Hacker News Reader

LastZactionHeroon Adults learn language to fluency nearly as well as children: study

Totally. Language learning is all time spent practicing. I’ve been learning a second language, while my two year old is learning his first. All day, he’s surrounded by people speaking with him and listening. Granted, he has other core concepts to pick up at the same time, but it’s essentially his job. Meanwhile, I can grab an hour here or there.

Plus, he has no embarrassment, hesitation, or fear of failure.

LastZactionHeroon JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

Oh, sorry, you don’t have ID? Oh… I hate to tell you, but… I guess you live in Dallas now. I think you need to start a new life here in Dallas, and work hard until you get a new ID. And then you could use that ID to fly back to your old life and get your old ID.

- Hannibal Buress

LastZactionHeroon Nokia phones sent identifiable data to Chinese server

Whoa! I had a cheap Nokia dumb phone a year ago that sent a daily SMS to a number in China. Could never figure out what was in it, and support was no help.

LastZactionHeroon Black Hole Propulsion as Technosignature

I love Centauri Dreams. It's hopeful, makes me feel perspective, and realize how small and primitive we are.

We fret every day about consumption, waste, and energy, and here are some people discussing methods of moving planet-sized objects. It's a kind of optimism that's so rare it almost feels outdated.

LastZactionHeroon Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry

Second! My prescription hasn't changed in 10 years, do I really need to keep going through this?

And recently, it seems like all the optometrists have started tacking on a $40 "contact fitting fee" that technically isn't part of the insurance-covered exam.

LastZactionHeroon We should replace Facebook with personal websites

I've made this suggestion on a few other threads, and I'll keep making it until it works ;)

Anyone want to start a modern webring?

- Self host your site

- Put in a JS snippet to link out to other sites

The idea being to drive some traffic to your site without being beholden to Medium/Facebook/whatever.

LastZactionHeroon Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

I thought the same thing. When I buy "olive oil", I just think of it more as a style than a product actually made from olives. I don't think an olive tree crisis will have an impact on whatever I'm buying.

LastZactionHeroon Insomnia: 'No link' between sleepless nights and early death

Phew.

LastZactionHeroon SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

According to Bloomberg, since there are currently fewer than 2,000 operating satellites, SpaceX’s new additions will dominate space.

This number surprised me, much lower than I expected. Looked it up and I'm seeing varying numbers, but generally in the 1k-4k ballpark.

LastZactionHeroon Medium is a poor choice for blogging

Anyone want to start a web ring?

I'd love to self-host, but without some audience from Medium I'd probably just be blogging to myself.

LastZactionHeroon FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

Anyone interested in starting a modern webring?

I've wanted to move my blog content off Medium, but then no one would ever see it.

LastZactionHeroon Ask HN: Lone sysadmins of HN, what do you take on vacation?

Yeah, that's it. Our other guy left suddenly, and we've been working hard to hire and train. Meanwhile, I've had this vacation planned for over a year. My company's culture is really positive and helpful, and everyone really wants me to really be on vacation. I fully intend to disconnect, and very likely I'll never hear a word from them. It's just good to have some backup.

LastZactionHeroon 'Intelligent' crows to pick up litter at French theme park

I think the people that throw trash from cars are EXACTLY the kind of people that would hunt down a nugget bin, but then get really pissy and entitled when it out of dipping sauce.

LastZactionHeroon California teacher pension debt overwhelms school budgets

I get this wistful feeling every time I read a nuanced observation from an ex-president.

Maybe we can sum this up in 140 characters?

LastZactionHeroon Tesla is building its own AI chips for self-driving cars

Really working or not, I'm just happy that an upgrade path crossed their minds. My car is 6 years old, and the console/nav looks so dated I wish they'd just put in dials.

LastZactionHeroon Ask HN: Anyone want to start a webring?

Cool! I always loved Reason.

Probably! My approach to start would probably be to just add anything that roughly fits the maker/creative theme.

LastZactionHeroon A team of former FBI investigators claims to have identified D.B. Cooper

It sounded to me like it has less to do with the message content, and more that someone who'd worked with Rackstraw in the past thought the message was written in a way similar to Rackstraw's.

Rackstraw served under Sherwood in two classified units, and Sherwood was familiar with his writing style having deciphered some of his earlier messages. When he saw the fifth and sixth typewritten letters, he immediately thought the “odd letter and number combinations” were indicative of the type of coded message that Rackstraw would send.

or something

LastZactionHeroon GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

Not an expert or anything, but this was linked on the page.

"Does my organisation need a data protection officer (DPO)?"

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/does-my-organisation-ne...

1. Are you a public authority? (not sure what this is)

2. Do your organisation's core activities involve tracking and monitoring people's behaviour (for example on the internet, or on CCTV) on a large scale?

3. Do your organisation's core activities involve processing on a large scale 'special categories' of personal data, or large scale criminal convictions or offences data?

(By 'special categories' we mean personal data relating to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, data concerning health or data about a person's sex life or sexual orientation, or genetic or biometric data where it woiuld [sic] identify a living person.)

LastZactionHeroon Ask HN: FPGA Projects

Awesome- what hardware are you working with? Hit me up (email in profile) if you want to chat about what you're working on.

LastZactionHeroon Ask HN: FPGA Projects

Thanks for the tip- do you work in this area currently?

LastZactionHeroon Americans Are a Lonely Lot, and Young People Bear the Heaviest Burden

Boulder, CO

LastZactionHeroon Americans Are a Lonely Lot, and Young People Bear the Heaviest Burden

Anyone wanna grab a beer?

LastZactionHeroon Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

I was going to say, what's with the Mac Pro tower?!

LastZactionHeroon California to Introduce 'Right to Repair' Bill

I also hate feeling like such a weirdo for repairing my own appliances or electronics.

"Ending is better than mending."

LastZactionHeroon Apple shareholders push for study of phone addiction in children

What have you done, or what change have you made to keep posture in mind?

LastZactionHeroon I realized my brain belongs to my phone

Would also reduce the 1 month battery life :)

It's been a good reason to bring the old DSLR back out.

LastZactionHeroon I realized my brain belongs to my phone

I did this recently with a Nokia 105.

It's amazing how much space it has cleared up in my life, and how distorted the relationship with the phone has become- it's supposed to be a tool that works for me, right?

I wrote some thoughts on it: https://medium.com/@LastZactionHero/quitting-the-smartphone-...

LastZactionHeroon Quiet

A few months ago I bought a Nokia 105. It was $25 on Amazon.

It makes phone calls and text messages. The battery lasts almost a month. My wife can call me in an emergency. I wired up a few work outage alerts with IFTTT. That's about it.

The best part about it is that it leaves me alone. When I turn my smartphone back on, it's incredible to see the barrage of worthless notifications that would have distracted me throughout the day. I no longer check my phone aimlessly because there's nothing to do.

I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@LastZactionHero/quitting-the-smartphone-...

LastZactionHeroon Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

I'm all for net neutrality, but it feels important to note that this is for mobile service:

https://www.meo.pt/internet/internet-movel/telemovel/pacotes...

Also, it looks like the same company provides gigabit internet for $50/mo:

https://www.meo.pt/pacotes/mais-pacotes/fibra/net-voz

Again, I support net neutrality, but it's still technically better than my Comcast.

LastZactionHeroon LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

Kotaku was blacklisted by Bethesda for reporting on Fallout 4 before it was revealed.

https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-journalism-1743526293

Not exactly local government corrupted by a major corporation here, but yeah studios blacklist for reports they don't like.