Hacker News Reader

FourHand451on Blue Origin makes a big lunar announcement without any fanfare

Dissipating heat in a vacuum is certainly more difficult, since it must all be done through radiation instead of convection. It follows that thermal storage would then be more efficient in a vacuum too. I couldn't say whether it would be "better enough" to make it a much more compelling option than it is on Earth though.

FourHand451on Blue Origin manufactured solar cell prototype from lunar regolith simulants

>our reactor produces iron, silicon, and aluminum through molten regolith electrolysis, in which an electrical current separates those elements from the oxygen to which they are bound. Oxygen for propulsion and life support is a byproduct.

It sounds like there isn't oxygen input required.

FourHand451on ElonJet Is Now Suspended

How exactly is he working toward free speech being a driving force? From what I can tell, he's just banning different people.

FourHand451on GE buys out entire NYT print paper in historic first

Can you say more about these metrics, for those of us who don't know?

FourHand451on The fateful, final journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald

This year fit the pattern quite well. I heard on the radio that there were 20' waves on Superior the other day.

FourHand451on My love-hate relationship with mechanical watches

I think one aspect of getting into "vintage" technology in one way or another (vinyl, mechanical watches, fountain pens, etc.) is becoming familiar with the reasons that people developed newer approaches.

In my experience, it's a fun way to learn about design and technological progress. Sometimes you find the quirks or inconveniences outweigh the appeal that initially drew you to it. Other times not, and the imperfections of the item in question become part of its charm.

FourHand451on FAA approves unleaded fuel for piston fleet

Oil/gasoline mixture. No requirement that there needs to be lead in the gas, as far as I've ever heard.

FourHand451on Compare Webb's Images to Hubble

This was my guess as well, but if it's correct, I don't understand why the Hubble images show 4 spikes. I thought Hubble's main mirror was circular, not a square.

FourHand451on Parmigiano Reggiano makers embedding tiny trackers in rind to fight cheese fraud

Typically you don't eat the rind on this kind of cheese.

FourHand451on Microplastics found in live human lung tissue

I think that's probably true, but I do think it's useful to continue testing that conclusion. For example, if we looked somewhere and didn't find microplastics, we could then start trying to figure out why.

FourHand451on Show HN: Find companies with jobs using technologies you love

I don't think they're saying they can learn them all. Just the next one, if it can be applied to an interesting problem.

FourHand451on Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

There are a few:

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

FourHand451on Russia halts deliveries of rocket engines to the U.S.

This logic was one of the reasons the Shuttle/Mir missions happened as well.

FourHand451on Ask HN: What is the most unique website you’ve come across on the internet?

https://benklaas.com/jqmcbp/

It's a comical March Madness bracket tournament. The winner gets a candy bar, and everyone gets some lovely funny email updates as the month goes on. In addition to human competitors, you compete against a 1000 chimpanzee army and their own predictions. Each page on the website has a velociraptor button.

FourHand451on Hyperloop lays off half of its employees as it pivots away from passenger travel

I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but how does putting a train in a vacuum tube solve the problems we currently have with passenger rail?

FourHand451on The case against masks at school

Count your blessings, my friend.

FourHand451on Turns Out Schrödinger, the Father of Quantum Physics, Was a Pedophile

"I wouldn't be caught in a superposition of dead and alive sitting on his lap"

FourHand451on NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetime expectations

I mean, is there something you'd suggest they should have done differently? I'd imagine they gave it as much fuel as they possibly could while meeting all of the other design goals. Is is possible you're more disappointed with the advertising than the observatory itself?

FourHand451on NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetime expectations

> arguably stagnant (except recent developments like reusable boosters) developments since then

What about Voyager, ISS, Hubble, Mars rovers, Mars helicopter(!), and Cassini/Huygens missions? There's more to do in space than just going to the moon. I'd love to see us back there as well, but I think there's still a whole lot to be excited about.

FourHand451on Bitcoin mining is being banned in countries across the globe

Setting aside the debate over whether it's the right thing to do or not, is it feasible to enforce a ban on mining? Genuinely just curious, as I don't know that much about crypto. I'm sure energy use is one big clue as to who may be running a mining operation, but are there other ways authorities might detect them? Network activity?

FourHand451on Ask HN: Apple revoked developer account for 2.5 years and counting

It's kind of sad that we went from "there's an app for that" to Apple themselves being a huge obstacle to making useful, feature-rich mobile software. I used to think writing an app would be a fun side project or that a job in mobile development could be cool. These days I don't want to touch it with a six foot pole.

FourHand451on Webb placed on top of Ariane 5

Not really, unfortunately. Webb will be much further from Earth than Hubble is, so as far as I'm aware a human mission to go repair it isn't really considered an option.

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/webb-l2.html

FourHand451on Scientists find a way to ‘catapult’ rockets into space like ‘slingshots’

re: the seal. It looks like it's just a big flat disk with a destructible seal over the exit tube for the projectile. I don't doubt that the bigness is a challenge, but the concept seems pretty simple.

FourHand451on Omicron Update, Dec 2

> But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point.

Plenty of people live their whole lives without catching smallpox or polio. We have/can develop effective vaccines for COVID. Why should it be different?

FourHand451on A $5B hoard of aluminum

In the same vein, the Washington Monument is topped with an aluminum pyramid. This material was selected because at the time of construction aluminum was still considered nifty and new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument#Aluminum_a...

FourHand451on An “incident” with the James Webb Space Telescope has occurred

Are you implying that yearly launches would reduce cost through economies of scale or something? Or just that JWST costs less than the F-35 program?

While having a Starship sized fairing to put JWST in for launch would probably reduce some packaging complexity, I'm not sure the launch vehicle is the major source of cost in this case.

FourHand451on Pangea Aerospace successfully hot fire tests the first MethaLox aerospike engine

It seems that the nozzles feeding onto the aerospike are sufficiently small to operate safely at sea level air pressure. That kind of nozzle can operate safely at lower air pressure as well, but is inefficient. The aerospike gives you back your efficiency at lower atmospheric pressures, so you end up with something that's both safe and efficient at all altitudes, relative to a traditional bell nozzle.

At least that's my understanding - I just like to learn about rockets.

FourHand451on Space debris forces astronauts on space station to take shelter in return ships

Scott Manley has a good video on this topic:

https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY

FourHand451on As teens left Facebook, it planned to target 6-year-olds, documents show

I hope you're right, but to me that sounds like the probable outcome in a world that is more just than the one we live in. A big organization leaves a lot of room to deny hands-on involvement with the more unsavory stuff that's going on, and on a purely technical level former Facebook engineers still have skills that will be valuable to future employers.

I do not equate Facebook engineers with actual Nazis, but what seems more likely to happen to me is something analogous to the "Clean Wermacht" myth. I think anyone who isn't directly and publicly implicated in especially egregious actions is going to have all the deniability and technical skill they need to remain an attractive hire in most cases.

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

FourHand451on U.S. government owes over $100M for TSA's patent infringement

> It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for their own advantage.

Obviously it's not a positive thing in this case, but there seems to be a lot in common with a hacker sort of mindset here. Figuring out loopholes in laws seems awfully similar on some level to figuring out how a piece of tech works and making it do goofy things the designers never thought of or intended.

Obviously, ethics enter into the equation, and there's a collection of things that are legal but unethical whether you're talking about legal loopholes or traditional hacking. Though given this discussion I'm able to think of more in the legal realm that's unethical.

Maybe we need an analog to red-teamers in the legal world. I guess that's a lawyer? A certain kind of lawyer anyway.