<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: contingencies</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=contingencies</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 05:08:10 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=contingencies" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Arduino Launches Plug-and-Play Modules for Long-Range Sensor Projects"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No. I2C is popular for a reason. It is cheap, fast enough, well understood, available everywhere, uses less lines and less physical space than almost all alternatives (excluding one wire buses which are far less standardized and far more limited), and supports multi-drop.<p>This thing should be called what it is: an I2C multiplexer. Such things are not new.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:54:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49000437</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49000437</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49000437</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to See the World: Art of Travel; European and World Backpacking on ≤$25/Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="http://artoftravel.net/">http://artoftravel.net/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730808">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730808</a></p>
<p>Points: 3</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:46:59 +0000</pubDate><link>http://artoftravel.net/</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730808</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730808</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Open Source Low Tech"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, an air conditioner can be made as follows.<p>1. Identify a locally viable deciduous tree species.<p>2. Plant this species on the afternoon aspect of the sun in your location. So for northern hemisphere plant to the southwest. For southern hemisphere plant to the northwest.<p>3. Enjoy shade in summer and sun in winter, plus cleaner air.<p>Another option depending upon your architecture is to take advantage of forced air within a roof cavity. Buy a large diameter fan with an electronic control, install at apex, and set it to operate when the temperature exceeds a certain point. This will result in a house wide temperature drop with no need to expend $$$ setup plus dollars per hour per room on air conditioning.<p>Another option is simply shading. One of the simplest and most traditional approaches here is the drop awning. A drop awning consists of a retractable material expanse which can render a building surface in shade and thus promote rapid air movement and cooling in the hottest periods.<p>Two final options include internal forced air: passive variant (open all the windows and doors) or active variant (ceiling fan, solar works) and insulation or thermal mass.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:35:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730726</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730726</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730726</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "22-year-old Mozart's handwritten notebook unearthed in 'major discovery'"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have a ton of handwritten German stuff from the 19th century. My grandmother could make a fair stab at it, but nobody left can read it. I've shown modern Germans and they are at a loss. Thanks for your idea, I will give it a look. Any tips on model/method/training?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 21:00:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691886</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691886</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691886</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "22-year-old Mozart's handwritten notebook unearthed in 'major discovery'"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I found a copy of the oldest film ever shot in China in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) library in London. The camera had been personally loaned to the French administrator in question by the Lumiere Brothers. The film had been entered in to the catalogue but nobody had looked at it in decades and they didn't have equipment to do so. The university wound up digitizing it with funds donated by the alumni and I was invited on my return from the US to address the alumni association on my research.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:58:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691873</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691873</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691873</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>Baby got backplane</i>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53ZSxkQ3Ho&t=80" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53ZSxkQ3Ho&t=80</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:23:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678739</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678739</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678739</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Zombie unicorns are haunting Silicon Valley"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>SaaS was always destined for this, with or without AI. Excluding the small subset with network effects, the nominal nature of a remote execution aid in basic business process was always semi-farcical.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:20:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669272</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669272</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669272</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No worries as they'd had their vegemite for brekkie providing all the salt they need to offset the constant sweat. None of this soft modern electrolyte bullshit, just beer dregs on toast.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 02:48:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654503</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654503</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654503</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Show HN: Ideate a trading strategy with an Ex-Citadel Trader"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My sentiments exactly.<p><i>I would like to trade the time spent giving away ideas to AIs for time spent in nature.</i><p>Actually it's a well executed front for a build-me-a-technical-trading-execution-package-as-a-service scheme. Not sure if that's a thing. Surely you'd just use an AI if you could describe what you wanted? Articulating it effectively implies familiarity required to build. Handing it back to a human seems ... obtuse.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:59:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642664</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642664</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642664</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Canyon HUD helmet for road riding"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>See also <a href="https://minimis.life/" rel="nofollow">https://minimis.life/</a> which is an Aussie startup with a foot in California trying to do a cycling-focused AR smart glasses solution (ie. no helmet integration).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 07:36:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48641594</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48641594</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48641594</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "SpaceX Drops 14% in One Day, Price Now Below IPO Launch"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It certainly wasn't a StarCraft or gaming reference, though I'm not surprised it was interpreted that way (personally bowed out of RTS ~C&C1). I do think you've got a good millennial-cultural catch-phrase for the zeitgeist AI datacenter funk there, though!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:32:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637271</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637271</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637271</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Tacky men with ridiculous glasses want you to wear them too"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I disagree. The idea humans will be in the loop and the best way to accelerate things is to teach them slightly faster is fundamentally flawed. Future industrial will be automated, the only humans who will need comprehension will be the maintenance staff or management, and they will have familiarity and/or alternate tooling rendering glasses a noncritical value add at best.