Hacker News: criddell

New comment by criddell in "Websites are closing their doors to AI agents"

criddell — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:27:03 +0000

The last thing I want from an agent is a table of options.

New comment by criddell in "Websites are closing their doors to AI agents"

criddell — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 15:23:19 +0000

Current AI agents overindex on price. The price has to be reasonable but I often rank fast shipping and easy returns higher than price.

New comment by criddell in "Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 17:06:02 +0000

Now you know that you were the problem all along!

New comment by criddell in "Waymo in Toronto"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 17:02:16 +0000

So it sounds like you agree with me in that different people have different concerns and it's good that there are options out there.

New comment by criddell in "Waymo in Toronto"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 15:33:21 +0000

Do you know any women who have had drivers act inappropriately towards them? Or drivers who pretend the meter is broken and try to charge more?

There are lots of reasons somebody might prefer a driverless car and lots of reasons somebody might prefer a human driver. Why not have a choice?

New comment by criddell in "MS Paint Adds Freeform Rotation (2026)"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 15:27:21 +0000

Sure, but Windows knows I don't have a touchscreen but I do have a mouse and keyboard so there's no point in touch accommodation.

Even if you have a touchscreen, they should know what type of pointing device is being used to select something and the targets should adapt to that.

New comment by criddell in "New Withings Users Must Pay $99/Year for Apple Health Syncing"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:05:14 +0000

I'm a cheapskate so I'd probably make a shortcut so I can say "siri, log my weight at 165 lbs" and have that put my weight into apple health or a spreadsheet. It's a bit more friction, but if the data is useful that's what I'd do. If I find that I'm not using the shortcut, then the data probably isn't useful.

New comment by criddell in "Apple routed a graphite pipe through the iPhone Duo's hinge to dissipate heat"

criddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:37:37 +0000

> As a mechanical engineer working in software, I think both fields have completely different philosophies of product development.

A sloppy mechanical engineer can be sued for malpractice and lose their license to practice. If they do something unethical they can't blame it all on management and could end up being held personally responsible with fines and even jail time.

Sometimes I think it we might be better off if the same held for software engineers.

New comment by criddell in "Delta’s Biscoff cookies were supposed to be temporary"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:47:18 +0000

How cheap is super cheap? Semaglutide is something like $70 a month now from some online sellers.

New comment by criddell in "I Know Why the Mathematicians Weep"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:53:08 +0000

Mathematics as a field of study is maybe 2500 years old and a lot has been figured out in that time. But look how far AIs have come in just ten years. I wouldn't expect progress to stop now, would you? A decade from now I wouldn't be surprised if machine mathematicians are essentially oracles. They tell us the answer but can't explain it to us any more than you could explain long division to a golden retriever.

New comment by criddell in "I know why the mathematicians weep"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 15:24:17 +0000

> Math is not solved nor has the human been kicked out of the loop. Same with programming.

Is it like Chess and Go? There are still plenty of people playing for fun, but the machines are better at it than we are.

New comment by criddell in "Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 15:09:33 +0000

In my suburb, the kids drive themselves. Electric bicycles and scooters are everywhere and they are crazy fast.

New comment by criddell in "Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 14:59:47 +0000

> Their story may be interesting, but their person is not.

What do you mean by that? What's the difference between a person and their story?

New comment by criddell in "Ask HN: CAD for wood working with LLM support?"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 13:07:42 +0000

I'm not even thinking about that kind of precision work.

For a basic bookshelf, the space might be constrained. Say I need the outside dimension to be 24.5" wide. If I'm using 3/4" plywood, do I model it so I have 23" wide shelves or 23-1/16" wide shelves?

Or is it irrelevant? Do you build the box first, then measure and cut the shelves to fit?

The more I think about it, the more I'm concluding that you use 23/32" and then do a lot of measuring and adjusting as you build. Taking a cut list and cutting everything ahead of time is probably a bad idea unless you know your plywood is exactly the right thickness.

New comment by criddell in "Ask HN: CAD for wood working with LLM support?"

criddell — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 11:10:11 +0000

I’ve started doing some furniture design in CAD and I’ve been wondering how people model plywood. Do you make 3/4” plywood 0.75” thick, or do you use the actual sheet thickness (often, but not always, 23/32)?

New comment by criddell in "Tesla's Robotaxis Blow Through School Zones, NHTSA Petition Alleges"

criddell — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:56:50 +0000

Yes, there are different criteria for different roads. Presence of schools is one of them. In my neighborhood, the speed limit drops to 25 mph through school zones (it's 40-45 mph outside of the school zone).

New comment by criddell in "Tesla's Robotaxis Blow Through School Zones, NHTSA Petition Alleges"

criddell — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:30:22 +0000

In some places, that's how speed limits are fixed.

In Texas, for example, they do a traffic study and set the limit to the 85th percentile speed.

https://www.txdot.gov/safety/driving-laws/speed-limits/speed...

New comment by criddell in "ICE Planning $100M 'Nightmare' Domestic Spy Program"

criddell — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:23:06 +0000

Blocking roads seems like a very fast way to have people turn on you and your cause. It might be effective in some places, but in much of America I think it's counter productive.

New comment by criddell in "Apple HomeView"

criddell — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:29:59 +0000

To me, it looks like the HomeView with the stand has better speakers than any iPad and the microphones should be better as well.

New comment by criddell in "Apple HomeView"

criddell — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:25:15 +0000

The newest iPads do too. For some reason they have never added one to the Macbook which seems nuts.