Hacker News: e44858

New comment by e44858 in "Advice, not control: the role of Remote Assistance in Waymo's operations"

e44858 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 03:26:55 +0000

Some planes can land automatically without the pilot's input: https://avbrief.com/autoland-saves-king-air-everyone-reporte...

Takeoff is probably easier to automate than an emergency landing.

New comment by e44858 in "County pays $600k to pentesters it arrested for assessing courthouse security"

e44858 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 21:55:05 +0000

> And so did the jury who awarded them $600k

What jury? The payment happened before the trial: "five days before a trial was scheduled to begin in the case, Dallas County officials agreed to pay $600,000 to settle the case".

New comment by e44858 in "A lot of population numbers are fake"

e44858 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 21:20:52 +0000

> assuming our counts are even close to correct.

That's a bold assumption. States get more representatives if they inflate the population count: https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-ap...

New comment by e44858 in "ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data"

e44858 — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:52:44 +0000

Has this ever been tested in court?

New comment by e44858 in "SoundCloud has banned VPN access"

e44858 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 03:02:06 +0000

They have a lot of user-created music that doesnt exist anywhere else. Maybe they're trying to sell that dataset to AI companies for training their models. If they allow non-residential IPs, those potential customers could just scrape their site instead.

New comment by e44858 in "An update on the Farphone's battery"

e44858 — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 01:21:18 +0000

I've had success using a large capacitor instead of the battery. To keep it charged I connected its positive leg to the 5v USB pin through a diode.

New comment by e44858 in "Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10"

e44858 — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:50:11 +0000

"you will need a Wi-Fi card supporting active monitor mode with frame injection" https://github.com/seemoo-lab/owl

New comment by e44858 in "DoorDash and Waymo launch autonomous delivery service in Phoenix"

e44858 — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 23:45:15 +0000

Looks like some cars got stuck in a storm a few weeks ago, so they don't seem to be proactively suspending operation during bad weather: https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/waymo-temporarily-susp...

New comment by e44858 in "Qualcomm to acquire Arduino"

e44858 — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 17:09:26 +0000

They could claim copyright infringement if you distribute their SDK in your firmware without their permission.

New comment by e44858 in "Senator demands to know status of 'duplicate' SSA database 'immediately'"

e44858 — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 02:55:53 +0000

Can a single senator issue a subpoena, or does it require a vote?

New comment by e44858 in "‘Robber bees’ invade apiarist’s shop in attempted honey heist"

e44858 — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 23:13:29 +0000

My bees would swarm if they filled up the hive and had no space to put more honey or brood.

New comment by e44858 in ""None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Much of FL's Book Ban Bill"

e44858 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:59:32 +0000

Maybe the judge was wrong. Let's see if this ruling gets appealed.

New comment by e44858 in "Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'"

e44858 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:58:45 +0000

This is likely because the DMSP satellites are outdated: "In 2015, Congress voted to terminate the DMSP program and to scrap the DMSP 5D-3/F20 satellite, ordering the Air Force to move on to a next-generation system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Meteorological_Satelli...

The GOES-R satellites seem to have equal or better resolution: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atot/4/4/1520-042... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES-16

DMSP resolves to 600m, while GOES-R resolves to 500m (don't confuse it with the older GOES satellites mentioned in the article).

New comment by e44858 in "YouTube's new anti-adblock measures"

e44858 — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 04:10:33 +0000

This seems to be a very big problem for YouTube:

  “In 2023, we blocked or removed over 5.5 billion ads, slightly up from the prior year, and suspended 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double from the previous year,” the platform told us at the time.

I wonder what proportion of those 5.5 billion inappropriate ads were removed only after people watched and reported them.

New comment by e44858 in "Researchers develop ‘transparent paper’ as alternative to plastics"

e44858 — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 04:28:18 +0000

They would cook food in lead pots, which made it poisonous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener

New comment by e44858 in "Twitter's new encrypted DMs aren't better than the old ones"

e44858 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 16:44:40 +0000

How easy would it be for them to ship a backdoor on iOS? With Apple's DRM it should be difficult to decrypt the IPA and compare it to the source code.

New comment by e44858 in "Tesla seeks to guard crash data from public disclosure"

e44858 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:07:28 +0000

Provided they release crash data for all manufacturers and don't single out just one manufacturer.

New comment by e44858 in "When will tech workers start creating Unions?"

e44858 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 21:03:57 +0000

How can a union prevent offshoring?

New comment by e44858 in "Europe is trying to leave Starlink behind"

e44858 — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 20:44:12 +0000

https://archive.is/Fc4S4

New comment by e44858 in "How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?"

e44858 — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 22:15:43 +0000

Or $0.80 if you make a big order of 100k.