<p>By the time that rolls around, this stuff will be available for cents on the dollar, just as Shenzhen showrooms were full of AR/VR hardware in 2015 and the industry has gone nowhere for 30+ years.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:28:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637203</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637203</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48637203</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "SpaceX Drops 14% in One Day, Price Now Below IPO Launch"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>AD TERRAM!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:17:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635512</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635512</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635512</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Munich 1991: The Roots of the Current AI Boom"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Every western academic nearly systematically ignores eastern science and philosophy: classicism means "western European". Never mind Europe only flourished intellectually post Islam, which imported the science and engineering of China and India, critically including printing and zero[0]. IMHO this is why distaste for academia grows: it's based on appeals to authority which are demonstrably farcically misplaced. Alternatively stated: the emperor has no clothes, much less silk or paper!<p>Just as the Dewey Decimal System really only served the purpose of providing the facetious nominal linearization of an arbitrary depth ontological oversimplification, so too humans are much more like random pattern matching machines than festidious sense-makers glued to absolutes derived from false appeals to static mono-perspective ontological hierarchies. The same is becoming lived experience in the LLM age, although the tiktokked youth apparently cannot string ten words together or focus longer than three seconds to attest, I'd wager they can feel it. Are we losing something by rejecting the habit of rigorously manually tending to spurious and temporary ontologies? Yes. Is it necessarily a loss in the long term? Probably not, in the same way we no longer write long-form letters or leave calling cards. Are we gaining something in response? Yes, at a minimum much stronger cross-pollination between ivory towers by fearless exploratory pragmatists who disrespect the would-be scope of nominal professions in favor of holistic thinking... both AI and human.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:57:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628964</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628964</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628964</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "1983 Northern Telecom Commodore Phone"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wait: wasn't it created because earlier telephones (before RJ socketed replaceable handsets) were by definition wacko analog things with rotary dial and no standardization of plugs, and therefore the <i>only</i> designed way to couple was mechanically?<p>Touched a nerve: I had a 300baud acoustic coupled modem in mint condition original box which I bought from a garage sale in ~1995 and my flipping mother threw it out before Y2K. Man I was livid. Imagine what it'd be worth now.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 10:11:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628169</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628169</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628169</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When did you last (1) eat a proper salad with no sugary dressing (2) get up early to exercise (3) achieve a suntan (4) spend a week without caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol? (5) catch a sunrise? (6) wake up at an acceptable hour without an alarm? (7) eat a high fiber meal like a vegetable curry?<p>Other: Dark, cold, quiet bedroom. Sleep study. Vicious dietary improvement. If all else fails: move and change jobs. If that doesn't fix it, try one of those drug induced purges with ibogaine.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 09:29:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617187</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617187</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617187</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Whole cross-sectional human ultrasound tomography"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Tomography: Come today, join tomorrow.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 09:19:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617120</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617120</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617120</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[The AI startup with no AI: Aussie boss jailed for misleading investors]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-start-up-boss-who-faked-revenue-gets-nine-years-jail-20260618-p60847.html">https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-start-up-boss-who-faked-revenue-gets-nine-years-jail-20260618-p60847.html</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604326">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604326</a></p>
<p>Points: 10</p>
<p># Comments: 4</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2026 23:04:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-start-up-boss-who-faked-revenue-gets-nine-years-jail-20260618-p60847.html</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604326</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604326</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in – and they're not good"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Carrying your analogy further, let's assume all human jobs fall under good enough open source models. All human problems (food, shelter, not clobbering each other over the head because of monkey genes) are solved through a combination of AI and robotics. Maybe we even remove governments, police, and live in a future post-capitalist ecotopia.<p>Even if this occurs, and I don't trust well-resourced humans to allow their existing apex-predator positions in present era capitalism to be overturned, the action - as far as either humanity or AI is concerned - will still be at the forefront of possibility: a front by definition invisible to old models. And someone has to pay for the hardware to be there. Do we (a) allow private-sector dominance, effectively depowering traditional nation states and empowering a private cabal beyond historically conceivable levels (b) nationalize thought (c) head in sand and pretend it will all go away?<p>Most of the world seems to be with strategy C right now, strategy A is the advancing default and has already achieved extra-terrestrial reach with a threat of extra-terrestrial persistence, and strategy B is potentially scarier than the other outcomes if it goes wrong but might be lovely, if you believe in nordic state funds, solarpunk futures and socialist utopia.<p>Interesting times. By the way, if anyone with AI capitalization reads this, I'm looking for investment to feed humans more efficiently and have a NASDAQ reverse merger under negotiation and effectively priced out with board buy in. Just need capital support. <a href="https://infinite-food.com/" rel="nofollow">https://infinite-food.com/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2026 19:50:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602502</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602502</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602502</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by contingencies in "Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in – and they're not good"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If they can keep up. Unfortunately, we learn from previous technology shifts that the masses will always favor ease of use (to the point of infinite scroll 5 second videos dopamine puddle, or echo chamber social networking in lieu of critical media consumption), which does not bode well for the market for alternative hardware: one which is already expensive.<p>I fear on-prem AI is likely to become as popular as on-prem servers without Cloudflare using self-hosted email are today: that is to say, people have heard of it but the skillset is almost popularly eviscerated, external policies make it progressively impractical, and anyone who does it is 'niche'. While basic guides will exist, obtaining top-level output will probably require many moons of concerted effort.<p>Basically: AI is SaaS for thinking.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2026 18:27:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601594</link><dc:creator>contingencies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601594</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601594</guid></item></channel></rss>