Hacker News: lambda_obrien

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Android Devices Are at Risk of Data Theft (2020)"

lambda_obrien — Fri, 07 May 2021 16:53:48 +0000

Alternatively, i bought my Google phone for 1000 dollars 3 years ago and get zero updates now. That's pretty sorry.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Implicit In-order Forests: Zooming a billion trace events at 60fps"

lambda_obrien — Sat, 01 May 2021 05:21:26 +0000

Check out http://btrdb.io/ which is a similar idea. It's a distributed database as well. It was designed for storing billions or even trillions of records for electrical data from hundreds of sources at once.

It was written by a couple of friends of mine and others, so I'm not sure how it compares to the article link, as I'm not a databases expert.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion?"

lambda_obrien — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 20:09:54 +0000

You're probably right, whether we have free will or not, we still cannot tell the future, so we should act as if we have it. This poster is clearly conflating their own life situation, which might limit them somehow, with the universe at large. I could get divorced and disown my son and run off to another place to start another life, but I "can't" do that because of my own morals and limitations for what I'm willing to do. The OP could do a similar thing, but chooses not to because of whatever thing is limiting then from that decision.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos"

lambda_obrien — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 23:00:49 +0000

Same here. I used to have to borrow, steal, or buy content, but now for about 50 bucks a month i can subscribe to a few services and get all the tv, games, and music I want. Until that changes considerably, I'm fine with the status quo.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "The real reason to end the death penalty"

lambda_obrien — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 18:13:11 +0000

There are better prison systems in the world than the barbaric ones in America.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 18:02:41 +0000

> true but politically inconvenient

Wanna give some examples or are you just dog-whistling?

New comment by lambda_obrien in "CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming"

lambda_obrien — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 18:23:12 +0000

The USG could kill it by using a 51 percent attack; the NSA must have rows upon rows of servers that could be repurposed for a week or two to destroy the market. Split the blockchain every couple of hours into several different versions, eventually there would be little chance to reconcile things.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "BPF for storage: an exokernel-inspired approach"

lambda_obrien — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 17:13:50 +0000

Imagine an SSD serving up query responses! I love it.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "After a remote year, tech’s shadow workforce barely hangs on"

lambda_obrien — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 12:17:53 +0000

I think we know that America isn't healthy in any respect right now. Part of that is we don't think it's necessary to take care of each other.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "After a remote year, tech’s shadow workforce barely hangs on"

lambda_obrien — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 01:56:22 +0000

It's called loyalty, it goes both ways, but American companies don't understand it today. You shouldn't just treat people like a tool or equipment like American companies tend to. Sometimes people need something from the company and the company provides, then in return the employee works harder when they can.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "After a remote year, tech’s shadow workforce barely hangs on"

lambda_obrien — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 01:53:44 +0000

That's a bad thing why? These people are just taking care of the people who take care of them and their kids. It seems logical to me.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 18:44:46 +0000

I'm a former SWO qualified Naval officer, as stated elsewhere I believe. I vouched your comment just to reply, because it's important to be correct. I'm not going into details about anything else, I've gone into detail elsewhere about this topic already.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 20:22:55 +0000

This is probably it, even between branches there are major differences, the Navy and Air Force both tend to be more educated than the ground forces which tend to attract soldiers and Marines who want to play Battlefield games in real life.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 20:20:32 +0000

Yes, and every officer since then has been drilled not to do such mistakes. The military fucks up like this sometimes, but that's one event out of millions of miles steamed.

Not defending this event, those sailors should have been court martialed, but your snarky comment didn't add anything.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 20:16:48 +0000

Frankly, your thoughts don't matter because you don't have the expertise to judge.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "The dispassionate developer"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:50:22 +0000

I used to be someone who did programming outside of work, but I don't have time with a kid, and further I don't really want to spend time fixing anything electronic any longer. I just use a console for gaming, my computer sits unused and I only use my work pc for work, so I barely even go on the internet.

Parenthood takes a lot of time, and I fear I'll never be able to find a new job because i don't have time to jump through interview hoops.

I'll certainly never work at Google or wherever, because they interview for so long and have so many requirements that it's impossible for me to even think about applying. The tech interview process is openly hostile to parents.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:59:53 +0000

Would you want to fire several hundred kilos of tungsten in a random direction while you're next to the USA coast, where civilians and shipping pass by all the time?

Edit: as a reply, since I can't post faster:

CIWS, in certain modes, do indeed track a target and fire at it, which could be considered a "random direction" when considering the maneuverability of the target.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:57:57 +0000

No submarine can come this close to the coast without being detected. Especially not in this area, there's huge numbers of Navy ships there 24-7 due to training, and all of them are using passive sonar all the time due to that training.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:55:11 +0000

Folks, there are very strict conditions under which a Navy ship can use weapons, and some unknown aircraft isn't gonna be a situation that they're going to open fire. You could be shooting some moron in an ultralight or some kids science project or whatever.

The US Navy is a professional organization, not some scared cops who shoot first and ask questions later.

Edit: I'm done here, but please stop all the military fantasy where everything is a threat and needs to be shot. This was like 50 miles from the coast of the USA, not Iran or NK.

New comment by lambda_obrien in "Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast"

lambda_obrien — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:51:11 +0000

As a former ordnance officer: lol

No one is going be the CO the opens fire on a non combatant drone on the USA coast, as you'd lose your command pretty fast.

Edit: I can't post faster, so here's a response to a reply:

I didn't peruse the logs myself, so I don't know the situation, but the rules of engagement are pretty strict, and also they may not have even had ordnance onboard for the weapons needed to take out one of these things. Not every ship carries live rounds all the time, and near the USA coast we pretty much never wanted to have loaded guns.

Like I said elsewhere, the US Navy isn't a bunch of untrained psychos looking to shoot stuff. Officers and enlisted are trained to put our lives on the line, not get scared and shoot everything that looks weird or threatening.

I don't get the bloodlust shown in here!