skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I drive a compact sedan in an area known for its love of trucks.

Even 5 years ago, it felt fine. Now I am noticing more and more that driving the sedan feels flat out dangerous. There are more huge trucks and SUVs on the road. They impede my view of the road, and will also clearly demolish my car in an accident.

I swore off large vehicles when I first started driving, but it is to the point where I’m having to consider getting one for my next vehicle just to feel safe on the road. Something needs to change.
That’s great, but you have a second car to cover the things your primary car can’t do! That might make sense if you do a daily commute that makes the convenience and running costs of the smaller car worth it.

In general I see a lot of snark about people driving (eg) trucks around that people assume they can’t possibly need. But the reality is that people buy their vehicles based on the most challenging routine thing they need their car to do. I mostly only have four people in my minivan, but the extra space is great for road trips or when the grandparents visit. A lot of people have trucks because they want the towing capacity a few times a year, or they want the space to haul dirty stuff.

IDK, I find the dismissiveness of “must be compensating for something” a little tiresome and honestly kind of incurious.
So glad someone mentioned this. So much of keeping yourself and others safe on the road involves subconsciously being able to respond to situations without thinking about what needs to be done.

Being able to train some facsimile of those reactions in a safe and controlled environment is a key aspect of the driving process that people get small bits of over a long time. Hopefully in time enough to be able to save lives in time of emergency.
I too have met the guy at the party who can pound vodka shots like water and never notice a difference.

I'd say "I don't go home with guys like that any more", but I was never quite naïve enough to go home with guys like that in the first place.
In a professional context I would avoid both. I don’t want to join chat servers for various SaaS I pay for where I just want a simple support question answered. At least with a forum, the questions and answers are indexed so I might find exactly what I want without having to reach out to support.

I’m not a community member, I’m a paying customer.
LGs and Samsungs have become the premium brands with associated pricing and is not the ones that are made for the majority. Not to mention it’s not universal that they make good smart tvs either.
I'm very close to building my own dishwasher. I don't care about water conservation. I just want clean dishes.
You didn't read the OP's comment.

He wants an A4
He has a much bugger car because he needs fo fit three car seats.

That the market has cars bug enough for him, and the reasons for providing it, are not germane to his comment.
Part of the issues are all the regulations.

Personally I’d like to buy a cheap car, nothing auto, no wireless over-the-air updates, etc

That said, governments (like the US) regulate cars. I can’t buy a car without seat belts, they’re required to have emission reducing stuff, they have to monitor (and fake lol) their emissions. Now the government trying to force manufacturers to have remote stop capabilities, etc.

It’s illegal to have basic, cheap, cars.

Not saying the regulations are bad one way or another tbh. I do enjoy the lack of smog, but I do wonder how much of “reducing emissions” and all these other regulations was more about building a moat for manufacturers.
> a weird uncool stigma about them

would be easiest to just move the marketing dollars from the Mustang to the Sienna, but those dollars come from the markup over BOM that Mustang owners are willing and able to afford

Sienna purchasers probably don't mind paying less for a stigma since their primary concern likely is carrying kids around, instead of advertising their ability to have them in the first place
Keeping the proper safety distance to the car in front of you is surprisingly hard. On the one hand, it goes against the learned behaviour (of most people). On the other hand, other drivers' bad behaviour actively sabotages this by overtaking and/or squeezing in the spaces that open up from proper distance. Most drivers just don't have the emotional control to drive well, but the actual problem is they don't even realise they're bad drivers.

SUVs are the completely wrong solution to this problem. I'm not sure if distance warning (akin to seatbelt) beepers could help, but I suspect people would hate them so much it'd doom sales.
Well, that’s fine too. There are plenty of things I enjoy watching on my TV, but the thing still absolutely sucks in ways it doesn’t need to.
I'm sure that there is a huge chart on their Cloudflare dashboard about how many attacks were blocked! This is one thing that gets me, all of the reporting Cloudflare provides treats every block as a huge success. Nothing to help identify actually attacks vs false positives. Let also false positives that would have actually has a negative effect on the application behind the WAF.
ISTR you can use a Bluetooth beacon without pairing. Range might be mitigated by using a decent antenna, but might run into legal power limits.
Strategic Myopia
Physical mail isn't covered by the legislation. Anyone can have bulk mail delivered by the postman, to any address. There is no way to opt-out of snail-mail, unless it's unaddressed. I think you can't even opt-out of mail addressed to "Occupant".
I wonder how detectable it would be. Won't these devices emit a bit of a certain kind of radiation that even if low enough to be harmless to human health, could be enough to be detected by sensitive equipment. Like the X-rays emitted by tritium vials used for illumination.
They also don’t seem too worried about self-serviceability, when in my experience that’s all the car aficionados in my life care about is modifying their cars to their own specifications.
> you get meals every week, unless you opt-out

But that is what the subscription is about.

