Hacker News: mazugrin2

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Apple Just Lost Me"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:29:30 +0000

I find it so odd to have such an extreme response to Apple all-of-the-sudden. Like they've been so great all of these years and only just now you're deciding to make such an extreme switch that you're going to choose the worst possible hardware imaginable because you can't even stomach buying a decent GNU/Linux laptop from Dell or Lenovo or Framework or System76? Jeeze. That little puny 8GB ARM laptop you're choosing instead is going to be painfully slow compared to whatever Mac you're coming from. At least check out the System76 laptops - some I do believe come fully open-source with Coreboot if that's all-of-the-sudden so important to you.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 14:19:00 +0000

It is a pedantic but meaningful distinction that I'd only point out on a sorta geeky site like this, but actually, FL180 (or, flight level one-eight-zero) is the altitude at which an altimeter will read 18,000 feet if it's set to assume that the barometric pressure is 1013 hPa (29.92 inHg). Above a certain transition altitude, aircraft switch their altimeters from reading altitude in the local pressure to this "standard" pressure. This is because above that altitude and safely away from terrain, it's no longer important to know precisely how high you are, but it _is_ important to know what altitude you are relative to all the other aircraft nearby.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year"

mazugrin2 — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 17:10:09 +0000

The cones aren't to alert the pedestrians the the crane. The cones are to mark out a path in the road for pedestrians and to alert auto drivers to that path. As an American I get that you don't typically walk anywhere but I can't believe you've never ever encountered a set of high visibility cones marking out a temporary path around construction equipment on a roadway.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "SpaceX engineers brought on at FAA after probationary employees were fired"

mazugrin2 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:18:13 +0000

Is there a good light under which to view this? It's corrupt. Isn't that far worse than whatever benefit you presume "HN" would be cheering?

New comment by mazugrin2 in "NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker"

mazugrin2 — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:17:22 +0000

What do you mean by "the short window when the labor to do so was affordable"? Other cities in the world seem to be able to build underground railways just fine and they have similar labor costs as the US. See Paris or Sydney for cities that have created new underground railways recently.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker"

mazugrin2 — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:12:39 +0000

How would you imagine one could make driving better, aside from making public transit better? The best thing you could hope for if you feel like you need to drive within SF is to have as few other people feeling the need to drive within SF.

But wait, I have to ask: why do you live in SF?

Practically anywhere else in the US is cheaper and better for people who want to drive.

Very few other US cities are better for people who want to get around by other means.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "How Boston City Hall was born"

mazugrin2 — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 16:56:08 +0000

There used to be a neighborhood around it that had architecture similar to what the neighboring North End still has, which is very distinct among the entirety of the Americas. The lack of imagination that existed back then that led to it all being razed to build this and the rest of the garbage of the current West End is stunning.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "How Boston City Hall was born"

mazugrin2 — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 15:29:20 +0000

And at least there's this there now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_slide

New comment by mazugrin2 in "FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 15:13:26 +0000

Aside from silly "sales-tax-holidays" I've never heard of the sales tax rates changing so frequently. I'm curious to know where this is happening "multiple times per year". Here in MA it's been the same rate for 15 years. And for the sales-tax-holiday situation can't a shop just say something like "everything will have x% taken off at the register" just like they would during a typical "10% off all items" type of sale?

New comment by mazugrin2 in "The size of BYD's factory"

mazugrin2 — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 15:19:20 +0000

Why did you expect a foreigner who is not from China to realize that they'd be inhibited by the local authorities from doing work they were invited to do by those same local authorities? It's bizarre to think that it's bizarre that a foreigner might merely express some surprise by that.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine"

mazugrin2 — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 16:41:53 +0000

"Never" is a really long time.

It would take a severe lack of vision to not be able to imagine that the following will -never- improve: charging infrastructure, charging technology (specifically, charging time), and BEV range

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Show HN: How much is 13B euros?"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 22:53:07 +0000

A lot of folks aren't great with numeracy, so I think it's good to use examples to help people understand how much tax Apple didn't have to pay that they themselves would have had to pay if they earned as much as Apple did.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "How a 16th Century Explorer's Sailing Ship Works"

mazugrin2 — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:10:53 +0000

Wow, I feel like you have to have incredibly thin skin to be offended by the one or two sentences acknowledging the legacy of what these ships were principally used for. Bach's music's principal purpose wasn't to further racism.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "KDE Asking for Donations"

mazugrin2 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 13:33:28 +0000

For monthly donations, the minimum is actually 3 EUR. And it's super easy to do from the US - just enter a CC number and billing address. What would be a lower bar?

For smaller amounts, I can imagine it would be better to save them some overhead and donate annually. They have a button for doing 10 EUR per year if you still wanted to help out. You can choose any amount that's at least 3 EUR. I imagine even 3 EUR per year would help! Here's the site if you can't find it: https://donorbox.org/kde-community

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 13:36:14 +0000

femou, are you affiliated with Zen? Do you know if there are any plans to add support for ARM users running Windows or Linux?

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Pilots said nothing as Southwest plane flew dangerously low over Tampa Bay"

mazugrin2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 15:00:45 +0000

The reason for diverting is more about rules than simply the distance. If the weather was marginal at Tampa and the pilots were worried that another failed attempt would lead them to have less than the required fuel to reach the diversion airport (Ft Lauderdale) while still staying above their minimum reserve fuel, then they'd be required to divert without making that additional attempt. Realistically, they'd still probably have enough fuel to reach Ft Lauderdale, but there'd be more paperwork to fill out....

New comment by mazugrin2 in "300-Year-Old House Transported Piecemeal Japan to California, Then Reconstructed"

mazugrin2 — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 14:48:26 +0000

I imagine there are innumerable 300 year old houses being preserved in Japan and that crossing the ocean wasn't needed to preserve this particular one. But this will be able to be appreciated by people in Los Angeles without traveling so far. It seems similar to how Japanese art is already shown in Californian museums and how Californian art is shown in Japanese ones. "Genuinely curious" people like to be exposed to culture from other places.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "Waymo the Leapfrog"

mazugrin2 — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 23:08:13 +0000

I don't think the drivers are the issue. The infrastructure, including the signage and road markings are vastly more sane and regular in SF than in Boston. And have you seen the road layout in Boston? I have no idea if this will be a challenge for Waymo, but I could imagine why someone would think it would.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "What's New in the Windows Subsystem for Linux in May 2024"

mazugrin2 — Fri, 31 May 2024 23:41:44 +0000

WSL is still very broken on Windows on ARM for any cpu intensive workloads. With the push to popularize this platform, I really hope some attention finally gets paid to the various RCU stall bugs that have been reported and ignored.

New comment by mazugrin2 in "'Right to roam' movement fights to give the commons back to the public"

mazugrin2 — Wed, 22 May 2024 15:56:00 +0000

Check out the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire or the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. I've heard it's also legal in CT State Forests but haven't actually seen this written down anywhere.