Hacker News: slackwaredragon

New comment by slackwaredragon in "VoRS: Vo(IP) Simple Alternative to Mumble"

slackwaredragon — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 13:43:03 +0000

I remember landlines fondly, it felt like I could hear people better back then. At the same time, I also remember the 4khz cutoff. It was the reason music sucked over landlines. Like if you were listening to music with a friend from highschool over the phone, it'd have no depth and you couldn't understand half of it from lyrics to beats. Hold music was a lot worse back then, these days it doesn't sound near as bad.

I think for a lot of us later Gen-X and older Millennials, as we age our ears don't work as well as they used to. Especially those of us like me that didn't heed good ear protection. I can't speak for everyone, but I suspect if today me tried to talk to someone on a landline back in the early 90s it'd still suck as bad as it feels like it does with cellphones today. We get more range with our phones now but our ears have a harder time processing it.

Just a thought.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics"

slackwaredragon — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 16:55:07 +0000

A lot of people can't look beyond their own generation and if it's something that takes 20-30 years to realize they just simply think it's too difficult. I see this with my generation (Gen-X), newer generations and even older generations.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "BMW's Ultimate Driving Machine, for Driving Through Gunfire and Grenades"

slackwaredragon — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 14:41:22 +0000

I ran into an old diplomat BMW 7-series in the junkyard in the 90s and that thing was so cool. It had a gun holster in the rear arm rest, like 2" thick windows, probably weighed like 7,000lb from all the armor and everything.

Which has me thinking, all this is cool, but the EV portion and all that weight just feels like you'll be a heavily armored sitting duck if you can't get away quick enough and the battery runs out. Probably doesn't matter though, even if it has 200-mile range this vehicle will probably be used at most within 20-50 miles of its home base.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Show HN: Honda Civic Infotainment Reverse-Engineering"

slackwaredragon — Thu, 25 May 2023 13:14:35 +0000

It's actually probably running Android Automotive 4.2.2 (as opposed to straight android auto). I encountered this in my journey in to the Pioneer AVH-W4500nex after the internal SDcard failed (here's my post http://avic411.com/index.php?/topic/90861-fix-sdcard-failed-...)

You should have no problem using one of the available rootkits for 4.2.2. That's how I got root on my pioneer. You can find out a lot of interesting stuff binwalking the firmware. Stuff like diag menus and such, at least in the Pioneer stuff.

Yes, you can run your own launcher and apps on it. Probably stable once you figure out what customizations they made.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Solar farms took over California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’"

slackwaredragon — Mon, 22 May 2023 10:52:10 +0000

This right here. Not just Wind/Solar either. We have a community that was built right next to a coal fire power plant that's been there since the 70s (the neighborhood was built in 2005) and people are trying to work to get that power plant shut down because they don't like it's smokestacks and how much it lowers their land values. If we were to shut down that plant, we'd drop 1/3rd of the power generation in our area. If that plant were to actually shut down they'd lose their collective crap because of blackouts.

So basically their argument is "We want that power plant gone but we don't want to feel the effects of that power plant being gone. FIX IT NOW!!1!!11one!!11". Maybe they shouldn't have moved right next to a freakin power plant?

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Searches for VPN Soar in Utah Amidst Pornhub Blockage"

slackwaredragon — Wed, 03 May 2023 23:26:02 +0000

I guess it doesn't take long to fall back on old habits when you're in the trenches though. A lot of translated intercepted calls posted at https://www.youtube.com/@insightsfromukraineandrussia and reports from the front line talk about drunk Russians like it's an epidemic of alchoholism. They also talk about drunk Ukrainians on another one of the podcasts I follow so it's not only the Russians drinking on the front line.

That being said, I have a few Russian friends that immigrated years ago to Florida and they're not big drinkers. They were all from well off families though. Kinda like here, I suspect alcoholism follows poverty.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Small SaaS banned by Cloudflare after 4 years of being paying customer"

slackwaredragon — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 14:21:22 +0000

I've worked with several EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems that communicate an absolute metric shit-ton of redundant data for no reason other than just because and bad programming habits. Banking and Healthcare thrive in redundant redundancy.

New comment by slackwaredragon in "Tell HN: Airbnb has no system in place when a host cancels on a renter"

slackwaredragon — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 18:30:28 +0000

So what you're thinking is if the US AG gets involved with AirBNB all these issues will magically disappear? It sounds like what might be needed is different housing policies. Our area bans short term rentals period (AirBNB, Vrbo or even private) and the issues have decreased significantly. It's also freed up more housing in our area alleviating the housing crisis (a little).