There are clear options under account settings to "Cancel plan" and "Pause deliveries".
The simplest fix is to require oems to include on board diagnostics on par with dealership tools.
Usually the problem is availability of spare parts.
Replace Anything
There was a bestof Reddit post about some automotive expert who worked on designing headlights who put a large passage about why lights look brighter. I felt that it was just a large gaslighting exercise in the end lol.
Back in the day, there were station wagons for this exact use case, Larger than a sedan, but not the ridiculous tank-like SUVs of today.
"However, as someone who has been driving for 30 years, cars are better in every way now than they were before (From a driving, efficiency, reliability and safety perspective)."

Right. Sure. 2001 Tundra V8 owner here, and you're just flat out wrong.

Maybe you've had uniquely bad judgement in the vehicles you've acquired over the last 30 years. It happens.
The only choice you have is a monitor, if the screen size you were looking for isn’t too big.
> When you're driving your low-riding sedan in traffic, if the car in front of you is an SUV, you can't see beyond it.

I had a Scion FRS (a very small and short car) for a while and very much was the (annoying[1]) guy who stayed 10+ car lengths away from the person in front of me so that I could see better. This was one of the reasons I traded it in for something taller.

[1] I had many more incidences of road rage directed at me than I have experienced in other cars before or since because I left so much space in front of me. Lots of "what the ** are you doing?" screamed at me.
To the subjective complaints I’ll add heavy window tinting, specifically on windshields and front side windows. I don’t know if it is actually more common or I’m imagining that, but I really don’t like it as a pedestrian or fellow driver.

Hand signals and eye contact play a role in the cooperative dance at intersections, and if I can’t see you then things are more dangerous. I err on the side of safety. Probably every other day I’ll be waiting to cross a road (usually on foot, but it can apply in car, too) and some dark tinted car will be paused, probably yielding to me, maybe, but who knows? Maybe they’re waving me on, maybe they’re glancing at their phone. So I just wait and wait, and eventually they’ll go. I do wonder if these folks understand no one can see them.
> new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion

It means providing research containing useful narratives that can be used by others to promote DEI political objectives.

For example, in math it means publishing commentary on how math is widely used for racial discrimination and should generally not be trusted. See the popular book "Math Is Racist". Several Mathematicians are cited in the book.
I wondered about this before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463198

It does seem like it would make sense for solving water issues in the southwest, at the very least.
We proudly bought a €22 toaster yesterday what was the second cheapest in the store and completely avoided the fancy ones. I’m all for dumb appliances…
A GVPR program transforming org chart
It's really the other way around : it's simple, which makes it not easy to use.

The way Arch Linux defines simplicity is "Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions or modifications."[0]

Go is simple because it only really has what you NEED. People complain about wanting this and that feature, but they don't really NEED it, it would just make writing code easier.

Personally I love that because if there's a billion ways to do something, I waste all my time trying to figure out the best way to do it instead of working on the original problem, but I can see why people who are not like me would prefer more features.

* https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#Simplicity
We had 3 under 3. When our son was 5 and the twins were 3, we were able to switch to forward facing car seats in the back of my Dodge Challenger, which is technically just a coupe. They're all Diono Radian car seats, and the kids fit comfortably 3 across.

Just thought I'd share in case you ever want to reconsider the dream car thing. You never know until you try and you can always bring car seats and test fit.

To your original point though, most of the time we use my wife's Honda Pilot because of the extra space for errands, sports gear, and luggage (and also because my wife doesn't want to drive stick in Northern Virginia traffic).
Alas a set of rehashed points that don’t resonate.

// Hiding critical/often-used buttons behind touchscreens for the sake of minimalism (and cost?)

I see this one written of often but I don’t see it on my 2 year old Toyota or cars I’ve borrowed/rented. I literally never had to access the touch screen for a critical function.

Assuming this problem does exist on some cars, it seems easy to avoid as I’ve avoided it without trying.

// On that note, poor physical layout in general (genuinely thinking that you can rate cars’ on a “hazard-light-button-placement index”)

I’ve definitely experienced the moment in a rental/borrowed vehicle where it took me a bit of scanning around the dashboard to find the blinkers button. But this seems to just be variance across manufacturers. Eg my Toyota is consistent with Toyotas that came before it even if that’s different than some other manufacturer’s internal consistency. Is the author really struggling to find the blinkers on a vehicle he’s already familiar with?

// Cars are getting too big; why are manufacturers pushing “crossovers” and SUVs on consumers and why are consumers buying them? I could write pages on this point alone.

One thing here is that this is a single man who can’t relate to the needs and desires of other types of customers. I loved small cars as a single man and love my mid size SUV as a dad of two and on certain occasions wish it was bigger.

