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You should compare notes with this guy, who derived everything with pi instead of the golden ratio:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46533108


>Privacy

Waymo cameras permanently record everything that happens in their vehicles, right?


Many rideshare drivers have internal cameras and no restrictions on what they do with the recordings.

Different models of privacy. I don't really care if faceless corpo knows I spent hours the other day spewing fire from both ends because I finally met my match in spicy foods, but it's a somewhat uncomfortable topic to discuss in front of some strange dude sitting in the car.

that's a little weird since the driver will forget about it quite fast but the recordings could be stored forever and tied to you personally.

Are there indications that Waymo vehicles are sitting around idle? If so, then yes, they should reduce the price to attract customers. If they are essentially running at capacity with their current prices, why wouldn't they charge more? For the novelty, etc..

Yes, they spend a large amount of time idle.

    Examining the cumulative hours waiting over time, it is a bit staggering just how much time Waymos are spending without a passenger or even assigned to pick one up. Peaking in March 2025 with over 304,000 hours, the California Waymo vehicle fleet is spending the equivalent of 12,700 days every month operational but without an assigned passenger trip.

    If we assume 1,000 Waymos were deployed for public rides during this period (on the conservative side given recent fleet announcements), that ends up being around 12.7 days2 of waiting per vehicle per month. Further, the bias here is to be forgiving, as Waymos are not operational 24 hours a day.
https://www.thedriverlessdigest.com/p/how-waymo-spends-its-t...

What percent are idle at peak times?

Paywall. Unfortunately, in this day-and-age, the question arises: how much of this was generated by AI agents?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44907440#44907441


For me, at least with desktop Firefox with uBlockOrigin, I can scroll through the full 17 pages to the bottom. Without having to 'login' with/via whomever.

OT. Anyone know if there is academic literature studying the life cycle of words that eventually become slurs? Like "neurodivergent" was at one point obscure. Then it starts to become more common place. Then riffs on the word start to be used in an unflattering way. Then it becomes a slur that can't be repeated in polite company. I figure the internet accelerates these trends, but how many years has it taken historically?

When I was a kid people often used the words "mulatto" and "midget" in a socially acceptable way. Now we say "mixed race" and "little people." I don't see these becoming stigmatized because they are technically true and difficult to construe as a slur. I see neurodivergent this way.

Just hazarding a guess, but don't discount ease of setting up and maintaining a subreddit, compared to a forum. And the ease joining and participating in a subreddit (which is essentially zero effort if you already have a reddit account). Instead of signing up, giving out your email to another potential spam source, etc., etc..

>why we’d use 2.6666666667e7 and 2.66666666667e8

Engineers prefer (wait for it) "Engineering Notation": 26.67e6 and 266.7e6.

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


> power draw of modern appliances

Here's a article that claims that refrigerator energy efficiency has improved dramatically from 1972 to 2012.

https://appliance-standards.org/blog/how-your-refrigerator-h...

I'd bet that modern TVs are more efficient that CRT televisions. Do most people even have desktop computers anymore, or have they mostly been replaced by laptops, tables, and phones? I'd be interested to see the efficiency numbers for electric clothes dryers over time. I wouldn't be surprised if they are also slightly more efficient than older models, even if they are still using resistance heating. Due to smarter electronics that automatically turn the unit off after the clothes are dry (air humidity sensor). I think electric ranges, dish washers, toasters and coffee machines have been ubiquitous since the 1960s (but are probably about the same energy-consumption wise). Air conditioning units are one thing that I'd believe are much more common today than in the 1970s and 1980s. Household sizes are also smaller, so less electricity used for electric water heaters, and the oven, etc.. Electric vehicles are an up and coming user of electricity. What other appliances are likely to be using more now than before?


These are good points, but having worked on a few older houses, I usually see overextended and overloaded circuits, not the opposite.

Standard small-house service used to be 60A, sometimes as few as 4 circuits! It's now 100A minimum by code, with 200A common.

Ovens/ranges have gone from 30A to 50A (dedicated) circuits by code. Microwaves also require dedicated circuits now. Gaming computers with big GPUs are common. Air fryers and electric pressure cookers are newly-common countertop appliances. People definitely use resistive electric space heaters more now (very cheap, much safer than the older options). And there's a trend away from gas and to electric ranges and water heaters. Heat pumps are also increasingly common. You mentioned air conditioners and EV chargers. Kitchens and bathrooms are now required to have dedicated (and GFCI) circuits. Household sizes are smaller, but houses are larger.

So I guess I'd say that, properly expanded, individual circuits should carry less current than they used to. But very often, appliances (AC, microwave, gaming rig, air fryers), are just "plugged in" to an unexpanded system, with varying results.

If you're lucky, they pop a breaker and you call an electrician. If you're not lucky, they push the power draw into uncomfortable zones, esp for Al wire.


>Gaming computers with big GPUs are common.

Is there a good way to quantify this?


My best guess would be the size of the GPU market, before the AI crush.

I don't track that market (not a gamer), but it seemed substantial enough that I was aware of it. I do travel in geeky circles though.

Also, plasma TVs were big for a decade or so, and they run hotter than the CRTs that preceded them, or the LCDs/etc of today.


This is the first time I've heard that cemeteries are offensive. I'd guess that people are too isolated if cemeteries are "confronting them with death".

If a cemetery is too much of a confrontation, there's a surprise waiting for them.

>I don't want to google it because I don't want to be put on a list

You might think about using something like the Tor Browser for anonymous web surfing:

https://www.torproject.org/download/

...If you are worried about getting on a list by downloading the Tor browser, then take a trip to the next-town-over public library and download it from there. I guess your ISP could still guess that you were using Tor, and you might end up on a list of people using Tor. Also: If everyone is on the list, then no one is on the list.


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