Hacker News Reader

walkerbrownon France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB)

I shared this mental model until I read "The Almighty Dollar" by Brendan Greeley. Highly recommend! It shows how we moved through a few different monetary regimes in the 19th century, including regional variations and private banknotes. Spanish silver dollars were also widely circulated until 1857. The greenback wasn't introduced until the Civil War. Reliable convertibility of federal notes to gold was the exception, not the rule, available c. 1879-1933.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634502/the-almighty...

walkerbrownon Em dashes are amazing

I’m curious, what is the objection to Han unification?

walkerbrownon How to earn a billion dollars

It’s perfectly normal to have two W-2 employers.

On the other hand, it’s odd that these “contractors” can’t set prices for their services and risk deactivation if they decline the price Uber offers.

walkerbrownon How to earn a billion dollars

Uber misclassifies en masse the drivers it employs and shifts vehicle depreciation costs onto these "small businesses". Our taxes pay for healthcare costs which should rightfully be borne by the drivers' employer. I would say that's a non-negligible social cost.

walkerbrownon 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

Some very recently published research (Dec 2025) claims evidence of fire starting among homo neanderthalensis. This would push back fire starting know-how (not only control) from 50k to 400k years ago. Cool stuff!

[1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/groundbrea...

walkerbrownon The biggest CRT ever made: Sony's PVM-4300

For anyone this deep on the thread, check out this video (great presenter!) explaining TV spectrum allocation, NTSC, PAL, and the origin of 29.97 fps.

https://youtu.be/3GJUM6pCpew

walkerbrownon 0-click deanonymization attack targeting Signal, Discord, other platforms

Nice work OP, and congrats on HN front-page. Keep publishing or it never happened!

walkerbrownon English learners can now practice speaking on Google Search

Improved transcription accuracy from non-native English I bet.

walkerbrownon How I think about debt

No snark, but posting with genuine concern for any homebuyers who didn’t experience the pain of 2008, please read and grok this: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/underwater.asp

walkerbrownon Paris cycling numbers double in one year thanks to investment

I’m in favor of cycling infrastructure in the US, but it’s important to remember that the latitude of the Netherlands (like most of the European cycling cities) is north of the entire continental US.

I’m in decent shape, but will sweat at a resting heart rate in a Southern US summer.

walkerbrownon The Ur Programming Language Family

Yes, I was definitely expecting cuneiform and base 60 literals.

walkerbrownon Don Knuth plays with ChatGPT

I thought the failure was interesting too, enough to try on GPT-4. It succeeds with the same prompt.

walkerbrownon Oxide and the Chamber of Mysteries [video]

Thanks for the links Bryan!

May I suggest a small teaser trailer post to the old “On the Metal” feed? I’m still subscribed there, but wasn’t aware of the new channels.

Those were some incredible interviews! I’ve listened to a few of the episodes twice.

walkerbrownon The human cost of neurotechnology failure

Perhaps mandate a trigger? In the event of bankruptcy, implanted medical device firmware and hardware designs enter the public domain.

Patients’ interests should take precedence over creditors and investors.

walkerbrownon Base editing: Revolutionary therapy clears girl's incurable cancer

> will eventually be shown to be superior to the current standard of care, in which case it would become the standard of care

How does this overturning occur? Do care providers agitate for change? Or is it typically a response to headstrong patients and families?

walkerbrownon U.S. is considering a radical rethinking of the dollar for today's digital world

> disintermediates the entire payment sector

Unfortunately, the recent proposal specifically reassures commercial banks that any US CBDC will be intermediated (right on page 2) [1]. Board of Governors can't risk jeopardizing their speaking fees.

Individual FedAccounts via USPS locations is the way to go for the underbanked [2]. But, disappointingly, this is not that.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/money-and-... [2] https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3192162

walkerbrownon An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

> There was a rule in the Port of Los Angeles saying you could only stack shipping containers two containers high.

This is not correct.

Next though, CA DOT should do a one time waiver and extension of the 90-day BIT inspections on trailer chassis.

walkerbrownon Is my Facebook activity fucking my finances?

What about a credit repair service which offers a web crawler to generate plausible pro-social disinformation, with searches like "nearest gym", and "houses for sale in <exclusive ZIP code>"?

walkerbrownon Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

> the inventor if [sic] mRNA vaccines

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karikó

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Weissman

Patent filing: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC...

walkerbrownon Sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation

Thank you. For me, this clears up a long held misconception.

walkerbrownon Fuchsia Programming Language Policy

Is this doc no longer valid? https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/development/languages/new

It's worth noting the distinction between the Fuchsia API Surface (consumed by End-developers) and the Fuchsia System Interface here: https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/api/council#definit...

walkerbrownon It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Responsibly Fly a Drone

https://www.foreflight.com/

An early iOS success story, founded in 2007, and recently acquired by Boeing. They are the dominant software company in this niche, and are well positioned to add a “UAS tier” subscription in the future.