Hacker News: ThinkingGuy

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 17:30:27 +0000

If they really want them, they can get them, one way or another.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Naphtha shortages in Japan"

ThinkingGuy — Sat, 30 May 2026 14:23:11 +0000

Unsurprisingly, XKCD has already contemplated this:

https://xkcd.com/993/

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "The first British person in space"

ThinkingGuy — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:40:52 +0000

Couldn't help but be reminded of Eddie Izzard's old "Career Advisor" bit:

"I want to be a space astronaut, go to outer space and discover things that have never been discovered!"

"Look, you're British, so scale it down a bit, all right?"

https://youtu.be/xGGeLHnDQk8?si=XNEC8Pg8xER6EBOX&t=12

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Shunning AI is the human choice"

ThinkingGuy — Thu, 21 May 2026 17:06:40 +0000

The difference between generative AI and math is that math gives everybody the same answer every time.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 70s era"

ThinkingGuy — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:35:34 +0000

Why does the picture at the top of the article look more like Cassini–Huygens than Voyager?

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid"

ThinkingGuy — Fri, 15 May 2026 01:20:42 +0000

I wonder if removing the antenna would possibly cause the modem to try to transmit at a higher power level, thus running the car's battery down.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid"

ThinkingGuy — Fri, 15 May 2026 01:17:23 +0000

There's also OPVS, which supposedly can be self-hosted (I don't know how good their product is; I'm content with 3G-only 2012 Leaf being permanently offline).

https://www.openvehicles.com

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Ask.com has closed"

ThinkingGuy — Sat, 02 May 2026 15:17:23 +0000

I was trying to explain to my grandmother (born in 1923) what the Internet was. So I pulled up Ask Jeeves and typed in, "What's the weather in [grandmother's hometown, population 4000]. And the precise current forecast came up. That was in 1997.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "SFO Gate Explorer"

ThinkingGuy — Sat, 02 May 2026 15:08:28 +0000

Great idea. Now do ATL, please!

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Show HN: Rip.so – a graveyard for dead internet things"

ThinkingGuy — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:28:31 +0000

I still use it regularly.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "How a subsea cable is repaired (2021)"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:47:55 +0000

I've read a number of articles on this topic, but there's one issue I've never seen addressed: With the large number of cables now in place, often with multiple cables running along similar paths, how great is the risk that in the course of raising up one end of a broken cable, you accidentally snag some other cable that was laid across the first cable after it was laid? Or is the ocean just so vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big that hardly any cables cross over each other?

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner"

ThinkingGuy — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 21:56:21 +0000

I would hope that "any physician taking one look at you in the waiting room" would be a sufficient test.

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:16:49 +0000

You must be too young to remember Tipper Gore...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipper_Gore

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Hisense TVs add unskippable startup ads before live TV"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:14:09 +0000

My local PBS station has some good shows (ad-free)

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Modern Illustration: Archive of illustration from c.1950-1975"

ThinkingGuy — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 15:05:25 +0000

If you enjoy the retro style of art, especially the cartoony stuff, I would recommend checking out the work of artist Derek Yaniger:

https://derekart.com/

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "The Misuses of the University"

ThinkingGuy — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:42:00 +0000

The podcast "Revisionist History" by Malcom Gladwell did a great episode on the US News and World Report college ranking list, and the (often perverse) incentives it's created.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/lord-of-...

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "What's the best way to learn a new language?"

ThinkingGuy — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:00:28 +0000

The focus on a small set of core vocabulary is one of the main principles of the Pimsleur method, along with a strict spaced repetition format. When I travel to a new country I always spend about 15-20 hours beforehand doing the 30-minute Pimsleur lessons, just to pick up basic survival vocabulary. I've always been satisfied with the results.

A $15M Mansion Designed Around Security

ThinkingGuy — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 03:16:45 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/mansion/inside-a-15-million-mansion-designed-entirely-around-security/8F993920-BBDB-4B97-B231-5C55E5411C82

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47011180

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:45:36 +0000

I was hoping someone would mention CoyoteLinux. It was my residential router for several years in the early 2000s. My 'disaster recovery plan' consisted of a second floppy disk (which fortunately I never had to use).

New comment by ThinkingGuy in "Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries"

ThinkingGuy — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 18:08:38 +0000

Sorry, I meant to type "Alphabet"