Claude Fable 5.2 runs faster for less, a number plate unlocks cars, and a $385 Raspberry Pi

4 days ago

Claude Fable 5.2 runs up to 30% faster than Fable 5.1 at a lower price, and for everyday coding Opus 5.5 is still the place to start. Also from Monday's Hacker News front page: official ZIP Code polygons from USPS at $10,000 a year, a number plate that was enough to unlock one automaker's cars, and the $385 Raspberry Pi 5 16GB. Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2, by Anthropic https://www.anthropic.com/claude-fable-and-mythos-5-2 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50429906 postalcoder on Fable 5.2 against Opus 5.5 for ordinary coding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50430766 USPS ZIP Code Boundaries https://postalpro.usps.com/zcb Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50431058 showerst on the free Census ZCTA shapefiles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50431583 mzagaja on why a ZIP Code is not a geographic boundary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50431546 Unlocking any car from X brand in most of the world, by Shubham Shah https://shubs.io/unlocking-any-car-from-x-brand-in-most-of-the-world/ Sam Curry's companion write-up: https://samcurry.net/forgerock Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50419215 maistho on signing every car command with a paired key: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50424099 When will this stop? The Raspberry Pi 5 16GB SBC now sells for $385, by CNX Software https://www.cnx-software.com/2026/11/03/when-will-this-stop-the-raspberry-pi-5-16gb-sbc-now-sells-for-385/ Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50428801 Aurornis on the 4GB and 8GB boards: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50429554 The front page that day: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2026-11-09

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Chapters

  1. 0:00Claude Fable 5.2
  2. 0:24What Fable 5.2 costs
  3. 0:44Fable 5.2 or Opus 5.5
  4. 1:20USPS ZIP Code boundaries
  5. 1:51Unlocking a car from its number plate
  6. 2:26The firewall gap
  7. 3:01Raspberry Pi 5 16GB at $385
Show transcript
  1. On Monday's Hacker News front page, Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5.2. It writes up to 30 percent faster than Fable 5.1, it costs less, and it was in Claude Code on launch day. Claude Mythos 5.2 is the same model. Fable's safeguards block most security work, so Mythos is the version for security and life-science teams that apply and get approved.

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    Y logo

    Claude Fable 5.2 runs up to 30% faster than 5.1, for less

    Mythos 5.2 is the same model with lighter safeguards, for approved security and life-science teams

  2. At high effort, Fable 5.2 writes code changes that open-source maintainers would merge about as often as Opus 5.5 does at its best, for roughly half the cost per task. Tokens run 8 dollars per million in and 40 out, and fast mode doubles that for up to two and a half times the speed.

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    Fable 5.2 matches Opus 5.5’s best coding score for about half the cost per task

    Standard $8 input · $40 output, per million tokens
    Fast mode, 2.5× $16 input · $80 output, per million tokens
  3. Most coding work still belongs on Opus 5.5, with a move up to Fable when the job needs it. In the thread, postalcoder, who has been using Fable 5.2, finds the gap only shows when the prompt asks for something much more ambitious. A thousand Fable 5.2 agents formalized the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 30 hours, where Opus 5.5 got about a quarter of the way in 18 hours. I would keep Opus 5.5 as the daily driver and give Fable 5.2 the jobs that run for hours.

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    For everyday coding, Opus 5.5 is still the place to start

    “I personally have a hard time telling the difference between Fable 5.2 and Opus 5.5 for ordinary coding tasks.”

    postalcoder

    1,000 Fable 5.2 agents formalized Fermat’s Last Theorem in Lean in 30 hours

  4. The Postal Service now offers official ZIP Code boundaries as map polygons, drawn from its own delivery addresses and updated four times a year. A licence for internal use costs 10,000 dollars a year, and it forbids passing the data on. showerst points to the Census Bureau's ZIP code areas, which are free and close enough for most maps. And mzagaja reminds everyone that a ZIP Code is a set of delivery routes, so a point inside the polygon can still carry a different code.

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    USPS now sells official ZIP Code boundary polygons

    Internal use $10,000 a year
    Enterprise $33,000 a year
    Publication $150,000 a year
    Census ZCTA free, close enough for most maps
  5. Security researchers Shubham Shah and Sam Curry could unlock any of one automaker's connected cars in Australia from its number plate alone. The plate gives up the vehicle number, an admin tool left on the internet maps that to the owner's account, and a vendor JavaScript bundle carried admin credentials for the identity server. From there they reset the owner's password, skipped the second login step, and sent the app's own unlock command. They tested only on cars they owned or had permission to use.

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    Knowing a number plate was enough to unlock one automaker’s cars in Australia

    Number plate → VIN → Owner’s account → Admin login in a JS bundle → Firewall bypass → New password, MFA skipped → door-unlock
  6. The firewall blocked the first path prefix they tried, and they assumed it blocked them all. GPT 5.6 Sol Ultra spent six hours on the identity server's source and found a prefix the firewall had left open. A harder chain reached the automaker's cars in the United States and Canada, and the companies fixed it about two hours after the report. In the thread, maistho asks why the car obeys the server at all: pair a key with the car once, and have it accept only commands signed with that key.

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    GPT 5.6 Sol Ultra found the firewall gap the researchers had missed

    A second chain reached the same automaker’s cars in the US and Canada

    Pair a key with the car once, then make every command carry its signature

    maistho’s proposal

  7. The Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 gigabytes of memory now costs 385 dollars. That is 80 dollars more than after the April increase, and more than three times its launch price less than two years ago. Memory prices are behind it, and Micron expects the shortage to last until at least 2028. In the thread, Aurornis says most hobby projects run fine on the 4 or 8 gigabyte boards. For a small home server, I would buy a secondhand mini PC for that money, and keep the Pi for projects that need its GPIO pins.

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    The Raspberry Pi 5 16GB now costs $385

    $120
    $385
    At launch
    November 2026

    Micron expects the memory shortage to last until at least 2028

    Most hobby projects run fine on the 4GB or 8GB boards

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