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dignick's comments

dignick | 1 year ago | on: To buy a Tesla Model 3, only to end up in hell

I bought a model Y in ‘22. I had some initial problems like a creaky back seat and the floor popping like a jam lid, but after a few service visits those were resolved and since it has been very reliable and even gained nice new features like matrix headlights which avoid oncoming vehicles. It’s a great car to drive.

However, when it received the holiday update with Apple Watch support, and I paired my watch, it started losing several % charge every day. I contacted service who told me to reset my password, which effectively disconnects all connected devices from your account. That solved it. Then I paired my watch again, same problem.

In the next update, Tesla fixed it. And in the next update, it automatically paired your watch without asking. Brave/risky of them, given the previous issues.

My biggest concern for this car now, other than getting abuse for owning a Tesla or the brakes rusting up [1], is Tesla releasing a software update that breaks something, possibly dangerously. With Musk’s recent behaviour I wouldn’t be surprised if talented engineers are leaving or considering it, perhaps excluding Musk’s favoured h1b employees…

[1] https://www.carscoops.com/2024/11/tesla-model-3-comes-bottom...

dignick | 1 year ago | on: Ask HN: How are you using LLMs while coding or everyday work

I use o1, mainly to

- write well-defined and self-contained bash, python, powershell scripts to automate tasks

- give it an error (often from a build tool) and ask it to help fix it. Sometimes it figures it out, but if not then it gives me ideas, and sometimes this allows me to figure it out myself

- ask it how to achieve things at a high level (if I’m unfamiliar with a tool or problem domain). Sometimes this is to validate what I was already planning to do or find a better way to achieve the desired result (I tend to work solo on projects)

- text or code transformations

- writing regular expressions

- I use copilot to improve code writing speed. Sometimes it gets things wrong but overall I find it does speed things up, particularly for repetitive tasks (e.g switch statements with similar cases)

dignick | 2 years ago | on: Why Britain doesn’t build

That’s what we’ve been doing for a while now - why hasn’t it worked? I guess we could deregulate and approve more building, but then we end up with a load of empty boxes of substandard/dangerous quality, with inadequate local resources, and a few very rich property developers. Sounds a foolish pursuit in the face of a climate crisis.

dignick | 3 years ago | on: The strange case of Britain’s demise

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad house, meaning Starmer struggles to take strong positions on anything because he doesn’t want to lose votes from different groups (mainly from the centre right based on his recent statements). In a proportional voting system each party can be more focussed on having a distinct set of policies and beliefs, which can be debated openly with other parties without fear of alienating a large proportion of their base. It is clear that this is the core problem in the UK, Brexit was a symptom of this issue because people felt their vote actually counted and they wanted to protest against the neoliberal establishment. Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU. If Labour win the next election their position will be very fragile, and I’m unsure they will get more than one term.

dignick | 3 years ago | on: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

There are several problems with fission (probably fusion too) as I understand it:

1. Cost per MW compared to renewables (~$150 vs ~$40 and falling). Here in the UK the government is promising to subsidise this to make it viable.

2. Construction time - average is 10 years, we don’t have that long to wait.

3. Decommissioning is expensive and a long way in the future. Is that cost built into the cost per MW? How can we be sure the money will be protected, and will be enough to cover it?

4. Spent fuel. The project you mentioned isn’t complete yet, but even then it’s a huge liability to leave for future generations to manage indefinitely.

Meanwhile, renewables don’t have these problems and are available immediately. We should be building huge factories to produce wind and solar en masse.

Source for the figures: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSK...

dignick | 3 years ago | on: How far behind a plane is its noise?

> Well yeah, that's a sudden sound. My point precisely.

But you are saying that isn’t like an aircraft - why?

> So why don't you hear from your observation point the airplane (or all airplanes for that matter) as it takes off, which is when it makes its first noise? And by all means, account for a few ms of light movement if that makes you happy.

That is attenuation! The aircraft is far enough away that all the energy from the sound is absorbed by the air and objects between observer and aircraft. Attenuation does not affect the speed the sound travels. But when the aircraft is closer to you, the attenuation is lower so you can hear the sound.

dignick | 3 years ago | on: How far behind a plane is its noise?

Unfortunately, this is very wrong! Why does it have to be a sudden sound? The effect the article describes is the same as eg thunder, except an aircraft is continuously moving and emitting sound. The aircraft in the article is not heading directly towards the observer. It simply takes time for the sound produced at a given moment to reach the observer, but the light from the aircraft travels much faster, which is why the lag is observed. It is not ‘sound attenuation’ or ‘hearing threshold’.

dignick | 4 years ago | on: Just Be Rich

In this fictitious world I'm sure there would be other problems, perhaps some we can't foresee and might look like privilege to us today. We don't complain about "issues of the poor" from the past such as child labour (with some exceptions) today. Significant inequality will cause problems regardless of the baseline standard of living.

dignick | 4 years ago | on: Just Be Rich

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic.

You are looking at this from a world where that isn’t the case. Money would be worth less in that scenario, and that 10% owns 99% of the wealth, which is still going to cause problems.

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