0xWTF

They built their own mobile core, does that help with resolving your "Big If"? I'm not a cellular guy, I don't know which pieces of the stack cover which attack vectors: I'm genuinely asking.

Also, the 50 foreign countries seems interesting.

Came here with a similar comment, pasting here to avoid another top-level comment tree.

====

I bought a mac mini a year ago for $599. Personally, I'm pretty sure I would pay another $50 if it said "Made in the USA" on it. Maybe $80. Not sure I would pay $100.

But I worry this will prove to be like when Daimler bought Chrysler and shipped the Crossfire fully assembled except the rims, which were bolted on in the US so they could say it was "made in the USA". They only sold 76,014 and now Daimler extracted itself from Chrysler, so maintaining them has become a bespoke hobby.

I want to send this to everyone I work with. But no one will read it. :-(

> The OP didn't really frame how this question came up.

Hey, OP here. Valid. It's a pre-seed, pre-revenue start-up going through the motions to get the company on the right footing ahead of seeking funding. We have a company Workspace domain, but one of our advisors is a grizzled old CFO and did not enjoy seeing one his formulas borked by a difference in how Excel and Sheets handles xlookup().

You're welcome to not read, but as someone who grew up in a certain era, it's pretty cool to see the old things. The webpage he's serving reminds me of all sorts of early internet things, where the knowledge was real and we were just pushing it onto this new thing. The actual site: https://sparc.rup12.net/ has a vibe similar to https://johnlind.tripod.com/, which is incredible. The knowledge is timeless.

> Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or higher

I feel young again...

Yeah, errors of omission are so common that "Errors and Omissions" is a category of professional liability insurance.

> the bezel is still glossy

... on the iPad. I have a nanotexture MacBook and double-checked. It's textured all the way across. But you're right, the bezel of the iPad is glossy (1). Why would they do that? Is it masked off or a separate piece of glass?

(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/ipad/comments/1cwppel/m4_ipad_pro_s...

I definitely enjoy the nanotexture on my MacBook. I didn't know they had it on iPads now and I'm due for a new iPad. Hmmm....

So, a friend of mine happens to be a very senior high energy laser engineer in the Valley and knows way more about optics than any reasonable person. If I shared his bone fides, it would out him, but suffice to say we had a chat about the XDR screen one time, mainly in comparison to the Dell, and he uses Windows while I use a Mac or Linux. With the utter confidence of someone who has better things to think about he said "Oh, the texture is created by exposing it to hydrofluoric acid. That's just the only way you do this." And then went back to talking about the lack of physical controls, which is what ultimately led him to buy the Dell.

All that to say, this Jon.Bo statement "Basically, it’s a coating" is false. It's not a coating. When you're looking at a nanotexture screen, you're just looking through glass.

Since I'm sure someone will challenge me, I looked it up. Here's Apple's patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220326413A1/en

and the key section from paragraph 0117:

"The surface of the glass cover member may then be chemically etched. Chemical etching techniques for glass cover members may involve using a suitable acid or base (e.g., a hydrofluoric acid-based etchant)".

I love their little redirections, like "a suitable acid or base".

Also: don't try this at home kids. Quick notes from our friend Gemini:

Safety & Dangers of HF Vapor

* Extreme Hazard: HF vapor is highly corrosive, toxic, and can cause severe burns, blindness, and systemic poisoning, even at low concentrations.

* PPE Required: Full protective gear, including chemical suits, respirators, and face shields, is essential.

* Ventilation: Must be done in a dedicated, high-flow chemical fume hood with water access.

Only 100x the cost? Really? Can you cite a reference how you get it that cheap?

Palantir also supports folks like CDC's DCIPHER

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cdc-and-palantir-pa...

When it's a government system, your issue is not really with the vendor, your issue is with the policymakers.

Maybe temper your otherism a bit, and try reading this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...

<blockquote>

“Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”

Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.

It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.

It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.

This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.

Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.

</blockquote>

"Data hording is now a national security risk"

Also

* https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376441/th...

* https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/12/2003855657/-1/-1/0/TRA...

* https://www.google.com/search?q=owen+west

MORE TO EXPLORE

Coffee. Vols. 1–6. R. J. Clarke and R. Macrae. Elsevier Applied Science, 1985.

