Hacker News: Aspos

New comment by Aspos in "Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't"

Aspos — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:11:53 +0000

Infrastructure is laughable in northeast. And no, we do not have competition here in NJ. Yay "free market"

New comment by Aspos in "$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor"

Aspos — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:17:30 +0000

Yes, but they still approach in just a few seconds.

New comment by Aspos in "The first sodium-ion battery EV is a winter range monster"

Aspos — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:12:04 +0000

Air drag energy losses are tiny comparing to other losses when burning petrol so you don't notice the difference.

New comment by Aspos in "Show HN: Nogic – VS Code extension that visualizes your codebase as a graph"

Aspos — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:46:26 +0000

The illustration gif is way too fast. Hard to understand what is going on. Slow it down 2x or so.

New comment by Aspos in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

Aspos — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 21:37:10 +0000

Let's say you are a bank and you make $10 on each $100K transfer. If customer disputes a transaction and you must return the money, you lose the whole amount and twice as much on lawyers, internal audit, compliance people working on the case. With this math you can't afford the risk if it is more than 1 in 30000.

For many European banks the math is even more brutal.

New comment by Aspos in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

Aspos — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:28:18 +0000

No bank got fined for not root checking, correct. However banks are on the hook for unauthorized transactions. And "unauthorized" means different thing in different countries.

In some jurisdictions if bank can prove that transaction was made with customer's key then customer can not demand their money back. That's the best case, but there are only few of such jurisdictions and even there the burden of proof is on the bank and it costs a lot.

In other jurisdictions bank must reverse a transaction even if it was proven that the transaction was signed with a legitimate key, but the key _may_ have been stolen.

In some jurisdictions (i.e U.S.) banks are required to reverse a transaction at a customer’s request, even if the customer does not dispute having made the transaction.

In any case dealing with all this is too expensive and risky.

New comment by Aspos in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

Aspos — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 18:11:42 +0000

Practically impossible to store secrets in a desktop app too. Besides, customers would not willing to install a desktop app. And those who would, will require support.

New comment by Aspos in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

Aspos — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:46:03 +0000

Well, I've built a bunch of mobile banking apps and we did detect if the phone was rooted, was in dev mode, etc. and it is not because we were "stupid, consumer-hostile, and anti-competitive".

If someone steals the secrets from a rooted phone and steals customer's money the bank is on the hook, so banks do everything they can to minimize this risk.

There is no way to store customer's secrets in a PC browser securely, so all the "dangerous" transactions were outright prohibited in the web app or made available only via temporary QR login.

All this is just is a negative side effect of customer protection laws.

New comment by Aspos in "Immersa: Open-source Web-based 3D Presentation Tool"

Aspos — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 22:27:44 +0000

I could use a 3D powerpoint. Even the most basic, boring arrows and boxes will look better in 3D. Some of the slides in a preso I use almost daily would convey the message better if they were in 3D.

New comment by Aspos in "Google Antigravity"

Aspos — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:48:48 +0000

maps as well. email client in the browser.

New comment by Aspos in "Harnessing America's heat pump moment"

Aspos — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 03:05:50 +0000

I would argue that accurate sizing is not that important as labor constitutes the bulk of the cost. My total bill was about $20K and going for 30% less capacity would net about $19K so its easier just to go for the maximum. Calling in an IR imaging drone would certainly cost more than the potential savings from accurate sizing.

Unlike gas furnaces which basically can only do ON or OFF, heat pumps can regulate the heat with much higher granularity.

What certainly calls for innovation is managing the labor costs. In my case installation involved way too many people and way too many visits.

New comment by Aspos in "Trump pardons convicted Binance founder"

Aspos — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:16:56 +0000

Hey, corruption is rampant on each and every continent, except Antarctica. Asia is not the worst by far. Why are you singling out Asia specifically?

New comment by Aspos in "Rectal oxygen delivery might soon be a real medical treatment"

Aspos — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 01:53:21 +0000

So "blowing smoke up one's arse" isn't a completely baseless resuscitation technique after all.

New comment by Aspos in "What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?"

Aspos — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:59:12 +0000

As a child growing up in Central Asia, I saw people piling up stones, sticks, and other debris along the ancient lines people used to control herds and wild animals. The ones built for hunting often had a narrow, funnel-like end, while those meant for managing herds could take on almost any shape. One of the photos in that article looks exactly like the walls I remember from my childhood.

New comment by Aspos in "What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?"

Aspos — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 14:29:33 +0000

I don't know, looks like hunting walls to me. When chased, animals naturally follow such walls, however insignificant they are (sometimes they follow even a line drawn on the grass), and get onto predictable trajectory leading them into ambush.

New comment by Aspos in "What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?"

Aspos — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:37:20 +0000

Does it exist? I could not find a wikipedia article about it. This Gobi Wall can not be a part of what is known as the Great Wall of China as it was built 5 centuries later, no? Can someone explain?

New comment by Aspos in "Map of Near and Middle East Oil 1965"

Aspos — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 17:42:46 +0000

There is a difference in the way it went for Saudis and Iranians. Saudis, not having the tech, capital, knowledge at the time, still retained ownership. Iranians did not. Saudis had enough bargaining power (and balls), Iranian Shakh agreed to exploitative concessions.

Those who had the tech, capital and expertise in the end just lined up in front of Saudis to be hired.

New comment by Aspos in "Map of Near and Middle East Oil 1965"

Aspos — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:52:44 +0000

What is Persian writing?

New comment by Aspos in "Map of Near and Middle East Oil 1965"

Aspos — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:49:42 +0000

One does not need to develop the tech to own the oil and monetize it. Those who developed the tech can be hired.

New comment by Aspos in "Noise cancelling a fan"

Aspos — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:37:20 +0000

This got me thinking: I use heatpumps but I still have baseboard heaters in each room and all the piping between them. Thinking if I can connect my office fridge to it somehow and thus expel the heat somewhere far away in the garage instead of running a fan in my office.