Hacker News: ultrarunner

New comment by ultrarunner in "Google changes its search box"

ultrarunner — Wed, 20 May 2026 04:11:03 +0000

I avoid any asking any agent a fact-based (especially math) request. It's a great compression algorithm and a great language generator, and I guess the intersection of those two things is "an answer". Calculation doesn't intersect.

New comment by ultrarunner in "The Disappearance of the Public Bench"

ultrarunner — Fri, 08 May 2026 19:02:42 +0000

These are likely good litmus tests for the distinction between a city and "people storage".

New comment by ultrarunner in "US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology"

ultrarunner — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:38:03 +0000

This is extremely salient. Check out Phoenix, AZ sometime in street view. It's a brutalist grid of wide roads (even in "residential zones") where every property is lined in a six-foot block wall. As a result, sight lines are excellent for drivers (encouraging high speeds) but terrible for homeowners. Kids can't reasonably roam free, neighbors rarely meet, and everyone is viewed with suspicion. Most of my neighbors are really decent people, but I see them so rarely we might as live in different cities.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Drivers May Soon Pay Taxes Based on How Much Their Car Weighs"

ultrarunner — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 19:59:32 +0000

I used to drive a 1996 VW Passat. If I drove reasonably on the highway, I could average about 57 mpg per tank. I thought that was great, so my next car was a 2006 VW Jetta. That car only got 40 mpg at its best, but that was pretty good comparatively, so I accepted it. The newer TDIs were rated even lower, and then mostly went away, so I got a Honda. It only gets 23 mpg. Each of these cars has also been shorter between maintenance cycles, and with a shorter overall expected lifespan. I don't know what's going on with the regulatory landscape that cars keep getting bigger, heavier, and less efficient (by mile), but it seems like there's plenty of room for improvement. The fact that this is proposed by automakers, though, makes me extremely skeptical.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Drivers May Soon Pay Taxes Based on How Much Their Car Weighs"

ultrarunner — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 19:53:57 +0000

In other words, a world designed for cars instead of people is less friendly to people.

New comment by ultrarunner in "The FAA’s flight restriction for drones is an attempt to criminalize filming ICE"

ultrarunner — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:26:26 +0000

We run into this with drone filming from county and state lands. The governments assert a right to the airspace above their parks, which is almost certainly unenforceable. However, the governments do issue permits, which one can imagine become significantly more limited in scope once an airspace lawsuit is filed. Ergo, the courts can say whatever they want, but in practice it's even more restrictive than that.

New comment by ultrarunner in "German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad"

ultrarunner — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:09:23 +0000

The penalty doesn't have to be increased, it just needs to be selectively enforced.

New comment by ultrarunner in "SpaceX files to go public"

ultrarunner — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:34:23 +0000

> against the value add of AI

Hasn't the surprising lack of value add been discussed with increasing frequency?

New comment by ultrarunner in "Police used AI facial recognition to wrongly arrest TN woman for crimes in ND"

ultrarunner — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 02:29:23 +0000

The problem is that the people who will put this in place rate capability on a linear scale: in their view the ability to write software is sufficiently magic, so such an ability is obviously good enough to recognize criminals. From their perspective, there are hurdles to be crossed (like probable cause) and an AI flagging a suspect feels like a magical intelligence crossing those hurdles and allowing them to continue in the process.

They don't validate the results of their fellow officers, or the validity of warrants, or anything else that predicates an arrest. Why would they start with this?

New comment by ultrarunner in "Two pilots dead after plane and ground vehicle collide at LaGuardia"

ultrarunner — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 17:49:16 +0000

I think the comparison to public education is apt: often (at least initially) great people trapped in a terrible system. I suppose you can pay people to ignore a certain amount of misery on top of the job, but I do not believe you can (or should) completely obviate all brokenness in a system at the end of two weeks in a paycheck.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Two pilots dead after plane and ground vehicle collide at LaGuardia"

ultrarunner — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:48:33 +0000

I don't think it's money. I think it's requirements and training pipeline restraints. The system is predicated on being able to throw bodies at the problem, but there is a distinct lack of qualified individuals to back that up. Personally, I didn't realize ATC as a possible career path until I was 36-- imagine my surprise when I found that I had already aged out.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Two pilots dead after plane and ground vehicle collide at LaGuardia"

ultrarunner — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:45:17 +0000

To play devil's advocate, ASEL into small deltas is significantly different than receiving full-stop IFRs late at night.

This small mistake (and it is initially small, just catastrophic) is a system breakdown, not necessarily a staffing breakdown. Though staffing is definitely a wider issue in the NAS.

Edit to add: looking at this incident closer it appears LGA was busy enough to make a single tower/ground controller an obviously bad plan. Still, systemically, there's enough low hanging fruit here, like ADSb in for the airport trucks or hold short line guard lights. I hope the takeaway isn't just "don't have controllers make mistakes".

New comment by ultrarunner in "I converted 2D conventional flight tracking into 3D"

ultrarunner — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:19:23 +0000

For a long & low trip like that, ATC staffing is a common story. Higher sectors not having the manpower leads to clearance delays, and this is a somewhat common workaround for that somewhat rare situation.

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

ultrarunner — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 04:44:39 +0000

Absolutely. I suppose my question was really more interested in the perceived legitimacy (or lack thereof).

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

ultrarunner — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:28:17 +0000

Your use of "our" makes me wonder if the people of Mexico see the drug cartels as "theirs".

New comment by ultrarunner in "Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial"

ultrarunner — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:53:17 +0000

So much AI statementmaking seems to be structured around "It's not X, it's not Y, it's not Z [emdash] it's A" and "What's important is '[experiential first-person descriptive quote]'". Maybe they overfit on Linked In data.

New comment by ultrarunner in "NIMBYs aren't just shutting down housing"

ultrarunner — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:36:29 +0000

Through some interesting turns of events I've made more and more acquaintances with some people well outside the city I live in. One thing that caught me off guard was just how true this is. People there would rather-- by a large margin-- see stagnancy than improvement. Literally arguing against adding a grocery store due to there being nothing there to support it, no roads, nowhere to even buy food. They are fiercely opposed to anyone doing anything.

It has made me wonder what proportion of that sentiment is held by my neighbors in spite of the obvious city problems we face.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Man who videotaped himself BASE jumping in Yosemite arrested, says it was AI"

ultrarunner — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 19:53:01 +0000

I'd probably be most inspired to make an AI video of doing something awesome in a national park just after having visited the park, too.

They'll need a flock cam on the summit if they want to push that any further.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Procedures for Repair of Potholes in Asphalt-Surfaced Pavements"

ultrarunner — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:17:10 +0000

Eh, maybe I didn't describe it well. We're talking 1 lane wide, maybe 80 ft long. Dually tire path through the patch. Indented, with the displaced material ridged up along the side, diagonal across the lane. It yanks my motorcycle tire sideways if I hit it, and it's a decent bump in a car. If that's… how you compact it, we need new standards.

New comment by ultrarunner in "Procedures for Repair of Potholes in Asphalt-Surfaced Pavements"

ultrarunner — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:01:43 +0000

The local obscenely named utility company dug in our road a few years ago, necessitating a large patch. They proceeded to drive through their patch as they left. The tire dents & ridges are still there years later. You're right, of course, but I think you may be overestimating the concern patch crews give to their craft.