Cars are getting bigger because through marvel of technology that has become economical to manufacture and operate. Eg my SUV gets nearly 40 mpg whereas a few decades ago that was economy car territory.
Exceedingly well.
Well, the comic did say it would take 5 years.
True, ITVX or whatever it was called before actually worked OK but then they updated it and made it quite terrible.
I have a family and live in a place that gets snowy. I would love an all wheel drive minivan that I could put good tires on. But that category is dominated by SUVs.

My theory is that it's about making the model line up more efficient: SUVs can sell with both families and with image-conscious individuals. So rather than selling mini-vans to families and trucks to individuals who just think they're cool, sell SUVs to both groups.
>> manufacturers pushing “crossovers” and SUVs on consumers

This might have something to do with the fact that this is what people want. It is still possible to buy a small car.
Yep, it’s region and even sub-region specific. Sometimes different McD near me (a couple of miles apart) have different deals.

Where I live the one closest always has a BOGO breakfast sandwich while the one closer to my parents (3hrs away) will do a “buy one, get $1 off another”.

It’s crazy how much cheaper things are when using the apps for fast food places. I regularly save $3-5 using some $1-item/BOGO/%-off type of coupon.
When am I "allowed" to quit and not be labeled a quitter?
Do you know where rivers typically end?
Pretty sure it's mandatory - I seem to recall a considerable educational campaign when they first arrived in Poland regarding passenger front side airbag and child car seats.
But nowhere near as much as the proposed battery.
Yup. My LG is stuck at the EULA “we reserve the right to watch what you watch” screen but works fine as a dumb monitor for my Apple TV, SHIELD and Xbox.
Simulating Biology in Other Dimensions [video]
"SUV that weight double, cost double and only seat five people at half the range."

That's just not right. Minivans are typically as big, if not longer, and weigh more or less the same. As to cost, unless you're comparing the suburban, (relatively rare vehicle even in my corner of rich, suburbanite, 6 kids midwest) their cost is comparable.

Ive been looking to buy a Sienna for over a year and I cant find one without dropping almost $70 k out the door. For that money I can get an expedition and have more space.
I think maybe it helps to think from the point of view of a developer for whom these single-file things are tools in their workshop.

- Easier to grep a collection of single files

- Easier to see what you've got in your collection in a directory listing (whether via a shell or in a web UI such as GitHib)

- Easier to view the contents quickly (`cat`)

- General philosophy that flat is better than nested
I've borrowed money from family and it can be sticky depending on the situation.

Make sure to be as clear as possible of the risks and be clear to yourself first and to them when will you cut your loses if things go south.

Otherwise, try to be as explicit as possible regarding terms and your plan. Usually family gives money based on relationship, not contracts and business/financial benefit and as such what is broken if things go sour is not a contract or cutting a bad business deal but relationships. So, watch for that.
Who buys the data cars collect today and where can one get a sample of it?
One thing missing I use often, is to run a throw-away image with custom entrypoint, for looking around and investigating:

`docker run --entrypoint /bin/sh -it --rm the-image` IIRC
While reading stories like these, one thing that depresses me the most is this - how little humanity/empathy these suits at corporations have. Sure, their primary (probably only) goal is to make money, but that doesn't mean they have to treat their employees/contractors like trash.

Costco has shown repeatedly that it is possible to build a good business, while treating employees/suppliers etc decently. If Costco can do it in retail business (where the margins aren't as lucrative as software business), why can't Meta?

It feels as though they go out of their way to be as nasty as possible. Or live in some kind of weird bubble - like this arsehole for example https://www.businessinsider.com/panera-founder-workers-not-m...
Most people are never taught to learn on their own or how to self manage the process of gaining knowledge.
I am a car aficionado and, while you're right in terms of improvements, I'd argue that the factors the OP has highlighted are absolutely correct and overwhelm the those improvements. Especially cars from the last 10 years. Recent cars are horrible appliances that are incredibly difficult to repair.

So you're both right, but it didn't need to be that way. The manufacturers have royally screwed up the direction in which the industry has gone.

And you say features are being added because the general population wants them. I'll revert to my go-to argument here. The general population want McDonald's too.
Well snap has other problems too. For me a big one is that it is pushed heavily by a single company which may or may not still exist in 10 years. Or which might decide to capitalize on its investment once enough people are locked into its ecosystem.
Do you think Premium will be ad free forever?

I doubt it, because once they get enough people paying for Premium, they can make even more money by adding ads to Premium.
Car death/injury rate is in 20 year high again but only in the US. I’m not 100% sure if the culture or the cars themselves are the main contributors to the statistic, but it’s not really getting better anymore.
You do miss the ground clearance for some applications. Even just comparing to the old CRV we had, we drove that places you wouldn’t be able to take a minivan.

But for internal capacity, so much better: one of the big things is that the much shorter hood makes it easier to maneuver and gives you more usable space from that extra length.
What if you took away 3/4 of the training data though? If NYT et al wins their case, training data won’t be free anymore.

