Hacker News: giantg2

New comment by giantg2 in "FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky"

giantg2 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:35:45 +0000

Probably easier to use a MASER

New comment by giantg2 in "FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky"

giantg2 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:34:08 +0000

This is a terrible idea. Light cycles affect many natural functions in the world. We already see some of this with light pollution. This idea is basically light pollution on an industrial scale.

New comment by giantg2 in "The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war"

giantg2 — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:19:49 +0000

The US manufacturing capacity was a huge factor in winning WW2. I wonder who holds that advantage now...

New comment by giantg2 in "US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers"

giantg2 — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:45:10 +0000

This just seems like poor planning. If it were planned better, you could group a bunch of smaller bug fixes under the same acceptance test. The full acceptance test is a good practice for safety critical systems. Project management just has to get better at doing smaller unit/int testing on each bug and then grouping those changes under the full acceptance test.

New comment by giantg2 in "Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera"

giantg2 — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 01:23:15 +0000

If the masses were against this'll, the reps would be voted out or recalled.

New comment by giantg2 in "Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera"

giantg2 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 22:43:44 +0000

"might produce some democratic pressure for more nuanced legislation."

Nah, you just get knee-jerk, feel-good laws because the masses never dig deeper and the elected only care about being reelected.

New comment by giantg2 in "The revenge of the philosophy majors"

giantg2 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:33:50 +0000

"Beyond nonprofits like Eleos, most of the hiring has been concentrated at DeepMind and Anthropic, each of which employs at least a half-dozen philosophers."

I would hardly call that the revenge of the philosophy majors.

New comment by giantg2 in "How to sequence your own DNA at home"

giantg2 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:16:02 +0000

If the sequencer was 10x cheaper then I might do it.

New comment by giantg2 in "Sodium-ion "salt" batteries will revolutionize electric-vehicle and grid storage"

giantg2 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:01:36 +0000

Maybe. But anyone who has worked with sodium is likely to be skeptical of that.

New comment by giantg2 in "Virginia bans sale of geolocation data"

giantg2 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:40:13 +0000

And that's pretty much the most benign use case too.

New comment by giantg2 in "Wallace the 6 inch f/2.8 telescope, building it, and hiking with it"

giantg2 — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:10:03 +0000

No, it's nothing new. There are other projects that have documented these types of things better than I could.

New comment by giantg2 in "Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle"

giantg2 — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:42:39 +0000

That's only true if the school will actually do something based the surveillance evidence. It seems many do not.

New comment by giantg2 in "Wallace the 6 inch f/2.8 telescope, building it, and hiking with it"

giantg2 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 23:15:50 +0000

Just go down the rabbit hole like I have over the past year...

Find thick glass on Facebook, build a cutting jig, build a kiln to fuse it, etc. I'm still planning to build an 18".

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 01:08:35 +0000

This seems to be only for schools, only for immigration related information, and only for administrative warrants. It's not even non-compliance, it's just kicking it up a level to the superintendent.

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 01:05:09 +0000

I rarely see it in the news. Even when it is there, the feds usually get their way.

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 01:04:25 +0000

The 10th amendment is practically useless the way courts have interpreted other parts of the constitution.

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 19:36:21 +0000

This is pretty rare. I find it unlikely the state would fight against basic driver license records released under a subpoena.

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 19:35:17 +0000

I didn't overlook it, it's simply not a relevant point. The state won't do anything about a individual subpoena wether it's against the state or a company.

New comment by giantg2 in "California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database"

giantg2 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:53:58 +0000

The author is concerned that the feds could subpoena the data from the company that it's being submitted to. Wouldn't this same concern apply to the feds serving a subpoena to the state? Once the data is out there, it's out there. If one level of government has it, all the peer/higher levels will have access of they want it.

It sounds like this database is the one that feeds license data to NCIC. The bigger question here is if we should be compiling and using data in the NCIC suchbas driver licenses and carry permits.

New comment by giantg2 in "Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)"

giantg2 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:25:06 +0000

"Being influenced by and completely immersed in a niche of other brilliant people."

The author does mention that part of the process is collaboration with other musicians. It seems by setting their "chores" they are increasing their immersion.