<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: PhantomGremlin</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=PhantomGremlin</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 22:55:58 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=PhantomGremlin" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "1.7M Hondas are being investigated for phantom braking"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>When it was Toyotas fictitious problem it came down to a bunch of old people.</i><p>Yeah, right. Blame it on "old people". Certainly not the code base with 10,000 global variables:<p>The design review found things like: <i>Other egregious deviations from standard practice were the number of global variables in the system. (A variable is a location in memory that has a number in it. A global variable is any piece of software anywhere in the system can get to that number and read it or write it.) The academic standard is zero. Toyota had more than 10,000 global variables.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613055" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613055</a>
That original link is now broken. I don't think Toyota paid to scrub it, probably just decay.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:33:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30485436</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30485436</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30485436</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "1.7M Hondas are being investigated for phantom braking"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My biggest takeaway from that link is: BEVs can't get here fast enough. ICEs are too complicated.<p>But I should be careful what I wish for. Current BEVs have many user-hostile clown-car features.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2022 00:16:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30483726</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30483726</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30483726</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "I tested four NVMe SSDs from four vendors – half lose FLUSH’d data on power loss"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yeah you got me.<p>I didn't pay careful attention to the wording of the submitted title. I may have been confused because of the wording of the actual tweet: <i>I tested a random selection of four NVMe SSDs from four vendors.</i><p>The word "random" meant to me that Samsung drives could have been selected twice. But, yes, then there wouldn't be four distinct vendors.<p>Unstated but implied by you is there are only two (major) Korean vendors to choose from.<p>So if Samsung is a Korean winner then Hynix must be the Korean loser. Which is now clear to me.<p>Is it possible there's a third (minor) Korean player? Could I possibly still have a chance? :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2022 15:32:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429146</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429146</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429146</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "I tested four NVMe SSDs from four vendors – half lose FLUSH’d data on power loss"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>That said, this narrows one of the data losers down to Hynix.</i><p>Not really. Samsung builds a plethora of SSDs.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2022 01:35:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30423071</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30423071</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30423071</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "C Portability Lessons from Weird Machines"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>the MIPS R3000 processor ... raises an exception for signed integer overflow, unlike many other processors which silently wrap to negative values.</i><p>Too bad programmer laziness won and most current hardware doesn't support this.<p>As a teenager I remember getting hit by this all the time in assembly language programming for the IBM S/360. (FORTRAN turned it off).<p><pre><code>   S0C8 Fixed-point overflow exception
</code></pre>
When you're a kid you just do things quickly. This was the machine's way of slapping you upside your head and saying: "are you sure about that?"</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:22:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30418224</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30418224</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30418224</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>Well, you still have lots of tracking stuff loaded probably, unless you got something extra for blocking trackers.</i><p>Yes I'm sure I have that stuff loaded. But I don't care because it's quite ephemeral:<p>I exit Firefox multiple times a day, there's really no performance cost to doing that after every group of websites. E.g. if, while reading HN, I look up something on Wikipedia, or I search with Bing or Google, everything goes away together.<p>In my settings: delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed<p>In my settings: clear history when Firefox closes, everything goes except browsing and download history<p>No suggestions except for bookmarks.<p>So when I restart Firefox to then browse reddit it starts with a clean slate.<p>Comcast insisted I purchase a DOCSIS3 modem quite a while ago. Once downloads are at 100 mpbs+, does it really matter if I repeatedly re-download a few items to cache?<p>The only noticeable downside is when I switch to Safari to view something that needs JS, I then see ads for clothing that my wife and daughters might be interested in. I presume this is due to fallback to tracking via IP address. Of course I always clear history and empty caches in Safari.<p>Obviously this doesn't work for someone who wants to or needs to keep 100 browser windows open at once, for months at a time. But that's not me. I don't think that way, never have.<p>Edit: just had to add that sites like Wikipedia are better w/o JS (unless you edit?). I don't see those annoying week-long pleas for money. Do they still do those?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 16:45:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30417801</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30417801</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30417801</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I usually do read the linked content but I agree with GP poster that comments are often more informative.<p>Yes there is sometimes an echo chamber here, but it's only for limited topics. It very much has a Silicon Valley feel to it, but @dang and I have gone around on this and he assures us that the readership and comments have broad geographic representation.[1] It's a worldwide echo chamber. :)<p>Fortunately the echo chamber doesn't exist for most submissions. Most of the discussion on HN is on non-polarizing topics.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869902" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869902</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 10:14:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413966</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413966</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413966</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>HN totally usable for basic functionality w/o JS.<p>profootballtalk.com works great if you don't want to vote or comment<p>macrumors.com great functionality<p>nitter.net happily takes the place of twitter.com<p>drudgereport.com works great and I rarely turn on JS when I go to the sites he links to, usually the text on target sites is there if not as pretty as it could be<p>individual subreddits (e.g. old.reddit.com/r/Portland/ ) are quite good w/o JS. But the "old." is probably important.<p>I admit that there are lots of sites that don't work, e.g. /r/IdiotsInCars/ doesn't work because reddit uses JS for video. For so many sites the text is there but images and videos aren't. Also need to turn off "page style" for some recalcitrant sites.<p>In conclusion, contrary to your JS experience, I'd say that I spend over 90% of my time browsing w/o JS and am happy with my experience. Things are lightning fast and I see few or no ads. I don't need an ad blocker since 99% of ads just don't happen w/o JS.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 09:15:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413538</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413538</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413538</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>Crazy how evil Google is. Just wow.</i><p>Yeah, but there are a lot of employees there who check their bank accounts twice a month and say: "Just wow".<p>Venial evil is easily bought.<p>Edit:<p><i>As a EU citizen</i><p>I really hate to even say this, but "Crazy Vlad" nearby is what true evil is about.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 08:27:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413231</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413231</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413231</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>Maybe using an archive.is-like service</i><p>No that has turned to shit (for me anyway). Used to be fine, now presents a captcha when JS off. Okay so I switch from Firefox to Safari (where I leave JS on) and it still presents a captcha. I'd rather use the original site with JS than solve captchas.