Hacker News: dublinben

New comment by dublinben in "Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives"

dublinben — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 06:14:14 +0000

It’s okay to be anti-car. Even if you own a car and use it regularly. There’s more than enough reasons to be anti-car. Just pick your favorite.

New comment by dublinben in "Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives"

dublinben — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 06:12:54 +0000

You’re right, we should!

We could even build these special purpose, heavy duty roads out of something stronger than asphalt, like metal. Then once we have these sturdy new metal roads for trucks, we can raise the weight limit to allow them to carry heavier loads. And since there’s no little cars getting in the way, we could even group together multiple trucks going in the same direction for better logistical efficiency.

You can see where I’m going with this. ;-)

New comment by dublinben in "Tiny $70 Xteink X3 e-reader"

dublinben — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 17:36:19 +0000

https://standardebooks.org/

New comment by dublinben in "Get your Windows license refund"

dublinben — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:12:22 +0000

Or as Apple once (in)famously asked, "what's a computer?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5BLs51yDQ

New comment by dublinben in "Gmail might partially be to blame for receiving emails from other Sean Conners"

dublinben — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:13:55 +0000

My Gmail account is old enough that I needed a beta invite from a cooler friend. As a cool kid myself, I registered a name full of punctuation. For decades Google has treated the punctuated and unpunctuated addresses as one and the same. There is no distinct Google account that can be access via one username or the other.

New comment by dublinben in "BYD Yangwang U8 has remarkable emergency floating function that would save lives"

dublinben — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 18:50:12 +0000

How many drivers of $150k cars die after driving into floodwaters? It costs nothing to turn around and not drive through a flood.

https://www.weather.gov/safety/flood-turn-around-dont-drown

New comment by dublinben in "If You Build It, They Will Come"

dublinben — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:04:30 +0000

Public transit should be worth the (inexpensive) cost of a ticket. The money used to make fares free should instead be spent on improving the quality of service. Better service attracts more riders, bringing in more ticket revenue, enabling further service improvements, and so on. It produces a positive flywheel effect that benefits current passengers, new passengers, and even drivers!

Free transit is a downward cycle, where increased ridership just increases costs, creating a negative flywheel.

New comment by dublinben in "Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them"

dublinben — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 02:54:41 +0000

Behavior by cyclists certainly has a bias towards survivorship. Every other vehicle on the road represents a potentially lethal threat at any time.

Inadequate dedicated infrastructure for cyclists leads to behavior like "Idaho stops" that look counterintuitive to drivers, but improves safety for cyclists at intersections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

New comment by dublinben in "The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?"

dublinben — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 21:37:57 +0000

Roads that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years certainly weren't built for cars.

New comment by dublinben in "The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?"

dublinben — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:11:07 +0000

Horse-drawn busses predate private automobiles by almost a hundred years.[0] The movement to pave roads was started by bicyclists decades before the rise of the automobile.[1] Cars usurped preexisting infrastructure and drove out other road users, like trolleybusses and streetcars.

We have so thoroughly remade society in the service of cars that it can be difficult to recognize any possible alternative.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsebus

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement

New comment by dublinben in "The AI School Bus Camera Company Blanketing America in Tickets"

dublinben — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:54:32 +0000

Unfortunately it sounds like this program is designed to maximize revenue for the private vendor, not make roads safer by changing driver behavior. The county is also using this surface-level fix as an excuse to avoid more fundamental road design changes that would actually improve safety for vulnerable road users.

Other automated enforcement mechanisms like average speed cameras and automated tolling are more effective at achieving their purported goals. Ultimately, enforcement will always be secondary to proper road design in both cost and effectiveness.

New comment by dublinben in "DNS LOC Record (2014)"

dublinben — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 14:54:48 +0000

Unfortunately the example included (geekatlas.com) appears to be long gone, so we're not able to enjoy this ourselves.

New comment by dublinben in "Kagi Bloopers – Search Results Gone Wrong"

dublinben — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:45:46 +0000

The EU is still buying billions of dollars of fossil fuels and other resources from Russia.[0]

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/3/how-much-of-europes...

New comment by dublinben in "Samsung Family Hub for 2025 Update Elevates the Smart Home Ecosystem"

dublinben — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 18:59:54 +0000

Sony Pictures Core and Kaleidescape are as close as it gets, and both require expensive proprietary hardware.

New comment by dublinben in "End of Japanese community"

dublinben — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:05:10 +0000

That’s corporate for “would you like to discuss this off the record away from public view?”

Especially with a non-native English speaker who may be more comfortable expressing themselves in writing asynchronously.

New comment by dublinben in "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"

dublinben — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 02:51:54 +0000

12 TB is easy. https://yourdatafitsinram.net/

New comment by dublinben in "The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)"

dublinben — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 22:34:13 +0000

Some interesting history here: https://www.firerescue1.com/firefighting-history/articles/th...

New comment by dublinben in "AI tools churn out 'workslop', but 'the buck' should stop with bosses"

dublinben — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 20:16:41 +0000

>Do people need training to use a calculator?

Yes? Quite a bit of time was spent in math classes over the years learning to use calculators. Especially the more complicated functions of so-called graphing calculators. They're certainly not self-explanatory.

What does it say about your skill or the depth of this tool that you haven't gotten better at using it after 2 years of practice?

New comment by dublinben in "The American Nations regions across North America"

dublinben — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 18:59:06 +0000

Here's a non-Amazon metasearch site for independent book sellers. There's copies starting as low as $11.

https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=Albion%27...

New comment by dublinben in "The Storm Hits the Art Market"

dublinben — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 03:15:02 +0000

What do you think the market is for this kind of digital art? Do you see this style of work attracting an audience elsewhere? How much is it selling for?

I'm far from an expert, but I do occasionally buy original artwork. The sheer multitude of works you are displaying (more than one a day!) devalues what you are doing. It suggests that these can be churned out with relatively little effort.

If you are really posting this for other people, and not just yourself, try posting fewer pieces. If you had to pick the single best work from July, which one would it be? If nothing stands out to you, then how is a potential customer supposed to pick you out from the crowd of similar artists?

I personally like the Persistence of Structure series, but they're each pretty interchangeable.