PS4-5.05-Kernel-Exploit: A fully implemented kernel exploit for the PS4 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Cryptogenic/PS4-5.05-Kernel-Exploit <comment><USER2> This is awesome, it reminds me of the security course I took in school where we had to smash stacks and hunt for various buffer overflow exploits. It was one of my favorite classes, but also one of the most difficult!

To me this is one of the most impressive fields of CS/Software Engineering because of the skill required to understand and exploit full systems. Even though I'm a software dev, reading this makes me feel very humbled and shows how little I actually know.

Thanks for the read!

This is based off the below link which was posted in another comment. Much more informative than the github repo imo. [http://crack.bargains/02r0.pdf](http://crack.bargains/02r0.pdf)

<comment><USER3> This type of stuff is also what does make me sad for not doing CS in college, cause it requires a lot of work to learn in my free time yet super interesting.

<comment> white-flame I can guarantee you that most people who went through CS in college never had a course like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > [http://crack.bargains/505k/](http://crack.bargains/505k/)

Sigh, of course qwertyoruiopz would choose a site like that…

<comment><USER5> Probably goes without saying ... but don't visit this in your actual browser if you like using the back button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This annotated JavaScript describes the approach:

[https://github.com/kpwn/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/9e97c39...](https://github.com/kpwn/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/9e97c398342ed6499a00fce0c081f7bf1efaaef1/kernel.js)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to have a good laugh without owning and exploiting your PS4…

[https://github.com/Cryptogenic/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/...](https://github.com/Cryptogenic/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/master/userland.js#L410)

</comment><comment><USER8> For me it is the first time to see a low-level exploit implementation written in JS. Is the exploit done through a PS4's web browser? Quite interesting.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's pretty common on these platforms since it's a way to run code on an otherwise locked down device.

A lot of console (and iphone) exploits tend to share similar webkit exploit code. This ps4 exploit uses a ROP strategy from an earlier iOS exploit.

This is a pretty good overview (though from 2016) of the techniques used in the browser based exploits:

[http://phrack.org/papers/attacking_javascript_engines.html](http://phrack.org/papers/attacking_javascript_engines.html)

<comment><USER10> Original iPhone cracks (for third party apps, before Apple allowed them) used a website with a TIF image (TIFs have some executable code).

This one loops history.pushState() to trigger the leak, direct link to the line:

[https://github.com/Cryptogenic/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/...](https://github.com/Cryptogenic/PS4-5.05-Kernel- Exploit/blob/master/expl.js#L168)

<comment><USER4> JailbreakMe actually continued to work until iOS 4.3.3, though of course the exploit used needed to be continually updated as Apple patched iOS: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there an explanation of what this is exploiting?

<comment><USER9> It's a double free in bpf.

Here's some slides from the author (from last week) with a more in depth explanation:

[http://crack.bargains/02r0.pdf](http://crack.bargains/02r0.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Thanks, that was a really epic read (and pretty close to line noise for me as a security-agnostic person).

I even had to look up "bpf", it's the FreeBSD packet filtering[1] interface, it's a character special device used to control the kernel's network filtering.

[1] [https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?bpf(4)](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?bpf\(4\))

<comment><USER13> BPF in Linux has been expanded to let you run pieces of user supplied code in the kernel. Its moved a bit away from the original definition of raw packet filtering.

<comment><USER14> That's eBPF ("extended"). Unfortunately, "BPF" is commonly used to refer to both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wished I was smart enough to even implement half of what I just read and I am a senior getting my BA in computer information systems with my focus being networking and security :(

</comment><comment><USER16> PS4 is such an amazing device, I wish I could do more with it!

<comment><USER17> Also its price hasn't increased compared to graphics cards (due to cryptocurrency hype).

<comment><USER18> I would be rather surprised if the prices of graphics cards offering similar performance as the PS4 had been significantly affected by cryptocurrency mining.

