers etc, according to the annual report is $13.94, so an extra $1.77 would seem cheap, but the bus does not run for free and the total expense of doubling the runs might cost as much as an extra $14 per pax trip.<p>The costs don't really matter, if the taxpayers want it as a luxury bragging feature of the city.  Everyone wants everyone else to use it even though no one would be caught dead actually using it.  My point being that adult fare is $2 but adults don't ride its mostly elderly and disabled at the $1 fare, so a profit (loss) ratio of (28 - 1)/28 with two buses per route isn't much worse than (14 - 1)/14 with one bus per route.<p>Maybe another way to look at the analysis is in my city if the stops are more than 1600 feet apart there will be multiple people per stop and that would "slow things down" whereas a small fraction like 400 feet would mean the bus mostly just speeds by.<p>No one can seem to explain why we can't have infinite bus stops.  How about every stop sign is a bus stop?  The bus has to stop anyway.  Artificial scarcity to drive down ridership, I suppose.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:50:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155972</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155972</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155972</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Its a statement of religious belief, so other opinions are no less relevant that some "authority"<p>As a religious belief it would be inappropriate for me to report stats from my local cities bus service.  First of all they didn't get into a religious opinion logically and rationally, so spouting numbers and facts at them will not make them change their mind.  Secondly my local city has multiple simultaneous impacts so its almost impossible to estimate how their experiments with stop removal has affected ridership.  The article falsely claims the only variable in the system is stop spacing whereas bus service is in extreme turmoil in most communities.<p>Pre-covid vs Post-covid is wildly different, there has been massive inflation in operating expenses, there's a long term decline in my area WRT passenger-miles before covid which seems to be increasing post-covid, fares have increased by a factor of a little over 4x since 1990 while incomes have roughly stagnated.  The article claims the opex of stops is "high" but our city invested $0 (this is a low crime suburb LOL).  We got rid of 1/4 of our routes (and drivers) and increased the standard of stop spacing from never more than 950 feet to an average of about 1100 feet now.  The elderly and infirm were very mad and very loud about that and they are the most reliable voters out there but halving the fare quieted them down.  We lose so much money on the bus service that giving it away for free wouldn't impact the budget very much.<p>Currently our opex per passenger mile is about $4.50.  Fare for adults is $2. We lose about $7 per ride.  The loss per rider would pay for two extra people to take an uber on the same route, so there are continual demands to scrap the entire system to save money.  Empty buses driving around is causing more, not less, road congestion, and more, not less, environmental damage.  Our "Unlinked Passenger Trip per Vehicle Revenue Mile" is about 0.6, which boils down to on average every mile traveled by a bus driver results in 0.6 passengers stepping aboard.  Our routes are about 4 miles long and run about once an hour, so on average a driver picks up about three passengers per 4 mile trip.  Our drivers are usually alone in the bus.  Another way of looking at it, is on average we pay our bus drivers $23/hr, so an hourly route costs $23 in labor, and they pick up less than $6 in fares during each work hour... The ratios are better during rush hour... but worse outside of rush hour.<p>(edited: I don't understand some of the numbers on the report, if it costs $23 to pay the driver to run a route that picks up three people the fares can't be more than $6 so even if diesel and maint were free we lose $17 per hour per route, so why does the annual report claim opex per passenger mile traveled is only $4.50?  After federal subsidies or similar?)<p>In the long run, an unusable bus service is simply too expensive of a luxury to fund and we'll end up eliminating it.  I don't think changing distance between stops matters if the stops, and the bus, are empty, other than it makes sick and old people very angry.  If almost no one uses it, it doesn't cost any extra to stop quite literally on every street corner or even stop at every driveway, so increasing stop distance merely makes people suffer needlessly, which seems unusually evil.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:05:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155202</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155202</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155202</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A lot of effort has gone to comment without reading the stats.  I'll read the survey for you all:<p><a href="https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/2025_Reading_and_Books_poll_results.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...</a><p>Yes it includes audiobooks in "books".<p>physical books were around three times more popular than ebooks or audiobooks.<p>75% did not read anything to children (kind of surprising 25% of the population has access to pre-literate children)<p>15% don't read books they own, which is surprisingly high.  A third borrowed their books from the library.<p>54% of the population inaccurately think they "own" an ebook as opposed to reality.  40% "a book you accessed for free online" Sure thats all project gutenberg LOL.<p>Mysteries and Crime are top of the charts.  