Hacker News: mdorazio

New comment by mdorazio in "Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher"

mdorazio — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:52:44 +0000

My favorite is how if you buy a “premium” ticket that comes with a checked bag they still try to trick you into paying for a checked bag (again).

New comment by mdorazio in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

mdorazio — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 04:05:16 +0000

I believe it’s still a single section, so probably around 250 (at least that’s about what it was when I was there a long time ago). Compared to the 1000+ who take 61A.

New comment by mdorazio in "Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning"

mdorazio — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:17:44 +0000

Not true. App Store is less than 1/3 of services revenue.

New comment by mdorazio in "The American Healthcare Conundrum"

mdorazio — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:45:13 +0000

This is not correct. Here's Pfizer's 2025 annual report [1]. Total expenses for the year were $55.1 billion. Advertising expenses were $2.7 billion of that, or just under 5%. R&D expenses were $12.1 billion, or just under 22%. They do have a lot of SG&A, but the large majority of that is not going to marketing.

[1] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000078003/908eb6a...

New comment by mdorazio in "Why isn't LA repaving streets?"

mdorazio — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:04:51 +0000

Worth noting that LA does not have freeze cycles. I wonder what the pothole formation likelihood is as a result.

New comment by mdorazio in "“Car Wash” test with 53 models"

mdorazio — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:51:02 +0000

In addition to snmx999's point, you're also not specifying that you want to wash your car at the car wash (as opposed to washing it in your driveway or something, in which case the car wash is superfluous information). The article's prompt failed in Sonnet 4.6, but the one below works fine. I think more humans would get it right as well.

I want to wash my car at the car wash. The car wash is 50 meters away and my car is in my driveway. Should I walk or drive?

New comment by mdorazio in "“Car Wash” test with 53 models"

mdorazio — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:41:17 +0000

I don't think it is, though. Where is the car? Do you want to wash your car at the car wash? Both of those are rather important pieces of information. Everyone is relying on assumptions to answer the question, which is fine, but in my opinion not a great reasoning test.

New comment by mdorazio in "Stop talking"

mdorazio — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 18:39:41 +0000

Determined how?

New comment by mdorazio in "The AI water issue is fake"

mdorazio — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 18:28:26 +0000

The uproar over AI data center resource use has been rather bizarre to see and feels vaguely luddite. As this article points out, frivolous things like golf courses are far worse users of fresh water (and land) than any amount of AI. And on the electricity side, forcing the US to actually build more power generating capacity and infrastructure is a good thing in my book. Once the AI hype dies down we can use that for BEVs and other useful things.

New comment by mdorazio in "Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix"

mdorazio — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 20:36:39 +0000

Are you sure it was actually a 40mph zone in that section? Austin has plenty of school and construction zones with lower speed limits that most drivers completely ignore.

New comment by mdorazio in "How Airbus took off"

mdorazio — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 07:01:47 +0000

737 MAX. That whole saga was because of Boeing trying really hard to not certify a new airframe so that they could quickly push out a competitor to A320 Neo. The result was hundreds of deaths.

New comment by mdorazio in "The Gold Card"

mdorazio — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:31:13 +0000

EB-5 is intended to create businesses and jobs in the US as part of the process. This is just straight-up "give us money and we'll give you residency".

On the other hand, it's not out of line with programs in other countries (ex. NZ's golden visa program)

New comment by mdorazio in "Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year"

mdorazio — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 02:39:51 +0000

Chat? No. But the strength of Teams is that it lets you do everything else you want in an integrated communications app - voice, video calls, calendars, viewing (and editing) documents, etc. At a reasonable price that Microsoft isn't going to crank to the moon.

New comment by mdorazio in "How big a solar battery do I need to store all my home's electricity?"

mdorazio — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 06:28:17 +0000

Please note if your goal is minimizing carbon footprint, burning wood instead of other biomass is probably not a great idea [1].

[1] https://www.pfpi.net/carbon-emissions/

New comment by mdorazio in "“No Tax on Tips” Includes Digital Creators, Too"

mdorazio — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 22:51:40 +0000

Varies by year, but top 1% share of income is around 21% right now in the US:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/income-share-top-1-before...

i.e. the US tax system is still fairly progressive despite what many people think.

New comment by mdorazio in "A computer upgrade shut down BART"

mdorazio — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 22:31:12 +0000

Do you think train operators should make a quarter million a year to drive the same train on the same route every day?

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=train+o...

New comment by mdorazio in "Making a font of my handwriting"

mdorazio — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 20:06:10 +0000

For those who were hoping for the physical version of this, I recommend the Stuff Made Here Video on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cQO2XTP7QDw

New comment by mdorazio in "Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo"

mdorazio — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 12:05:29 +0000

You’re conveniently ignoring what “reserves” means in the GENIUS act. Unlike regular banks, Circle can use US Treasuries instead of cash so that they earn interest and prop up US government debt at the same time. It’s a clever scheme, but not the same as being forced to hold fiat reserves.

Many other banking regulations also don’t apply. No FDIC insurance and most importantly none of the regulations that apply to true fiduciaries since they are only “custodians”.

New comment by mdorazio in "U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel"

mdorazio — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 03:20:03 +0000

TSMC has already put $65B into the Phoenix fab and is adding at least that much more, so no. You're off by an order of magnitude.

New comment by mdorazio in "The US Department of Agriculture Bans Support for Renewables"

mdorazio — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 18:53:15 +0000

The data is kind of misleading. Texas actually produces almost twice as much solar + wind power as California. The %mix is lower because Californians don’t have to run AC and heat year-round, so power demand per capita is way lower as a function of geography rather than policy.