Hacker News: sparselogic

New comment by sparselogic in "What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications"

sparselogic — Wed, 27 May 2026 22:11:36 +0000

Speaking from the standpoint of a user: I consider my attention a scarce resource that needs defending.

To the extent a platform has the same assumption, its interests are aligned with mine.

To the extent a sender does not have this assumption, I want the platform to defend my attention on my behalf.

New comment by sparselogic in "What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications"

sparselogic — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:58:38 +0000

> Over fifteen years the channel has been rebuilt around one assumption: the receiver's attention is a scarce resource the platform is obliged to defend. … As a sender you are on the wrong side of that assumption, whichever way the control moved.

Fascinating how the author openly frames the situation as the sender and receiver’s interests being opposed.

New comment by sparselogic in "Market design can feed the poor"

sparselogic — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 15:38:30 +0000

Straw manning? One of the earliest critiques of central planning was its inability to learn and respond to unforeseen complexity in the real world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

New comment by sparselogic in "Market design can feed the poor"

sparselogic — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 15:14:48 +0000

Funny to see “rationing” used to describe bidding, instead of the clear rationing approach used first: each food bank got an allocation of all foods based on population served.

Just because the new approach accomplished the goals of the old one better, that doesn’t mean it took the old approach’s name. ;)

New comment by sparselogic in "Launch HN: InspectMind (YC W24) – AI agent for reviewing construction drawings"

sparselogic — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:57:18 +0000

Two emails are in your inbox. :)

New comment by sparselogic in "Launch HN: InspectMind (YC W24) – AI agent for reviewing construction drawings"

sparselogic — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 01:38:51 +0000

One of them is interested. What’s the best way to contact you?

New comment by sparselogic in "Launch HN: InspectMind (YC W24) – AI agent for reviewing construction drawings"

sparselogic — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:22:27 +0000

This is fun to see. Some of my family are Division 10 contractors: their GCs love them because they spot design coordination and code issues early and keep the project from getting derailed. Bringing that to the entire project is a serious lifesaver.

New comment by sparselogic in "Massachusetts Bodged Transistor Authority"

sparselogic — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:55:12 +0000

I typically see “bodged” used more like “hacked”: fixed/made to work in a clumsy way, jury-rigged.

So I’d botch my attempt to build a shelf by cutting a board too short; I’d then bodge it into shape by screwing on a piece of scrap lumber.

New comment by sparselogic in "Pumped-storage hydroelectricity"

sparselogic — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 13:45:40 +0000

Berkshire East is working on a micro pumped storage facility. Interestingly enough they’re already net producers of electricity.

https://berkshireeast.com/the-resort/100-renewable-energy

New comment by sparselogic in "No new iPhone? No secure iOS: Looking at an unfixed iOS vulnerability"

sparselogic — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 03:10:08 +0000

What does the iPhone 8 have to do with this discussion?

The linked piece specifically refers to iPhone 6S and iOS 15.8.

New comment by sparselogic in "Beeper – Moving Forward"

sparselogic — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 23:01:53 +0000

Some smoothly disingenuous rhetoric going on there.

WRT FaceTime - turns out video calling had patent encumbrances. Apple was sued for massive amounts as soon as they rolled out FaceTime on their own devices. The VirNetX saga just wrapped up earlier this year. [0]

And Apple has opened up their Find My Network. [1] Other trackers, such as Chipolo, are making use of it. [2] Also, Apple and Google just today published the latest revision of a cross-platform spec to detect unwanted location trackers regardless of which network you’re using. [3]

[0] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-wins-reversal-of-...

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...

[2] https://chipolo.net/en-us/products/category/chipolo-spot

[3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-detecting-unwanted-lo...

New comment by sparselogic in "U.S. GDP grew at a 4.9% annual pace in the third quarter, better than expected"

sparselogic — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 19:04:28 +0000

I tend to read Harrison Bergeron as cautionary tale, not inspiration…

https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...

New comment by sparselogic in "In Plane Sight: Drug agents searching passengers for cash at airport gates"

sparselogic — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 13:05:56 +0000

For anyone interested in ending CAF abuses: Institute for Justice has been doing strong work for years. They help victims of CAF recover seized assets while setting judicial precedents that rein in LE abuses of the practice.

https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/

New comment by sparselogic in "War Is a Racket (1935)"

sparselogic — Thu, 25 May 2023 22:07:31 +0000

> The people in power have F-35s. What is your collection of (admittedly, unnecessarily powerful) guns going to do against that?

Military inventory, while powerful, isn't the end-all. Just ask Afghans about their experiences with two superpowers' machinery.

New comment by sparselogic in "U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers"

sparselogic — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 21:24:01 +0000

Left unexamined: how long ago and why did employers decide that a 4-year degree was the minimum qualification for general employment?

And why should someone without a degree be excluded from socio-economic advancement, thinking for themselves, or challenging the established order? If anything, professional success based on work instead of degrees is a challenge to the current established order. :)

The American Dream doesn't need to be degree examiners gatekeeping it. If you care about socioeconomic advancement, don't pull the ladder up by excluding people without degrees: instead, make sure you don't require folks to jump through hoops before doing work that they already have the skills to do.

And to the "authoritarian-reactionaries" dig: note that the Congresswoman in this article is pursuing this as a progressive. Same with the new governor of Pennsylvania: https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/in-his-...

(signed: child of an immigrant with an 8th grade education for whom the American Dream is alive and well)

New comment by sparselogic in "A group of activists got leaf blowers banned in the nation’s capital (2019)"

sparselogic — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 12:57:38 +0000

Saw plenty of leaf blower usage in Frankfurt, FWIW. So maybe some areas/cultures are just more fastidious about leaves than others?

New comment by sparselogic in "iOS 16"

sparselogic — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 22:44:21 +0000

One whole section of the keynote was dedicated to how HomeKit is being subsumed by Matter, a standard all of the major home automation companies are collaborating on.

New comment by sparselogic in "Trial diary: A journalist sits on a Baltimore jury"

sparselogic — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 13:29:56 +0000

Similar experience here. If I'm ever on trial, I'd be happy for the people I sat with to be my jury.

New comment by sparselogic in "I got pwned by my cloud costs"

sparselogic — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 17:42:13 +0000

A 20% reduction would result in ~£800k/yr.

New comment by sparselogic in "Device wraps around hot surfaces, turns wasted heat to electricity"

sparselogic — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 10:40:29 +0000

Even more effective: drain water heat recovery, preheating the incoming water with the outgoing waste heat.

Quick overview from one manufacturer here: https://renewability.com