Hacker News Reader

anonAndOnon An early disruption event is starting for the Polar Vortex

IIUC, once an arctic well is stopped, it freezes and bursts and can never be used again.

anonAndOnon How to survive a lightning strike (2014)

If you're suddenly caught out in the open and exposed:

1) Drop and step away from all metal (golf clubs, backpacks with metal frames, etc). You are not Thor and cannot wield lightning.

2) Crouch and cross your arms over your knees to make the shortest ground to ground circuit. Lightning is looking for a high point and you don't want to be it.

If I were to guess why the first guy was struck in the article, it could have been the pin flag in his hand or his golf club in the other hand (presumably) that was the catalyst for the strike.

Source: Been backpacking since the days of external metal frames.

edit: I've heard from witnesses that sometimes you get 1-2 seconds of your hair standing up as a warning signal before being struck. So if your arm hair stands up, DROP.

anonAndOnon Wildfire smoke is exposing millions of Americans to extreme pollution levels

Maybe it's not an issue if they're getting sufficient exposure during the day by playing outside? To adapt an old endurance mantra: Train high (exposure), rest low (exposure).

anonAndOnon Wildfire smoke is exposing millions of Americans to extreme pollution levels

Compare Yosemite valley from 1913 to 2021.[0] The valley meadows are mostly gone and types of trees have become a monoculture because of fire suppression. The NPS estimates 16,000 acres/year would burn in Yosemite before the fire suppression policy stopped the natural process.[1]

[0]https://i.redd.it/czk2mupwpaa81.png [1]https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/firehistory.htm

anonAndOnon Academics make stronger connections between gum disease and Alzheimer's disease

>they had perfect teeth health even in old age.

I think you mean had a perfect "tooth health" in old age. If they were anything like Washington, there was only one left.[0]

[0] https://www.history.com/news/did-george-washington-have-wood...

anonAndOnon California governor OKs mental health courts for homeless

This is a step in the right direction. There is no miracle policy that cures all of the reasons CA has thousands of people sleeping unsheltered. Getting the mentally unstable into shelter is a big first step, though.

Hopefully, this helps people like the lady I watched lift her skirt and defecate on the road median at a stop light.

anonAndOnon Can the American mall survive?

Keeping Sears out of the mall may be one of the biggest reasons why they're doing so well. Sears was poisonous for the Vallco Mall in Cupertino and why Westfield bailed on it. [0]

[0]https://www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/histo...

anonAndOnon How a new hard hat technology can protect workers better from concussion

Ever watch boxing? You can smash a guy's face in, break the nose and even the ocular cavity without losing consciousness. But hit the jaw hard enough from the side to whip the head around and they'll drop like a sack of potatoes.

anonAndOnon FTC proposes rule to ban junk fees, bait-and-switch tactics plaguing car buyers

Cast a wide net using the dealerships' Internet Sales desk ONLY and expect your search to take longer than pre-COVID times. You might be able to find the car you want at a reasonable price... a few hundred miles away. And don't be afraid to walk if the dealership tries any shenanigans when you show up. If they know you drove X hours to get there, they may try to leverage that information.

anonAndOnon San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

Unbelievably, I had a stolen bike returned to me two years later by the sheriff, so it is possible if the item is registered and reported as stolen. No perp justice, but getting the bike back was a pleasant surprise.

anonAndOnon Two Mexican drug cartels came to dominate America’s fentanyl supply

And it's rotten to the core. Just ask the DEA about why they returned the former Mexican Secretary of Defense with apologies for the inconvenience.[0]

[0]https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/americas/mexican-defense-secr...

anonAndOnon American policy is splitting state by state into two blocs

"Mr Reeves boasted of his state’s other bans: on vaccine mandates; on teaching critical race theory; on transgender students taking part in school sports on the basis of the gender with which they identify. “I think Mississippi has led on social and cultural issues for years,” he says, and he plans to keep that lead."

