Hacker News: jwsteigerwalt

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "LinkedIn is illegally searching your computer"

jwsteigerwalt — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:39:32 +0000

LinkedIn is far from the only actor doing this. Browser extension fingerprinting is not new. LinkedIn‘s size, scope, network effects make this especially concerning.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app"

jwsteigerwalt — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 17:41:12 +0000

I disagree with the characterization that this is a security flaw unaddressed by Strava. Does anyone (French military in this case) really want Strava to be responsible to decide if the data is from a sailor on a military ship vs. a tourist on a cruise ship. Its operational security and the French military alone is responsible for polices and processes that maintain its security.

The idea that the public profile is the problem is ludicrous. The French military should have a problem with any geolocation data about its deployed sailors ever leaving its own networks.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "I'm OK being left behind, thanks"

jwsteigerwalt — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:11:59 +0000

At some point you commit the time to learn what you need to. I like to think of the analogy to SEO. The veterans in the industry are not who they are because they were at the front of the line. It’s because they have the 15 years of experience under their belt.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Fined $48k for using a jammer to keep commuters from using phones while driving"

jwsteigerwalt — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:20:55 +0000

This is 12 years old…

He was incredibly lucky. Assuming there was no other criminal penalties, he screwed up royally and gets off with a fine he will be able to pay and a life that was not destroyed by the federal government.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "The recurring dream of replacing developers"

jwsteigerwalt — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 20:44:03 +0000

Nothing says it like this quote: “quickly discovered that readable syntax didn’t eliminate the complexity of logic, data structures, or system design”

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Listen to Database Changes Through the Postgres WAL"

jwsteigerwalt — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 13:20:20 +0000

I have had great success in the past building business event alert systems for underlying salesforce data with Notify on Heroku data warehouse replications of salesforce. The potential for performance issues was always a nagging issue in the back of my head and this article is a great example why.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel"

jwsteigerwalt — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 11:53:49 +0000

Considering that Microsoft perfected change control in the legal industry (ms word’s track changes), something can be done to add a degree of change control to spreadsheets.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Drilling down on Uncle Sam's proposed TP-Link ban"

jwsteigerwalt — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 01:37:16 +0000

We are unfortunately getting to the point where the only option for non-power users will be to create an online account to run local hardware you own; just like Windows 11.

I run OPNsense with a collection of Unifi radios (local controller) with great success.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel"

jwsteigerwalt — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:58:15 +0000

Many fears of “AI mucking it up” could be mitigated with an ability to connect a workbook to a git repository. Not for data, but for VBA, cell formulas, and cell metadata. When you can encapsulate the changes a contributor (in this case co-pilot) makes into a commit, you can more easily understand what changes it/they made.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Scripts I wrote that I use all the time"

jwsteigerwalt — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:08:24 +0000

17 years ago I wrote a short VBA macro that takes the high life’s range of cells, concatenates the values into a comma separated list, then opens the list in notepad for easy copy and further use. I can’t begin to count the number of executions by myself and those i have shared it with.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "SQL Anti-Patterns"

jwsteigerwalt — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 14:28:51 +0000

That’s my rap sheet…

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left"

jwsteigerwalt — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 22:10:56 +0000

This seems to be a case where the error was that the 2nd diversion was to another commercial/passenger airport. The situation after it was determined Edinburgh was a no-go was dire and making it to an airport like Manchester was a luxury they did not have safe fuel for.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Making Florida More Flood Resistant Is Forcing Hard Choices for Homeowners"

jwsteigerwalt — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:00:57 +0000

A few years ago I spent some months consulting on a large FL based residential insurance agency’s order creation processes. By the end, I was floored by how much Citizens (FL’s last resort insurance) and federal backed flood insurance distort the natural balance of the risk/expense/exposure market. As long as the true cost of the risk associated with a given property is suppressed, moral hazard will prevail.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Meta exposé author faces $50k fine per breach of non-disparagement agreement"

jwsteigerwalt — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 18:14:39 +0000

Or severance in the form of X months or weeks of salary and benefits.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Meta exposé author faces $50k fine per breach of non-disparagement agreement"

jwsteigerwalt — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 14:19:02 +0000

In all likelihood the “voluntary” part was an exchange for accelerated stock vesting or similar. Could have walked away without that financial gain, signed the non-disparagement agreement to walk with the stock vested.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Dominion Energy's NEM 2.0 Proposal: What It Means for Solar in Virginia"

jwsteigerwalt — Tue, 20 May 2025 01:08:40 +0000

This swings too far. 1:1 Net metering is not sustainable for utilities, this is too punitive to homeowners.

I’m an executive at a non-VA residential solar EPC.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Show HN: I’ve built an IoT device to let my family know when I’m in a meeting"

jwsteigerwalt — Thu, 15 May 2025 12:32:25 +0000

Sonoff devices flashed with Tasmota firmware are fantastic for this.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities"

jwsteigerwalt — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 16:03:57 +0000

Still waiting for better information about whether the judge was uncooperative or lied/misled the agents.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants"

jwsteigerwalt — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:29:02 +0000

No, as a society we apparently don’t really care about these inmates. The social justice movement has chosen plenty of questionable causes, but neglected ones like this one.

New comment by jwsteigerwalt in "Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon"

jwsteigerwalt — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:54:34 +0000

On average… but think about the long tail…