squirtle24
squirtle24 on Hacker News
It might have to do with the fact that the First Class stamps exploded in price recently. It was $0.55 right before covid, but now it's $0.82. It's like printing counterfeit money, except easier. A 4x5 sheet the size of a postcard becomes worth $16. The stamps themselves have relatively little in the way of counterfeiting measures, especially if you consider that "Forever" stamps exist. So even if they introduce anti-counterfeiting measures into new stamps, a pirate could print old-style Forever stamps, circumventing the new measures.
The USPS is also, ahem, rather incompetent, and their own report [1] shows that "mitigation efforts are limited, with no substantive approach to identify counterfeit stamps in the Postal Service network. While the Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service have increased prevention-related efforts, the quantity of counterfeit stamps in the network remains unknown."
So the increased value of the stamps, the inability to change old Forever stamps, and the lack of enforcement have created a perfect storm for the counterfeiters.
[1] https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/counterfeit-st...
Spend $20 at your local Burger King and we'll turn off that oil leak!
I guess everyone has their own system that works for them, though I feel like this is bit over engineering. Also having to peel tiny stickers adds friction to the flow, even if it’s 2 seconds. To determine what parts were used the most, wouldn’t it be easier to just look at the completed projects, then count which parts were used in them? It would likely be a close enough approximation without the overhead of the dot system, and might be good for documenting the project anyway. Plus the dot system doesn’t have a lot of granularity or flexibility, and it relies on the categories being static. Let’s say a box of resistors grows so big you want to split it into two subcategories; reallocating the existing dots correctly is now quite difficult.
Also, the annoying thing about collecting dusty components is that you won’t need it most of the time… until you do.
I would add a word of caution before using nail polish remover (which is acetone).
Acetone can damage and melt certain plastics. It can cause clear plastic to become cloudy. Using a hair dryer to soften the adhesive, or a bottle of Goo Gone, is often a better alternative for peeling off stickers.
If the enemy already has a base inside your country, you're at a severe disadvantage... it's like realizing you've been cannon rushed in starcraft
To be honest I've never even heard of the "Farmers Almanac", but its #2 on HN now. Am I the only one here?
Edit: I take that back. Another photo has emerged showing more blood.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...
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None of the articles I have seen have said the lacerations are a result of the "space debris" incident. The linked article simply says "One of the photos shows a pilot’s arm peppered with small cuts and scratches", and which is not the same as "the pilot said the shattering glass caused the cuts you see on his arm."
I am saying it is possible that the pilot had a previous, unrelated injury, and it just so happened to be captured in the picture of the windshield. That picture is going viral because it was likely one of the first pics from the incident, but it does not mean his injuries are necessarily from the incident. I was only pointing this out based on the way the blood looked more dried up and treated/healing.
I suspect the cuts on the pilot's arm are from BEFORE the incident. The blood looks a pretty dried up and the yellowish streaks look like some kind of antiseptic ointment was applied. The oval shaped wound closest to the camera looks like it's been healing. Could be wrong though.
The military gliders made sense because they were landing in hostile territory, usually nowhere near a runway for a return trip. Those gliders were pretty much a one-way, one-time-use vehicle. I guess the Waco glider could be used to argue that towing is technically feasible, but it was intended for a totally different use case. I don't see how it can be argued that it's more economical to run, especially considering the safety issues others have pointed out.
I'm no aerospace engineer but it seems like it would be more efficient to fly one single bigger plane than to tow a second one behind it. I suppose this might appeal to certain groups where they already own a plane, and want to increase capacity without buying a whole new plane. But the idea that it's 65% more efficient just seems pretty sketch. I could totally imagine some drug cartels using these though...
It's politically convenient to blame PG&E for what happened in Paradise. But I would not say it's 100% on them; I've been to Paradise before the fire, and it was impressively beautiful being surrounded by all the trees and nature, like living in a forest. But even back then, I remember thinking it was a massive tinder box that could go up in flames. For reference, here is a picture of an average street in a relatively urban part of Paradise, before the fire [1]. The houses farther away from the main street had even more foliage. The area is mostly older retirees, who didn't have the energy/will to trim back the growing unburnt fuel on their (massive plots of) land. For argument's sake, it'd be like surrounding your house with barrels of gasoline, then putting the blame 100% at PG&E for starting the spark. In fairness part of the blame is on the property owners, or perhaps the local gov't for not taking fire safety measures to limit the spread or damage.
[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/E83WWnYX2pDjXzxY8
Best I could come up with was that they're trying to make a mockery of Texas's position on the case. But the odd capitalization isn't frequent enough to make it obvious, so I too wasted minutes of my life looking for some kind of pattern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_caps
I know someone who works at Apple QA. A lot of it is done by wholly unqualified contractors who blindly check off test cases as passed. Sad to say it, but most of these contractors aren't very bright and have zero experience or training, let alone interest in doing a good job; strange why apple continues to work with the sourcing firm.
My guess - the app's users uploading university course material to a third party is likely a violation of school rules. Emory IT disabled the button to generate Canvas access tokens, and the 'workaround' the kid developed in response caused the IT folks to escalate.
An LLM trained on course material could in theory be used to generate homework answers, so they wanted to shut it down before it actually happens. (Hell, the demo question on their website[1] sounds taken straight from a problem set) It would be as if the answer key to the homework leaked, except its for every homework in every course. The punishments are to discourage others from building clones. Though I suspect this is going to cause a Streisand effect.
[1] https://www.eightball.ai/
All you need is Bruce Willis and his team of oil drillers to break up an asteroid.