<comment><USER19> It isn't the graphics that impress me, so much, as the fact that my PS4 can actually send real 5.1 audio out to my home theater setup. It boggles my mind with how difficult that seems to be on my gaming PC.

Sure, my PC can sling a zillion triangles per second, but it can't make one stompy robot dinosaur shake my living room the way the PS4 can.

<comment><USER20> Does your PC not have digital optical audio out? Also any GPU made in the last 10 years should be able to do 7.1 over HDMI. If you have an Nvidia card make sure to install the "HD Audio" component when you install the driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Unrelated, but does anybody know the current status of GNU/Linux on the PS4 ?

I am looking for some little box to replace my aging home server and the PS4 looks powerful but small enough for the job.

<comment><USER20> You can probably buy a better machine for that use case [1], unless you really want a built in Blu-ray drive or lots of memory bandwidth.

[1]: [https://www.pcengines.ch/apu3a4.htm](https://www.pcengines.ch/apu3a4.htm)

<comment><USER17> That machine, while great (PC Engines, their best offer, Coreboot, good value for money), is designed to be a DIY router for running e.g. OPNSense.

You're probably better off with a NUC such as a Zotac or a Chinese knock off (example [1]). Why? Because given it has more horsepower and native hardware extensions for virtualization it can run VMs more efficiently.

[1] [https://www.gearbest.com/mini- pc/pp_1698829.html?wid=1433363](https://www.gearbest.com/mini- pc/pp_1698829.html?wid=1433363)

<comment><USER20> Yes, a NUC, a miniITX PC, a commercial NAS, etc. would work. There are a lot of good options in this space.

I would note that the apu2 is more or less half of a PS4, ignoring the GPU (which probably wouldn't work that well anyway?).

        PS4              | apu2c4
        8x 1.6GHz Jaguar | 4x 1.0 GHz Jaguar
        8GB GDDR5        | 4GB DDR3-1333
        SATA, USB 3.0    | mSATA, SATA, USB 2.0/3.0, SD
        1G Ethernet      | 3x 1G Ethernet
        BT 2.1, WiFi N   | N/A
        HDMI, SPDIF      | N/A

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am so excited to test this. Praise the devs</comment>


What I'm Talking About When I Talk About Social Media (Cal Newport) - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/11/23/what-im-talking-about-when-i-talk-about-social-media/ <comment><AUTHOR> Related HN part

>> This definition of "social media" is quite narrow. It doesn't include, for example, individual blogs, or discussion forums, or homegrown sites like Hacker News — as these services haven't been massively optimized to colonize our cognitive landscape.

I know many people who are dismayed about how much time they spend checking Facebook, but (to my secret disappointment) I've never met someone whose claimed the same about Study Hacks.<<</comment>


Show HN: A Visual and Interactive Guide to the Basics of Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://jalammar.github.io/visual-interactive-guide-basics-neural-networks/ <comment><AUTHOR> Even though it's posted on my blog, I hope this fits the bill for "Show HN" since the interactive parts can be tinkered and played with. I'd love any feedback or corrections.

<comment><USER2> Complete ML noob here, who knows a bit of math (first year university calculus & statistics). I think your tute hit just the right note. Gave me the key concepts. Thanks very much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you found it useful! Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice functionality. I feel like you should team up with the guy from BetterExplained.com who posts here. You both do a great job of trying to simplify and visually represent complex concepts.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's an awesome job.</comment>


Fidel Castro's Blog - <AUTHOR> http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/reflexiones.html

<comment><USER2> Who wants to hear that old fool blathering...thank god I don't live in Cuba. Fidel blathering away 24/7 b/c he has so much wisdom for you to learn. Fucking narcissitic self-indulgent ego-maniacal idiot.</comment>


Doctor posted online in favor of immunization. Then opponents targeted her - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/05/11/vaccine-opponents-target-doctors-social-media-and-ratings-websites/Y8RQie1xJdr1RtKvbdR9mI/story.html <comment><AUTHOR> If you manage a site that supports reviews or comments from unverified posters (here, non-patients) consider the ways your site could be exploited.</comment>


Ask HN: Is rails tutorial unfair priced? - <AUTHOR> http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ It is about half price to buy the book and DVD from Amazon compared to the webiste direct pricing.<p>I personally think they are great value(even a bargain) even at 125$ but is this fair pricing? I am refering to the screencasts mainly. <comment><USER2> No. The first paragraph of that site states "the Ruby on Rails Tutorial book is available for free online."

