Hacker News: buildsjets

New comment by buildsjets in "Feds got warrants to use fake cell towers to hunt down Don Lemon's producer"

buildsjets — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 18:43:32 +0000

You can build an IMSI-catcher-catcher out of an Orbic RC400L cellular hotspot and the Rayhunter software published by the EFF.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/meet-rayhunter-new-ope...

https://efforg.github.io/rayhunter/orbic.html

New comment by buildsjets in "I guess I'm using WebP now?"

buildsjets — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 01:24:23 +0000

Windows 10 support went EOL one year ago. It is an archaic operating system, so no doubt, it does not support modern technology out-of-the-box. Nevertheless, it can be modified to add such support with trivial effort.

New comment by buildsjets in "Fort Hood attacker's execution by firing squad will be livestreamed"

buildsjets — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:49:04 +0000

And so the Trump Administration joins ISIS and Al-Quaeda in the “Livestreams Executions” club.

New comment by buildsjets in "The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)"

buildsjets — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 02:44:07 +0000

Now a double-blind scientific study must be performed to evaluate the effectiveness of pspsps.

New comment by buildsjets in "Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal"

buildsjets — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:56:17 +0000

The President of the United States of America is delusional, and borderline insane.

New comment by buildsjets in "Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal"

buildsjets — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:49:16 +0000

Do you have a reliable source you can share which supports that claim? Because el wiki says nothing of the sort. It discusses two main projects, "Ni-Go" and "F-Go", neither of which successfully enriched fissile material. One was built but did not operate successfully, the other was not built.

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

New comment by buildsjets in "NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart"

buildsjets — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:31:20 +0000

NASA (Specifically, hotshot NASA administrator Jared Isaacman) is fixing to kill themselves some pilots.

Trivia, SR71 backseater Colonel Robert J. Roetcisender, RIP, on the right in the image below, was the designated pilot examiner who did my private pilot checkride many many years ago. It was pretty intimidating. All he asked is that I make the flight as boring as possible.

https://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/sr-crew-photos/SR71-crews/da...

New comment by buildsjets in "In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life"

buildsjets — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:12:51 +0000

You are supposed to be earning more than $80 a day. What do you do for a living that pays $10 an hour?

New comment by buildsjets in "In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life"

buildsjets — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:11:10 +0000

I'm currently on a business trip staying a Hampton Inn in a low cost rural area of the USA. The nightly rate is $120. This is not a high end hotel- generally considered 2-star level out of 5. The nearby Comfort Inn is one step lower in quality of accommodation and guests, and gets $75. Anything cheaper than that is a filthy, crime-ridden bucket of blood.

New comment by buildsjets in "An airport cooled by natural ventilation"

buildsjets — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 01:29:27 +0000

Do you hear helicopters? I hear helicopters.

New comment by buildsjets in "Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell"

buildsjets — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 23:51:23 +0000

This is a valid and well considered comment. It’s not your role to police opinion, dang.

New comment by buildsjets in "Allow Carriers on Planes"

buildsjets — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:11:26 +0000

Why do you think that matters?

New comment by buildsjets in "Why is the liver so weirdly regenerative?"

buildsjets — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 21:21:24 +0000

I asked ChatGPT if it is OK to an explain a joke without being asked to do so, and She said no.

New comment by buildsjets in "Nokia Design Archive (2025)"

buildsjets — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:39:41 +0000

Needs more sidetalking.

https://sidetalking.com/original/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Gage

New comment by buildsjets in "The science of Monkey Island: can grog dissolve a metal mug that fast?"

buildsjets — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:54:19 +0000

If the grog contained enough mercury, it would dissolve the pewter mug. Mercury also eats thru solid aluminum pretty quickly.

New comment by buildsjets in "Fixing the Portobello Police Station Clock"

buildsjets — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 17:42:12 +0000

Fred is a great YouTube rabbit hole... His "Age of Steam" series for the BBC is fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_UA36ouzM&list=PL2vJ5Cg-wl...

New comment by buildsjets in "What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals"

buildsjets — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 17:38:46 +0000

Of course ridership dropped during COVID, but it very quickly recovered and is now well over double the ridership before the COVID dip. Also note that prior to COVID, the system was still under construction and not even the 1 Line was fully operational yet. It could take you from UW to the Airport, and that's about it, the complete 1 Line route to Northgate did not open until October 2021, Lynnwood to downtown extension did not open until 2024, and Line 2 from Redmond to downtown did not open until earlier this year.

So, it's hard to make a direct comparison of fare compliance before and after the "COVID times" however you define the time period, as the are very different transit systems that now serve a different geographical area and population. But fare compliance has recovered from 56% during the peak of COVID to 63% in 2025, and 2026 numbers are not out yet.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...

New comment by buildsjets in "Fixing the Portobello Police Station Clock"

buildsjets — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:53:28 +0000

If you enjoyed this, here's Fred Dibnah exploring Big Ben and discussing some of the engineering details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1cqR1bJC4

Fred Dibnah was a treasure. If you enjoyed 5 minutes of Big Ben, here's an hour of his day job in heavy industrial steeplejacking - "The Ups and Downs of Chimneys" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK2wF_-yoEg

New comment by buildsjets in "'We hacked the FBI:' Hackers say they have data on all FBI employees"

buildsjets — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 02:24:44 +0000

Not just government employees, employees of government contractors who held or applied for security clearances. I’ve never worked for the government but the CCP got my SF-86. My employer’s infosec group told us they believe that the same group was also responsible for the Mariott data breach in the same timeframe and that it was believed to be part of an effort by the CCP to establish a complete dossier on each individual in the entire military-industrial complex. The best advice they could offer was to disable all social media accounts and lock down our credit reports. :shrug:

New comment by buildsjets in "Whirlpool Washer Transmission Repair (2007)"

buildsjets — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 20:11:02 +0000

With both my 2006 Whirlpool front loader (trash) and 2022 LG front loader (excellent), the duration from when you press the "pause" button to when the agitator stops and the door unlocks is approximately one second. No water is spilled.