Hacker News: quickthrowman

New comment by quickthrowman in ""In every study that considered the question""

quickthrowman — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:42:43 +0000

What is the point of parking lights? If you’re parked at night in a safe place you can simply turn your lights off. If you’re not parked in a safe place, leaving your regular lights on and putting on the flashers is the safest thing to do. If there’s bad visibility during the day, turn your lights on. You don’t need parking lights on a sunny day.

Can anyone tell me what they’re supposed to be used for? Headlights are better in every scenario, the existence of parking lights only seems to force me to flash my brights at idiots that drive with parking lights at night. Removing the option would eliminate that.

New comment by quickthrowman in "New 'super ice' 10 times stronger, bringing it close to the strength of concrete"

quickthrowman — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:13:54 +0000

It’s not safe to drive a car on 6 inches of ice. It’s enough for a snowmobile or single-person ATV. I wouldn’t drive a car onto a frozen lake without 12 inches of ice, 16 inches if it’s a typical half-ton pickup.

I live in MN and have slept overnight on the ice (inside of a heated trailer) before.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/safety/ice/thickness.html

New comment by quickthrowman in "California is building a $400M shield for Yosemite's most dangerous highway"

quickthrowman — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 12:19:55 +0000

Don’t engage online with people (or bots?) that hold extreme and overgeneralized positions like “The American West embodies fascism.” They aren’t interested in discussion, only promoting their parochial viewpoints.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Tesla Roadster"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 23:36:27 +0000

Automotive tariffs in the US are explicitly to keep the ability to make military vehicles in the United States. GM, Ford, and Chrysler retooled their factories to make planes, trucks, and tanks during WW II.

https://michiganology.org/stories/arsenal-of-democracy/

New comment by quickthrowman in "Tesla Roadster"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 23:17:15 +0000

That tank is pressurized to over 700 bar, if a pressure vessel ruptures under that amount of pressure, it doesn’t matter what gas is inside of it, it’s not going to be pretty.

New comment by quickthrowman in "90% of US working hours are spent on tasks not covered well by AI benchmarks"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:12:48 +0000

For one exterior GFCI receptacle in a bell box with a weatherproof in-use cover and one GFCI receptacle in a plastic box with 50’ of 14/2 NM-B cable, I would charge you $650.

I don’t do the work myself.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Hello Toronto – Waymo Is En Route"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 16:51:43 +0000

I’ve seen Waymo cars driving around Minneapolis lately.

New comment by quickthrowman in "What was a Token Ring network?"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 16:38:21 +0000

Why is the title written in the past tense? ARC156 is still being used in 2026, Automated Logic’s WebCTRL BAS system uses it for communication.

https://www.automatedlogic.com/en/media/AAR_CS-aug2023_tcm70...

New comment by quickthrowman in "I do not know how to teach kids this low"

quickthrowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:51:37 +0000

Where I live, the quality and safety of the public schools is directly correlated to the property values in each school district. Wealthy areas have great schools with nearly perfect graduation rates. Inner ring suburbs have lower property values and less funding and more students with problems. Inner city schools have lots of funding but a lot of students with problems. The experience of students in public schools is highly variable.

The socioeconomic status of the parents of the students and the amount of money available for funding determine how good or bad public education is.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Smart people don't think others are stupid (2012)"

quickthrowman — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 22:44:04 +0000

> There is not really that much deviation in intelligence among most adults.

Have you ever spent any time with anyone that makes less than $100,000 a year or didn’t graduate college?

I’ve spent time (both by choice and not by choice) talking to homeless people, mentally ill people, addicts and alcoholics, recipients of Section 8 housing vouchers, adults that aren’t fully literate, low-income service industry workers, immigrant laborers, and other marginalized groups. Some of the issues these groups face are due to mental health or impulse control problems (my own problems with that is why I spent a lot of time talking to addicts and alcoholics) but there is a wide range of intelligence in adult humans.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Donaldson Futuro House in Idyllwild, California, USA"

quickthrowman — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:02:50 +0000

Idyllwild, CA is s one hour drive to San Diego and Palm Springs and a two hour drive to LA.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Banks are now trying to offload the AI data center debt they just underwrote"

quickthrowman — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:52:12 +0000

s/stock/bonds

Equity shares do not have ratings, bonds have ratings. Everything else is correct, if their bond ratings slip one more level they will be rated junk which may force some holders to liquidate if they’re not allowed to hold junk bonds.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

quickthrowman — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:34:07 +0000

Dentists have far more incentive to provide unnecessary treatments than doctors do, especially if they own their own practice. When 100% of the profits go into your own pocket and you’re playing a game of imperfect information against a layman as a trained professional, the incentives are highly misaligned against the patient in a way that doesn’t really happen with doctors that aren’t solo practitioners.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

quickthrowman — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:29:16 +0000

> Furthermore, we find significantly less overtreatment recommendations for patients with higher SES compared to lower SES for standard visits

I’ll make sure to wear a Rolex when I’m at the dentist, jeez. You think they’d go after people with more money for needless treatments, damn.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

quickthrowman — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:22:17 +0000

The procedures a dentist recommends are influenced by the amount of debt left to pay off on their clinic buildout, or paying for their second or third home. It’s basically impossible for me to trust a dentist.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe"

quickthrowman — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 21:40:41 +0000

I’m curious, which system are you ripping out, and what are you replacing it with? I sell and run HVAC controls installs and do business with JCI, Siemens, Honeywell, Automated Logic, and Daikin. Sometimes we install Schneider Electric, Alerton, or Distech for independent dealers.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe"

quickthrowman — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:25:02 +0000

Yeah but they were controlled with pneumatics without an internet connected front end. There was also a refrigeration tech onsite or on call.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe"

quickthrowman — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:28:51 +0000

It’s fine to leave a pneumatic HVAC control system in place as long as it’s maintained. There’s no front end that needs security updates. A 40 year old panelboard that has been maintained is similarly fine to leave existing.

When you’re exposing a microcontroller to the internet that controls the conditions that physical inventory is held in, it’s probably best to make sure you’re getting security updates.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Nvidia accused of trying to cut a deal with Anna's Archive"

quickthrowman — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 22:10:23 +0000

There are probably zero consequences for nVidia trying the cheap illegal way before paying $1.5B for the books like Anthropic did in Bartz v. Anthropic.

New comment by quickthrowman in "Secret of Orange Cats Revealed After 60-Year Search"

quickthrowman — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 21:48:39 +0000

It’s almost entirely due to the South Park episode about gingers lacking souls.

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