Hacker News Reader

howard941on The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging

As a practical matter medical underwriting didn't make decisions based on lifestyle, the decisions were made by way of broadly excluding pre-existing conditions. An an example, pre ACA my insurer (whimsically named "Golden Rule Insurance Co") made everything cardiovascular-related excluded from coverage due to very mild hypercholesterolemia.

howard941on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

It wasn't this way always (obv?). In the early 80s it was still acceptable for the entire engineering dept to get sloshed at lunch w/o any expectation of getting work done upon return. The salesdroid would sometimes accompany us. This was at a very large mostly defense contractor on the east coast of Florida.

howard941on People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes

I don't know if most pipe smokers inhale.

howard941on 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

This is untrue. Throw out your TV.

howard941on The Ancient Greek Water Clock That Kept the Most Accurate Time for 1,800 Years

404

howard941on Ask HN: Are others seeing Google's reCAPTCHA rejecting Firefox users?

Yes, recaphca's become far more intrusive to this ff user

howard941on Actively exploited sandbox RCE in all Chromium versions

When did being a nerd become unfashionable again?

howard941on GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

The GPS-independent fallback is MON: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/at...

howard941on ECC and DDR5

ECC is essentially mandatory for ZFS. Assuming that is you prefer your data uncorrupted.

howard941on The 'absolute magic' of Morse code that still connects people globally

CQD lost out

howard941on Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media

I stopped because I was forced to. "Something Happened" - never explained to me - and my FB public commenting was indefinitely suspended. No great loss.

howard941on Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

When the debtor files bankruptcy ownership immediately moves to the bankruptcy estate. This supposed obligation to delete might be disclosable on the executory contracts schedule.

howard941on Never Give Them Your Face

They supplied me with false and misleading information. I'd not call the deceptive and utterly useless talk I got from Meta Verified "support." YMMV

howard941on Never Give Them Your Face

Yes, you read it right. I wrote inelegantly though. There is no actual support provided by the "enhanced support." It's a scam.

howard941on Never Give Them Your Face

What illegal methods work? I'd like to post again (non-commercially)

howard941on Never Give Them Your Face

I don't think you can assume your identity was compromised. I know the Facebook denial dialog suggests that "unusual activity" was detected and you need to access it via your mobile device. Of course as you know that doesn't help.

I signed on for Meta enhanced support for a month (nb, don't bother doing this, it's a waste of money) and had numerous voice calls with pandering support people who assured me it had nothing to do with identity and everything to do with vague "Community Standards violations" that can't be identified. FWIW the restrictions are indefinite and can't be appealed.

FB is set up like it's based on the film "Brazil" mated with Sartre's "No Exit."

howard941on DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots

Many hours expended on building up doppler maps in flight to use to shoot SLAMs with. An excellent sim along with Digital Integrations' Tornado which really needs a reboot.

howard941on Court Records Should Be Free

Attorneys use PACER (fed by CM/ECF) to retrieve pleadings. Very little is done with hardcopy anymore.

howard941on Iran's South Pars Gas Field Is Attacked by Israel, Sending Energy Prices Soaring

I'm not sure why the US has refrained from lasing these optical recon birds. Is it a fear of escalation? How many have to die before it happens?

howard941on The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

Those things happen right now. My concern is with government and powerful corporate watchers. Ubiquitous sousveillence ends that. It answers the question of "Who's watching the watchers." You'll be watching the watchers and heaven knows they need watching.

Think cops with always-on cameras, not grandma poking around beneath your mattress.

howard941on The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

With great difficulty? The watchers don't want to be watched. I know the solution but I don't know how to get there.

EDIT: IIRC Brin addressed this in his fictional treatment of the concept in the novel Earth

howard941on The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

It only chills when the watchers are hidden. See David Brin's The Transparent Society for an example of how sousveillence ought to work.

howard941on Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

Hyperion cries out for a good film adaptation.

howard941on Fixed-Wing Runway Design

You might be interested in the Airman's Info Manual section 2-3-3

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html...

howard941on The stack circuitry of the Intel 8087 floating point chip, reverse-engineered

With the PDP-8E we used to do this with an AM radio.

howard941on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2025)

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Location: Sarasota

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No thank you

Full time or freelancing

Technologies: C; Sensors; Communications; Drone/UAV/robotics: New product development; Sustainment; Embedded/firmware/bare metal, FreeRTOS, NuttX; *nix/RF/crypto; Kinetis KE Cortex M0+ & M4, Nordic Semi's M4 SOC, ST's M4 ARMs, Espressif's ESP8266, Microchip dsPIC; realtime; IAR, gcc via MCUXpresso & Kinetis Dev and TrueStudio & unix like systems; MPLAB-X IDE; Embedded FreeBSD; Embedded Linux on for ex. Raspberry Pi / Broadcom BCM2837; PX4 drone NuttX on STM32F4; gdb; clang; UML; debugging development prototype hardware; embedded HTTP server; grid support power generation systems; TCP and UDP over IP; Ethernet; power line communications; RS-485; RV-C CANBUS; Bluetooth LE; LoRa; Battery powered devices; storage scopes; visual studio; Java w/Android Studio; GNSS. Licensed attorney & pilot (ASEL/IA); amateur radio extra class

Resume: Please request by email

Email: hginfla@gmail.com

howard941on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2025)

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Location: Sarasota

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No thank you

Full time or freelancing

Technologies: C; Sensors; Communications; Drone/UAV/robotics: New product development; Sustainment; Embedded/firmware/bare metal, FreeRTOS, NuttX; *nix/RF/crypto; Kinetis KE Cortex M0+ & M4, Nordic Semi's M4 SOC, ST's M4 ARMs, Espressif's ESP8266, Microchip dsPIC; realtime; IAR, gcc via MCUXpresso & Kinetis Dev and TrueStudio & unix like systems; MPLAB-X IDE; Embedded FreeBSD; Embedded Linux on for ex. Raspberry Pi / Broadcom BCM2837; PX4 drone NuttX on STM32F4; gdb; clang; UML; debugging development prototype hardware; embedded HTTP server; grid support power generation systems; TCP and UDP over IP; Ethernet; power line communications; RS-485; RV-C CANBUS; Bluetooth LE; LoRa; Battery powered devices; storage scopes; visual studio; Java w/Android Studio; GNSS. Licensed attorney & pilot (ASEL/IA); amateur radio extra class

Resume: Please request by email

Email: hginfla@gmail.com

howard941on The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC

Is this Arduino hobbled by the lack of JTAG debugger support? I've always stayed far away from Arduinos because of this unforgivable omission.

howard941on Tell HN: Azure outage

Took out the archive.ph and .is sites too?

howard941on Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

The subtopic changed from energy gained during descents to descents in general