I have no idea if "computer books" count as 11% other non-fiction or academic or hobbies.<p>Only 51% have a library card.  I know they are cracking down hard at my library, show up physically with proof of residence or it gets cancelled.  Its harder to get a library card in my community than to vote, get a job, or register for school, your community may vary.<p>Most people go to the library less than once a month.  This sounds about right.<p>Shockingly 20% of people never go to the library just to hang out.  As a parent of older kids I do that a LOT, drop them off then go silently read or compute or whatever at the library.  The attempt at turning libraries from book warehouses into makerspaces seems to not be working very well according to this survey.<p>People own a surprisingly small number of books.  A "large full height bookcase" puts you in the elite.  I'm kind of surprised at that.<p>Virtually no one hoards digital or audio books, I am apparently a far extreme outlier in that regard LOL.  I'm easily five figures each.  From, uh, totally legit sources.<p>Most people actually own about two dozen books and think most other people own about twice as many around fifty.<p>Since I was a little kid I always read a little before bedtime and it seems this is very popular.<p>Most people don't organize their books but think they have an easy time finding them (not unlike how people organize computer files...)<p>Surprisingly there is zero to very minimal demographic difference in every category among people who do not read, which I find very surprising and unlikely.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:55:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891638</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891638</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891638</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "AI needs to augment rather than replace humans or the workplace is doomed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Idiocracy was at least funny.  It'll probably look a lot more like Haiti IRL.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:37:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891335</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891335</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891335</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Raspberry Pi Drag Race: Pi 1 to Pi 5 – Performance Comparison"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The article shows how performance has always increased at a somewhat continually increasing level of inconvenience.  Weird connectors, SUPER demanding power requirements, new case designs every generation, new cooling required every generation, etc.<p>My applications have remained the same for many years my octoprint and retropie don't require more FLOPs as time goes on but I'd really enjoy a modern board that has fewer headaches.  Works on any normal USB port instead of requiring specialized power supplies, doesn't brown out and reset as much, doesn't heat up as much, etc.  I suspect "a pi 3, but now with fewer headaches" would sell better than "a pi 3 but even more headaches and bigger numbers that you don't want".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:57:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746423</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746423</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746423</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by VLM in "Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"across a nice poured concrete driveway"<p>I've worked with DB people and running lines under driveways for telco and cableco is BIG business and they will not find your request to bury fiber or cat5 to be even remotely unusual.<p>The bad news about directional boring is they usually want "like a kilobuck" just to show up.  Its a lot of heavy equipment and a lot of dudes to operate it all.<p>The good news is if they're already down the road they'll come by and bore for like $20/foot because its a small job (usually they only charge $10/foot for long runs)<p>Permitting depends a lot on where you live, some places treat it as a cash cow and they will brutally milk you, others don't require a permit at all.  The equipment takes up a fair amount of space on each side, probably more than you'd expect.  Scheduling is like dealing with an arborist.  "OMG I need this partially collapsed tree removed immediately its an emergency I have homeowners insurance please arrive in the next hour" well thats multiple kilobucks "Meh please remove this tree sometime and I don't care when" well thats like $250, probably less if cash.<p>I've seen people spend thousands of dollars on DB or crazy laser/wireless comm gear to avoid spending hundreds of dollars on a stone mason.  Try not to pay someone to DB under a stone wall, its usually cheaper to hire a stone mason twice and he will leave the wall in better condition than before you started.  All masonry is temporary unless its maintained.  Similar logic might apply to driveways, most concrete cracks so if you're hiring a guy to fix the crack you may want to bury a conduit before he fixes it.  Replacing an entire driveway is expensive, replacing a sidewalk sized path is surprisingly cheap.  If you want sidewalk poured (like for a walkway in your garden or around a swimming pool) its about $50/foot and a driveway would have to be thicker and better prepped, but the section could be narrower than a sidewalk.  The point being don't accept a DB bid over $50/ft because its cheaper to replace the concrete at $50/ft.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:22:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746075</link><dc:creator>VLM</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746075</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746075</guid></item></channel></rss>