Hacker News: elliottkember

New comment by elliottkember in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

elliottkember — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:16:34 +0000

It’s not a crime, it’s an infringement (NZ) or civil infraction (FL), and there’s no criminal record associated. There’s a material difference between an infraction and a crime.

New comment by elliottkember in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

elliottkember — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 23:21:42 +0000

I’m not European. Many countries have speed cameras.

It differs how you’re caught. We treat a red light camera or speed camera violation as an infringement offence, like parking. If you’re pulled over, you can have your license suspended or be charged with reckless driving on the spot, because they know who you are.

There’s no case, and no guilt, just a penalty. It’s not about guilt but responsibility. You’re responsible for the car when it’s registered to you.

If you want an analogue, try carpool lane tickets. Same thing.

New comment by elliottkember in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

elliottkember — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:14:45 +0000

Yes, there is a distinction. But it’s irrelevant in this case because you can be ticketed for either. The speeding ticket goes to the registered owner and there are no demerit points as there is no proof of driver identity.

New comment by elliottkember in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

elliottkember — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:28:14 +0000

You get a parking ticket regardless of who parked

New comment by elliottkember in "Long Range E-Bike (2021)"

elliottkember — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 22:17:14 +0000

I was working on an LED project that involved some reasonably-sized lithium batteries, and the guy in the hardware store said "I don't want to hear about you in the news tomorrow". That really stuck with me, and I say it sometimes when I think someone's going to do something dangerous.

New comment by elliottkember in "Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety"

elliottkember — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:05:27 +0000

Maybe social media is like cigarettes, in that it cures the anxiety it causes. A powerfully addictive cycle.

New comment by elliottkember in "Shipmap.org"

elliottkember — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 21:49:37 +0000

I'm surprised more people don't know about the Northampton Canal

New comment by elliottkember in "Get an AI code review in 10 seconds"

elliottkember — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 20:29:07 +0000

https://cursor.com/bugbot

I didn't see this mentioned, but we've been running bugbot for a while now and it's very good. It catches so many subtle bugs.

New comment by elliottkember in "My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4"

elliottkember — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 19:57:10 +0000

Paper, books, and construction documents all use reflected and not refracted light.

New comment by elliottkember in "Low Earth Orbit Visualization"

elliottkember — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 01:44:42 +0000

Objects not to scale. Not even close, and no mention of it (that I saw).

Graphing scale honestly is extremely important. A lot of people are convinced our sky is full of satellites because of visualizations like this.

New comment by elliottkember in "AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore"

elliottkember — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:57:36 +0000

> discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal

In my experience, there is no good shortcut to this realization. Doing it wrong first is part of the journey. You might as well enjoy the necessary mistakes along the way. The third time’s the charm!

New comment by elliottkember in "In Defense of Car-Centered Society"

elliottkember — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 20:34:18 +0000

> I want my

So much of the argument for cars, housing, indedpendence, "freedom", boils down to this simple sentence, "I want my".

New comment by elliottkember in "Germany's identity crisis: The trains no longer run on time"

elliottkember — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 23:24:27 +0000

Moving to the US, the traffic light system was a big culture shock for me. No major/minor dendritic road system laid out like a tree like I was used to — more like right angles everywhere and so many delays. Traffic lights on every single intersection. So inefficient.

And when you mention it, a surprising number of people say “that would never work here. People don’t know how to drive”. So little faith!

New comment by elliottkember in "Gaslight-driven development"

elliottkember — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 05:45:42 +0000

It vibrates and tries to gently guide you. It will absolutely not overpower you if you are swerving in an emergency. You are talking hypothetical nonsense.

New comment by elliottkember in "The Last Letter"

elliottkember — Wed, 21 May 2025 07:42:44 +0000

> Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.

Foreign languages always sound strange. There are rules that are invisible even to the native speakers who know them. The romance is not in knowing them, but the fun of figuring them out.

New comment by elliottkember in "On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots"

elliottkember — Tue, 13 May 2025 04:03:23 +0000

The word “entirely” was what I was pointing out. The photographer stopped bringing his work home.

New comment by elliottkember in "Reviving a modular cargo bike design from the 1930s"

elliottkember — Mon, 12 May 2025 22:01:09 +0000

The comment asking about riding positions drop bars was hilarious.

Lots of Americans in the comments is probably why, plus the Hacker News tendency toward armchair expertise.

The American grid system tends to produce hills that are unmanageable on a town or cargo bike, so bicycles are a fitness/enthusiast thing. And US cities are much more spread out, too. In more walkable European cities, these bikes make a lot of sense.

New comment by elliottkember in "On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots"

elliottkember — Mon, 05 May 2025 03:16:13 +0000

> Having a knee-jerk reaction to photo taking that causes you to stop taking photos entirely is absurd.

Note that the author is a photographer by trade.

New comment by elliottkember in "The Greatest Motorcycle Photo"

elliottkember — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 22:19:53 +0000

The settlement was 20 miles away, but that doesn't mean he only drove 20 miles, or that he knew which direction the settlement was in!

New comment by elliottkember in "The Software Engineering Identity Crisis"

elliottkember — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:45:55 +0000

3D printing is an interesting analogy. When I got my printer I really truly thought I’d be printing all sorts of things to use around the house and gadgets and stuff.

It turns out that to be a good 3D printer, you need to be really good at CAD, and measuring stuff with Vernier calipers. That’s like prompt engineering.

Then there was the nozzle temperature, print errors, and other strange results — call those hallucinations.

Once I had designed something that I needed many instances of, it was great. But for one-offs, it was a lot of work. So it goes with AI.