Hacker News: vinay427

New comment by vinay427 in "Why American ambulance rides are so expensive"

vinay427 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 09:20:59 +0000

Similar story here in Switzerland, with a 0 minute ride (they decided I didn’t need to be transported) that resulted in a bill of about 600-800 CHF.

New comment by vinay427 in "Organic Maps"

vinay427 — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:42:52 +0000

> I think they should stick with toponyms, instead of trying to be some sort of political arbiter.

This can mostly work for sub-national names, but doesn’t really address cases such as Taiwan, Cyprus, etc.

New comment by vinay427 in "Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches"

vinay427 — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:05:18 +0000

This isn’t the case for these watches in the UK as well, as they only work on certain partner networks, but I’m unsure whether this is due to the GP claim or something else.

New comment by vinay427 in "U.S. allows Anthropic to release Mythos AI to ‘trusted’ US organizations"

vinay427 — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 05:41:59 +0000

> This is exactly what they’ve been asking for.

This doesn't directly follow from the first part of your comment, and more importantly seems inaccurate with respect to Anthropic's public statements on this situation. For example:

> As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access

New comment by vinay427 in "Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards"

vinay427 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:12:48 +0000

US “bank cards” as in US payment processors such as Visa, not “US bank” cards.

New comment by vinay427 in "AMD silently removes memory encryption from consumer Ryzen CPUs"

vinay427 — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 23:16:00 +0000

I’m not sure what the featured article has to do with Europeans? In any case, not only are the vast majority of people not in Europe but surely Europeans (in any sense of the word) are not the primary groups targeted by a “hitler salute” in the US.

New comment by vinay427 in "Accenture to acquire Ookla"

vinay427 — Sat, 30 May 2026 17:54:43 +0000

While neat that a government operates this, I’m not sure it’s a viable alternative for most users given that the servers are AFAIK all in Norway. For example, the latency from my network was 150-200ms (compared to 6ms for the Speedtest.net server) and the speed test results appear less consistent than they may be in/near Norway.

New comment by vinay427 in "Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier"

vinay427 — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:41:33 +0000

> Argentina's ministry of education did something like this with university software. The one used by students to sign up and by teachers to track grades, etc.

For what it's worth, this seems roughly equivalent to Moodle, which is open-source (GPL) and used globally, apparently especially popular in some of western Europe, the US, etc. [1] School systems can and do of course customise it as needed.

[1] https://stats.moodle.org/

New comment by vinay427 in "West Coast Cities Turn to Vacancy Taxes to Grapple with Housing Crisis"

vinay427 — Mon, 25 May 2026 05:17:11 +0000

Given that their reply is on decreasing development fees, it seems that they understood the sarcasm.

New comment by vinay427 in "Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them"

vinay427 — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:18:42 +0000

I don’t live there, but for what it’s worth, this seems to be followed fairly consistently in the San Diego area whenever I’ve visited.

New comment by vinay427 in "Filing the corners off my MacBooks"

vinay427 — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:21:43 +0000

To add to this, I notice this more frequently in the UK and EU countries than in some other parts of the world (although it varies within each country quite a bit).

New comment by vinay427 in "27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates"

vinay427 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:13:49 +0000

This can be a relevant reminder at times, but based on their phrasing, I think they’re aware:

> Personally I prefer […] looks extremely dated to me now.

Compare to the GP comment, for instance, where this may still be the case but is less clear from phrasing:

> They're just so much more pleasant

New comment by vinay427 in "Amazon One palm authentication discontinued"

vinay427 — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 05:19:35 +0000

There were apparently 19 (I had only been to 4-5), but apparently they closed a month ago roughly in line with the closures in the US.

New comment by vinay427 in "Amazon One palm authentication discontinued"

vinay427 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:06:30 +0000

In the US, you also wave your phone over the card reader, it goes "Pling!" and that's your stuff paid for. The GP comment is not about paying (although it can do that too [1]), but rather about providing their Amazon account details for Amazon Prime discounts and other benefits.

A similar process is the case in the UK as well at Amazon Fresh stores, last I checked.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

New comment by vinay427 in "San Remo Pasta Measurer"

vinay427 — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:21:55 +0000

Some quick Googling says this brand is Australian. This pattern of making Europeans, Australians, and virtually everyone else on the internet “American” when it’s convenient is getting a little old.

New comment by vinay427 in "VW is bringing physical buttons back to the dashboard with the ID. Polo EV"

vinay427 — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:33:29 +0000

> The numbers are centigrade, which for the local market is mostly very obvious and widely understood. 22 is roughly room temperature, so it's good that's at 12 o'clock.

I'm aware of centigrade, I've lived in places that use centigrade. :) My issue is that absolute temperature markings don't seem appropriate for a manual climate control system that isn't matching a temperature. Here, the traditional blue/red-style markers or similar are probably more informative.

> You hand can feel the angle the dial is pointing. It was a non-issue for me. the white is illuminated softly at night, and one very quick glance can confirm the position anyway.

Fair, if it's clear with some tactile difference and is visible at night that seems quite alright!

New comment by vinay427 in "VW is bringing physical buttons back to the dashboard with the ID. Polo EV"

vinay427 — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 13:58:12 +0000

This has a few other issues to me compared to many similar dials.

It’s unclear what the temperature numbers actually mean if this isn’t an automatic climate control system (or is in manual mode).

The part that rotates also appears to be symmetric, which means one may need to find the white marking to decipher where the dial is pointing. That can be even more difficult in a dark environment than trying to read a display.

New comment by vinay427 in "Lawmakers want to ban VPNs"

vinay427 — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 13:32:20 +0000

From my reading, the GP comment isn’t claiming otherwise, but just that that sort of VPN ban isn’t enforceable in advance of some of those changes. They do directly suggest they don’t know how long this will remain the case.

New comment by vinay427 in "Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID"

vinay427 — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:48:40 +0000

In particular, this is already done using a digital ID for foreign residents (at least on most visas) in the UK, which was phased in over the past few years.

New comment by vinay427 in "NYC Telecom Raid: What's Up with Those Weird SIM Banks?"

vinay427 — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 06:54:30 +0000

> I don't believe the US had that kind of issue or, they did, it was so long ago that nobody remembers.

There is still a similar issue of not knowing whether an area code is for another country in the North American Numbering Plan. It’s fairly common for me to see an unfamiliar number and be unsure whether it’s from the US or Canada, for instance, without additional context.