2401
My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)
When I owned Piper N47943, a four seat single engine airplane, I thought it prudent not to fly myself to assignments. I did not want the…
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
2402
Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
The American plane, a 22 year old Boeing 777-200 (registration N754AN) crossed in front of the Delta jet that was in its takeoff roll. Air traffic control saw this happening and at almost the last possible moment called out to Delta to abort takeoff, out of fear the two planes would collide ("Shit! Delta 1943 cancel…
2403
Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent
Preface: I don’t use iCloud. I don’t use an Apple ID. I don’t use the Mac App Store. I don’t store photos in the macOS “Photos” application, even locally. I…
2404
I'm shadow banned by DuckDuckGo and Bing
My personal site has zero pages indexed by DuckDuckGo and Bing and even searches for my URL return zero results. This post is a description of the problem and the start of my journey to fix it.
2405
Strava raises prices but can’t tell you how much it costs anymore
Some days, I just can’t decide if Strava tries hard to hurt their reputation, or, if it just comes naturally. Today, however, I’m left flabbergasted.
2406
Setting the bozo bit on Apple
The other day I was fighting once again with Apple Music. Not the service, the app. What I wanted to do was simple: I have some practice ...
2407
ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving
If an algorithm is the death of high school English, maybe that's an okay thing.
2408
Liu Cixin's Technologies of the Future
Highlight of cool technologies mentioned in "The Dark Forest".
2409
The UK is wasting a lot of wind power
The UK discarded 6% of its windpower last year, at a cost of almost £1bn. What’s going on, and how can we fix it?
2410
The Style Guide for America’s Highways
Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs you pass on the highway. That is because America’s roads and highways have a big, fat style guide.
2411
Tech companies are irrational pop cultures
How to make better software with systems-thinking
2412
Douglas Adams on Hypercard and new educational models
Douglas Adams on Hypercard + New Educational Models
2413
Crisis over The Atlantic: The near crash of Air Transat flight 236
How a series of errors on the ground and in the air caused a fully loaded passenger jet to run out of fuel in the mid-Atlantic.
2414
'Terminator' 1 and 2 Save Their Reveals for the Right Time
And Other Thoughts on James Cameron's Classic
2415
The time I yoga-balled an Apple store employee
My personal website and blog
2416
2417
How transportation technologies shaped empires
For thousands of years, a hidden rule limited the size of empires, unbeknownst to their rulers.
2418
2419
Please Sell My Personal Information
I accidentally clicked the "do not sell my personal information" link at the bottom of your website.
2420
Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
After the wave of layoffs at Meta (previously known as Facebook) in November of 2022, I recall messages in the Facebook group for former employees discussing how to handle elements of the redundancy process, like if it was possible to max out retirement saving contributions, or spending gym benefits whilst
2421
Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
The world has enough lithium, but we need to scale up production this decade.
2422
On-demand learning comes at the cost of conceptual understanding
Everyone has heard about the so-called “types of learning styles” auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and so on. And almost everything has been said about it. But what if there is a different categorization of learning? Maybe one that gives more inside? Well, I think there is. This time we split the act of learning just…
2423
Globalization is dead and no one is listening
This is the end of the beginning.
2424
The expanding dark forest and generative AI
Proving you're a human on a web flooded with generative AI content
2425
2426
South Korea’s online security dead end
Websites in South Korea often require installation of “security applications.” Not only do these mandatory applications not help security, way too often they introduce issues.
2427
The infrastructure behind ATMs
ATMs are connected to banks by networks which operate little-understood payment rails.
2428
Rant: Year of Linux on the desktop
A rant about "year of Linux on the desktop" from a tired old man. I've been part of the Linux community since before Linux was called Linux. Over the years there's been many people telling me directly that Linux is silly or wrong or imperfect, or that free and open source software is foolish or pointless. A lot more…
2429
The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (2005)
An allegory against complacency about aging and death.
2430
The internet wants to be fragmented
Throwing the whole world into a single room together doesn't work.