Thinking out loud here, but why sand and not water? Yes, water is only 1000kg/m^3, but probably much easier to transfer around using pumps and pipes. Water can make good use of the horizontal space within the mine, unlike sand. (The graphic in the article shows them using conveyor belts or trucks to move the sand horizontally which seems silly.) Thus the mine could basically be a mini pumped hydro power station, build a new reservoir at the top and use the mine as the bottom reservoir, then pump water water between the two.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Snag,+Yukon+Y0B+1G0,+Canada/...The above is the Google Earth view of the area. Interestingly you can still see the (former) airstrips from the satellite view; just south of the point at Snag and slightly north of Aishihik; they were part of the Northwest Staging route.
Since the plane radio'ed in at Snag but failed to check in at Aishihik, in theory it would have crashed somewhere between those two points. The biggest lake between those points is Wellesley Lake, depth 65 feet. Might also be on land, anyone good at Where's Waldo?
Just use a proxy human to pass through the output from the LLM
We (the voters) could also have our own LLMs that the candidate LLM would have to convince to vote for them. We can totally abstract away the whole campaigning BS, just let the LLMs duke it out for us!
Very interesting video that shows a clear picture of how the plug is held in place. Some interesting spots in the video, 8:44 shows how the upper two locking bolts lock the roller pins into the upper door tracks, and 10:00 show the lower two locking bolts onto the sliding hinge posts. 13:10 shows how the door blew cleanly off, with very little damage to the roller pins and lower hinge posts. Some comments say the same plug have been used on the 737-900 which didn't have this issue.
My armchair speculative guess: there are only 4 bolts effectively holding the door onto the roller pins and lower hinges. Somehow I don't think it's a simple case of someone forgetting to tighten the bolts; since they're using castle nuts, forgetting to torque them down would leave behind extra cotter pins. Those bolts look positively tiny, probably no more than M12 diameter, and are subject to intense shearing forces. In the case of the upper roller pin with locking bolt, they are effectively two cylinders perpendicular and on top of each other, which causes extreme compressive forces to be concentrated on one tiny spot on the bolt. My guess is they cheaped out and switched to an inappropriate/softer bolt, which sheared and/or corroded. If one shears, the load quickly spreads to the remaining 3 bolts which all also shear off. This theory would still jive with OPs article about UA; "loose bolts" may not necessarily mean "untightened nuts and bad QA", but rather, signs that the locking bolts are all beginning to bend or shear.
Or one clock tower and a flux capacitor...
I would be surprised if the James Bond people don't take issue with the 007 moniker. There have been "007 Edition" BMWs in the past, and given the spy's association with cars, it could be argued that a "Zeekr 007" could be confused as being associated with the movie franchise.
"What are you driving around in these days?"
"It's a Double-Oh Seven"
"Huh?"
What about a real-time voice-to-text transcription of the interview?
Relevant law cited elsewhere in the thread: "(e) Failure to Preserve Electronically Stored Information. If electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court ..."
The key word is "reasonable", which is what the court must decide happened here. OTOH deliberately enabling "history off" doesn't sound like a reasonable steps to preserve records under legal hold. Having said that, I wonder if it also means voip/video calls must be recorded, especially if the feature is available in whatever app they use. Further, even if they use a purpose built "off the record" app, deliberately choosing to use such an app could be argued as failure to reasonably preserve records, if a regular history-preserving app is available. So I think the answer to my first question could be a no.
> Yes, but there's presumably a difference between deleting evidence vs. not having it in the first place.
In the article it seems Google's "history off" feature isn't really history-off so much as it simply auto-deletes after 24h. If the chats were never logged, would they have avoided this?
Also how far does the law go regarding deletion - I mean if a message was stored in memory and then released/garbage collected does that still count as "deleting evidence"? Because if so, then virtually any means of electronic communication might be counted as "deleting evidence". For example a voip call audio buffer that gets deleted.
(Just thinking out loud, not that I would ever want to circumvent the law)
For situations like this I find www.automotivespecialtytool.net to be particularly useful. It's a peer-to-peer car tool rental community. So if you have a rarely used, very specific tool you can rent it out to others; similarly if you need such a tool you can just rent it without having to buy it.
> requires ample garage space and a solid investment in tools and equipment
On that note, Autozone and OReilly's in the US offers free loaner tools, which would allow you to do most DIY-able jobs. The only tools you need to buy yourself is a decent socket set and a few screwdrivers, and the tools would pay itself back in money saved vs. taking it to a repair shop.
In jets, the compressor is usually powered by a turbine, but there's no turbine here at all. Most of the thrust is coming from the electrically powered compressor. Would've been interesting if he had been able to measure how much additional power the flaming gas added.
I highly doubt this was truly written by a 14 year old. Perhaps someone fudged their age to try and make the content go viral? The GitHub profile is 3 weeks old but it's clear this ain't his first GH profile, and there are commits for SEO optimization! The English skill alone seems too advanced for that age level.
Maybe he really is a genius but I've become far more cynical in recent years, don't believe everything on the internet! By the way, I'm 12 years old.
Maybe the tweeter misrepresented the situation for ragebait. Maybe this is a software bug. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If we’re going to dismiss every aspect of the situation to the point of meaninglessness or speculation, why bother? I’m not saying that the takebacksies by Tesla is right, but I’ve also never heard of a manufacturer changing the badges on a car, especially a used one, and in a situation where the tweeter clearly says Tesla made a mistake that they corrected years later - nothing "nefarious". Whereas it is not unheard of for owners to change badges on a car.