Hacker News: 7402

Hamas and the Future of Gaza (With Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib)

7402 — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 21:13:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.econtalk.org/hamas-and-the-future-of-gaza-with-ahmed-fouad-alkhatib/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49514904

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

There's Only One Way to Stop Students from Cheating

7402 — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 19:12:30 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/opinion/students-cheating-ai.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49454278

Points: 5

# Comments: 2

New comment by 7402 in "Why your Amazon order confirmation emails have become so unhelpful"

7402 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 23:23:01 +0000

Whenever I order anything from Amazon (or anywhere else online), I Print-to-PDF a copy of the order receipt and keep it on my own computer; I've been doing this since 2010.

It's especially useful for recovering info about items that are no longer carried (or from places that have gone out of business) and thus have no webpage any more.

Ask HN: New Reddit also requiring login?

7402 — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:18:03 +0000

I've seen the discussion on HN about old reddit requiring login, but today I tried the current interface, and it seemed to require login after scrolling a bit. Do others see this? Is there an alternative?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289942

Points: 5

# Comments: 6

Even Elite Colleges Have Become Trade Schools

7402 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:16:04 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/opinion/elite-college-trade-school.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49275699

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by 7402 in "U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’"

7402 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:55:59 +0000

children?

Showing my age here, I guess. Fifty years ago, 18-year-olds in college were referred to as "men" and "women."

Students Skinned a Bear in a Dorm. Cornell Realized It Should Ban That

7402 — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:44:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/nyregion/cornell-student-bear-meat.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49247907

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by 7402 in "Humanising LLM Outputs Is Dumb"

7402 — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:08:49 +0000

I don't like it when the LLM tries to be my friend. My general prompt (a work in progress) is this. I wonder what other people use.

"Answer impersonally, objectively and analytically, without undue friendliness or enthusiasm. Use an engineering style response: concise, factual, and complete. Do not speak in the first person. Do not promote engagement or an emotional connection. Do not use emojis."

How human hearing is shaping high-end audio

7402 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 01:31:35 +0000

Article URL: https://physicstoday.aip.org/quick-study/how-human-hearing-is-shaping-high-end-audio

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163425

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by 7402 in "The End of an Era"

7402 — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 15:41:15 +0000

What?

I read all the time for entertainment and to pass the time. And I hate short-form video.

Am I the only one?

New comment by 7402 in "Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain"

7402 — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:11:36 +0000

Yes:

  Paranoid password printing with a Raspberry Pi
  https://7402.org/blog/2020/paranoid-password-printing-pi.html

Reverse Sprinkler Physics Problem

7402 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:50:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/science/reverse-sprinkler-physics-problem.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48910548

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by 7402 in "The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes"

7402 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 04:27:24 +0000

"No loud music between 10pm and 7am." That's on private property when it can be heard by others. Laws have all kind of restrictions on the time/place/manner of self-expression when what is being expressed has a negative effect on others. What you can't do is have laws that would say loud opera after 10pm is OK but loud Country & Western isn't.

New comment by 7402 in "So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)"

7402 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:19:53 +0000

The only bold-faced sentence in the post is this:

"Solving problems is the only way to understand physics."

This is key! If you have the discipline to follow through on this, then learning via self-study is possible.

If you don't have the time or determination to do that (which is hard, by the way), the other option is basically to pursue "Physics appreciation" via popular science books (some of which are mentioned in the post). You will not have achieved understanding of physics, but you will have an appreciation for it, which is not a bad thing either. (But do not confuse the two.)

New comment by 7402 in "The 'absolute magic' of Morse code that still connects people globally"

7402 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:46 +0000

I hear relatively long conversations going on at higher speeds, e.g. 25-30 wpm. I think those short exchanges you mentioned only dominate at times when there's a popular contest going on.

New comment by 7402 in "Ask HN: How do you use LLMs for private discussions?"

7402 — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:06:01 +0000

With llama.cpp, Intel i9-13900KS CPU, 96 GB RAM, RTX 4070 running locally.

The models I'm using right now with that are:

  gpt-oss-120b-F16.gguf
  Qwen_Qwen3.5-27B-Q4_K_M.gguf
  Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-UD-Q5_K_XL.gguf
  gemma-4-31B-it-UD-Q6_K_XL.gguf

A Great University Undermines Its Mission

7402 — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:43:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/opinion/university-california-sat-testing-admissions.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48808001

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by 7402 in "Long Wave radio era set to end with switch-off"

7402 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 05:11:14 +0000

Already has been, although just small bits at present:

US 2200m band 135.7 - 137.8 kHz US 630m band 472 - 479 kHz

These became available in 2017 in US, following the agreement of the International Telecommunication Union's 2007 and 2012 conferences.

New comment by 7402 in "The Doorman's Fallacy in action"

7402 — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:37:16 +0000

In college I used to go out to eat from time to time with a group of friends to a midnight pancake house.

This was a very nerdy group! In our "culture," everyone wrote down on their paper placemat the exact cost of each item ordered, and at the end of the meal calculated the exact amount of tax plus the canonical 15% tip, and put the correct amount on the table, making change as necessary.

It was pretty fast and frictionless!

New comment by 7402 in "An Ohio Valley 100k-watt FM signal is severed in broad daylight"

7402 — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:42:45 +0000

I'm surprised.

Consulting an exposure limit calculator (https://www.arrl.org/rf-exposure-calculator) suggests a safe distance (FCC controlled exposure limit) for continuous (30 min) exposure from a 100w FM transmitter antenna at 100 MHz with, say, 5 dB gain is around 5 ft. For a brief exposure it's much less.

Amateur radio operators need to know this, since 100w is quite a typical power level, and they have bands (50 MHz and 144 MHz) not far from commercial FM.

How far away from the antenna were you? The antenna is usually far away from the transmitter that you were replacing.