Hacker News: fallinghawks

New comment by fallinghawks in "Naming rights to street auctioned in San Francisco"

fallinghawks — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:10:48 +0000

I suspect many towns have "A Street" which has always given me a giggle. In the Bay Area, Hayward has a sign for A Street Downtown. Downtown is on the 2nd line but could be misparsed as desired.

New comment by fallinghawks in "We hid a free trip to Switzerland in our privacy policy"

fallinghawks — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:35:56 +0000

"email us for a chance to win a free trip to Switzerland"

A chance to win is not enough motivation for me to actually write the email. I would assume it was simply an opportunity to collect email addresses, so I (personally) am not to likely to email them even if I did fully read their privacy policy.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Essex police pause facial recognition camera use after study finds racial bias"

fallinghawks — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:49:32 +0000

In the other direction, my camera regularly identifies cats, crows, and shadows as people. I think recognition in security cameras has a very long way to go.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job"

fallinghawks — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:36:14 +0000

Unfortunately, consequences have been largely absent for anyone in this administration since the last time they were in power. That's part of why this round they've been flaunting it so egregiously.

New comment by fallinghawks in "US Customs destroys rare floppy disk"

fallinghawks — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 04:01:42 +0000

As others said, security definitely existed, typically in the form of metal detectors and x ray scans. Planes had been hijacked since the 70s and that's when it started. 9/11 just ramped up security to very high levels.

New comment by fallinghawks in "US Customs destroys rare floppy disk"

fallinghawks — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 16:44:14 +0000

I brought a foil wrapped breakfast burrito through security with not the slightest idea that it might look like an IED. This was years before 9/11 so they just made me open my backpack and assure them it was food.

New comment by fallinghawks in "What Happened to Fry's Electronics"

fallinghawks — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:58:22 +0000

I remember when the place started to go. It had been Mecca for all the components and switches and tools, and fun to visit. Then shelves were no longer full and as time went on, sported increasingly wide gaps. Toward the end, far more shelf than product. And the packages, as you said - there were always a few that were obviously previously opened, retaped sloppily, sometimes having a returned-item sticker. I don't recall if the returns were a lower price. It was depressing and I stopped going. I think I went to a closing sale but there was nothing I wanted.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Dream Recorder AI – a portal to your subconscious"

fallinghawks — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:43:40 +0000

I kept a dream journal for years and very rarely had lucid dreams. 6-8 times at most over 30 years. I definitely got better at remembering dreams -- it also helped if I could build a narrative that would keep the different segments tied together.

New comment by fallinghawks in "All Look Same?"

fallinghawks — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 03:18:24 +0000

I played this quite a few years ago and felt pretty certain that they deliberately chose photos that were atypical of each ethnicity. That said, there kind of is no typical Chinese look since it's such a huge country. Those in the north are taller and have similarities to Koreans, those in the south will have more similarities to Vietnamese.

New comment by fallinghawks in "I'm going to cure my girlfriend's brain tumor"

fallinghawks — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 04:35:13 +0000

I agree the way he writes about it is uncomfortable. At the same time I also think some people motivate themselves with a version of "Do or do not, there is no try." He desperately wants to do something, but a lot is simply out of his hands. Still, that energy has to go somewhere.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Yes, It's Fascism"

fallinghawks — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:02:02 +0000

It's appalling how they go straight to making things up to suit their narrative, as if video evidence doesn't exist. They know the MAGAs will believe them, and may shed doubt on interpretation for people who aren't that curious about truth. A lie can travel halfway around the world, as they say.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Anti-aging injection regrows knee cartilage and prevents arthritis"

fallinghawks — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 22:29:28 +0000

Ironically, last year i decided to relearn piano after some 40 years. Learned one piece (a pretty good one, fortunately) and a once a day play triggered it. So. It's more like once every 2-3 weeks now, not long enough to forget, but long enough to keep the thumb feeling all right.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Anti-aging injection regrows knee cartilage and prevents arthritis"

fallinghawks — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 16:19:45 +0000

The joint at the base of my thumb started telling me it's 60 years old. I stopped being able to open jars easily last year and would like to get my grip strength back.

New comment by fallinghawks in "I announced my divorce on Instagram and then AI impersonated me"

fallinghawks — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 14:02:03 +0000

Just recently, Twitter started making the default view "For You" instead of "Following" with no way to switch back. Fortunately there's an extension that fixes that and lets you eliminate the For You view entirely.

New comment by fallinghawks in "The Secret Superfood of Thanksgiving"

fallinghawks — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:36:05 +0000

Any way that doesn't involve a boatload of oils is fine, I'm sure.

One of the things I'm surprised they didn't mention is cooling. Cooling converts the starch in rice, potatoes, and pasta into resistant starch (and it stays resistant when you reheat it because nobody really likes eating cold potatoes). Starch normally gets processed by the small intestine into glucose but resistant starch is digested in the large intestine, so glucose levels don't spike. There are a number of other benefits described in the articles below:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26693746/

https://hopkinsdiabetesinfo.org/what-is-resistant-starch/

New comment by fallinghawks in "Things I've Heard Boomers Say That I Agree with 100%"

fallinghawks — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 15:20:23 +0000

> In all cases it should be a website, not a "download our app"

Increasingly often, it is "download our app". And they will try to force it by sabotaging their website. I did a pickup order from Walmart once. You're supposed to take a numbered parking place and check in, but if you try it from the website on a mobile, it'll redirect you to download the app. There's no getting around it. I don't recall if I tried desktop mode on the website, but the website is a pretty cluttered widescreen mess anyway. (Fortunately at the parking area there's a phone number for checking in posted.)

I run into similar sabotage issues with Facebook (yes I am just a year or so shy of being a boomer). You can no longer use messaging on mobile, it tells you to download the app. Desktop mode does work, though (for now; I'm sure someone will try to take it away). All this stuff used to work on phones.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Please stop asking me to provide feedback #8036"

fallinghawks — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 22:16:47 +0000

My garbage disposal service sends me a survey once or twice a year asking if I would recommend them to my friends.

Where I live, garbage disposal is a county contract. You get get whatever company your county has engaged. Do they think people would to move to another county for better garbage disposal?

New comment by fallinghawks in "Munich's surfers left stunned after famed river wave vanishes"

fallinghawks — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 03:11:05 +0000

The first time I saw them was around Christmastime and I was just stunned by the sight of surfers in the middle of a snow-filled park.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Border Patrol agent testifies sandwich thrown at him "exploded all over,""

fallinghawks — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:31:39 +0000

Mustard is not OK. Where do you think mustard gas comes from? ;) That guy was deploying a chemical weapon in violation of the Geneva protocol.

New comment by fallinghawks in "Trump pardons convicted Binance founder"

fallinghawks — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:24:04 +0000

It's all transactional. Do something Trump likes, he'll help you, laws, morals, and ethics be damned.