Hacker News Reader

pilomon Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

Like what is stated elsewhere, when my wife wasn't working, we were on the ACA exchange. She's now working for fun again at a company that offers it as a benefit and so I'm on hers as it's a slightly better plan at a similar price to an unsubsidized ACA plan.

pilomon Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast

Disagree, the events happened in 2019 but the article was published this year based on FOIA requests that were fulfilled after 2019.

pilomon Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

I "retired" at 33 after working in tech for 12 years and saving a ton of money. With my free time I run a fun hobby business teaching kayaking which is way more fun and brings me way more happiness than anything I did in 2019 or before.

pilomon Spain passes law allowing euthanasia

The reductum ad absurdum argument for assisted suicide had been decent at converting many skeptics I've talked to:

There once was a man who fought in Vietnam who was burned by napalm. He had 2nd and 3rd degree burns over almost his entire body, lost both arms, both legs, eyes, ears and most of his mouth. And yet he survived for weeks in agony, a literal hell on earth, typing out "kill me" in morse code with his head.

Surely, this person should be allowed to end his life as even people of faith should see this as a worse state than hell.

Therefore if this person should be allowed, then we just need to determine where the line is, not if it should be legal or not.

pilomon Ask HN: What are you doing about climate change?

I'm guessing within the next 10 years the non-sponsored "evil scientist" style geoengineering experiments are going to start. When someone builds the first balloon-floated tube to put particles in the upper atmosphere the world is going to freak out and it's going to be so cool to see what happens.

pilomon Ask HN: What are you doing about climate change?

Stopped eating beef and fish. Beef because the water usage required is extreme with beef in particular. It takes 12,000 calories of plants to make 1000 calories of beef. Fish because ocean acidification means my grandkids will likely never be able to find non-farmed fish and the fisheries need all the help they can get.

Energy audit at home. Better insulation, buying more efficient appliances, and thermal solar are often WAY better returns on investment than electric solar.

Work from home. Commuting to another building both makes me unhappier, is more expensive, and dumps tons of CO2 into the atmosphere for no reason.

pilomon EVs Could Make Dealerships a Thing of the Past, Too

Sounds like you're most of the way to needing some suspension work too. I've had to do struts in most cars around 120-160k.

pilomon Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

Holy cow! How in the world do you use that much? My old house in Colorado would use ~350kwh/month. Swap out that electric heater for a heat pump asap!

pilomon Trading Time for Money

"In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?"

Get a comfy bed. Buy comfortable shoes. Spend more money on things that make you happy and less money on things that others tell you should make you happier. Housing is a great example, there is a lot of evidence that housing size doesn't improve happiness but living close to work and minimizing commute time increases happiness significantly.

pilomon An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

This seems like exactly the measures I would institute if I just plain didn't have enough tests to test everyone who wants one (i.e. almost all humans). The secrecy sounds perfectly normal if the goal is to not be swarmed by masses of people who likely just need to stay home.

pilomon GoPro cuts workforce, changes sales strategy

As a guy who kayaks off waterfalls and stopped using his GoPro a few years ago, most waterfall drops don't look that cool from a helmet view either.

pilomon Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?

http://therecklesschoice.com

I traveled the US and Canada in a renovated 1989 RV with my wife for two years while working remotely the whole time. So I had a lot of posts about mobile internet and setting up a solar power system which I designed myself.

pilomon Google's Down

Looks like issues are primarily on the east coast: https://downdetector.com/status/google/map/

No issues with any google services thus far for me in Denver.

pilomon How Shopify Manages API Versioning and Breaking Changes

I think the parent is saying that API's should be utilities and not applications.

pilomon Upgrading Messaging on Android in the U.S. with RCS

Yep, just noticed that today as well.

pilomon Mobile data: Why India has the world's cheapest

T-mobile's bad coverage reputation is undeserved today. They are easily on par with AT&T _IF_ your phone supports their 700MHz band.

pilomon Mobile data: Why India has the world's cheapest

Good plans come up semi frequently, you just need to know where to look. I worked from an RV full time for 2 years using only cell plans and I was pretty happy with the plans I had. I still use my Verizon Grandfathered Unlimited plan for home internet and routinely use >100GB/month for $80/month. That plus an AT&T connected car plan with unlimited data for $25/month and I am set. I spent a lot of time following https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/ before pulling the trigger on plans.

pilomon Hayabusa-2: Japan Spacecraft Touches Down on Asteroid

I used to work on near Earth satellites that had a <15 minute contact window about 10 times per day. Sensor requests and aiming commands would get pre planned about 2 days out with a gui that would let you point and click and it would package the proper commands automatically. Usually a team of ~2 analysts would work together to make sure all of the requests would make it into the upload package but always with a gui. We could also get a short notice request for data and could speed through the process in about 2 hours. Still just with a gui. The manual commands would never get sent ftp style because we only had short windows of contact because the dishes on Earth would only have the craft in the sky above them for so long.

