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joecool1029

5,994 karma · joined May 11, 2016

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joecool1029··on Ted Turner has died
#4 largest private land owner in the US: https://landreport.com/land-report-100#top-100

Wonder what's going to be done with it now that he's dead.

joecool1029··on Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent
Hard to believe it's over 10 years since they first started pulling crap like this by downloading a binary to listen for 'OK Google' (including on chromium builds): https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/
joecool1029··on California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
Not sure that's citric acid doing that, it's probably bromelain, which can be used as a meat tenderizer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain
joecool1029··on Inventions for battery reuse and recycling increase seven-fold in last decade
> How do you deal with voltage balance when replacing one bad cell out of a whole battery?

Their BMS handles this. Read their reviews a minor complaint is that it takes 24-36hr to fully rebalance all the cells.

joecool1029··on Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
Around me these Flock cameras are spreading like fleas.

Also, local psycho cop incidents seem to be on the rise. Last year a veterinarian and her bf were murdered by her ex (a state trooper) that blew his brains out after[1]. Just a month ago next town over one of the officers was arrested for placing tracking devices on his ex. [2]

Around a decade ago I was harassed through the mail after a road-rage incident (plainclothes dude ran up to my car window after I parked to go to gym and claimed I cut him off, said: 'I'll remember you, you should be more careful'). He ran my plate and sent a vaguely threatening anonymous letter to my car's registered address. I opened a case with the Somerset County prosecutor's office of internal affairs. The prosecutor's office claimed there were no hits through the federal NCIC system, but in-state there was no audit log of plates checked through NJMVC, and even if there was a smart cop (or MVC employee, lots of people have access to it) could just ask a dispatcher to run it over the radio. They claimed that this system was getting moved to the New Jersey State police and it was expected this would have an audit log. So no resolution there, I found out who the guy was years later by chance when I saw him writing parking tickets and got his name off a ticket. I informally reported it to prosecutor's office at this point and they said something to the effect of 'Yeah, nobody likes the parking enforcement guy, if he pulls shit like this again let us know and we'll put an end to it'

[1] https://nypost.com/2025/08/06/us-news/screaming-and-gunshots...

[2] https://nj1015.com/clinton-police-stalking-arrest/

joecool1029··on Paraloid B-72
They seem to have figured out some general purpose ones like B-7000 though. But yeah, agree on specialty stuff.
joecool1029··on The Classic American Diner
NJ got snubbed in this submission. We still have tons of independent diners (around 450 according to this article: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1241959475/new-jersey-diners-... )
joecool1029··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
> but US tractors fall into the much less restrictive off-road category.

Sometimes. Above 26HP tractors do have to have emissions controls like diesel particulate filters now. Below that they don't.

joecool1029··on Claude Code to be removed from Anthropic's Pro plan?
Random data point: Guest passes apparently still include Claude Code in their Pro trial. If they are running a test this is a really sloppy way to do it.
joecool1029··on The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency
Maybe re-read parent’s comment? They were saying there are laws against libel/slander in every country, US doesn’t have such laws that would throw you behind bars.

I am confident in stating the UK has much weaker free speech laws and no constitution to base free speech protections on. FFS, this is the country a dude was arrested and fined for filming his dog doing a hitler salute. We have had a few cases not related to violence in the US but they usually end up overturned even when there’s a conviction (thinking of this guy as an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglass_Mackey )

joecool1029··on The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency
You can actually tweet/write agreement with acts of violence and advocate for it in a general sense in the US. The legal standard is whether that speech is a threat to imminent violence (encouraging violence at a specific place and time): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

Furthermore, defamation/libel is not covered under criminal law, it’s considered a tort so it would be a civil suit.

So no, not at all like the UK.

EDIT: But yeah sure if you want to try to defend your point, start linking cases to support the claim.

joecool1029··on Rare concert recordings are landing on the Internet Archive
They covered it in the apnews source. Takedowns are available but only a few bands requested it, most were supportive of the archive.
joecool1029··on South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access
> That was before websites were 40MB or more of garbage though so keep that in perspective.

Video is really where you feel sub-megabit connections limiting (youtube and social media). Sites not so much. But yes, it's a problem.

joecool1029··on South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access
Kinda surprising so many in the thread have no clue the US has the lifeline program and there's a few providers that will sell 'free' basic lines. It even became a meme when Obama was president: https://www.wikihow.com/Get-an-Obama-Phone
joecool1029··on Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident
> Now what about millions of photos of all the other families possibly affected by him?

His name allegedly isn't even clear on his own! Ongoing lawsuit brought by his sister. (Amended as recently as a week ago and discussed in a flagged submission here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47640048 ).

joecool1029··on New iPhone age and identity checks restrict internet freedom in the UK
So this is interesting. Apple's an incumbent, not some new disruptive company. What I mean to say is this isn't like a rideshare company that goes in burning money to build public sentiment while lobbying the politicians.

Everyone knows who Apple is. I'm certain UK gov has been in constant communication with Apple on how this is to be rolled out. They would have communicated intent and received feedback from Apple as to how they'll ship it. It's within their capability to lobby/advertise opposition to laws like this but logical option in Apple's position is to insist on a common framework countries could use so they don't need to build a different verify for every country.

