Hacker News: michael1999

New comment by michael1999 in "LEDs’ potential to save our night skies"

michael1999 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:16:17 +0000

ctrl-F "standards" - zero results.

The fine article was more about the effects of bad lighting, and the motivation to change. It does not discuss the engineering and insurance standards that generate the bad choices. Perhaps you misread my comment. As long as the standards are left as-is, street engineers are going to keep doing as they are.

New comment by michael1999 in "LEDs’ potential to save our night skies"

michael1999 — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:39:45 +0000

We need much better engineering standards if we are going to fix night lighting. A simplistic lux-on-the-ground measure combined with cost minimization produces a few lights, with bare bulbs, up hight, with brutal intensity. These are all things that produce glare directly on the eyeball.

You need much less light on the ground if the eyeball itself has no direct line to the hottest part of the lights. Instead, the night-blindness caused by excessive bare lighting is "fixed" by adding more fill lights for the shadows caused by the first lights. Classic addictive behaviour.

New comment by michael1999 in "SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status"

michael1999 — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:01:33 +0000

What fraction of investors who chose Nasdaq100 over SPY wouldn't have also wanted SpaceX? The whole point is hot and tech-heavy speculation.

New comment by michael1999 in "My favorite keyboards"

michael1999 — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:36:49 +0000

Fun! Thank you. I wonder if I can find Mac keycaps and swap those in software. Their Mac versions are all full-size.

New comment by michael1999 in "My favorite keyboards"

michael1999 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:03:04 +0000

I wish I could find a Model M Space Saver with modern OS keys. I love the springs.

New comment by michael1999 in "Words Are a Byproduct of Consciousness. For LLMs, It's Backwards"

michael1999 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:32:04 +0000

It is not all obvious that consciousness precedes language. Hellen Keller provides a vivid description of her pre-verbal mental state as something less than reflective conscious.

> Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that unconscious, yet conscious time of nothingness. I did not know that I knew aught, or that I lived or acted or desired. I had neither will nor intellect.

https://scentofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-soul-dawn-he...

New comment by michael1999 in "The disappearance of Japan's animators"

michael1999 — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:12:28 +0000

Are there countries where trade unions are still active in training? Most places I see they are entirely focused on wage bargaining, and are happy to gut training for the young if they can maintain the generous pensions of the old.

New comment by michael1999 in "The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs"

michael1999 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 21:42:23 +0000

You do need to justify it. There is a great moral hazard prioritizing the driver's safety over pedestrians, since the driver is most in control of the danger. There is very little a pedestrian can do to protect themselves from a driver on their phone who mounts the sidewalk.

New comment by michael1999 in "The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs"

michael1999 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 21:38:54 +0000

Hard to get a plate if there's no VIN.

New comment by michael1999 in "What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance"

michael1999 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:56:11 +0000

Info-minimized oidc handshakes with certified identity providers could verify age-category of a user with no other information shared.

Consider "log in with apple" as it is today. Depending on what you share, a relying website might not even get your name or email.

New comment by michael1999 in "Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time"

michael1999 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:44:59 +0000

Landmines are not illegal, except for signatories of the Ottawa Treaty.

New comment by michael1999 in "iOS 27 is adding a 'Create a Pass' button to Apple Wallet"

michael1999 — Tue, 05 May 2026 21:36:52 +0000

Yeah. iPhone and iPad have gone backwards for my mother every year. Losing the home button was a disaster. Every edge swipe, or double-click is more trouble. The new stuff is great for me, but the original skeuomorphic designs were so much better for my mom.

New comment by michael1999 in "John Ternus to become Apple CEO"

michael1999 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 21:59:18 +0000

They re-write many apps every few years as part of their major design changes. These re-writes inevitably introduce lots of little bugs in uncommon workflows, and they often jettison whole features like AppleScript integration that cause real problems with users. They then spend a couple of years fixing the worst of these bugs, and things die down. Until the next UI-driven re-write.

New comment by michael1999 in "KLM cancels 160 flights due to fuel shortage"

michael1999 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:27:12 +0000

You can't really hedge a true shortage. You'll get some money, but you can't pump money into a fuel tank.

New comment by michael1999 in "DIY Soft Drinks"

michael1999 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:10:51 +0000

Bummer. I loved the glass bottles in the penguin, but I got tired fighting the durability problems. I got as far as researching custom gaskets and shims, and gave up.

New comment by michael1999 in "DIY Soft Drinks"

michael1999 — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:21:53 +0000

How's the durability of the Crystal? I had two of the original Penguin systems, and the seals broke down and the frame stretched. I'd prefer to go back to the glass bottles.

New comment by michael1999 in "Filing the Corners Off MacBooks"

michael1999 — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:58:05 +0000

The sharp points by the track-pad are bad design. Ive made some terrible decisions when he wanted to show off.

New comment by michael1999 in "Amazon rewards loyal Kindle devotees by closing the book on old e-readers"

michael1999 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:48:24 +0000

This closes the DRM hole in Kindle. The newer Kindle DRM formats have been robust, but the old DX reader AWZ format was hacked ages ago. Anyone with an old device could download their books in the old DRM, and strip it with DeDRM. But those downloads will end in May.

If you have a decent library at Kindle and want a DRM-free copy, I'd download it now.

New comment by michael1999 in "Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones"

michael1999 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:18:06 +0000

There are a lot of runners on mixed use paths wearing headphones these days. They are an absolute danger to overtaking bikes. A bell they would hear would be useful.

New comment by michael1999 in "Italy blocks US use of Sicily air base for Middle East war"

michael1999 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:27:23 +0000

That is a misleading headline. Italy refused landing to flights outside normal operations without a prior request. We don't know how the Italian government would respond to a request if the US took the time to make one.