Hacker News: supernova87a

New comment by supernova87a in "Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network"

supernova87a — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:33:40 +0000

I remain convinced that the main successful business model in the satellite communications industry is to wait for the first incarnation of the satellite company to fail / go bankrupt / flounder, and then be part of the 2nd round of financing or ownership that comes in to buy it out and operate it... I don't know why this is the pattern but it seems to have played out several times over the last 2 decades that I've casually watched this syndrome.

New comment by supernova87a in "Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock"

supernova87a — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 04:53:05 +0000

You know that it was basically sold to be able to claim a more responsible budget that year? Basically selling off of an asset to record higher revenue. Like selling your building fire extinguishers to claim that you were able to pay off your credit card bill, and who cares what those were originally meant for.

New comment by supernova87a in "Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica"

supernova87a — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:04:55 +0000

I thought that the idea of roundabouts was that they lead to slightly more accidents than before, but they are of much lower severity than before (the 90 degree intersections they replace).

New comment by supernova87a in "My First Meshtastic Network"

supernova87a — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:02:08 +0000

Thanks!

New comment by supernova87a in "My First Meshtastic Network"

supernova87a — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:06:44 +0000

Has anyone come across a good semi-technical description of "how your node knows that its message got sent and reached its destination and can stop sending"? I'm interested in how this logic is executed when you can't be sure (I assume) that knowledge of the result will get back to you in a certain amount of time.

New comment by supernova87a in "Kilauea erupts, destroying webcam [video]"

supernova87a — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 18:47:13 +0000

I am severely tempted to hop on a flight to go and see it, but wondering if it's such a "once in a lifetime" thing to go see? That, and if it'll peter out by the time I get there, and $500+ to just fly on a whim and stay overnight.

New comment by supernova87a in "BMW PHEV: Safety fuse replacement is extremely expensive"

supernova87a — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:04:45 +0000

It seems to me an analogy that as a product is increasingly complex, the ultimate consumer/demander of it becomes more and more disconnected from maintenance, operations, etc. considerations and whether that system is well designed and serviceable.

Cars of a past generation were able to be owner-maintained (or understood), and therefore the owner had some interest in knowing that it was easy to maintain and would buy (at least partly) on that premise. Something that was a nightmare to maintain would not be so easily bought because the owners would soon realize how hard they were to fix.

Now, with a car that is so complicated, the owner is far distant from being the fixer of it until years later seeing a surprise repair bill. Even the maintainers are not even directly knowledgeable about the design and how to repair. And the information about its maintainability is a low factor on the buying considerations list. But by then you've already given the company the money and incentive to keep on building this way. And rarely (or extremely/too "laggily" does that information feed back).

It seems to me enterprise software systems have this problem as well.

New comment by supernova87a in "Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight"

supernova87a — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 10:25:04 +0000

I wonder how the incident was diagnosed? Does the FDR record low level errors that might've contributed to this? I thought that it only recorded certain input parameters and high-level flight metrics but I'm no expert.

If a radiation event caused some bit-flip, how would you realize that's what triggered an error? Or maybe the FDR does record when certain things go wrong? I'm thinking like, voting errors of the main flight computers?

Anyway, would be very interested to know!

New comment by supernova87a in "250MWh 'Sand Battery' to start construction in Finland"

supernova87a — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 04:27:02 +0000

I was surprised too at the 2nd sentence: "The project will have a heating power of 2MW and a thermal energy storage (TES) capacity of 250MW..."

and how a news outlet about energy could get such a fundamental unit wrong.

But given that later in the article it does revert to correct units (and the numbers are plausibly proportional), I assume it's just a typo. Strange that it hasn't been corrected even now.

"...It follows Polar Night Energy completing and putting a 1MW/100MWh Sand Battery TES project into commercial operations this summer..."

In FTC lawsuit, federal court finds that Meta is not illegal monopoly

supernova87a — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 19:29:06 +0000

Article URL: https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2020cv3590-693

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45970831

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by supernova87a in "Pyrex catalog from from 1938 with hand-drawn lab glassware [pdf]"

supernova87a — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 17:29:46 +0000

It is mind blowing to see the prices of the complex spiral distillation condensers at $5-10 each.

Today these are like $300 at least, and I'm guessing they cannot be made in the USA. (I would be glad to be wrong)

edit: ok with inflation from 1938 it's not so incomparable. But still.

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 07:04:07 +0000

I don't really care if you think people don't understand details of the job you do, or the system in which you operate. Your name is on the article and it's my expectation at this point that someone telling a story give me the original source when it's easily available. I don't need to know the complications or reasons why it isn't done, I want the right outcome.

If anything, you should be helping to cut through the BS layers and insisting that the original source link (or, even just the full name of the court case) be included with your reporting.

New comment by supernova87a in "WiFi signals can measure heart rate"

supernova87a — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 20:25:17 +0000

Hey, I heard about how utility pole inspecting helicopters are able to tell the good/rotten state of wooden telephone poles by the reverb pattern of sound waves coming off the poles from the rotors -- it seems to me the whole field of non-invasive sensing (and using existing/ambient emission sources) is getting pretty impressive.

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 21:15:17 +0000

Is it because journalists think of their special talent as talking to people to get information (which is a scarce and priviliged resource), versus reading and summarizing things that we all have access to?

So they rarely are forced to do anything but state the name of who they interviewed, and that's it. And puts them in the habit of not acknowledging what they read, as a source?

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 23:12:36 +0000

yup, I just saw that in reading the ruling in more detail.

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:32:26 +0000

You made me snort with laughter with how right you were. I in fact have 2 adblockers on, and I actively ignore and sanitize some of my history (like Youtube) to not get directed towards advertising or other rabbit holes I don't want to see, even though I never click a single ad.

But I do pay for quality journalism / news websites!

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:29:46 +0000

Is it not sad/telling that the reporter of the story couldn't summarize this in the story, but the bot here can? If there were an indicator of the future to come...

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:18:57 +0000

By the way, the worst laughable offenders of this idea are local TV news stations. As if to get the real insight on some world issue, I'm going to "stay up to date by going to KTVU.com for the latest on this breaking story!".

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:11:14 +0000

I guess they are unable to value the function that I am more likely to read and trust stories from their website if they give me the honest info about where their stories come from that I can further read (and rely on them to always point me to as a guide).

New comment by supernova87a in "Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts"

supernova87a — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 21:31:36 +0000

Why? Maybe stock price is just a reflection that whatever the penalty, even large, now there is legal certainty rather than unlimited risk.