<comment><AUTHOR> I am refering to the screencasts - buying them from a publisher company as DVD's for half price or directly from the author for full price

<comment><USER2> One of the HN guidelines is "please don't use HN posts to ask YC-funded companies questions that you could ask by emailing them." Similarly, I think you might get a more authoritative answer to your question if you contacted the author directly.

<http://ruby.railstutorial.org/contact></comment></comment></comment>


MIT Undergrads Start Semester With $100 in Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2457358,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Substantial discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7666034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7666034)

        Announcing the MIT Bitcoin Project (mit.edu)

Other submissions of the same story, each with its own take:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672360)

        MIT conducts world's largest Bitcoin experiment
       (telegraph.co.uk)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672319)

        MIT students give $100 in Bitcoins to every undergrad
        (engadget.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7670922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7670922)

        Every MIT student will get $100 in Bitcoin from Wall Street donor
        (theguardian.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7666225](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7666225)

        Pair raises $500K, preparing to rain Bitcoins on undergrads
        (mit.edu)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2014/04/28/bitcoin/](https://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2014/04/28/bitcoin/)</comment>


Show HN: Uncut Truth: Anti-Circumcision Doc on Kickstarter Raises $30K+ - <AUTHOR> http://hypervocal.com/vids/2013/anti-circumcision-documentary-american-secret/

<comment><AUTHOR> Huffington Post rejected this article and refused to say why. (first time they have rejected my work.. last article was an interview with Ray Kurzweil ) I'm not sure, but I at least suspect it's because the content is too controversial for them. What do you think? Props to Hypervocal for picking up the slack. - ADA

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coldhardlook/american- se...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coldhardlook/american-secret-the- circumcision-agenda)</comment>


Show HN: I scraped local court records to find dirty cops - <AUTHOR> https://lawsuit.org/keeping-cops-accountable/ <comment><USER2> You have to be careful about coming to fast conclusions based on these statistics. I can imagine these numbers being sucked up by various ill- informed political commentators to mislead the public on what police departments are doing. (Regardless, I love this work and would love to see it done nationwide!)

-It could be that some cops are assigned to densely white areas, while others must work in mostly black areas. This does not necessitate racism on behalf of the officers or management. (Perhaps it does in the overall local culture, as indicated by the self-segregation? To police an entire area, you must distribute resources to various portions of that area.) Racist cops might even _prefer_ the dominant race of the area they work in, yet _still_ mostly cite that dominant race, simply because there are so few disliked-race targets to look for.

-Certain violations cited to predominantly one race may simply indicate a _reality_ in which people of that race break that law more often. This does not necessitate racist targeting on behalf of the officers. At that point, maybe a discussion about how seriously this law needs to be enforced should be had. Window tint? Dime bag of weed? Is that _really_ such a big deal? (Ideally, these laws would just be removed. But politically this seems harder than using officer discretion.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you, and that's why the officer names are redacted. Things we might at first glance think are because of biased/racist/sexist cops might have good explanations. That said, visualizing this data does surface outliers really well, and each outlier should be further investigated IMO.

It all starts with getting all this data into one place, scraped from the thousands of county court records sites. It's a big task, but this data is priceless.

<comment><USER2> Definitely agree, and hey this is really cool work. :) Wouldn't it be beautiful to have a nationwide map, where users could zoom to their county/city/town level, and immediately look at various outliers?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm beginning to think it might be the start to a more just society. Is that thinking this is bigger than it is? The implications just seem big to me. I don't think we are going to get privacy back, but if we can at least have transparency into things like policing, we stand a much better chance at holding our government accountable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I worked in this area for the state of MD at one of the foremost traffic records outfits in the US and have done this work previously, there are a few considerations you are leaving out which comes as a result of knowing these data.

