Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | VBprogrammer's commentslogin

My son recently broke the string on the light cord in the bathroom. I opened it up in perhaps the naive expectation that someone would have designed that in such a way that the string can be reattached. Sadly it wasn't.

In fact when you open the interior plastic piece the whole thing springs apart and everything from the clicking mechanism to the electrical terminals explode in different directions.

Thankfully, someone had uploaded a video of a very similar switch and, after a few cross words (man I hate assembling mechanisms with springs), I had a new overhand knot in the string and all of the contacts, springs and terminals back in place.

I would, without doubt, drive down to a shop and buy a new one next time...


The ones here in the UK have these little plastic connectors on the string. The switch itself has a very short string coming out of it(<10cm), the plastic connector and then the main pull cord. These connectors are simple tubes with an opening that hold and hide the knots. Makes changing the pull cord quite easy, you just feed it through the hole in the connector, tie a simple knot at the end and pull it back into the connector body.

I actually had one of these connectors break on a bathroom light and just 3D printed a new one. But it should be fairly trivial to add one of these to any light pull you already have.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5140505 (not my design)


Yeah, for some reason the knot broke on the inside rather than at that connector.

A little bit off topic but our company recently enforced Microsoft Authenticator for account login. Which I was mildly annoyed about but now I'm super pissed off because they have started abusing the notification permission granted to allow authenticator to work to push out ads for Microsoft 365. It feels like we've gone back to 90s Microsoft when everyone hated them.


Textbook permission abuse. Microsoft blurred the line between security notifications (approve/deny prompts) and marketing. Once users stop trusting notifications from your app, you've lost the channel entirely. Self-defeating strategy.


I feel uncomfortable about the idea of controlling children, even my own. Certainly there is a requirement to protect children from others but I feel like putting in guard rails to prevent children from themselves only leads to making things taboo and, as a result, more interesting.


Or Blockbuster being a massive real-estate company. Or McDonald's for that matter.


Similarly Wether spoons, the chain of pubs in the UK.

More interestingly, they tend to set up in historically significant or listed buildings and as a result, preserve them. Not unusual to find a Spoons set up in an old 19th century bank or something.


On the other hand, the naming of Blockbuster[1] makes more sense with that context.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting


Because Blockbuster Video played a pivotal role in early-1900s segregation in the United States?

I think it's much more likely it's just a reference to extremely popular and economically successful movies but happy to be proven wrong.


The movie term derives from a different piece of slang, a WWII term for a large bomb that could destroy an entire block.

Before movies bombing was a bad thing, a successful movie was "exploding" like a blockbuster bomb.


Yeah I heard it describes a movie where the line to get into the theater went around the block.

edit: ah, but wiki disagrees <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment)>


Car manufacturers being financial/loan organizations is another.


RV companies are more-so that than car companies.

RVs are put together by methheads and there are less protections (such as no lemon law for RVs) for the consumers. Many RVs spend there whole one year warranty period in the shop with no actual fixes being done and then the warranty runs out. The people that do hear about RV problems, buy new thinking that will be less problems, when in fact the newer RVs are the lower quality ones that have issues. There are YouTube channels dedicated to this phenomenon (https://youtube.com/@LizAmazing), and why one famous consumer lawyer (Steve Lehto) says "You Must be INSANE to buy an RV These Days": https://youtube.com/watch?v=xElhTNS_xn8

A great video where one major manufacturer does not even properly VIN their RVs leading to a $600,000 fine given to one RV owner: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ


We're not even a decade beyond some poorly conceived software crashing two otherwise functional aircraft into the ground and now it's going to save us all...


Yeah it does lead to silly conclusions if all vehicle software of any kind is treated as a homogeneous blob.


Not being obtuse, I even googled it, but I have no idea what SFBA is in this context. I'm assuming it's not to do with windsurfing in the San Francisco Bay Area or some kind of insulation. Could you elaborate?


you're so close!


So, onsite work in an area with no available housing?


Probably a bunch of performative 9-9-6 BS too.


They're just saying the job market is hot in the location of the S (San) F (Francisco) B (Bay) A (Area) it's not cryptic, I'll assume you had a brain fart here it happens.

Unless I'm getting whooshed now lol, but yeah the market here is just super hot because all the AI money sloshing around.


For what it's worth I actually took "SFBA" and Googled it because I wasn't sure either. I've always heard of it referred to as SF or SV. Learn new stuff every day.


This guy used the expanded acronym in his question though!


I'm not sure it was a brain fart, more I was expecting an area of industry rather than geography.


I live in the UK. Most of our farmland is divided into relatively small parcels owing to geography and history (they were divided long before mechanisation).

However, when you come across a field of wheat, rape or corn it's notable how little diversity there remains. A complete absence of birds or insects for example. The agricultural deserts, I believe, are as damaging as their drought based cousins.


This might be a bit of a tangent but I couldn't help but wonder if the appearance of 20ma here is related to the old fashioned, but I understand commonly used, 4-20ma current loop signalling in industrial applications.


It's almost never a coincidence. Before digital switching everything was done mechanically, and before mechanical switching everything was done by people with plugs. If you have a big enough industry like telephone switching equipment then you're bound to see a lot of suppliers expand their market by selling the same parts outside of their home industry. Current flow is a nice signalling mechanism because you can tell the difference between short, open, and functional circuit. So I'm guessing it got used in telephone switching equipment and then preserved because there was no reason to change.


And current through a wire stays the same on every point of the wire, more or less regardless of the length, as long as the supply can provide enough voltage to maintain it. This in turn dramatically simplifies the electronics needed to interact with it.


Before we even get into the complete lack of morality in forcefully separating a married couple, removing him from his home and his business; you might want to check what happens to people who do agree to be deported. Plenty of examples where this has not at all been as painless as you are implying.


So getting married should be a loophole in the immigration law?


> defendents have rights and due process.

As they say: you can beat the rap but not the ride. If a state wants to make your life incredibly difficult for months or even years they can, the competent ones can even do it while staying (mostly) on the right side of the law.


We are not entirely sure the rule of law in America isn't already over.

People are putting a lot of weight on the midterm elections which are more or less the last line of defense besides a so far tepid response by the courts and even then consequence free defiance of court orders is now rampant.

We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice.


> We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice.

A lot of people are cheering it (some on this very site).


Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: