Hacker News Reader

fhdkweigon Ask HN: Hypothesis: Cellular providers are deprioritizing voice calls?

I'm still on tracfone. Started their service around 2010 and other than a janky website, the phone service is fine. The phones are cheap (I think mine was sub $80) and use a $99 per year "PLAN" card that gets 400 minutes, 400 texts, 1.5 GB data that triples to 1200/1200/4.5GB because it is a smartphone.

fhdkweigon California is chasing wealth that has feet

Society has deemed it "ok" for a real estate transaction to take days or weeks to process and mountains of paperwork, probably because it is done so rarely in an average person's life. But stock trades are expected to be done quickly in minutes or even milliseconds with high frequency trading. It just isn't feasible to inject government paperwork in the middle of a transaction. Wall Street would revolt if they even tried.

fhdkweigon California is chasing wealth that has feet

The only reason it works with real estate is because they can put a lien on the house and block the sale of it. They don't have any useful mechanism to stop the sale of a share of stock, but since the government is involved in the transfer (due to the registering of the new house deed) of a house, they can stop that one.

fhdkweigon Starlink ground station in Poland hit by fire in suspected arson attack

If the Ukrainian military did it, I think they would have taken credit. They've taken credit for lots of major assaults, so I don't think they would hide this specific one. As for the other two options, I'm not willing to speculate.

fhdkweigon Women Who Sold Books Door to Door

Encyclopedias were sold that way in the 1980s. Someone would just randomly knock on doors selling them. My parents had a few "A" volumes of various encyclopedias because they would sell the first book cheap (or free) and ask you to subscribe to a mailing for the rest.

fhdkweigon What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

Did anyone else get weird deja vu from the sibling comment? And I can't figure out which one is the clone. cryptolobster posted about 1 hour after zdp7, but they both have good posting history.

fhdkweigon Americans' Drinking Remains at Record Low: Gallup Poll

Americans drinking "alcohol". I thought this was about depletion of potable water.

fhdkweigon What Capital Never Told You About Rent

As they say, "The sky's the limit." Just build taller buildings.

fhdkweigon NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

It isn't like the VP hasn't done impeachable offenses.

fhdkweigon US Treasuries Have Become Unappetizing for Foreign Central Banks and Governments

I'm not getting the reference. Is "planet serenity" a reference to the 12-step program for addiction or the planet Miranda from the film Serenity, or something else entirely?

fhdkweigon US troop deaths during Iran war exceed Pentagon count by at least four

I can't find the citation, but I vaguely recall him saying that if Kamala Harris was elected, she would start a war with Iran.

fhdkweigon The Shadows Lurking in the Equations – Underwater Islands

earlier discussion here: 89 comments, 11 months ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823141

fhdkweigon Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chairman, Names Son to Replace Him

Interestingly enough, Berkshire Hathaway is famous for never paying dividends (except once, I think), and instead use the income to speculate on buying new companies. https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/09/12/berkshire-hathaway...

fhdkweigon Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter

More discussion (95 comments) at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738091

fhdkweigon Neovim have a ~$800k Bitcoin donation sitting untouched since 2023

We slid down that slope a long time ago. Taxes are good and pay for my important things, up until the moment they pay for someone else's important things, then it is theft.

fhdkweigon I can't stop thinking about Papua New Guinea

That's the only reason they are uncontacted. If they welcomed visitors like the native Hawaiians did, they'd be speaking English today.

fhdkweigon Adversarial Fashion Makes a Statement on AI Panopticon

A pebble in one shoe will change your gait.

fhdkweigon Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils

> Ubuntu devs has been nothing good FOSS

Did you mean nothing "but" good?

fhdkweigon Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

> What updates does you car need?

These cars are more software than hardware now. And like everything else in the software industry, every product gets released incomplete and patched later.

Although the correct solution would be a USB port somewhere to insert a patch file rather that over-the-air updates that might happen while driving.

fhdkweigon I added a non-wi-fi Mitsubishi AC to Home Assistant

That is 64F. Not everyone considers that an ideal temperature.

fhdkweigon No Atlantic hurricanes by Sept. 12 breaks a 60-year record

Only in the Atlantic Ocean. In the Pacific, Hawaii has had back-to-back hurricanes for the last few weeks. Lala, Lowell, Karina, Norbert. They haven't made landfall there, but have come close enough to send flash floods and high storm surges.

fhdkweigon No Atlantic hurricanes by Sept. 12 breaks a 60-year record

https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/will-2026-go-down-w... says:

> Given the strong and still-strengthening El Niño, which tends to reduce the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin while boosting numbers in the Pacific, there is some chance that this season could end on Nov. 30 with no hurricanes.

But I am not liking this site. Both articles are mostly just restating "this is really rare" in 5+ different ways without explaining why. If anyone has a better site, a link would be most appreciated.

fhdkweigon Eating Fruit Skins

And extremely high in potassium (more than the flesh) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=potassium+banana+peels&ia=web

fhdkweigon We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Arday#Other_allegations

He was a compulsive liar (judging from the rest of the wikipedia page), and one of the lies was that he was one of the kids interviewed. It was a lie that was easily disproven because we all can watch those videos.

It is also explained in the link fortran77 posted that got flagged to death.

fhdkweigon Mind-altering drugs played key role in rise of Andean civilization

My spidy sense is tingling on this video. The related recommendations on the side include these videos:

In particular it is the thumbnails that look identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6NeLNYCGo0 The Zombies Of America! (i have never seen anything like this..) by Frank van Dam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snN0PNZVWNA Inside Philadelphia's Real Life Zombie Outbreak by Tyler Oliveira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htZCX1Y0ZiA THE ZOMBIES OF AMERICA (I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS) by Joe HaTTab

fhdkweigon All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

But Christians make a special exception for suicide. You can be forgiven if you kill anyone but yourself.

fhdkweigon Ask HN: UK Rescue Rocket Sheds/Houses Information

I'm having difficulty googling what a "rescue rocket" is. I keep finding info on a video game and safety during space travel. What does "rocket" mean in a 1800s context?

I found this: https://museum.maritimearchaeologytrust.org/2025/05/29/rocke...

Is it a gunpowder rocket used to push a boat through the water instead of using rowing oars?

Is it just a gun that sends the carrying cable, what makes it different from any other gunpowder gun? https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/52937/

fhdkweigon 'Old Person Smell'

She is on GLPs, still only eats junk food. She is cognitively more alert, but it did nothing for her eating habits or weight.

The problem is, if when you go shopping you only pick up junk food, when you get home you are only going to find junk food. To eat healthy would require a complete overhaul on her life, and she has never been willing to do it.

fhdkweigon 'Old Person Smell'

I interpret that question as "what can I do to stop smelling it, because she is old, stubborn, and is never going to change anything she does and will smell like this 'til the day she dies?"

I have a mother that is a Type-2 diabetic because for decades she refused to eat right or exercise like the doctors told her. She has tracked down every medication known to man to treat the symptoms just so that she doesn't have to give up junk food. And she will never change.

fhdkweigon How AI is breaking the British state

Supposedly, there is a right to a speedy trial, and supposedly, if it is violated, they have to let you go without a trial. Don't know if it is really tested often.