You want to never look at things at the citation level, you should group it into stops. One driver can get many citations per stop, which confounds your findings..grouping can be done by making an ID of DL#+Date of stop. If time is included, put that on ONLY if it has the same time for all citation issued in the stop (like it is here in MD) - You could end here, or you could add an indication Y/N for whether a citation was issued. This way, you are looking at stops where at least 1 citation was issued, instead of 3 counts for a race off of one stop where three tickets were issued.

Also, the racial categories are based upon the DMV database, and what options they have permitted. The confounder here is racially ambiguous persons may be misclassified, while obviously black people etc will reliably be called such.

Additionally, you want to use something like the National Household Travel Survey to get an idea of the racial background of DRIVERS in the area you are examining. It is quite possible that an area has more drivers of a certain race. Note this still will not be perfect due to out of jurisdiction drivers.

Please contact me with any questions. Very interesting stuff, I just want to make sure you do it right.....if you hope to make any changes at the govt level, these considerations will be widely known in the traffic records sector.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is SO useful. Thank you so much for the insights. I'm not 100% certain, but I think finding traffic stop data is pretty rare for most counties.

If citation data is all we have, by itself in its raw form is still important considering how locked away this data is currently.

I think there are a lot of smart people like yourself that would do in-depth analysis of even this messy data to pull out useful insights.

I'd be eager to get people like you involved if you had an interest. you can email me at:

Kristin - at - Frac.tl

 __That goes for anyone who has an interest in helping. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I plan do do this for many more counties. I'm sure it isn't a coincidence how difficult many are to scrape. This data often feels purposefully obfuscated. It only seems right to me that everyone should see local data aggregated like this. If police intent do use data to track the population, we should be able to track them as well.

<comment><USER3> Before you expand to more counties, please address the critiques here. Also note that these data are not homogeneous across jurisdictions. I like what you're doing, but you need to be very careful about this analysis, or else it will just come off as uninformed by the people who work in this space. State public safety data is not uniformly collected.

You want to ensure you have all these caveats mentioned so that when it gains traction, you won't waste as much time dealing with people who will try to invalidate your findings.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm much more interested in making this data open and complete and potentially close to live updating as possible.

I agree that it will take more depth to get at true patterns in the data, and there are many important considerations for data collection, cleaning, and analysis.

I hope to find some others who would like to work with me on this.

<comment><USER3> I sent you an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only objection I can think of that an honest police department might have against this sort of analysis taking place is that some figures might be taken out of context or not adequately explained, such as officers' numbers who patrol neighborhoods that are predominantly one ethnicity.

If I believe in my work, I don't mind it scrutinized, and would welcome the analysis, given that the analyst is not excessively biased.

<comment> t-writescode Think more evil-ly on the part of an invested party with a mission using the data in ways they want.

Imagine high-resolution evaluation of your work as a programmer by a nefarious party that is out to get you or your team.

<comment><USER5> > Imagine high-resolution evaluation of your work as a programmer by a > nefarious party that is out to get you or your team.

Been there. I had to "make one commit a day" because I wasn't committing as much as my peers. The next week of commits was me automating commit + Pr generation that only made changes to white space (plus normal work, which was mostly research at the time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems like a promising way of detecting bias. However, I would be surprised if this type of analysis was permitted to continue without objections from police organisations.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a matter of public record, though I guess they could gripe about any data viz methodologies... still, we need this type of oversight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if the actual racial distribution of the population of the county is added for context. For a random visitor from the internets the lack of context hinders the ability to understand what implications the data has.

When 90% of the population is black the conclusions are different from when the population is 90% white.

