Hacker News: vwcx

New comment by vwcx in "Apple Just Lost Me"

vwcx — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:52:35 +0000

I think the vast majority's friction points with liquid glass come from the other changes, like the redesign of Messages and the calling functionality.

New comment by vwcx in "Roc Camera"

vwcx — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:39:35 +0000

That's a solution that prioritizes privacy over reality, and I'm not sure we collectively want that. Mutilation of truth in the name of protection etc...

New comment by vwcx in "Primer on FedEx's Distribution Network (2024)"

vwcx — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 03:04:29 +0000

Was excited to read about a fascinating topic but the second paragraph under the 'Express' heading accidentally cites a virtual airline's website rather than Fedex itself — a problem that unfortunately throws into question the accuracy of the rest of the article for me.

Remarkably, FedEx has its own map of every airport it services, along with routes, flight times, operators, and aircraft types. https://fedexvirtual.crewsystem.net/route_map.php

New comment by vwcx in "Choose Your Own Adventure"

vwcx — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 21:46:53 +0000

Not only that, but he's regularly updating it.

I really quite enjoyed his 'Nine Things I Learned in 90 Years' essay: https://edwardpackard.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Nine-Th...

New comment by vwcx in "Our love letter to Internet Relay Chat [video]"

vwcx — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 18:47:53 +0000

Watch out - in some circles, it's cool again to be using Yahoo Mail...

New comment by vwcx in "Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts"

vwcx — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 16:29:00 +0000

Given that Prime now displays itemized orders purchased at Whole Foods, imagine getting your Amazon account flagged/banned for your mistake...

New comment by vwcx in "Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness"

vwcx — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:31:04 +0000

The FAA puts on workshops around the country with a portable reduced oxygen training enclosure (PROTE). You sit in the enclosure (looks like a sealed vinyl tent), they reduce the available oxygen and simulate hypoxia. You've got a clipboard with some basic math problems, a maze to trace, etc. The trainers continually engage you for 3-4 minutes as you slowly get more hypoxic.

As a pilot, it was eye opening to see first-hand what happens to me when experiencing hypoxia. The trainers were talking to me, and I was replying, but was unable to tell them what 17 minus 4.5 was. My pulse oximeter was in the low 70s. Two sips of oxygen from a mask and I was right back to normal. I learned that my first symptom (the clue that something is really going wrong in the cockpit) is tunnel vision.

New comment by vwcx in "Preschoolers can reason better than we think, study suggests"

vwcx — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:48:14 +0000

Looking back, what was your parents' relationship to anxiety (especially low-level anxiety)?

I have felt similar to your sentiment as I raise my 2.5 year old, and as I investigate more, true failure was always insulated by my parent's anxiety preventing a true experience of outcomes. "Don't climb on that ledge because it's wet and you could fall" rather than a climb and tumble off a 2 inch curb with likely no consequence. "Don't eat that meat if it's still pink", etc.

New comment by vwcx in "Preschoolers can reason better than we think, study suggests"

vwcx — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:13:22 +0000

This is tangent, but your comment reminds me of this essay that floats around HN every so often about how limiting school is. Young children are absolutely capable of greatness beyond what we ever ask of them, and most of us are okay with them growing up in the rigid, ordained box of modern public schooling: https://map.simonsarris.com/p/school-is-not-enough

New comment by vwcx in "U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat"

vwcx — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 19:55:43 +0000

To be fair, it broke as an exclusive to the Atlantic about 180 minutes ago. The NYT now has it "above the fold" on their front page. Unlike a story coming directly from a public source, it sometimes takes a bit longer to spin up re-reporting on another outlet's scoop like this.

New comment by vwcx in "A Letter to the American People"

vwcx — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 22:59:04 +0000

Why is your instinct, based solely on your observed experience, to reduce services for the entirety of the American populus rather than a less destructive route, like households opting out of mail delivery?

I suspect it's because you do receive "one or two important" pieces per year and because you cannot anticipate when someone will send them to you. That's the value provided to all Americans by this beautiful system.

New comment by vwcx in "How WW2 bombs across the Pacific are found and destroyed, decades after war"

vwcx — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:03:37 +0000

Spent way into the evening reading everything I could find on that link. Thanks for sharing. Woke up wondering how we preserve incredibly niche write-ups like this. Feels very much like Geocities the way it's hosted on a Wordpress subdomain. Obviously can verify it is indexed by the IA and archive.today, but what else can we do to preserve it past the next two decades?

New comment by vwcx in "The Delusion of Advanced Plastic Recycling"

vwcx — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:52:48 +0000

Perhaps. But go work at a grocery store or warehouse and you will observe the vast amount of plastic film used (and discarded). "Shrink wrap" covers palletized boxes and is used as a method to group cargo. Once you realize how much a single grocery store throws away in the course of unloading a truck and stocking the shelves overnight, you won't be pointing at a vending machine with a wrapped fruit as the most effective mitigation. Not to say personal consumer habit shifts won't be important, of course.

New comment by vwcx in "Poets' Odd Jobs"

vwcx — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 18:34:00 +0000

Tangentially related, but I enjoyed the brr.fyi three-part series on re-entering "normal life" after a year at the South Pole: https://brr.fyi/posts/redeployment-part-one

Decision-Making 'Brownouts'

vwcx — Sat, 18 May 2024 14:48:44 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/05/12/decision-brownouts/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40399489

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by vwcx in "The Great American Rail-Trail"

vwcx — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:14:38 +0000

I've enjoyed reading trip reports from the beautiful lunatics who complete the Pittsburgh to DC ride in under 24 hours. Here, one reports on falling asleep several times while riding: https://chrisshue.com/2020/01/21/pittsburgh-express/

New comment by vwcx in "20 Years of Gmail"

vwcx — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 13:01:48 +0000

I find younger generations fascinated when I explain how Gmail was "invite-only" in its early years. Some of my earliest archived emails are conversations with random forum friends who I provided with one of my six allotted invites.

New comment by vwcx in "Northrop Grumman to Develop Concept for Lunar Railroad"

vwcx — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:04:59 +0000

I beg to differ. An uncle purchased a beautiful lot for me right next to the Sea of Tranquility decades ago. Part of the selling point was that there isn't imminent domain on the Moon!

New comment by vwcx in "Good News: Cars Will Need Buttons to Get Perfect Safety Ratings in Europe"

vwcx — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 18:21:05 +0000

Even worse is that "ice is possible warning" uses the same tone as other much more critical alerts. My number #1 pet peeve on my 2019 Rav4.

New comment by vwcx in "Google OAuth Login Down?"

vwcx — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:25:21 +0000

I'm seeing major latency even on HN now.