Hacker News: ptaipale

New comment by ptaipale in "Ukraine War Rips Veil Off of US Weapons Superiority"

ptaipale — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:00:11 +0000

There's no reason to say that any war with Russia or China will have nukes.

Russia has been bluffing with this all the time, drawing "red lines" which will cause nuclear war - giving anything to Ukraine will have a nuclear response; giving artillery weapons to Ukraine will start nuclear war; giving HIMARS launcers to Ukraine; giving F-16 to Ukraine; giving ATACMS to Ukraine; saying Ukraine can shoot at all legal targets and not just those within its own borders will start a nuclear war... and yet there is no nuclear war.

In reality, a nuclear war cannot be won, but Russia is preparing for a big war or aggression against Western countries using conventional weapons, and is using nukes as a psychological weapon to extort and have its way and allow territorial expansion through wars of conquest using conventional weapons.

New comment by ptaipale in "Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map"

ptaipale — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 17:56:27 +0000

The linked page already says that it reports on the constellation, not just GPS:

"The map uses are color coded overlay to indicate low (green) to high (red) levels of interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). Often just referred to as GPS, there are actually multiple systems beside the US GPS constellation, such as Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou, and others."

New comment by ptaipale in "Why you've never been in a plane crash"

ptaipale — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:02:46 +0000

It's basically the essence of aviation safety work.

If one concentrates on blaming individuals, the system is not fixed.

New comment by ptaipale in "Why you've never been in a plane crash"

ptaipale — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:01:14 +0000

In fact about 90 % of plane crashes are survivable and people read about their own accidenyäts.

New comment by ptaipale in "British man appears in court over bomb joke sent in private message"

ptaipale — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:08:48 +0000

Actual terrorists are, in fact, sometimes quite dumb and naive.

New comment by ptaipale in "Ransomware attack affecting Tietoevry's services to some customers in Sweden"

ptaipale — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:00:52 +0000

Certainly unrelated. And when compared to the biggest competition (Apotti/Epic) it's a shining light of sanity... though some other providers have better user experiences.

New comment by ptaipale in "What the Russian Invasion Has Done to Ukraine"

ptaipale — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 08:46:37 +0000

And Russia proudly picked up the pieces and wants to carry on. Even with the UN Security Council permanent seat, which is a disgrace.

DDoS attacks slow down Citizens' Initiative signing in Finland

ptaipale — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:59:03 +0000

The recent dramatic policy shift in Russia has brought out two Citizens' Initiatives in the Finnish government's net portal. Both are about NATO membership in the country which is traditionally militarily non-aligned.

First initiative (open Feb 21) proposes a NATO membership referendum, the other (open Feb 28) proposes that parliament should go ahead to membership procedures without referendum, because of expected Russian harrasment and influence on the referendum procedures.

The government portal for initiatives has been very slow today. The authentication to sign any of the initiatives is done either by a person ID smartcard, or bank-based identification. Most people use the bank authentication (in most cases 2FA using mobile phone) because they don't bother with smart card readers.

The first of the initiatives has already passed the threshold (50 000) which automatically brings it to the table in Parliament. The other initiative has collected 35 000 signatures in 30 hours, meaning it will also pass the threshold tomorrow, despite many people not being able to sign it due to bank connections failing under DDoS.

YLE (state broadcaster) news about the attack: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12338542

Initiative 1 (referendum): https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/9866 Initiative 2 (parliament direct decision): https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/9997

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30518421

Points: 213

# Comments: 37

New comment by ptaipale in "How should net metering affect your electric bill?"

ptaipale — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:18:47 +0000

District heating from nuclear used to be a no-no but has recently gained momentum in Finland (as an idea). Build an SMR near the city for electricity, and use the excess heat for district warming (which is needed during most of the year).

New comment by ptaipale in "A UX designer walks into a Tesla Bar"

ptaipale — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 08:41:19 +0000

This is common in newer cars in Europe - if you brake so hard that ABS is activated, the brake lights will flash / pulse.

I suppose regulations do not allow it in the U.S. but at least here it can be programmed on/off via service terminals.

Random example from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJk-rJpgF1o&t=108s

New comment by ptaipale in "A UX designer walks into a Tesla Bar"

ptaipale — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 22:26:08 +0000

Indeed. What is the largest button I have in my Renault's dash? It's the triangle-shaped hazard light switch. Do I ever use it? I hope not. Do I want it to be that big? Yes, I do.

New comment by ptaipale in "Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)"

ptaipale — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:17:21 +0000

"Very close" is still rubbish. As that article of the recording says, "Mannerheim did not wish to greet Hitler at his headquarters, as it would have appeared like a state visit." But they of course did have a discussion about the war with a common enemy.

I won't run after the otehr moving goalposts.

New comment by ptaipale in "Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)"

ptaipale — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 19:13:11 +0000

Finns and Germans definitely were not allies in 1939-1940: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was in force, and when Soviets attacked Finland, Germany acted on its part and blockaded the Baltic Sea so that any aid from Western allies to Finland would have had to come through Sweden and/or Norway. That was a no-go.

I suspect you are trolling.

New comment by ptaipale in "Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)"

ptaipale — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 19:10:13 +0000

That's complete rubbish.

There were German-minded Finns, also in government (eg interior minister 1941-1943 Horelli) but president from 1940, Ryti, was an Anglophile, and Mannerheim was cosmopolitan, a veteran officer of the Tsar's army, and had long considered St. Petersburg his home city. He had a hard time not showing how he disliked Hitler. Diplomacy with co-belligerents - and opponents - is then another matter.

And the swastika was, of course, the Finnish Air Force logo already in 1918 when Hitler was still in trenches on the Western front and no one knew anything of Nazis.

New comment by ptaipale in "Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)"

ptaipale — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 21:23:42 +0000

The French did attack within a week of the attack on Poland, using dozens of divisions and tanks and artillery, and came up with about 2000 casualties against 600 on the German side. But the French had not even fully mobilised by the time in mid-September when the Soviets joined in the attack against Poland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Offensive

New comment by ptaipale in "Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)"

ptaipale — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 07:14:32 +0000

And the Swedes did not attack German train transports because the traffic was according to a pass-through agreement.

USSR and Germany forced these pass-through agreements after Winter War. USSR was in pact with Germany, and both acquired permission to transit troops to their bases, Soviets to Hanko (Hangö) that it took in Winter War, and Germany to northern Norway which it took in April-June 1940. Sweden was surrounded from three sides by Germany, and in the fourth side was Finland badly weakened by Soviets attacking, with increasing Soviet pressure also after Winter War.

New comment by ptaipale in "Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado"

ptaipale — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 09:13:05 +0000

Herd immunity has been predicted since about May 2020 (in Sweden) and there is always far too optimism about it. We now know that a recovered infection does not produce permanent immunity.

New comment by ptaipale in "Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado"

ptaipale — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 21:42:35 +0000

Diabetes and obesity are not "almost non-existant" in China.

According to National Health Commission report, more than 50% of adults are classified as overweight, and 16.4% are obese. [1]

Prevalence of diabetes is also over 10 %. [2]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55428530

[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m997#:~:text=The%20preva....

New comment by ptaipale in "Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant"

ptaipale — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:26:27 +0000

Yes, and generally the age risk is so high that proper assessments must be done comparing age cohorts, not the entire population vax/unvax rates.

New comment by ptaipale in "Pfizer and Biontech provide update on Omicron variant"

ptaipale — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 16:40:38 +0000

I don't think so, but we can quite well follow it up here, for most developed and semi-developed countries.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

(As OWID relies on official data sources, they may be skewed or manipulated for undeveloped or autocratic countries)