Hacker News Reader

dayofthedalekson What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

One doesn’t storm Harper’s Ferry over Mercantilism.

dayofthedalekson What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

There’s really not a lot of of discussion of foreign trade in the documents the states ratified to enact secession. [0] They sure do talk about slavery quite explicitly though.

[0] - https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

dayofthedalekson Iron Cycle based energy storage and generation

Maybe this is how Russia goes green-ish, assuming Magnetigorsk isnt tapped out.

dayofthedalekson Michelle Yeoh, martial arts and the multiverse: inside the year’s wildest movie

In the meantime, consider In the Mood for Love which is paid homage or Swiss Army Man, directed by the same fellas.

dayofthedalekson A story about planning for Desert Storm

Amateurs talk about killbots. Professionals train their AIs on logistics.

dayofthedalekson Michelle Yeoh, martial arts and the multiverse: inside the year’s wildest movie

Probably what makes this most relevant to HN is that the film marks a triumphant return to acting for Ke Huy Quan, who we all know as Data from The Goonies and Short Round in Temple of Doom.

It's a performance that shows surprising range and leverages his later career work as a stunt choreographer. I get the sense he was happy enough with his path after film school, but we've clearly been missing out on good stuff from him.

In a recent NYTimes interview he talked about work drying up after child roles, something to the effect of 'I got a single audition for a Viet Cong part, and I didn't even get that.'

dayofthedalekson Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

The Sinovac vaccine isnt effective against recent variants, so it's 2020 all over again until mRNA tech becomes available. Also many older people aren't vaccinated.

dayofthedalekson The illusion of evidence based medicine

I'm sorry but veterinary medicine is an entirely different problem domain with little overlap beyond capitalism and mammalian biology.

dayofthedalekson SNMP Is Dead (2018) [video]

SNMPv3 looks on, angry and alone.

dayofthedalekson Industrial History: Railroad Scale Test Cars (2016)

This blog is a recent favorite of mine. Near-daily posts transcribed from a range of foamer, worker, and engineering archaeology newsgroups.

It's a dangerous source of rabbitholes.

dayofthedalekson What were humans doing in the Yukon 24,000 years ago?

The article's evidence suggests the humans in question were hunting small bushy horses to extinction.

dayofthedalekson An update on the threat landscape

'...and that's why we're buying Mandiant.'

dayofthedalekson Heavy Wears the Crown and the Kohinoor

Final paragraph marks this as a well-turned shaggy dog story.

dayofthedalekson Adorno’s damaged life

Title isn't very helpful here.

Subheading: 'Seventy years after its publication, Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia is a warning against resurgent fascism'

dayofthedalekson Johns Hopkins study says ill-founded lockdowns did little to limit Covid deaths

At least these guys are consistent. Herby in 2020: [0]

My results show that a large share of the excess mortality in Sweden in April 2020 may be partially explained by a vulnerable, elderly population due to very mild flu seasons in 18/19 and 19/20 as well as very few deaths during the 2019 summer compared to earlier years and compared to other Nordic countries.

My results illustrate – and I cannot stress this enough – that plain coincidences may be important when understanding the COVID-19-death toll in a country compared to national lockdown policies.

Note: Funding: I work for a libertarian think tank in Denmark. The funding is mostly undisclosed - even for employees - except for a few charitable foundations.

Conflict of Interest: None.

[0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3702595

dayofthedalekson Rotterdam bridge to be dismantled for Oceanco's 127m sailing yacht Y721

Lift Bridge Loosened for Louche Launch

Once upon a time masts were easily broken down for this sort of problem, but this thing's design must involve some sort of vertical turbines that aren't so easy to remove.

It's hard to get too upset about what amounts to a minor restoration of a steel engineering heritage site, but I wonder how many times you repeat the process before you either put your shipyard out by the container terminals or else put some pedestals underneath the structure to raise it as it's no longer connected to an active rail line.

dayofthedalekson Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

Salomon shoes and boots can take a serious beating.

Red Wings if you want heavier.

dayofthedalekson Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

I've been trying to emphasize natural fabrics and tossing out stuff that doesn't fit, so I've been buying:

Pendleton - Amazing wool shirts, and their cotton stuff is very solid. They still sell all-wool sweaters, which is becoming rare even at the high end. Sometimes eBay/poshmark have nice older USA-made pieces but sizing can be a crapshoot.

