Jake Poznanski
jakepoz.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2010
Jake Poznanski writes personal essays on engineering, advertising, and self-driving cars, best known for a debugging story set in Eastern Europe.
What HN saysHN repeatedly recommends "Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain" as a good story whenever threads turn to odd hardware faults and hard debugging.
26HN people shared it
12linked it in comments
18stories submitted
200story points
9 months agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010)21 people · 159 points · first shared 2015 · 37 comments on HN
- 2Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain5 people · 28 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 3Why do Google ads point to adware?1 people · 7 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Advertising Is Obsolete1 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 5The Future of Self Driving Cars: Remote Autonomy1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
fomine3 · 2021-03-05
Or if you live untrustworthy country with nuclear.
https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
lkbm · 2026-01-30
In addition to the others people have mentioned, I'd add "Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain"[0]
[0] https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
xenonite · 2025-08-20
Original post: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
bcrl · 2024-04-16
The rate of cosmic rays impacting hardware should be extremely low, unless there's some kind of environmental factor (like being at a very high altitude). Or maybe there was a special train going by as in: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
6c696e7578 · 2022-09-04
Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain is also a good story:
https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
dejj · 2021-01-03
And even higher in the vicinity of radioactive cattle: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
askvictor · 2020-11-15
At least they weren't due to radioactive cows: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
abhgh · 2020-07-09
I used to collect these kind of stories:
When I flush my toilet my computer reboots:
http://www.techtales.com/tftechs.php?m=199712#66 (the first story on the page)
If I buy vanilla ice-cream my car wont start:
http://www.netscrap.com/netscrap_detail.cfm?scrap_id=501
A specific cargo routing crashes system:
https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
Tape-drive failure only within large print jobs:
http://patrickthomson.tumblr.com/post/2499755681/the-best-debugging-st…
Interplanetary debugging with the Mars Rover:
https://www.eetimes.com/the-trouble-with-rover-is-revealed/#
netsharc · 2020-01-26
This one blew my mind... https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
toomanybeersies · 2018-11-21
Except for the case in the USSR when gamma rays were an issue at a train depot computer system due to radioactive cows from near Chernobyl: http://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
jakepoz · 2012-02-23
I think that even worse are the fake download buttons served with free software that lead users to adware:
http://jakepoz.com/why_do_google_ads_point_to_adware.html