Hacker News: askvictor

New comment by askvictor in "Best-selling Zigbee temperature sensors tested and compared"

askvictor — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 04:53:56 +0000

And it communicates OK to outside the fridge? I would have thought a fridge is pretty close to a Faraday cage

New comment by askvictor in "Blindsight (Watts Novel)"

askvictor — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:08:44 +0000

I think the space vampire was both a bit of fun (in an otherwise bleak novel), but also one of the explorations of different types of mind/consciousness; the mission has a the narrator (with half a brain), a vampire, a person with 4 consciousnesses residing in one brain, a massively-augmented person, a combat specialist who controls a vast set of external peripherals, and an AI (and, of course, the aliens). They're there to make you consider different aspects of what makes up consciousness.

New comment by askvictor in "Our Project Suncatcher prototype satellite is in orbit"

askvictor — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:55:36 +0000

But, why would they issue press releases about it at all? Why not just keep it on the down low?

New comment by askvictor in "Our Project Suncatcher prototype satellite is in orbit"

askvictor — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Why would they need a cover story?

New comment by askvictor in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

askvictor — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:25:39 +0000

Non fiction: The Dawn of Everything.

Fiction: just finished The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott; about to read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (for the 2nd or 3rd time)

New comment by askvictor in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

askvictor — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:22:22 +0000

Haha I've been trying to do the reverse :)

New comment by askvictor in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

askvictor — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:21:43 +0000

If you haven't read about his (technical) system for writing, do so. Very geeky. He described it (including notes) in my ebook copy of Fire Upon The Deep

New comment by askvictor in "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to"

askvictor — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:17:19 +0000

Please go read about the origins of Free software; Richard Stallman is a good starting point. Or even read a FOSS licence and tell me where it says you can't sell it.

New comment by askvictor in "Apple Music to open concert venue in Battersea Power Station"

askvictor — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:35:48 +0000

How is she related to this story?

New comment by askvictor in "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to"

askvictor — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:17:44 +0000

There's nothing stopping you from charging money for FOSS software. Sell the first one for as much as it cost to write it.

New comment by askvictor in "The Return of Sail Power: Cargo Ships Are Turning Back to the Wind"

askvictor — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 01:31:23 +0000

Is that 10% best case or average case? Also, what's the capex on the the sails, and what's the additional opex (training, maintenance)? Not trying to pooh-pooh the idea, but as said, I've seen articles like this regularly for decades, and it hasn't become the norm, so I'd figure there's a reason for that.

New comment by askvictor in "The Return of Sail Power: Cargo Ships Are Turning Back to the Wind"

askvictor — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:08:56 +0000

News articles to this effect have been popping up occasionally for the past 20 years at least. So the economics don't seem to stack up. At least not yet; but if oil gets a bit dearer...

New comment by askvictor in "The engineering behind the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve"

askvictor — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:38:45 +0000

Why can't they pump more water down there to create pressure?

New comment by askvictor in "Pion, an agent designed to run any company autonomously"

askvictor — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 08:51:51 +0000

Not quite sure of the intent, but I have variously thought of starting a business based on an idea or gap in the market I could fill with my coding skills... only to realise running a business is not fun at all. Even getting an app published in the app store (and maintaining it) is a level of boredom I can't be bothered with. So maybe that's a use case. Of course, nowadays the coding part will be done by an agent too, so I guess it's just the initial idea?

New comment by askvictor in "Will there be a 7G?"

askvictor — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 21:49:24 +0000

Interesting; in Australia I'm using exclusively 4G with no problems

New comment by askvictor in "Larger Pacific Striped Octopus"

askvictor — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:27:09 +0000

"the mountain in the sea" is recent sci fi that deals with this idea.

New comment by askvictor in "Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge"

askvictor — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:45:06 +0000

What does 'civilized' mean? Usage here seems to be another way to express your own biases. I consider myself civilized, and have a rich and meaningful life, but my house is much less clean than many. I prefer to spend my time and money on things other than being clean and tidy (beyond a basic level of functionality)

New comment by askvictor in "Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge"

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

Cleanliness is overrated. Sure, it's great for surgery and if you actually have a wound, but your immune system needs pathogens to train on, or it does silly things like attacking your body, or reacting to pollens.

New comment by askvictor in "Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game"

askvictor — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 03:58:12 +0000

That's how a real plane's control works, so many games do the same.

New comment by askvictor in "GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet"

askvictor — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:32:05 +0000

This is only to make getting a fix faster - A-GPS downloads the almanac data via the internet (fast, but needs internet) instead of directly from the GPS satellites (slow but works everywhere). It doesn't make it any more accurate.