Hacker News Reader

namirezon Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

Good points! I’m not an expert, so I’ll wait for people who know more to weigh in. But as far as I know: (1) they still need to import basic necessities like food and medicine, and (2) despite heavy investment, they haven’t managed to build an intranet that’s fully isolated from the internet.

namirezon Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

Hard to make it airtight without tanking the economy. Since the economy is already tanked, I guess they don’t care anymore.

namirezon Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

Astroturfing much? I haven’t been able to talk to my family for three weeks. Friends who manage to connect are hopping from one workaround to another because IPs are routinely blocked.

namirezon A supersonic engine core makes the perfect power turbine

Well, even Blake knows that Overture is highly unlikely to survive as a product. Best of luck to him with this pivot. I really wish him success. He has spent more than a decade of his life on this project.

namirezon [dead]

What is exactly the point of this post? How is related to HN? Wish you best of luck in your surgery but this post if off topic.

namirezon Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

There isn’t much value in gravity assists from Uranus or Neptune since they move much more slowly than Jupiter and Saturn.

namirezon It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

No, don't use it to fix your grammar, or for translations, or for whatever else you think you are incapable of doing. Make the mistake. Feel embarrassed. Learn from it. Why? Because that's what makes us human!

I do understand the reasoning behind being original, but why make mistakes when we have tools to avoid them? That sounds like a strange recommendation.

namirezon Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

Again, it doesn't matter. You could apply for 100 candidates hoping to get one candidate accepted. For these firms, individual candidates don't matter. They want to get X number of cheap employees into the US per year. And they never file for a green card.

namirezon Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

Unfortunately that doesn't work in practice since the consulting firms submit multiple applications for multiple candidates to get one candidate in. I believe charging extra for each application is a good way to discourage this practice but I'm not sure if $100k is the right number or not. To me it seems a bit too high.

namirezon Tariffs on China set to rise to 104% on Wednesday

The largest and the most regressive tax since it impacts mostly the lower economic class that's already struggling with the cost of living.

namirezon A number of electric vehicle, battery factories are being canceled

That was the point of TPP which the US withdrew from in 2018.

namirezon I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

I still have my T61 thinkpad from 2007. Other than the dead battery, it works great.

namirezon SpaceX launches Starship Flight 8 - Loses attitude control

True but on the way down, two out of 15 Raptors didn't fire. And of course the Raptor on the Starship failed too.

namirezon SpaceX launches Starship Flight 8 - Loses attitude control

It’s a poor design. When you have 33 engines, the failure rate is 33 times higher. Although I’m not sure what’s the absolute minimum number of engines for a successful mission.

Regardless, it will go down in history as another unreliable design like the space shuttle.

namirezon A Letter to the American People

You understand that USPS is not sending you junk mail but some advertiser pays them to do so, right? So perhaps you are suggesting that USPS should increase the rates? Because otherwise your comment doesn’t make much sense.

namirezon Why hasn't commercial air travel gotten any faster since the 1960s? (2009)

Indeed although it wasn’t a fighter; it was a reconnaissance aircraft.

namirezon Why hasn't commercial air travel gotten any faster since the 1960s? (2009)

And they have not! Both F22 and F33 are significantly slower than say F4, F104, or F106 all designed in the 50s.

namirezon Why hasn't commercial air travel gotten any faster since the 1960s? (2009)

Physics has not changed since the 60s. Wave drag due to shock waves is still a thing.

namirezon Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

Obviously you’re not a pilot. It might be helpful for you to listen to a few ATC transcripts of emergency situations.

namirezon Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

How would you deal with all sorts of emergencies involving human pilots? For unmanned aircraft(aka drones) it’s a lot easier to implement unmanned traffic management (UTM).

namirezon Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

I’m also wondering why a full pardon rather than a commutation.

namirezon Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

I don’t get it. Was every non-violent drug offender in federal prisons pardoned or only this guy? If so, why?

namirezon Elon's IQ Shredder: Our immigration strategy accelerates Idiocracy

"He’s selecting for the smartest people, collecting them, and exposing them to massive anti-reproductive pressures"

Assuming the statement above is accurate, why is the fertility rate falling across all developed and even most developing countries, many of which also experience net negative immigration?

namirezon Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

I suspect most of our thinking is not in language until we try to articulate it to others.

namirezon Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.

namirezon Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

“ Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight”

Not true! The challenges are different but space is in a sense simpler since the reliability requirements for space are not as stringent.

namirezon Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

This sounds like a Lemonade ad.

namirezon Airfoil

It really depends. Up until the 90s Fortran was completely dominant. These days a lot of people have moved to C++. Important open source codes such as OpenFOAM and SU2 are in c++.

namirezon Airfoil

The case with gliders and U2 and the max L/D is due to the wing aspect ratio (look up the formula for drag polar). Modern aircraft have much higher L/D because they have long skinny wings and these wings are possible because we moved from aluminum to carbon reinforced composites.