</comment><comment><USER8> Redacting data in your results is very close to the same as not publishing your results. Please do not redact critical information that allows people to validate or otherwise cross-check your results.</comment>


Trying to make UML Useful: The Story behind Architexa - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturecafe.net/2011/03/founder-interview-vineet-sinha/

<comment><USER2> The 'UML' in the title almost kept me from clicking. However, diagraming what code actually does is way more useful than diagrmaing up-front (as stated in the article) so this is actually quite interestin.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear you find what we do as interesting.

Would love to hear what part of our stuff do you think is the most promising.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am the founder of Architexa. You can find us here: <http://www.architexa.com/>

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about what we do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Python support on the roadmap?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have been toying with ideas like Python support, but so far have not thought about it seriously.

What kind of diagrams do you need? What situations are you in?</comment></comment>


Microsoft's latest Windows 10 updates come with nasty printer bugs - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-10-updates-printer-bugs-000112943.html <comment><USER2> Not surprised. There's something in the water in the Windows print spooler. I have a Brother HL-L2380DW printer that worked "just fine," but then at some point after a Windows update, everything started printing inverted. Like literally the printer would paint the page black, except for white where the text was. I thought it was a firmware issue on the printer, but it only happened when printing in Windows.

Wasted a _ton_ of toner trying to figure out what was going on. The solution? When adding the printer in Windows, don't add it automatically via network discovery. That will install the bad version of the driver. Manually type in the IP of the printer. That will clue Windows in to using the... correct? version of the driver? The one that doesn't invert all the colors?

Printing is a mess and our industry should be ashamed. How does something like this just break after an update? I can only imagine the absolute spaghetti bowl that is the Windows print subsystem.

Here's an official Brother FAQ outlining the "fix"[0]. I'm pretty sure it's still not fixed in Windows and continues to require this song-and-dance workaround.

[0]: [https://help.brother- usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/167000/...](https://help.brother- usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/167000/~/inverted-text-or-white-text-on-a- black-background-when-printing---windows-10)

<comment><USER3> > Printing is a mess and our industry should be ashamed. How does something > like this just break after an update?

I have Bose wireless headphones. They used to operate as expected: leave bluetooth on at all times on the laptop. When turning the headphones off, they disconnect. When turning the headphones on, they reconnect.

Eventually there was a Windows update, and this stopped working. Now, if I turn the headphones off, _only the microphone_ will reconnect when I turn them back on. To get sound to play through the headphones, I have to disable and then reenable bluetooth in Windows. Every time.

<comment><USER4> Have you checked if this was possibly because of [https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-2102](https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-2102)?

I mean, I get why you would blame MS for breaking this but maybe the onus is also on Bose and their ridiculously bad driver support.

<comment><USER3> I haven't checked. How would I do that?

The headphones are able to connect once after disabling and reenabling bluetooth in Windows. If the problem were that the headphones are configured to use a fixed, predictable long-term key, it isn't obvious to me why Windows would accept that key sometimes, but not all the time.

(Note that I don't need to have Windows forget the device and re-pair from scratch.)

Is there some aspect of initial bluetooth negotiation that would explain this?

<comment><USER4> There was a list somewhere with devices using the wrong config. An explanation of the issue is here [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft- blo...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-blocks-some- bluetooth-devices-due-to-security-risks/) and there also is advice on checking if your device is affected. I thought the issue was that if the host initiates the connection it will work but if it's just auto reconnecting it will not but I may be wrong.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't look like the CVE is relevant. That article says it's indicated by this message:

> Your Bluetooth device attempted to establish a debug connection. The Windows > Bluetooth stack does not allow debug connection while it is not in the debug > mode.

I don't see that. What I see is

> A device with Bluetooth adapter address (2c:45:a1:20:a1:99) has a bad > service record (attribute identifier 9). The service will not be visible.

That happens several times every time, whether the connection succeeds or not. There is also a message that appears just once, when the connection succeeds:

> Windows cannot store Bluetooth authentication codes (link keys) on the local > adapter. Bluetooth keyboards might not work in the system BIOS during > startup.