Content owners will decide on the price and even who to license to.

Content owners will be asking exorbitant amounts for licensing fees and will likely strike exclusive deals with LLM owners.

Maybe Microsoft actually bought GitHub for the content?
The initial lenders aren't idiots. This is a multi-billion dollar business. They sell the obligation to another sucker, who will often bundle it with a bunch of other debt (good or bad) and sell it to institutional investors.

Your 401k in 2008 or whatever had some shitty balanced fund that held 0.5% of assets in some toxic shit like Sears/K-Mart for the "high yield" portion of the fixed income component. So you make some money on government, agency and Apple/Exxon bonds, and get a high yield on K-Mart that goes poof a year later.
Well it’s also because the US government set up rules that end up encouraging crossovers over lower cars: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/car-design/a3349059...
They are better when they work. They are significanly worse when they break down. Which almost every car does at some pojnt. Every time they break there is a risk that fixing it is going to be so expensive a huge chunk of your investment is going to be lost. Or that you have to scrap your car because it isn't worth the risk in case something else breaks.

Yes, modern cars are more comfortable, easier to use, and safer. I don't agree that they are more reliable since fixability is a factor in reliability.
minor business expense
I bought a Honda Pilot because I occasionally seat 7, frequently haul lumber, pipe, etc. which that the guy say fold down seats are a boon, and need a tow package. Fits the bill.

Could make a van work I suppose.
anon but needs google account? smh
React Server Components, Explained
This is actually one of the reasons why I bought a Kobo instead of a Kindle or whatever else was available a few years ago. When you plug them in they mount like any other USB mass storage and you copy your stuff to them… no need for special formats or anything either, standards like ePub work great.

It kinda made me wonder how Kindles remain so popular. First mover’s advantage? I dunno, but an eReader that can’t read ePubs and PDFs feels a bit like an audio player that can’t play MP3s and AAC.
many mit opencourseware classes are serious classes, not just fun experiments
The assumption is that forum is viewable by guests (including Google) and Slack is not, so to search the Slack history you need to log in to Slack and use the Slack search (which might be broken / paid in the future, etc)
Omnivore I hear is good for this.
Arguing on the flip side of this is the fact that the new Prius is faster from 0-60 than the muscle car Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit, has an equivalent top end, and:

- gets something like 3x the mileage
- has air conditioning
- has a ridiculously better sound system
- has anti-lock brakes
- has traction control
- has far superior crumple zones/crash protection
- has air bags
- is far more reliable (even when the Trans Am was new)
- has 2x(?) the expected lifespan
- has adaptive cruise control
- probably a lot of other things I'm not thinking of
Back around 1996 I was working for a non-profit rural digital project in Devon, Southwest England, called Project COSMIC. If I recall correctly there were 2 main types of ISDN in the UK at that time (a) on-demand, which was similar to dial-up, and needed an ISDN modem, or (b) leased line ISDN which was always on 24x7 and terminated in a Router. I was lucky enough at COSMIC to have access to a 64 Kbit/s ISDN leased line. As I recall it was insanely expensive, I think it was about £16,000 / year in 1996, and that doesn't include the initial install cost where they had to drag a cable across the fields and install poles.

On the end of COSMIC's leased line, after the Bay Area Networks router, we had a simple Ethernet Hub, a Windows NT 4.0 Server, and several Windows 95 desktops. We used IIS to serve websites and email for customers from the NT server, and all the machines had public IP addresses without a firewall - the Internet was a different place back then!

A few years later ~1999 they upgraded to a 128 Kbit/s ISDN leased line, I think costs had decreased and the additional capacity did not cause a large jump in price. It was brilliant! Many games of Quake were hosted ;-)

Later in around 2004 I worked for a company that had a leased line, but they used an entirely different technology - LES10 (10 Mbit/s) - but it had a range limitation and so you had to be within perhaps 10 KM of your ISP.

Of course, just before that, around 2000/2001 some parts of the UK started to get ADSL trial role-outs. I was lucky enough to be at University in one of the first areas (Derby), and we were able to get a 1 Mbit/s connection for about £50 / month which we shared between 5 of us in our student house. After that I didn't see ISDN around much, and LES10 was a pretty niche use-case anyway.

Today I am happily sat on the end of a 100 Mbit/s consumer microwave connection for about €30 / month.
LG is well on the path to enshittification with ads, although Samsung is already way below water level there. Both do image fingerprinting and phone home your viewing habits (my LG is neutered, and I would still buy LG for the overall quality, but I don’t think I will ever again plug a TV onto my network directly).
I wonder if it can power the potato laptop : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35074233
It's only relatively recently that gut biome health can be a major contributing factor to mental health, due to the neurotransmitters produced in the gut: https://www.google.com/search?q=biome+gut+health+neurotransm...