Hacker News: z2

New comment by z2 in "Should you wash your solar panels?"

z2 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:15:27 +0000

Given the angle of a panel should match its latitude and average sun angle, the panels might generate noticeably more by being pitched steeper at over 30 degrees. Eyeballing this, it appears closer to 25 degrees right now which doesn't even make sense for the summer sun in the UK. I could be wrong as it also appears these are on a slope!

New comment by z2 in "Medici family mystery may be solved after more than 400 years"

z2 — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:25:33 +0000

Yeah, we're talking hundreds to thousands of mosquitoes per 1/10 of an acre, many or most of which are actually not actively flying, right? I can only see this working for dragonflies where the mosquito is the energy source.

New comment by z2 in "SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status"

z2 — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:59:24 +0000

Putting one's money where their mouth is in expressing that a company's stock appears overvalued is very low on my list of "things that exploit the proletariat."

New comment by z2 in "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"

z2 — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:18:20 +0000

I don’t know how Apple divides computation between the GPU and the Neural Engine, but one major benefit, especially for real-time transcription on laptops, is the improved power and thermal efficiency. I noticed better accuracy after switching my app to SpeechAnalyzer, and I suspect part of that improvement for me came from the microphone no longer having to compete with jet-engine fan noise.

New comment by z2 in "ChatGPT Work"

z2 — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:32:06 +0000

So will the new ChatGPT (Codex) refuse to respond at all after the 5-hour quota or weekly quota is used up? It always felt that 5.5 on the website was a lot more generous than the Codex version. And at least the website/old app could downgrade you to a lower model if you used up that quota.

New comment by z2 in "China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes"

z2 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:52:54 +0000

I don't think this makes any sense, what you argue would imply that the external historians would say that Japanese history starts in 1947 or that French history starts in 1958, but I'm not sure if they nor people of those countries would agree with that.

The point is, there's a lot more to history than political organization. A continuous culture and language is a big part of why civilizations extend far beyond the current governing regime.

New comment by z2 in "Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads"

z2 — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:35:39 +0000

Same here, reserved a 48GB M5 Pro shortly after seeing the news, and now I see the same retailer raised the price by over $1000. If they honor the sale, then this will be the most short term value I've gotten out of an HN submission ever.

New comment by z2 in "Show HN: Ideate a trading strategy with an Ex-Citadel Trader"

z2 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:30:42 +0000

Will the coming wave of AI-assisted amateur traders make markets more efficient especially as they are more motivated to seek value in less liquid places, or will it be like sending children with candy into the playground that the bullies can easily steal? Or is it both? Asking for a friend.

New comment by z2 in "Japanese symbols that speak without words"

z2 — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:43:20 +0000

Both have pretty enjoyable design language. The US signs follow colors, red for prohibition, white for rules, yellow for hazards, green for directional and blue for service. For Europe or the Vienna convention that much of the world uses, in respective order it's red for prohibition, circles for rules, triangle for hazards.

New comment by z2 in "Job application asked for my SAT scores"

z2 — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:18:12 +0000

And the meaning of the score changes over the years based on the test itself changing. Same goes for the company's GPA requirements where there have clearly been shifts across schools on the amount of grade inflation allowed or even encouraged.

As an aside, I'm not sure if I or the College Board can prove my score at this point.

New comment by z2 in "How many of the 170k English words do you know?"

z2 — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 14:18:14 +0000

In particular, I got a bunch of guesses correct because there's a pattern that several options are often related to each other, and either only one is different, (e.g., "Do good", "Do bad", "Be evil") -- in which case the answer is obvious -- or at least there's a contrasting pair which narrows it down to a 50% chance.

New comment by z2 in "BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada"

z2 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:56:23 +0000

I'm confused on the choice of Ford as a champion. Yes SUVs and trucks dominate in the US and that's Ford's focus, but I'm not sure what they learned from the commercial failures that were the Escape Hybrid and the F150 Lightning so that they will get it right and democratize EVs to the masses the second time. Or how their incremental innovations on ICE will translate to the "from the ground up" redesigns needed for a good EV. Or how the elimination of their more affordable cars in the name of chasing higher margin trucks will help bring things to the working class, as Ford's average sale price is now north of $55k, more expensive than the average Tesla.

Also, BYD started as a battery company, not a consumer tech company. Their choice of cell-to-body integration certainly makes repairs hard, but it adds to safety, range, weight, in addition to saving on cost. That looks to me like a very deliberate trade-off, not a sacrifice in the name of undercutting everyone. Tesla did it for their 4680 cell Model Y too.

New comment by z2 in "BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada"

z2 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:12:39 +0000

> And this is fantastic for EV owners in general, assuming the charging network is open to all.

Given that the job descriptions seem to include working with local subsidy programs, I sure hope the Canadian government is going to require an open standard or adding more DC chargers under existing standards.

New comment by z2 in "BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada"

z2 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:05:42 +0000

I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

New comment by z2 in "Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use"

z2 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:15:46 +0000

I put Microsoft in the camp of operating system maker, as they are only able to run others' models. The "Give them three tries" meme can play out well for them yet!

New comment by z2 in "Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use"

z2 — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:13:22 +0000

This all feels like a race where the model companies try to solve doing work locally in a way that doesn't suck, before the major operating systems companies figure out AI integration into their OS that doesn't suck. It also makes me wonder why Google which has both Gemini and Android can't figure this out, and if there are lessons to draw from that.

New comment by z2 in "Why all new flags look the same"

z2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:59:17 +0000

I'm going to ignore the valid concerns about a small group of people hijacking flag designs here, but I think the underlying issue with identical boring flags is design by committee that:

  1. Is established by the mandate that the old flag isn't salvageable,
  2. Isn't experienced in actual act of designing a flag (why would anyone be?),
  3. Can't imagine anything safer than a generic hill / river + sun / star to represent the region, and
  4. Hires an artist who is also not an expert in flag design, but would gladly put another compass rose above a wavy line next to a triangle.

I've seen the same play out with seal redesigns too. A degree in art history (let alone watching a TED talk) doesn't make you a good painter.

New comment by z2 in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

z2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:27:05 +0000

Sorry for the late reply, I regret the dramatic comparison to obvious physical harm. The argument is we tend to recognize industry-scale externalities after the fact, and that AI infrastructure costs are currently underpriced and borne by all, including non-participants. Gasoline with lead and asbestos both had great positive impact that we don't talk about anymore, because they are lessons in the negative side not being properly accounted for until much later.

New comment by z2 in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

z2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:22:38 +0000

This is a late reply, but the point isn't aggregate demand. RAM price inflation directly harms people who have no stake in AI and made no choice to participate in this buildout. That's the definition of a negative externality, costs borne by non-parties. "Money steers the ship" is exactly the issue, when prices don't capture full social costs, markets like the AI suppliers will overproduce. Whether AI ultimately proves beneficial is a separate question from whether current pricing (of AI) reflects true costs.

For the record I'm leading the AI program at my company and am very vested in the positive side. But one can also be aware there are downsides, more so than complaining.

New comment by z2 in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

z2 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:31:03 +0000

This is textbook negative externalities, of the AI buildout on everyone who isn't using RAM/GPUs for AI, of the use of electricity and water on anyone who isn't using it for AI. The cynic in me thinks this will go down in history alongside asbestos, leaded gasoline/paint, and the opioid crisis.