Hacker News Reader

trevithickon NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart

Why would they do this?

> And Lockheed’s operational manuals for the SR-71A still exist—and are superb...

I appreciate this level of documentation.

trevithickon Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

It's possible to find workarounds for things like this. One example: https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/69018.html

trevithickon Reverse engineering my e-scooter and rewriting the firmware in Rust

Reverse engineering like this is black magic to me. The writeup is good. It's detailed and I could follow along with what the author was doing even though I'm too stupid to ever attempt something like this. Nice job author.

I liked bullet 2 in the Introduction.

trevithickon Internet centralization and the original sin of NAT

But you are a "high-computer-skill" person.

Also, the lazy sysadmin forgot to set a quote for today.

trevithickon Get your Windows license refund

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham's_Law

trevithickon The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

It has multiplayer, but I don't know how to find the other players.

I managed to get stuck in a courtyard.

trevithickon Universal Housing

They said "I discussed with my family at the dinner table," but it looks more like "I discussed with my roommates after we got super high."

trevithickon RF Cafe

> the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point.

They're doing it though.

trevithickon Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots

Why?

trevithickon Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

Ministry for the Future ch. 1 scenario?

https://www.scribd.com/document/979965270/Robinson-Kim-Stanl...

trevithickon The Government Is Monitoring Anti-Flock TikTok and Instagram Accounts

There's also the matter of police accessing this massive data trove "for personal purposes, including tracking romantic partners, relatives or acquaintances."

https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-1226378...

trevithickon Every Fucking Website (2020)

I like it. Reminds me of this: https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/

trevithickon Thanks to social media, canned sardines are a scarcity on the supermarket shelf

The overfishing situation seems dire across many species. I read that Mitsubishi is deep-freezing tuna in anticipation of its extinction. I don't know if that's actually their motivation, but they are definitely involved in tuna procurement.

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/sustainability/social/s...

trevithickon They Stole Your Attention

I agree. It's so grating. "This isn't an issue—it's an epidemic. Here's the takeaway: attention span is a load-bearing element of cognition. And honestly? This article nails it." (Not actually AI, I just made it up and tried to cram in a bunch of tropes)

trevithickon German Peasants' War

When all labor is automated, is it a problem for the elites if people stop having children?

trevithickon Show HN: Analog Watch

Long ago I used KDE's "fuzzy clock." the fuzziness was adjustable to as high as "middle of the week," which is funny but not very practical. At a higher resolution it was fun for a while.

trevithickon German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

Regarding the dams, I recommend the book "Cadillac Desert" to anyone even remotely curious about the background and scale of water projects in the US. It's not boring despite the what the subject matter might suggest.

trevithickon Internal Combustion Engine (2021)

Sibling explanations are correct re: direction of rotation. As to your second question, the flywheel keeps things spinning so it doesn't lock up and has the momentum to compress the air/fuel mixture. BTW 0 degrees is called top dead center or TDC and is a useful point for calibrating timing and ignition.

trevithickon On cigarettes

A different time. I remember the first question from the host at a restaurant being "smoking or non?"

trevithickon On cigarettes

Even secondhand smoking makes you cooler.

https://theonion.com/secondhand-smoke-linked-to-secondhand-c...

trevithickon Cigarettes

Some sources suggest cigarette smoking is cool again. E.g., https://www.wsj.com/health/cigarettes-popularity-celebrity-s...

trevithickon A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

The article doesn't address treatment efficacy in humans. How is it treated? How effective is the treatment? Can this develop resistance to the treatment? The spread mechanisms and persistence are concerning, but without info on treatment I'm not sure how much I should freak out about this.

trevithickon Never Give Them Your Face

Yes but your approach requires parenting, which is unacceptable to many people with children.

trevithickon The Parent Uprising Against Screen Time at School

trevithickon Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

I'm glad you addressed that your house-building strategy isn't feasible almost anywhere. There was an interesting article posted to HN on this topic a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31470400

trevithickon Someone used my open source project to phish people

I would rather read an email the sender actually wrote even if it looked like your example, as opposed to AI-written. In that sense it is "better" to me.

trevithickon Private equity bought America's essential services

Companies need to brand as "Not owned by PE" the same way health food has prominent labels on the packaging.

trevithickon Was my $48K GPU server worth it?

You would install a 240v circuit (in the US) like for an electric clothes dryer.

Edit: I now see the author was in an apartment and couldn't do this, so I concede this is not responsive here.

trevithickon Haiku OS runs on M1 Macs now

> it needs to become a real operating system semi-advanced users can use daily

No it doesn't.

trevithickon Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

I remember hearing David Simon, creator of The Wire, predicting this (fall of local news enabling unchecked corruption). Here's an article on it from nearly 20 years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/mar/27/david-simon-wi...

> "Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model," says Simon, a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city, as a local politician! It's got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption."