walkerbrown - Hackdot

Re:France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB) on Friday October 30, 2026 @08:50PM (#50312117)

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...

Re:Em dashes are fucking amazing on Friday July 24, 2026 @10:41AM (#49036419)

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

Re:How to Earn a Billion Dollars on Monday June 15, 2026 @11:11PM (#48550089)

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.

Re:How to Earn a Billion Dollars on Monday June 15, 2026 @02:31AM (#48537382)

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.

Re:430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @03:40PM (#46786273)

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...

Re:The biggest CRT ever made: Sony's PVM-4300 on Monday December 22, 2025 @10:38AM (#46354971)

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

Re:0click deanonymization attack targeting Signal, Discord and other p... on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @10:34AM (#42781224)

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

Re:The Ur Programming Language Family on Saturday January 27, 2024 @01:57PM (#39158619)

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

Re:Base editing: Revolutionary therapy clears girl's incurable cancer on Sunday December 11, 2022 @03:41AM (#33941409)

> 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?

Re:U.S. is considering a radical rethinking of the dollar for today's ... on Monday February 07, 2022 @02:11AM (#30241318)

> 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

Re:An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles on Thursday October 28, 2021 @11:38AM (#29027362)

> 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.

Re:Sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation on Friday December 18, 2020 @12:41PM (#25469676)

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

Re:Fuchsia Programming Language Policy on Monday February 24, 2020 @11:39PM (#22410950)

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...

Re:It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Responsibly Fly a Drone on Sunday September 08, 2019 @12:57PM (#20911679)

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.