HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

wiskinator

138 karma · joined February 26, 2014

submissionscomments
wiskinator··on Missouri governor orders guardrails on Flock cameras and ALPRs
should also mandate that the license plate data that constitutes a 'hit' must be sent and stored at rest encrypted so that someone can't break into a camera and see who's beeing searched for.
wiskinator··on 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]
Anyone have an LG TV, access to ghidra and a desire to dig in and release open firmware? Because I have have everything but the TV
wiskinator··on Drivers Are Taking Extreme Measures to Avoid New Car Technology
A good friend of mine (we'll call him G) worked at an auto body shop. An older client came in and was bitching about how his brand new Mazda (IIRC) kept freaking out when he changed lanes, and asked G if he could disable the lane departure warnings. G showed him how and said, BTW, these are supposed to be a backup for if you fall asleep - they don't go off if you use your blinker.

Dude bro politely asked G to turn the lane departure warning back on.

wiskinator··on Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey
I don't have the citations to back this up anymore than you did, but it was also passed because of the rise in Black Power movements walking around with guns.

I used to be an obnoxious gun control advocate until I learned that California's gun control legislation was brought about in response to the Black Panther's patrolling predominantly black neighborhoods while armed to protect the people of the neighborhood from state sponsored (police) violence.

Reference to start from: https://www.kcra.com/article/liberty-limits-black-panther-pa...

This topic is full of subtlty so recommend reading the sources from that article and so on.

wiskinator··on Ghost Font: A font that humans can read but AI cannot
I guess I must be an AI because I could not read that to save my life.

I wonder if this is like the “rotate an apple” problem.

wiskinator··on The Disappearance of the Public Bench
Yes, I don't think that arresting people for the crime of not having money is a good idea.

We also cannot seem to fund any actual drug programs, because US citizens hate the idea of anyone getting something for free.

wiskinator··on Chest Fridge (2009)
Ohhh the links at the bottom of this guys site are wild and good reading.

https://thiaoouba.com/

Please note I am disputing his science on the efficacy of a vertical fridge.

wiskinator··on Seeing Like a Sedan
I’m interested in comparing the ratio of (accidents / miles driven) between the two.

Tesla seems like it has an engineering culture built around shipping whatever version of product they have at the date Elon announces, regardless of the quality (based on the engineers I have met who have worked there).

wiskinator··on Addressing Antigravity Bans and Reinstating Access
Without the context of “Antigravity” being a product name this headline is science fiction gold.
wiskinator··on Banned in California
The site would be better if it linked to the actual regulation that prohibits each type of business instead of just making the claim “0 new factories of this type have been built”.
wiskinator··on Our babies were taken after 'biased' parenting test
Oh hey, it’s the history of Indigenous people in North America (especially Canada and the USA) repeating itself in Greenland.

Make a biased test, call it impartial, then use it to ruin the lives of people who don’t meet some perceived standard.

Tell me how does reciting the alphabet backwards in a foreign language tongue mean one is a good parent?

wiskinator··on A Fond Farewell
Dang. This is one of those annoying cases of finding out something that I would clearly love exists only as it leaves.

I would have subscribed if I knew that the Farmer's Almanac still existed :(

wiskinator··on ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ after threat from FCC chair
We are in so much trouble as a society.

The real danger here is that ABC did it before the White House ordered or told them too.

Fascists rise in power the more scared we are to speak.

wiskinator··on Difficult Employees (and How to Handle Them)
The first sentence tells you what you need to know. The leader assumes the worker is making a “web of lies” to get out of responsibility. This leader is trash. You need to listen to your employees and respond to their needs. If deadlines are being missed there is likely something wrong with the company; whether it be resourcing, time expectation from above or even just working conditions.
wiskinator··on NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders
The NsF shouldn’t be rolling over to do what this new dictator in the US wants.

This goes way beyond DEI; that’s just the trap to get insecure white men to agree with it.

