Hacker News: playa1

New comment by playa1 in "eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business"

playa1 — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 20:56:52 +0000

I don’t see a problem. Isn’t that the official random number?

New comment by playa1 in "NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart"

playa1 — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 19:58:55 +0000

That doesn't explain why they took the SR-71A off display. What would they need the actual plane for? They must have enough engineering diagrams to build up computer models for whatever new plane they would design.

Why call up the old engineers?

New comment by playa1 in "NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart"

playa1 — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 19:51:30 +0000

My guess this started as a misunderstanding and nobody wants to admit it.

Like Four Seasons Total Landscaping or Tools For Humanity and Bruno Mars.

New comment by playa1 in "NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart"

playa1 — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 19:49:02 +0000

Is this another Four Seasons Total Landscaping or when Tools For Humanity announced a partnership with Bruno Mars instead of Thirty Seconds to Mars?

Maybe someone in power made a comment like "We need an awesome project like that futuristic black airplane from the 1960s" and through multiple layers of incompetency an effort to restore the SR-71A that had been on display in a museum for 26 years started.

And now its too far along for anyone to say it was a stupid misunderstanding.

New comment by playa1 in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

playa1 — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:37:39 +0000

I have children and I’ve never heard any arguments for DLS that make any sense.

Most of the time people conflate longer summer days with DLS.

The situation with dark mornings is winter not standard time.

My children are already waking to school in daylight this time of year prior to the switch to DLS.

As others have said. I would rather permanent standard time but I’ll take permanent DLS. Moving the clocks twice a year is insanity.

New comment by playa1 in "OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III"

playa1 — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 05:47:44 +0000

Sleep is the bottleneck.

New comment by playa1 in "Seven Engineers Suspended After $2.3M Bridge Includes 90-Degree Turn"

playa1 — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 17:08:52 +0000

Reminds me of this overpass in Lynnwood Washington.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/CKrJFsAjcTd6wbYn6?g_st=ipc

New comment by playa1 in "Suffering-Oriented Programming (2012)"

playa1 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 17:55:14 +0000

I call my personal methodology PDD, Pain Driven Development.

Fix the thing that is causing the most pain. Or is likely to cause pain in the near future.

New comment by playa1 in "Legged Locomotion Meets Skateboarding"

playa1 — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 23:04:57 +0000

I also was bit disappointed when it wasn't smart wheels. Then I got impressed to see it handle the drops and stairs.

New comment by playa1 in "Subpixel Snake [video]"

playa1 — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 22:09:36 +0000

I’m a fan of authentic retro hardware. That sounds like an awesome cabinet, I would love to spend hours and pockets full of quarters playing on it.

This post caused me to go down a rabbit hole about CRT simulation.

Looks like it is a thing.

https://github.com/blurbusters/crt-beam-simulator

New comment by playa1 in "Studios: Please don't spoil the movie we are seated to see"

playa1 — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 19:09:50 +0000

My younger kids hadn’t seen the Matrix and I thought the 25th anniversary release in the theater would be perfect.

Leading up to it I tried to create the mystery for them that I remembered 25 years ago.

All of the mystery was destroyed with the featurette.

I was so annoyed and disappointed. But they enjoyed the movie so that was good at least.

New comment by playa1 in "iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max"

playa1 — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:24:19 +0000

I would be fine with the Pro models getting larger screens if they would shrink the standard phone. I'm still trying to survive with my 12 mini for as long as possible until the battery dies. I tried a standard iPhone 15 for two weeks last year and I wasn't happy with the larger size and returned it.

The mini was a great form factor, fits in more pockets comfortably and the whole screen is within reach of my thumb when using the phone one-handed.

New comment by playa1 in "Mysteries of the Griffin iMate and the Apple Extended Keyboard II"

playa1 — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 19:40:26 +0000

Excellent article. Very well presented with just the right level of detail and drama.

I had no intention of learning about ADB or crazy Apple USB power-on hacks but here I am having had a great time while doing just that.

10/10 would recommend and now this blog is on my reading list.

New comment by playa1 in "1970 Clean Air Act was intended to cover carbon dioxide"

playa1 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 23:52:16 +0000

I agree with you but handing the power to the Executive Branch doesn't solve the problem.

The people need to demand more from their elected officials but the two parties have done an outstanding job getting us to fight with each other so we forget how the corporations are controlling everything.

New comment by playa1 in "I turned an old phone into a NAS"

playa1 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 19:42:03 +0000

I want to respond with a Beowulf cluster joke.

Then I remembered this isn’t slashdot and it isn’t 2001.

Now I’m reminded of how old I’ve gotten.

New comment by playa1 in "Hexsheets: Hexagonal Spreadsheets"

playa1 — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 18:03:49 +0000

This is crazy and amazing, thanks for sharing.

I now want Matt Parker to do a video about it.

He loves both spreadsheets and hexagons.

New comment by playa1 in "NASA Spent $450M on a Moon Rover. Now It's Canceling the Mission"

playa1 — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 02:07:37 +0000

I was thinking the same thing. Skip the extra testing and yolo that thing to the moon.

New comment by playa1 in "Show HN: Every mountain, building and tree shadow mapped for any date and time"

playa1 — Fri, 31 May 2024 21:23:35 +0000

A few months ago I paired for the tree data to figure out the best place on our property to place some planter beds.

I’m very happy with the results. It confirmed my guess that a specific section gets more light over the year even though there is a bit more shade in the mornings until late spring.

New comment by playa1 in "How many EV charging stations does the US need to replace gas stations?"

playa1 — Mon, 27 May 2024 23:24:43 +0000

I had been doing a similar 1kw trickle charging setup for 3 years. While it was sufficient for daily driving we would go on longer drives regularly, mostly on weekends so 2-4 times a month.

It was annoying mental overhead to have to plan out the charging so often.

Three months ago we ran 240v to the garage and now have 12kw charging at home. It has been a game changer! We don’t have to think or plan around the charging. Every morning the car is at 75% (the limit we have set). And if we are going on a long drive I can move it to 90% or 100%.

I really regret not getting the level 2 charger years ago when we got our first EV.

New comment by playa1 in "MOnSter 6502: a working transistor-scale replica of the classic MOS 6502"

playa1 — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 05:50:27 +0000

Projects like this are a great way to appreciate how much can fit into an IC.

Reminds me of the Megaprocessor project.

https://www.megaprocessor.com/index.html