Hacker News: dublinben

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.

New comment by dublinben in "Escaping the Internet"

dublinben — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:51:28 +0000

Unironically referencing a four year old "female delusion calculator" (https://igotstandardsbro.com/) is also quite a choice. I've learned more about this individual from these two blog posts than I ever wanted to.

New comment by dublinben in "Meta is spending $10B in rural Louisiana to build its largest data center"

dublinben — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:53:29 +0000

Louisiana has a long history of political corruption, and the petrochemical industry is a major part of their economy.

New comment by dublinben in "Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down"

dublinben — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 14:49:17 +0000

Vanguard and Blackrock are just asset managers. Public companies are owned by everyone with mutual funds, like pension funds and individual retirement accounts.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.34N76K4

New comment by dublinben in "Fourble turns lists of MP3 files hosted anywhere into podcasts"

dublinben — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:07:55 +0000

A podcast is just a distribution method. It means digital audio files delivered over the Internet using RSS feeds.

New comment by dublinben in "How to increase your surface area for luck"

dublinben — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 19:42:32 +0000

If everyone is hosting events, who will attend them?

New comment by dublinben in "Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system"

dublinben — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:04:09 +0000

Just to hazard a guess, you could start reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_environmental_impac...

New comment by dublinben in "Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google"

dublinben — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 14:39:56 +0000

Coming from their manager, I suspect it could have also been meant as:

"Radical transparency doesn't mean you get to say negative things."