Hacker News: jkestner

New comment by jkestner in "Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy"

jkestner — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:38:54 +0000

I just got my kid a cheap flip phone that isn't as dumb as I wanted, because it's got KaiOS, a FireFox OS offshoot. An undiscovered country with just a few thousand apps in their store, and a web framework to make your own. If HN would get into it like it's an e-ink display, we could have all the little apps we need, and no ads or distractions.

New comment by jkestner in "I don't want to read what you didn't write"

jkestner — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:53:33 +0000

Adrian Tchaikovsky has a good take on it as well, Human Resources.

New comment by jkestner in "Minimal Phone 2"

jkestner — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 22:29:45 +0000

I think they should’ve used the word ‘focused’. Everything else about the presentation says it’s a professional communication tool.

New comment by jkestner in "Minimal Phone 2"

jkestner — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 22:18:24 +0000

Bring back OS licensing, Apple!

New comment by jkestner in "Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera"

jkestner — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:00:04 +0000

“I kept trying to explain in between haymakers that we were better than this and on top of that it wasn’t likely to be ruled on favorably as far as the courts.” - Luke O’Neil https://flaminghydra.com/the-end-and-after-2/

New comment by jkestner in "Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera"

jkestner — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:55:23 +0000

Axon (among others) has operations hubs for data fusion centers and other platforms for police like Evidence.com, so it’s an easy sell to departments.

Communities are starting to pivot to the wider issue, but a reason that this issue found purpose is that Flock is a more evocative target than “ALPRs”. I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing if “Flock” becomes the generic name.

New comment by jkestner in "Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera"

jkestner — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:49:33 +0000

Reminds me why a friend picked RCN over Comcast for his Internet. “They’re the more incompetent evil company.”

Artificial Intelligence, Quote Unquote

jkestner — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:23:28 +0000

Article URL: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2026/09/15/artificial-intelligence-quote-unquote

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49721068

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by jkestner in "Logo Programming"

jkestner — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 22:01:39 +0000

One of my favorite books is Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262680936/turtles-termites-and-...), basically the thesis of one of his students (and current MIT Media Lab professor) Mitchel Resnick. It's about the educational value of modeling distributed systems with StarLogo.

'Recent revelations' prompt Pflugerville to abruptly kill Flock camera access

jkestner — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:23:36 +0000

Article URL: https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/pflugerville-flock-cameras-22404257.php

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478125

Points: 23

# Comments: 1

New comment by jkestner in "To become a better writer, read as much as you can"

jkestner — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 13:33:58 +0000

Loved it. The earnest perspective of these monks can be very funny. Don’t know how to describe the rewarding prose except “chewy”, and this is a translation from Italian. Speaking of writing, the author’s extensive notes at the end are also excellent.

New comment by jkestner in "WPD won't replace stolen Flock cameras, citing public trust"

jkestner — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:46:46 +0000

The wonderful thing about Flock is that you also get to be watched over by all the outside police you don't trust.

New comment by jkestner in "Grand jury declines to indict Ohio man charged with destroying Flock camera"

jkestner — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:42:16 +0000

The body cameras that seem to make a difference are the ones we all carry in our pockets/purses. Axon cameras are nothing special, and the company is not neutral.

New comment by jkestner in "An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail"

jkestner — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:33:11 +0000

They said “mostly”. AI solves 90% and then you solve the other 90%.

New comment by jkestner in "Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study"

jkestner — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:39:08 +0000

The government is more directly accountable to me. The only way I have to influence what insurance companies do is through the government.

New comment by jkestner in "Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study"

jkestner — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:13:01 +0000

BigCorp gives money to politicians and gets to depress worker wages because they can't leave — sounds perfectly sane to tie your insurance to your employer under capitalism.

New comment by jkestner in "Flock updates privacy, accountability, security, and transparency safeguards"

jkestner — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:51:52 +0000

I read the letter as the CEO feeling pressure from his bosses to give opponents less ammunition lest he be replaced with "sober leadership". Flock truly has been their own worst enemy.

We should anticipate a future where a more competent malicious actor like Axon is leading this industry. As the Kleenex of surveillance cameras, Flock has poisoned the category, so I don't think switching brands will fool anyone, but we will have less of an attack surface.

New comment by jkestner in "Flock updates privacy, accountability, security, and transparency safeguards"

jkestner — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:51:46 +0000

Clearly, the stories in the press have hurt them, especially the police abuse. Requiring case codes is a good step, and proactively catching signs of abuse is a big change from "we're just an unopinionated tool; you should talk to your police department". They're still passing the buck on educating users on the limitations of their tool. I remain skeptical of any of their claims around data ownership.

Reading these actions, you can pick apart how to circumvent them, and the security audit is still pending — let's see how damning of a report they'll allow to be released.

New comment by jkestner in "Woman pulled over twice after Flock-linked software connected her to homicide"

jkestner — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:43:08 +0000

A human must always be held responsible, but a tool must expose its limitations to enable human judgement. I put this in the same basket as Autopilot, which already fails with its name.

I’ve seen too many cases where people intuitively trust the magic technology instead of verifying it. The tool shouldn’t not present itself as magic or AI or whatever the current term is.

New comment by jkestner in "USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data"

jkestner — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:26:31 +0000

I don't see where it says who's paying whom. Maybe the deal is that Palantir gets more personal data to throw in a national profile database.