Hacker News: Mountain_Skies

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "US FAA says it will phase out floppy disks from air traffic control by 2028"

Mountain_Skies — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 22:50:05 +0000

It's not a serious statement. It's just something that people feel the need to add to their posts on certain message boards, including HN. The biggest tell is they never EVER mention President Trump by name or even the less specific "Trump administration". It is always "the current administration". You'll see it here dozens of times a week, that exact same phrase from a multitude of posters using it in the same way. You'll never get a good faith answer to your question because the statement itself was made for performative reasons and not for fostering serious discussion. Now that you know, you'll be surprised how much that exact phrase "the current administration" is used in this manner, not just here, but on public message boards across the internet.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Charles Tandy, the mastermind behind Radio Shack"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:35:50 +0000

You basically have to ignore the internals and mount motors to the outside. Still, it's doable, as these instructions from 1984 demonstrate. Probably can make something far better today.

https://archive.org/details/color-computer-magazine-1984-04

The internals however are quite fascinating on their own and an amazing accomplishment of mechanical engineering for a toy.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Charles Tandy, the mastermind behind Radio Shack"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:29:27 +0000

For any CoCo folks not already aware: https://colorcomputerarchive.com

There are several other good sources out there too but it's a good start for anyone looking to relive the fun old days.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power"

Mountain_Skies — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 18:57:22 +0000

It's easy to be in alignment with a system that has replicators that can magically produce whatever you what.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Frontier Airlines Likely Breached"

Mountain_Skies — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 18:53:25 +0000

I did AppSec for a couple of years just for a change of pace. The friend who worked there said they wanted to strengthen their infosec program in general, which is why they wanted to hire an SWE for AppSec instead of using cyber boot camp grads like they had been. Turned out 90% of infosec is about creating all of the necessary paperwork to protect to company from liability if there's a breach. Actual security issues were ignored most of the time if there wasn't a compliance framework that addressed the vuln directly. We could have tripled the number of people in the department and it wouldn't have made any difference in terms of actual security. Maybe the compliance paperwork would have been submitted a bit sooner.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "If IPv4 were land"

Mountain_Skies — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 21:13:24 +0000

Attempts to force it get routed around.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Getting debug access on a Brother printer over Telnet"

Mountain_Skies — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 17:55:42 +0000

It's interesting how well that particular command fits with the Tron character in the movie but those involved in the movie say it was just a coincidence and Tron comes from "electronic".

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "SpaceX and Tesla Explore Merger"

Mountain_Skies — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:39:17 +0000

Feels like an attempt to keep the plates spinning a bit longer.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Chicago O'Hare digs up 50-ton boulder under airfield, asks public for name ideas"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:40:14 +0000

That would be a slam dunk winner if it was the airport in Philadelphia.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 07:57:14 +0000

It's a common meme. You can disagree with the validity of the meme but not with the existence of it.

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1663497-hello-human-resource...

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "HomelabFest will be in St. Louis in September 2027"

Mountain_Skies — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 05:58:40 +0000

Good to see that you gave yourself and those assisting you a year to plan and setup everything. Many people underestimate the amount of work that goes into planning this type of event and end up overwhelmed and full of last minute panic. Hope all goes well.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space"

Mountain_Skies — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 02:13:16 +0000

We must not allow a mineshaft gap.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space"

Mountain_Skies — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 02:10:40 +0000

It reminds me of the Hyperloop white paper, whose existence for many was proof enough that it was viable and beyond questioning.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "The Coming War on General Computation (2011)"

Mountain_Skies — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 01:18:13 +0000

All of this seems quite shaky anywhere given humanity's reliance on Taiwan remaining politically stable and secure, which is far from a given. That so much of what's necessarily for the basic building blocks of what runs modern society is concentrated in one place with a ticking timebomb nearby is quite reckless.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation"

Mountain_Skies — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 15:41:44 +0000

Does Axon retain the data it is collecting? If so, even if they have no plans to use it like Flock does, those plans can change, sometimes even without the company's blessing. They sound like the lesser evil right now, but the core issue that goes well beyond Flock, Axon, and similar companies is that if data is collected and retained, someone will find leverage to use it for their own purposes.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]"

Mountain_Skies — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 15:36:50 +0000

A bit of a tangent to Weird Al, who often is said to not need the permission of the original artist because his songs are parodies, usually isn't commenting on the actual content of the original song but instead takes the lyrics and gives them a different theme. 'Smells like Nirvana' is one of the few songs he does that actually does directly parody the original. His videos are far more parody than the songs themselves. Makes me wonder where the legal line actually is drawn and if asking permission is actually because it would be too risky not to.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out"

Mountain_Skies — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 15:30:07 +0000

Why is that surprising? In 1961, the UK was 98.5% British White. By 1971, it was still 97% British White. That fourteen people of that time period would be British White isn't unlikely.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Paramount Caught Using 'Astroturf' Group to Drum Up Fake Support for Merger"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:50:33 +0000

Some seem to believe that their favorite IP would get new productions in the merged company but I wonder if those posts were part of the astroturf campaign.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive"

Mountain_Skies — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 01:23:27 +0000

Yes, but if you haven't been questioning them for the past couple of decades, you haven't been paying attention.

New comment by Mountain_Skies in "If a Tesla Cybercab fleet were profitable, Tesla wouldn't sell you one"

Mountain_Skies — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 17:10:08 +0000

Many of his investors probably understand that they're holding a bunch of very expensive tulip bulbs but the opportunity to profit off of the greater fool is too great to ignore as long as they don't mistime the peak. With the amount of loose money sloshing around the global economy, he can probably continue riding this wave until some black swan event forces everyone to confront reality.