Hacker News: polalavik

FAA to begin collecting user fees for commercial launches

polalavik — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:23:49 +0000

Article URL: https://spacenews.com/faa-to-begin-collecting-user-fees-for-commercial-launches-and-reentries/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47928975

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by polalavik in "Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing"

polalavik — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:32:44 +0000

slow is smooth, smooth is fast

New comment by polalavik in "Why I'm Not Worried About Running Out of Work in the Age of AI"

polalavik — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:39:02 +0000

so an employee at a VC? lmao

New comment by polalavik in "Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink"

polalavik — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:36:56 +0000

i don't get why more folks aren't just going for the much cheaper option like this https://www.solaris-suborbital.space/

New comment by polalavik in "PCB devboard the size of a USB-C plug"

polalavik — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:13:21 +0000

Why not usb c male?

Snail: File analyzer for software defined radio recordings

polalavik — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 07:11:26 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/spetca/snail

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47012369

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Cryptolog – The NSA's Internal Magazine

polalavik — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 06:32:25 +0000

Article URL: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fnsarchive%2Egwu%2Eedu%3A443%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2022%2D02%2FCryptolog%2Dvolumes1%2Exlsx

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46628838

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by polalavik in "Why the Internet Is Bad for Democracy (2005)"

polalavik — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:24:10 +0000

I think a deeper dive on this is The Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri [1] which argues, in short, that people have been enabled by the internet (which he calls the infosphere) and that mobilization via the internet has created extreme turbulence for systems of authority (which are still needed despite their existing issues). The people enabled by the internet have no way to rule, and in many examples do not wish to rule, but only want to dismantle the status quo without any meaningful replacement or solution leaving everyone in a vacuum of nihilism which is highly corrosive to liberal democracy.

[1] https://press.stripe.com/the-revolt-of-the-public

New comment by polalavik in "Show HN: Picknplace.js, an alternative to drag-and-drop"

polalavik — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:07:24 +0000

No because what if the list is half cut off by the page but you want to go to the bottom? If it doesn’t scroll the page it’s even worse. If it does scroll the page it’s not great. It’s just bad design. Also not intuitive. I didn’t read the directions and it took me a couple seconds to get what was going on.

New comment by polalavik in "Why do commercial spaces sit vacant?"

polalavik — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:08:17 +0000

We need land value tax bad [1]

In Los Angeles I’ve watched business after business close because their rent was increased by their commercial landlord only for the property to sit vacant in some cases (no exaggeration) for over 5 years!

Thats absurd. Also as a business owner who would like some space to work out of your only options are endless swaths of vacant industrial buildings that are tens of thousands in rent a month. I don’t quite get how anyone runs a brick and mortar or has space to do anything profitable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

New comment by polalavik in "Yep, Passkeys Still Have Problems"

polalavik — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 19:32:00 +0000

Exactly passkeys are confusing to the laymen (and not Laymen) because it’s is an orchestration across multiple services and devices.

If I’m using a passkey to login to my Gmail via chrome browser but used my phone what just happened - did it save in chrome? My Google account? My iPhone?

New comment by polalavik in "Yep, Passkeys Still Have Problems"

polalavik — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 18:58:59 +0000

Passkeys need a marketing campaign and UX overhaul.

I’m a technical guy, but I really don’t understand what the fuck is going on when I use a passkey. All I know is one day it appeared as an option and it let me login to things. I don’t really understand where it lives, what device it’s tied to, how scanning a QR code on Google Chrome on my phone magically logs me in, etc etc.

The user was not educated on this. Hacker News is the top 1% of computer power users. You gotta understand to someone’s grandma or mom or brother who works in real estate none of this makes any sense nor will they educate themselves on what it is.

New comment by polalavik in "Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration"

polalavik — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 22:44:20 +0000

This 1000%. The Ui is so convoluted I’m scared that I’ll leave something on and be charged a fortune.

New comment by polalavik in "Vibe coding is mad depressing"

polalavik — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 04:38:42 +0000

similar experience - i freelanced recently (embedded systems) where i was to interface to a "software engineer" doing the backend.

Every. single. time. we hit an interface problem he would say “if you don’t understand the error feel free to use ChatGPT”. Dude it’s bare metal embedded software I WROTE the error. Also, telling someone that was hired because of their expertise to chatgpt something is crazy insulting.

We are in an era of empowered idiots. People truly feel that access to this near infinite knowledge base means it is an extension of their capabilities.

New comment by polalavik in "Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration"

polalavik — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 23:02:08 +0000

holy hell google cloud is so confusing i just ended up using (a much more expensive) digital ocean droplet instead for a little project. I guess they only really care about enterprise customers who can burn tons of money figuring it out, but it made me never want to use it again.

Same with google ads - super fuckin shit UI/UX, super confusing to understand what is going on.

companies like digital ocean, supabase, etc can make money (from people like me) because they just circumvent the bullshit or wrap the dogshit experience (aws) into a much better experience. bless supabase.

New comment by polalavik in "Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban"

polalavik — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:58:29 +0000

I really really hate the term "troll farm" it completely minimizes nation state level propaganda machines down to something that sounds like its just one big internet joke for gags.

The cutesy 'fun' language of 'troll farm' itself deflects accountability from what are coordinated psychological operations. It makes it sound like some rambunctious kids in basements having a little weekend fun.

Ask HN: How did you get your first paying customers

polalavik — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 23:44:05 +0000

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141873

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

New comment by polalavik in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (Dec 2025)"

polalavik — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:48:59 +0000

https://paperright.xyz

A simple 50/30/20 budgeting app built on manual entry.

I found AI/automated trackers just meant i started to ignore everything. Research also suggests manual tracking trumps automated/ai tracking. You actually need to do the manual work to understand your finances well.

New comment by polalavik in "Ask HN: What Are You Building?"

polalavik — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:48:01 +0000

https://paperright.xyz

A simple 50/30/20 budgeting app built on manual entry.

Personal finance burn rate tracker

polalavik — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 21:45:40 +0000

Article URL: https://paperright.xyz/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083046

Points: 3

# Comments: 0