The NSF is “reviewing anything that goes against the stated national interest”. What does that even mean.

wiskinator··on Why do small children in Japan ride the subway alone?
Article is paywalled but I think inverting the question is fun.

Why don’t small kids in other western countries ride the subway alone?

wiskinator··on Apple opposes investor calls to end its DEI efforts
Good on them. I truly don’t understand how people can be against furthering diversity in a mostly homogeneous sector of society (corporate tech).
wiskinator··on An exoskeleton let a paralyzed man walk, then its maker refused repairs
And this is why right to repair laws are a thing.

Also, genuinely I’d be interested in helping this guy hack his exoskeleton to let it work again.

wiskinator··on Solving climate change by abusing thermodynamic scaling laws
Or. And I’m just spit balling here. Plant super long lived trees. Redwoods live for >200 years. Eucalyptus grow very quickly and might be a good option too.
wiskinator··on Work with people who tell you when you're stupid
Yes and, I hate working with people who think this means you can literally say “you are stupid” and that this the same as providing helpful feedback.

If you are blunt to the point of being rude, then any communication you’re attempting is going to get lost behind the other person getting angry. People, generally, don’t think productively if they feel attacked, diminished or insulted.

You’ve gotta phrase what you want to say in a way that won’t elevate someone’s emotions beyond the point that they can actually hear your real feedback.

wiskinator··on LwIP – Lightweight IP Stack
Depends on the microcontroller and the rest of your stack but it should be fairly straight forward.

Feed received frames from your MAC into the appropriate receive function in a netif, and link the output function pointer to something that sends frames to your MAC.

Examples for STM32 parts are so prevalent on the web that ChatGPT or Copilot can probably get you working source in 30 seconds.

wiskinator··on Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
Ask yourself why you want something that is made in the US. I have long had the same bias, and I am trying to understand it myself. Is it perceived quality of the final object? Do you feel that the environmental impact of shipping is worth overcoming? Do you want to keep money in local communities? Do you just think Americans make things right? What’s your goal here.

Also read about the too numerous to count HW kickstarter projects that 10x their funding goal and then still never deliver.

Also go read everything [Bunnie Huang](https://www.bunniestudios.com/) has written.

wiskinator··on Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education
An important thing to take from this is that if you pay your teachers well, and also make sure that all the kids in school have a house (since military folk get housing for their families), and at least one parent is paid well, then the kids do well (and don’t write run on sentences like me).
wiskinator··on The main reason projects fail (Old Coder Guy) [video]
4 profanity filled minutes of solid advice on how to be better at the slightly absurd job we call "engineering", or "development" or whatever.

Also, proof that some content from TikTok is un-ironically good (though I've posted a YouTube link to break through people's prejudices).

wiskinator··on How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?
This was the most poorly written and blatantly biased article I’ve seen in a while.
wiskinator··on Hacking around the Twitter login thing
I know what you mean. I fully deleted my 11 year old twitter account, and now I get almost frustrated enough to make a new one whenever I click on a HN news web article that links to twitter for context :/
wiskinator··on Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?
This sounds like great tech. Keep at it for the benefit of all of us.
wiskinator··on Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?
NRE into the production line, especially hard tooling for plastic is huge. Plus all those things you mentioned, especially inventory risk are often underestimated.

Don't forget that any manufacturing run itself is a huge risk. Tiny changes that need to be made to address anything from RF performance to fit and finish can invalidate a run and just burn up hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars (depending on scale)

wiskinator··on Tourist submarine goes missing on dive to wreck of Titanic
It's weird that I'm just finding out that there's a company that does this when their business goes sideways.

Kinda also wondering if I can scrape 250,000$ together...

wiskinator··on Ask HN: How can we help the Reddit mods?
> Hacker News is the most intelligent bunch on the web. What can we do to help the Reddit mods to keep the steering wheel in their hands?

-- Citation needed.

But in all seriousness, I think that we can stress that continuing the strike for longer will help their goals. Secondly we can (as users) avoid using the reddit client.

Page 1 of 2Next →