Some satellites pay for time on a set of air Force satellites in Geo called TDRSS to give them continuous comms but those are really expensive and really slow compared to what you can downlink to the ground.

pilomon Ask HN: 30+ year olds - how much have you saved so far?

First thing I'd say with the new job is "maxing out" your 401k is $19,000/year not whatever percentage the company will match. If you can afford to put $19,000/year away, you'll likely retire before almost everyone you know. Assuming after tax income of $60k, you should be able to retire in 25 years: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=60...

pilomon Ask HN: 30+ year olds - how much have you saved so far?

31, married so all numbers are as a couple. Lived in DC for a year then moved to Denver. Started at a defense contractor then gave that up to work remotely for an ecommerce company for almost the same salary.

Net worth is about $450k, ~425k in Vanguard and $25k in checking/savings accounts. Of the Vanguard money, 2/3rds in 401k or IRA accounts and 1/3 in taxable accounts. Came out of college with $210k in debt (paid for both of us to get Bachelors and Masters).

Anyone who has questions about investing or anything, feel free to reach out. Email in profile.

pilomon The Acid3 Test (2008)

http://acid3.acidtests.org/support-a.png is a resource that page attempts to load that 404's now. I'm guessing that's part of the reason it doesn't score 100%. Not the browser's fault.

pilomon US Aid to Afghanistan Could Pay Every Household a Average Salary for 14 Yearrs

Change the title to say "Every Afghan Household" like the original article please.

pilomon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2019)

Why do you require a CS degree for your developer positions? Bad experience in the past or just to give your hiring managers a filter?

pilomon Tulsa Remote

Colorado is doing this too because tax increases go to referendum votes and we can't convince people to actually pay for school funding.

pilomon GitLab Made $10.5M in Revenue with Every Employee Working from Home

1) Everything gets a ticket to track it. Managers can't track "time in chair" so they need something else to track to know if you're doing your job. 2) Daily talking stand ups work really well on my team to just chat and get some "people" time in. 3) If it is a "some people work in an office and some are remote" situation, then ALL meetings need to be done on teleconferences. And, when the call is over, the meeting is _over_. No follow up chit chat about the meeting with between the people in the office. Some companies go as far as to say that you need to take those meetings from your desk rather than the conference room as it is really hard for the couple remote people to keep up with the non-verbal messages that can get passed around.

pilomon All U.S. National Parks Are Free to Enter on Sunday

What's your solution to parks like Zion that because of geographic constraints, only has 420 parking spaces but more than 2 million visitors per year? That is already 13 people per parking space per day (obviously much worse on weekends and less on weekdays). Your options are 1) charge people more 2) institute a permit system with a lottery or multi-year waiting list (this is what they do on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. How many people do you know that have rafted it?) 3) just let everyone's experience be ruined by more people than the park can handle. 4) Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

Those are the options you have to pick. Given those are the options, number 1 seems pretty darn appealing.

pilomon Cannabis is legal in Canada: What you need to know

Are you and your cannabis using friends white? Colorado actually tracks these numbers and has found for years since legalization that about 50% of "street" level sales are illegal and 50% go through dispensaries. Minorities are significantly more likely to purchase it illegally and whites are significantly more likely to purchase it legally.

pilomon Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?

I made a Myst linking book like this https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/myst-linking-book but it was way easier to do with a smartphone.

pilomon A South Vietnamese Air Force Officer and a Crazy Carrier Landing (2015)

Vietnamese people fleeing their country for helping the US in the Vietnam war: immediately brought to the US in helicopters and aircraft carriers and given refugee status. Iraqi people fleeing Iraq because they helped us: forced to stay in Iraq for >8 years while paperwork is done and then denied. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/607/didnt-we-solve-this-one

pilomon Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

Starting for 2018 taxes, the standard deduction was doubled to $12,000 for a single filer and $24,000 for a married couple. Combine that with no longer being able to deduct state income taxes and there will be fewer people than ever actually itemizing deductions this year.