Hacker News: thatcat

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:49:03 +0000

How would you know how many vehicles there are when it separates late? Some Iranian munitions have 80 vehicles. Maybe they don't have the fastest hypersonics or large payloads in them, but it seems like the combination of high speed + multiple vehicles + late separation poses an extreme challenge to these systems. I'm sure he's exaggerating or has biased sample data, but the missile intercept marketing team seems to be exaggerating quite a bit as well. There are many videos that seem to show them squirming around in the sky like lost sperm and then blowing up without hitting the missile and falling to the ground.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:40:07 +0000

I mean even a cursory analysis will show that it's physically impossible for it to work against multiple vehicles/decoys. They also make the "stealth" f35, their contracts for this stuff is from Jan - probably will still make money from US/Saudi, but good luck selling to Germany or Japan.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:53:52 +0000

Lockheed martin PAC3 manufacturer is down 11% this month.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:51:08 +0000

Iran copied oreshnik system, added decoys and other stuff, patriot is not effective against hypersonic, multiple vehicle missiles or decoys (which would require 1 patriot per vehicle) and is dependent on 2 radar systems functioning in the correct locations and the correct angle of attack from firing location. See Ted Postol's coverage https://www.youtube.com/live/Q2yQ3kBAQIk?si=JLvN2mVleKv64YDs. Even patriot is <5-10% effective in footage review from early Iran conflict before they started using hypersonic multiple vehicle missiles.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:43:01 +0000

Pretty sure the big losers are US missile intercept systems manufactures since they've basically been outed as useless so I'm not sure who would want to buy them now. And Israel, of course, who is getting struck as a result of their over reliance on these systems. US bases are being wrecked, all the radar systems are gone, several carriers damaged - not sure that is no damage.

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 22:23:03 +0000

this is just gypsum in case anyone was wondering

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:28:17 +0000

Clover fixes nitrogen and roots help stabilize the voids in the soil. They sell seed mixes called "ground cover mix" that includes other plants and will help keep the soil from recompacting when it rains and keeps weeds at bay.

New comment by thatcat in "Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog's chip reunites with him after 11y"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:32:23 +0000

You might need something like rebar to stick in the back of the mouth and pull back when that doesn't work

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:07:44 +0000

When it's wet, but not saturated - like 1-2 days after a rain - you can decompact the soil with a strong metal broadfork and leave the soil in large block aggregates. This keeps the soil structure and maintains some fungal web connections. Add nutrients, wood chips, stick and sand below aggregates and in cracks. Cover with compost and plant clover to cover.

New comment by thatcat in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

thatcat — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:48:30 +0000

Would you say the scarcity is what starts the corruption?

Like you can't get a plumber so you have to use your personal network or there aren't enough tickets so you have to obtain one through your personal network, etc?

New comment by thatcat in "Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little"

thatcat — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:43:11 +0000

They never solved any cases, only provided a warm lead once a day. If they solved many, they would be proud and say N cases solved. In this case N must be an embarrassingly small number since they don't use concrete language. It's like offering 5500$ to anyone that offers any information on any crime.

New comment by thatcat in ""Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Dow"

thatcat — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:24:24 +0000

wouldn't it be DoW, like DoD?

New comment by thatcat in "A simple web we own"

thatcat — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 16:33:31 +0000

municipally owned fiber isnt that rare or complicated

New comment by thatcat in "Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet"

thatcat — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 02:28:44 +0000

A phrase like I'm more trained in science is an appeal to authority, which is pretty suspicious, as is not trusting your own observations. How do you trust the data you collect?

feel in this case is a muscle contraction not psychological as you're suggesting

New comment by thatcat in "Micropayments as a reality check for news sites"

thatcat — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:21:24 +0000

After Bernie got shuffled out in 16 I'm not sure anyone cares believes that primaries matter either.

New comment by thatcat in "Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet"

thatcat — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:14:55 +0000

It's not about how it looks aesthetically, you can feel your eye muscles release tension when you go from light to dark mode.

New comment by thatcat in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"

thatcat — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 14:23:15 +0000

A educational program using "your future earnings" as collateral only really has a claim to some percentage of the delta between what you earn and what you would earn without the degree (after 4 years experience), which would incentivize them to not to structure programs in a wasteful manner or misrepresent the future economic value of a given program.

In many cases, that delta is negative. The school and lender should at least be forced to disclose that reality when you're filing FAFSA and taking secured loans.

New comment by thatcat in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"

thatcat — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:24:03 +0000

I'm not sure that is accurate. You need a borrower to do that. If there were other low risk borrowers they would also lend them money, it's not a zero sum game. I'm no banker, but pretty sure the bank doesn't lend itself fractionally reserved loans and buy t-bonds.

New comment by thatcat in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"

thatcat — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:16:10 +0000

The money can't be spent on a house or any useful asset that could be resold. They wouldn't give you a loan for that at 18 because it'd be irresponsible since they know you don't know anything about finance or economics as you likely don't have an education yet. They'll give you a high interest credit card with a 500 dollar limit to buy what you want though.

New comment by thatcat in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"

thatcat — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:10:17 +0000

so take the money back from the universities in all cases where they negligently misrepresented the future job market of the field of study to the borrowers or what?