Searching for the first message, I found some support threads from Bose customers. They seem pretty angry about their headphones not working. :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unbelievable. I was _this_ close buying a new printer. I mean it's really a weird error which does not look like a hardware issue, but after testing the printer on _three_ different PCs (all running latest Windows 10, of course) with the same result, I was convinced it's a problem with the printer.

<comment><USER6> Yep, same. Having not used it for a year and recently tried to print something I thought it's botched.

Got it working with Google cloud print though.

<comment><USER7> Enjoy it for 6 more months. [https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9633006](https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9633006)

<comment><USER8> From what I can tell, this is what is supplanting/replacing Google Cloud Print: IPP Everywhere

[https://www.pwg.org/ipp/everywhere.html](https://www.pwg.org/ipp/everywhere.html)

via

[https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/7225252](https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/7225252)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a Windows 10 machine with an old HP printer (laserjet 1012) that requires manual driver installation. Every single time there's a major Windows update it blows away the driver and I have to install the driver again. Extremely annoying.

<comment><USER10> Get one Raspberry Pi, connect there printer, setup printer as network and forget about issues.

<comment><USER11> I think his point is that he shouldn't have to do that and I agree with that.

System updates have been a mostly solved problem since Windows XP (or maybe earlier) and I don't recall updates outright deleting installed software until Windows 10 came out.

Windows 10 obviously uses a different update model (it's essentially a full OS reinstall) but this model should've been developed taking into account the requirements of the old one, and I think "leave installed software/drivers alone" is a very important one.

Releasing a half-baked implementation that is _worse_ than the old one is very sloppy. To the eyes of the user it doesn't matter how "good" the underlying details is (I guess the new model does have some advantages on a technical level), if it wipes out existing software and makes certain peripherals not work it's an overall negative and shouldn't have been released.

<comment><USER12> I believe the issue is that since the printer is so old, there is no driver available for Windows 10. Checking the HP site, the latest is for Vista from 2008, so dragons are to be expected when you run with drivers on an OS that isnt listed as being compatible with significant architectural changes.

I dont think its fair to blame the OS here and in this case you may get a better experience, and maybe security (removing those old HP background processes running with elevated privileges) using microsofts generic postscript printer drivers.

<comment><USER11> The problem here doesn't seem to be the driver. The driver appears to be working once installed. The problem is that the driver gets removed every time a major system update is installed. The update system used to be fine in this regard and they decided to rewrite it in such a way that it doesn't keep existing drivers even if they appear to be compatible.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. The driver once installed works perfectly. It's Windows update blowing it away that is the problem.

<comment><USER12> > [https://kb.ucla.edu/articles/hp-laserjet-1012-and- > windows-10](https://kb.ucla.edu/articles/hp-laserjet-1012-and-windows-10)

As stated in a previous comment, you're installing drivers for another model of printer. So I find it unreasonable to believe there wont be problems down the line even if they appear to be working.

HP has a Universal Print Driver that will support your printer and be compatible with Windows 10 with out resorting to installing drivers meant for another printer. Not exactly a high prority test case for Microsoft.

<comment><USER11> > you're installing drivers for another model of printer

That shouldn't be the OS's decision to make. The user wanted his machine to install something, and the something even worked fine after install.

Are you advocating for the OS deleting files/software that it considers "wrong" without explicitly asking the user?

Besides that, the driver appears to be fully compatible because it works fine once reinstalled. It would be one thing if the driver just stopped working (because the printing driver API changed, which is fair enough for a decades- old printer), but in this case it's not about API incompatibility but a broken update system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Printing in Windows is an unsolved problem. It never was.

To print in Windows I have a checklist: 1\. Print 2\. Restart printer 3\. Cancel print job, try to print again. 4\. Restart print spooler, try to print again. 5\. Restart computer, try to print.

Usually works with #4 or #5. Having a family member print is a major tech support undertaking.