I really do think Apple's primary opposition to not having E2EE is they didn't want to deal with the cost of complying with requests and the liability of hosting illegal content. That's the real pushback, because it's ongoing cost/liability to them.

joecool1029··on Apple's New iPhone Update Is Restricting Internet Freedom in the UK
I'm guessing Apple made the calculation that doing this was cheaper than litigating it. The slop submission in OP makes the claim that the law doesn't apply, but I skimmed it already and came to the conclusion it could apply and it will be up to the courts to make the precedent.

Part 5 is too broadly written: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/5

'internet services' is extremely broad and could include apple's own appstore, icloud services, maybe even their browser could be considered software acting on behalf of a provider.

Now of course they could be stretching, but OFCOM has their own overview that digs into just how broad they consider the legislation: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli...

With all this being said, I do think Apple probably could have fought it and even if they had to leave the UK market, they'd still be fine. They rely on China and South Korea to manufacture their devices so they would not be fine without these markets.

joecool1029··on Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers
Just gonna point this out since I noticed it a few weeks ago and notice is still there, Hetzner has paused selling new colocation service: https://www.hetzner.com/colocation/

So this is probably a joke site or a scam.

joecool1029··on Artemis II's toilet is a moon mission milestone
I couldn't stop thinking about the complicated U-boat toilet to allow discharging waste while submerged. One set off a chain of events that lead to its ship's demise. Someone decided to use it without consulting the toilet technician: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-1206
joecool1029··on Swappa.com for GrapheneOS compatible devices – Stay Away
Outside of a few states and a few product types (baby formula), they won't be fined. But yes, customer service usually swaps it out.
joecool1029··on One of the largest salt mines in the world exists under Lake Erie
The largest salt mine in the world is under Lake Huron: https://www.compassminerals.com/who-we-are/locations/goderic...
joecool1029··on ICAO issued new power bank restriction on flight
Except when it doesn’t: https://apnews.com/article/delta-fuel-dump-schools-lawsuit-s...
joecool1029··on ICAO issued new power bank restriction on flight
> then you’d have to deal with the ethical and legal issues of where it lands

Meh, it's a risk reduction thing. Aircraft sometimes dump fuel too in emergencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_dumping

Earth is covered with a lot of water too, if you could eject it... risk is approaching zero on dumping a flaming battery over ocean.

joecool1029··on ICAO issued new power bank restriction on flight
It's not even just a QA thing, consider the use case: A sub-ohm vape head is basically almost shorting what is often a unprotected lithium ion cell (18650 or whatnot). Phones meanwhile are full of temperature sensors, battery pack in the phone has some kind of firmware/monitoring, board on the phone has a charge controller.

There are plenty of good cell manufacturers that won't have problems in this current dumping situation (and will have certain passive protections like a CID to cut the current if it gets too hot). Problem is people like cheap and there are sketchy knockoff cells without those protections and shoddy manufacturing quality.

If there was anything recently that forced the change it was probably the CT scans of the Haribo battery packs showing the cathode/anode overlap. This sort of thing should spook airlines.

Do we still have UL? Do they test battery packs? Why not make it a requirement to only fly with ones that pass lab testing like UL?

joecool1029··on Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
I was really expecting this to be higher not lower due to factors like particulate inhalation from exhaust/brake dust/tire particles. Also there's a lot of sedentary-type problems you get while taxi driving like bad diet habits that are not conducive to brain health.

Dunno, did taxi driving for a few years. Mostly suburban for a small fleet, not gigging. I'm thinking newer drivers that rely on smartphones for navigation won't get the same benefit.

I seem to recall that at least some populations of taxi driver they have exams like The Knowledge (https://london-taxi.co.uk/the-knowledge/) where changes in structures of the brain can be measured after learning it.

joecool1029··on South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
Maybe some WX nerds on HN can answer, but uh... would this help with reducing convection cells that appear above large parking lots? I can look at radarscope during summer and see them roiding up over really large parking lots in my region. Do solar panels help reduce this 'heat island' effect?
joecool1029··on LG's new 1Hz display is the secret behind a new laptop's battery life
So it's a Sharp MIP scaled up? https://sharpdevices.com/memory-lcd/
joecool1029··on Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people
chrome and firefox dropped support for it 5 years or so ago, it has had a lot of security issues over the years, was annoying over NAT, and there are better options for secure bulk transfers (sftp, rsync, etc)
joecool1029··on Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
> I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive” in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine.

Not careful enough apparently: Nicotine isn't that addictive on its own, tobacco is.

joecool1029··on GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information
I'm not making a judgement on it either way. These are things that are available to change in source. I'm just pointing it out, since others aren't aware of how things can be done.

But there are things locked out in the US I cannot get to. One of the things I've wanted to do for some years is turn on BeiDou reception, but it has a firmware geofence while inside CONUS. For Qualcomm devices there's no way that I've been able to find a way around this, it's not an opensource component. Just to preempt anyone saying it's because it's Chinese spywhere, Qualcomm/Tomtom engineers don't feel receive-only reception is a security risk (there's a report somewhere where military said the same, it's strictly a political prohibition): https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Re...

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