<p>That has been my consistent recent experience for a multitude of those.<p><i>or a Tor-like service</i><p>I've never used Tor, but aren't there a lot of complaints of repetitive captchas when using it?<p><i>randomizes one's IP address and browser fingerprint</i><p>I haven't followed this closely, but didn't Apple make claims that they would soon have an opt-in service that did something like this?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 08:23:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413198</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413198</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413198</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "NYC Mayor demands CEOs end work from home as economy struggles"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>I'm curious what evidence do you have that he is any better?</i><p>I don't have any such evidence. I don't think the way I phrased my question implied I did.<p><i>awarding his brother the top NYPD job</i><p>There's a long history of nepotism in politics. Here's a famous case: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kennedy#Attorney_General_of_the_United_States_(1961%E2%80%931964)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kennedy#Attorney_Genera...</a>
I think there are now laws against that at the federal level.<p><i>"all that matters" is being just slightly less incompetent</i><p>Many are upset about that reality. But I've been observing politics for many decades and I haven't seen anything better. NY doesn't do recalls (or didn't when I lived there, maybe it changed). California does allow them but that seems to result in an altogether different clown show.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2022 07:56:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413044</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413044</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30413044</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "NYC Mayor demands CEOs end work from home as economy struggles"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>He does seem utterly clueless.<p>However, is he better than de Blasio? Is he better than Sliwa?<p>That's all that matters.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 20 Feb 2022 01:24:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402313</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402313</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402313</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Babbage Was a True Genius (2006)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Needs 2006 in title. Needs stupid JavaScript needed just to read it. Does stupid JavaScript games.<p>But it's actually decent content. It's an overview of how Babbage's Analytical Engine was intended to function. The implementation problem was that what Babbage wanted was way way way over-designed. E.g. 50 decimal digit arithmetic.<p>You know who are true geniuses in my book? The guys who wrote this: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC</a><p>They started a trillion dollar company because they were smart enough to write a program that actually worked, that turned 1970s hardware into something that was useful to a lot of people.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:56:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30368210</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30368210</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30368210</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "U.S. to allow advanced headlights after Toyota petition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Here's the really sad part: <i>The agency acted in response to a petition filed by Toyota Motor Corp in 2013 to allow the lights.</i><p>Perhaps something by the end of 2023. So it took a full decade for them to act!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2022 04:37:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30356412</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30356412</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30356412</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>rate-limiting is manually applied by the moderators</i><p>Given:<p>1) HN was started by / is moderated by "computer nerds" (IMO you're hardcore if you write it in lisp)<p>2) 'dang' is the only acknowledged public moderator (some small? number of additional secret moderators also exist)<p>It follows that:<p>It's difficult and doesn’t scale to "manually" apply rate limiting. Most / all such action is highly automated.<p>At least that's my wild, possibly way-off-base guess.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2022 04:24:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30342764</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30342764</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30342764</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "NanoVNA: Low-cost handheld 4GHz vector network analyzer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's probably a market for a sub $1 "smart chip" that can be added to a design. Something that can be factory programmed with a unique serial number. To keep from being cloned, verification operation wouldn't be as simple as reading out the number. Instead, the chip would respond with some sort of hash. Similar to how Apple secures their SOCs.<p>The security wouldn't need to be perfect. Even something simple would be sufficient to deter an unscrupulous reseller.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2022 13:18:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312571</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312571</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312571</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>the openbsd community seems to like calling people idiots</i><p><i>Even the title of this article reflects that mindset</i><p>There's cultural history about that very phrase. There was a series of books written with that exact title. They were intended to <i>"provide a basic understanding of a complex and popular topics. The term 'idiot' is used as hyperbole".</i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_Idiot%27s_Guides" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_Idiot%27s_Guides</a><p>Edit: I want to add that apparently the author put a <i>lot</i> of effort into writing a fairly comprehensive document. It will probably be quite helpful for someone attempting that install.<p>The document shouldn't be dismissed just because of the title.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2022 12:55:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312406</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312406</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30312406</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Peloton – A call for action [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Special shares having 20x the votes of plebeian shares is still better than the Snapchat situation.<p>As someone on HN quipped at the time: <i>No, the shares have no voting power. They are Snapchat fun bucks basically.</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13807515" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13807515</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2022 03:54:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30296730</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30296730</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30296730</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dude, Where’s My Hydrogen-Powered Car?]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hydrogen-powered-cars-11644519367">https://www.wsj.com/articles/hydrogen-powered-cars-11644519367</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30295157">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30295157</a></p>
<p>Points: 1</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:38:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://www.wsj.com/articles/hydrogen-powered-cars-11644519367</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30295157</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30295157</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by PhantomGremlin in "Is this the end of the Cannonball Run?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>CBP is still chasing people down and turning them away.</i><p>If you make it into this country it becomes mostly catch and release.<p>And then comical stuff like this happens: <i>TSA reveals illegal migrants flying without proper ID can use an ARREST WARRANT as identification</i><p><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10418877/TSA-reveals-illegal-migrants-flying-without-proper-ID-use-ARREST-WARRANT-identification.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10418877/TSA-reveal...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:57:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30286968</link><dc:creator>PhantomGremlin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30286968</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30286968</guid></item></channel></rss>