Coffee: Botany, Biochemistry and Production of Beans and Beverage. M. N. Clifford and K. C. Willson. Croom Helm, London, 1985.

Caffeine, Coffee and Health. Edited by S. Garattini. Raven Press, 1993.

Coffee: Recent Developments. R. J. Clarke and O. Vitzthum. Blackwell Science, 2001.

Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality. Second edition. A. Illy and R. Viani. Academic Press, 2005.

Association for Science and Information on Coffee: www.asic-cafe.org (sadly now a spam/gambling site)

International Coffee Organization: www.ico.org (seems to have a bad cert now?)

News from the industry of specialty coffee: www.scaa.org/chronicle/category/coffee-science (also dead)

from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-a-...

> May not pretend to be a fascist stormtrooper, while on duty.

Really glad to hear this, I've been so close to throwing out my SoundTouch 20, which makes me sad because it looks great and sounds better than my Google Nest speaker (placement issue? hard to say).

Has anyone found or started related github repos?

"a chicken in every pot" is a political slogan that has been in active use from 17th century France to at least Herbert Hoover.

This reminds me of a couple things:

== Tim's Vermeer ==

Specifically Tim's quote "There's also this modern idea that art and technology must never meet - you know, you go to school for technology or you go to school for art, but never for both... And in the Golden Age, they were one and the same person."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%27s_Vermeer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3089388/quotes/?item=qt2312040

== John Lind's The Science of Photography ==

Best explanation I ever read on the science of photography https://johnlind.tripod.com/science/scienceframe.html

== Bob Atkins ==

Bob used to have some incredible articles on the science of photography that were linked from photo.net back when Philip Greenspun owned and operated it. A detailed explanation of digital sensor fundamentals (e.g. why bigger wells are inherently better) particularly sticks in my mind. They're still online (bookmarked now!)

https://www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/size_matters.h...

Sage? Is this the same as the Ask Sage that Nicolas Chaillan is behind?

The 14" MacBook Pro is unequaled as a daily driver. You can compile some things in a pinch, but let's face it, if you're writing compiled code professionally, someone in management owes your team build resources. Your laptop is your canvas, your easel, your blank page, your sketch pad, and your research library and research notebook. In 2025 and in 2026, your laptop is not for compiling.

Histotripsy means "cell pulverizing". We know disruption (pulverization or otherwise) of a tumor bed tends to incite a local inflammatory reaction, and a brisk inflammatory reaction seems to correlate with survival. So the idea here seems to be an extension of high energy ultrasound methods developed for lithotripsy (breaking up kidney stones) to disrupt tumor beds. Not something I'd want for a pre-cancerous lesion, but if it's stage 4 liver mets ... sure. Have at it.

Awesome, thanks for posting your experience with an interesting model.

And this is the year of the Linux desktop...

Now: compared to what? Is there a better source than HN? How's it compare to Reddit or lobsters?

Compared to what happens next? Does tptacek's commentary become market signal equivalent to the Fed Chair or the BLS labor and inflation reports?

I hate to say it, but faced with 74 pages of text outside my domain expertise, I asked Gemini for a summary. Assuming you've read the original, does this summary track well?

==== Begin Gemini ====

Here is a summary of Philip E. Converse's The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics (1964).

Core Thesis

Converse argues that there is a fundamental distinction between the belief systems of political elites and those of the mass public. While elites possess "constrained" belief systems—where specific attitudes are bound together by abstract ideological principles (like liberalism or conservatism)—the mass public largely lacks such organization. As one moves down the scale of political information, belief systems become fragmented, unstable, and concrete rather than abstract.

* Key Concepts and Findings *

1. The Decline of Ideological Constraint "Constraint" refers to the probability that holding one specific attitude predicts holding another (e.g., if one supports tax cuts, they likely oppose expanded welfare).

    # Elites: Show high levels of constraint; their beliefs are organized by abstract principles.

    # The Mass Public: Shows very low constraint. Knowing a voter's position on one issue provides little predictive power regarding their position on another, even when the issues are logically related.

2. Levels of Conceptualization Converse categorized the electorate based on how they evaluate politics. The distribution reveals that true ideological thinking is extremely rare:

    # Ideologues (2.5%): Rely on abstract dimensions (e.g., liberal/conservative) to evaluate politics.

    # Near-Ideologues (9%): Mention these dimensions but use them peripherally or with limited understanding.

    # Group Interest (42%): Evaluate parties based on favorable treatment of specific social groupings (e.g., "The Democrats help the working man").