Let's not gloss over being the poorest state in the union also qualifies as leading the poverty rankings. Also having the lowest life expectancy is another. Oh, and dead last in public education. Way to lead Mr. Reeves! You're the best at being the worst!

anonAndOnon SEAL applicants using Viagra to survive Hell Week

It's not just Viagra. The NYT article has far more details on the BUD/S program and its culture of win at any cost.[0]

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/us/navy-seal-training-dea...

anonAndOnon Stable Diffusion is a big deal

> there will be little reason for me to copy someone else’s work

Can I interest you in some recently discovered DaVinci paintings? 10% off when you buy 2 or more.

anonAndOnon Mikhail Gorbachev has died

Maybe it's because Russia as it currently exists is not a viable country? Moscow's delusions of adequacy really become apparent when the Russian Army is stealing washing machines en masse from its poor neighbor.

anonAndOnon 1 week of Stable Diffusion

This thought occurred to me recently while skimming the formulaic and indistinguishable programming on Netflix. It won't be long before a GPT-3 script is fed to an image generator and out comes the components of a movie or TV show. The product will undoubtedly need some human curation and voice acting, but the possibility of a one-person production studio is on the horizon.

anonAndOnon The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

Those billboards you see along I-5 opposing water restrictions are largely funded by Stewart Resnick, "the wealthiest farmer in the United States".[0] Cutting off the water would make Stewart less of a billionaire.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Resnick

anonAndOnon Tesla Virtual Power Plant

What does your attic insulation look like? Blown in cellulose to roughly R-60 made an instant difference and was the best ROI home improvement I've ever done.

anonAndOnon New evidence suggests giant asteroid impacts created Earth’s continents

Wasn't it originally "continent" but thanks to tectonics it has broken up. Could Theia have gifted us a proto-Pangea?

anonAndOnon Satellite images of damage done to Saki airfield in Crimea

For comparison, Ukraine's military is quickly replacing its old Soviet junk with more modern (sometimes top of the line!), advanced western weaponry while Russia is replenishing its equipment with... even older Soviet junk. Even if Putin is willing to throw more bodies into the meat grinder, the average lifespan of a Russian grunt will diminish at an increasing rate. Russian bodies are piling up faster and faster as WW2 equipment is no match for modern warfare.

anonAndOnon Satellite images of damage done to Saki airfield in Crimea

>years-long grinding stalemate

Fortunately, the facts on the ground indicate otherwise. Russia's losses in materiel and men are unsustainable and no match for surviving Ukraine's frequent resupply of western military donations. How much more blood and treasure he wastes is really up to Putin, but there's no way he can sustain the losses as his paper tiger turns to ashes.

anonAndOnon The 1857 Utah War

Somehow those blessed with being a "prophet" throughout the millennia are always instructed to have sex with young women/girls because the path to heaven is always in their pants. Funny how religion works across the ages.

anonAndOnon Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

This PBS Frontline episode is a good primer on Alex's rise to infamy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/united-states...

anonAndOnon Counterfeits, fraud, and theft: Why Silca changed its return policy

Thankfully the US doesn't force small businesses to run their business according to lawmakers' preferences for return policies. If a prospective customer doesn't like the return policy they are free to spend their money elsewhere and the market will decide whether the policy is good for business.

anonAndOnon Mission to reach and operate at the focal region of the solar gravitational lens

You can see the national borders of DPRK from space at night.[0]

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/26/282909885...

anonAndOnon Notre Dame rises again

They hold (held?) small, intimate classical concerts in the chapel infrequently during the summer which gave the audience a glimpse of what it must've been like to live like royalty. The experience was sublime.

anonAndOnon Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

>How exactly do you learn this?

In some graduate programs, Getting to Yes[0] is the first book of the first semester. But isn't this book about negotiation, you might ask?[1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes [1]https://gfycat.com/likableglitteringaldabratortoise-keanu-re...

anonAndOnon College financial aid is a sham based on what colleges think families will pay

It's called perfect price discrimination[0] because it maximizes the profit for every sale. It's also unethical and illegal in many circumstances but cleverly not for college tuition.

[0]https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting-dictionary/per...

anonAndOnon I reviewed the $20k trash cans SF is testing. Here’s what I found

The fins are actually kind of brilliant. Looks like it will hamper both paint markers and knife scratchers. The spray painters will just have to be painted over, though. Two out of three ain't bad!

anonAndOnon Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

The super wealthy in the US sometimes pull off major conservation easements.

Roxanne Quimby, of Burt's Bees fame, slowly purchased land in Maine over many years then donated an entire National Monument.[0] She wasn't the first to do this, though. JD Rockefeller pulled the same trick almost a century prior by donating a National Park in Wyoming.[1]

[0]https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/transforming-kata... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/04...