Brooks Brothers - Reliable for well-made warm-weather linens and cottons, pretty sure that remains so post-bankruptcy. Style choices run from 'Weekend Lawyer' to 'Insolent Schoolboy.'

American Giant - All-cotton tshirts and hoodies. Haven't tried their pants.

Woolrich - Good sweaters and heavy shirts. My first sweater from the now-shuttered PA factory has survived 30 years with spells of very rough traveling and outdoor work without holes.

Bemidji Woolen Mills - Wool Mackinaws and barn jackets do well in most situations where waterproofing isn't required.

Arc'teryx - The Canadian-made Gore-Tex stuff is very durable. Overseas-made no slouch either. I believe Gore is making serious progress in shedding fewer microplastics.

Double Pump - I think this is a captive Amazon brand? Durable and inexpensive cotton cowboy snap work shirts, the only ones I've found that are not synthetic blend. Ely Cattleman has a line of 97% cotton shirts but most are awfully rodeo-y.

LL Bean - Still make good casual and lined winter pants, but they're going downhill fast in nearly every other category. Will market something as 'wool' when it's 95% synthetic.

Eddie Bauer - See LL Bean, maybe with better shirt choices.

Smartwool/Meriwool - Base layers are magic, both brands seem indestructible. Smartwool socks are nice for all but the hottest weather. Meriwool is more likely to be all-wool. Runner-up goes to Peoplesocks brand.

Oh and the key to laundering all of these natural fabrics? Wash as cold delicates, dryer cycle with no heat for wrinkles, hang dry near a dehumidifier.

dayofthedalekson Soviet Military Maps of North America and UK

Maybe not an attempt at annexation, but Winston Churchill made speeches late in life bemoaning the effort’s failure to ‘strangle bolshevism in its cradle.’

Tell me where things would have stopped if the Whites, Allies, and Czechoslovak Legion had gained the upper hand.

dayofthedalekson Soviet Military Maps of North America and UK

A ground invasion of the USSR wasn’t just plausible, a bunch of Allied troops left over from WWI were landed at Arkhangelsk to actively fight the Bolsheviks in cooperation with White Russian forces. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Russia_intervention

dayofthedalekson Soviet Military Maps of North America and UK

Whoops! How Atlanticist of me.

dayofthedalekson Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

Yep, the constraints of the St. Lawrence Seaway mean we get the cutest little container vessels every couple of weeks from Europe. Sometimes they have a portion of the deck set aside for windmill parts.

Presumably this plant will be trucking containers to Baltimore's port or sending air freight out of the cargo-only airport nearby.

dayofthedalekson Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

https://www.sovietmaps.com/

Also I submitted that link as a fresh thread [1], because this admittedly fun rabbit hole has little to do with Intel and Columbus' sprawl.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30030346

dayofthedalekson Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

There's a lot more to it than urban legends. A FEMA publication[1] from 1990 has a map on page 86 with assumed Ohio targets.

Tiny Waverly would have definitely been wiped off the map because of its fuel refining facility. There's a non-zero chance I keep my EMP-proof diesel truck running due to growing up in those times.

[1] https://www.jumpjet.info/Emergency-Preparedness/Hazard-Maps/...

dayofthedalekson Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

My kindle edition has a tag at the beginning stating it's DRM-free!

dayofthedalekson Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

Mr. Stross was kind enough to pop into the discussion but too much of a gentleman to plug his new book, so I’ll do it:

The new Laundryverse book, _Quantum of Nightmares_, was released today.

dayofthedalekson The battle of the computing clouds is intensifying

Often it's an OpEx vs CapEx play. Also large orgs crave treating staff as interchangeable parts and IT hiring is thorny. Throwing too much money at the problem can be preferable.

Enterprises would rather not maintain inhouse infrastructure for many of the same reasons they engage MSPs despite persistently shoddy services.

dayofthedalekson Why does Minnesota sometimes get colder than the North Pole?

Wait, isn't 'before long' potentially 7 more years with a fresh battery? This kind of brinkmanship makes me nervous enough to price out capacitor jumpstarters.

dayofthedalekson Blizzard executive asks employees to “consider the consequences” of union card

I'm imagining a companion video where the exec reading the statement pointedly ignores a row of Kellogg's products on the shelf behind them.

dayofthedalekson The Futurama Theorem

Perhaps it was a result of “Life in Hell” being carried in so many college town alt-weeklies.