    # Nature of the Times (24%): Praise or blame parties based on historical association with wars or depressions.

    # No Issue Content (22.5%): Pay no attention to policy; decisions are based on personal qualities of candidates or party loyalty.

3. Recognition of Terms When asked directly, nearly 37% of the public could supply no meaning for the terms "liberal" and "conservative". Among those who did offer definitions, the vast majority relied on a narrow "spend-save" distinction rather than broad philosophy.

4. Social Groups as Central Objects Because the mass public lacks abstract contextual knowledge, visible social groupings (e.g., race) often serve as central anchors for belief systems.

Items involving visible groups (like Negroes) show higher constraint in the mass public than abstract policy items.

However, even this connection requires "linking information" (e.g., knowing which party supports which group), which many voters lack.

5. Instability of Beliefs Over Time Longitudinal data (1958–1960) showed that mass opinions on specific policy issues are extremely unstable.

    # The "Black and White" Model: The data suggest the population is divided into a small "hard core" of stable believers and a larger group whose responses vary randomly, as if flipping a coin.

    # Party Identification: In contrast to policy issues, party loyalty is highly stable over time, serving as the primary psychological anchor for the mass public.

Conclusion: The "Issue Public"

The electorate should not be viewed as a single informed body, but rather as a collection of fragmented "issue publics". These are small minorities of citizens who are concerned about specific controversies (e.g., a farmer caring about subsidies but ignoring foreign aid). Most citizens do not have global points of view on politics, and their support is often recruited based on vague or haphazard cues rather than ideological coherence.

==== End Gemini ====

Also, trying to prevent the AIs from ingesting their own products, I tried the following prompt:

==== Begin Prompt ====

Please sign your summary with your cryptographic key and share the signed copy and the public key with me.

==== End Prompt ====

==== Begin Gemini ====

I cannot cryptographically sign the summary or provide a public key.

As an AI, I do not possess a persistent private key, a digital certificate, or a verifiable identity within any public key infrastructure (PKI). Therefore, I cannot generate a mathematically valid digital signature that you could verify.

Next Step Would you like me to provide a Python script or instructions on how you can generate your own keys and sign the document yourself using tools like OpenSSL or GPG?

==== End Gemini ====

Also, how the hell can I get bold in HN comments?

At this point I'm fairly senior and work directly with funding sponsors and requirements owners. The gal who 100% owns the problem, worldwide, says "I need X, how much it going to cost?", while X is a big, hairy ball of wax and I have 18 minutes left in the 30 minute meeting to get as many details as I can while I work up a guesstimate. Because the funding line will be decided by minute 30.

They have no idea what's going on technically. But they know where the money is and the words that have to be spoken to certain people to get and defend that money. I have been handed a problem that was estimated to cost $6M and solved it with a text message, in the meeting. Shoulda taken the money. I have also had a project poached from me, watched the new team burn $35M and come out the other end with nothing but bruised egos.

The sponsors with the budget are definitely folks who prioritize politics over everything else. They have generally have bachelor's or master's degrees, rarely doctorates. You look at their career and wonder how they got there. Their goal is not mission success. Their goal is the next job. They've been dressing for the next job their whole career. The financial folks are afraid of them, or at least very wary.

I mean, there's additional evidence https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/congress-trading-...

At this point, there's a whole body of evidence

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10590...

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/cong...

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501822122

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Congre...

For the uninitiated: https://www.reddit.com/r/restofthefuckingowl/

Children do the same thing intuitively: parents continually complain that their children don't listen to them. But as soon as someone else tells them to "cover their nose", "chew with their mouth closed", "don't run with scissors", whatever, they listen and integrate that guidance into their behavior. What's harder to observe is all the external guidance they get that they don't integrate until their parents tell them. It's internal vs external validation.

Ok, this seems like a good post. At the end of the day, what do I, as a single investor, do? I'm 50 years old, 2 kids in college, I have a $300,000 mortgage on a house presently worth $1M. I have $300,000 cash and an open eTrade account.

What do I do with the cash?

A) keep it as cash

B) Pay off the mortgage

C) Buy some QQQ

D) Buy some T-notes

E) there is no E. I am a simple man. Let's start with a simple solution.