<comment><USER14> > 3\. Cancel print job

At this point, as user, you have usually lost the game. This can mean anything from: "The print job can't be cancelled/deleted." to "The PC will restart that job every time you restart the PC".

<comment><USER15> I'd probably try safe mode at that point. Hopefully the print service doesn't fire up

<comment><USER16> I've had good success stopping the spooler and nuking system32 spooler files over powershell to fix people on the phone. it's insane I have to resort to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why is printing such a pain? Shouldn't you just be able to send a pdf file to the printer by network/usb/whatever and the printer should be able to print it? Why do we still need drivers?

<comment><USER18> Mostly cost. There are printers that have computers in them that know how to read PDF, the "networked" or "cloud" or "business" ones. But they all cost more -- anywhere from $300 to $1000+.

The cheap ones just have some tiny microprocessor that knows how to read the proprietary bitmap sent from the computer, and rely on the host PC for font rendering etc.

(Rendering fonts and vectors from a PDF can get pretty expensive!)

<comment><USER19> It can't require too much processing, Postscript printers were a thing decades ago...

<comment><USER20> You underestimate how much printer manufacturers would like to shave from their hardware costs.

Besides, Postscript can be arbitrarily complex, and with modern PCs, PDFs may be similarly complex. Much easier to deal with that (both bugs and memory costs) in a driver which can be upgraded easily, rather than in firmware.

Way back when, in the early days of laser printers, the computer wouldn't be able to keep up with the printer, and a decent printer had a faster CPU than the computer it was attached to.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Hardware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Hardware) \- 12MHz CPU in the printer, attached to an 8MHz CPU in the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recommend users to install the LTSC version of Windows 10. It's akin to the LTS version of Ubuntu.

<comment><USER22> Where do you purchase this?

<comment><USER23> I see people recommend this _all the time_ and yet as far as I know the only way to legally obtain LTSC is via a 45$/month subscription to MSDN. Is there some other avenue I'm not aware of? If not, then that price is absurd for a feature set that used to be available by default in Windows 7.

<comment><USER24> AFAIK it's only available through volume licensing, which means you can't buy a single copy (you need around 30 licenses minimum, I believe). However, I've heard stories of people bypassing this limit by buying 1 license for LTSC (~$300), and then 29 CAL licenses (a few dollars each) as a filler.

If you're not particularly concerned about licensing though, just pirate it.

<comment><USER25> The minimum volume license buy is 5 licenses. Any good reseller will sell you 1 copy of LTSC and 4 of the cheapest SKU in the catalog (usually $5-10 / ea) to get your volume license contract started. After that you can purchase piecemeal for 2 years before you need to fulfill the minimum purchase again. The licenses themselves are perpetual.

I don't like it, but it's not too hard to do either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Jeez-o-Pete how in the heck can a giant company with near unlimited resources screw up so bad? Testing? Just...how.

<comment><USER27> They don't test. They fired all their testers a few years ago. Now it's just telemetry from users.

<comment><USER28> I believe that engineers should be responsible for testing the code they write themselves.

<comment><USER29> That only works for extremely simple projects with very small teams working on "hobby projects". For anything serious you need an independent and professional QA team which essentially does nothing else than trying to break the product all day in and out.

Programmers should be required to do enough local testing to not break the build of course, but the same person who wrote the code can't also thoroughly test it, because they'll inevitably only test the "happy path", even if they don't intend to.

<comment><USER30> There comes a point though when theres too much QA that seriously hampers development and progress because they turn the smallest change into a year long shitfest of "hold on we are testing!". Microsoft for awhile got a bit heavy on QA, unforunately they also went full retard the other direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Still waiting for Microsoft to accept their update model is broken and finally announce Windows 11.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Windows print spooler is a surprisingly complex piece of software, there is a ton of legacy in there. I would assume it's quite difficuly to maintain.

<comment><USER33> I'll give this line to my boss when he asks why I didn't print the TPS report :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is part of why I try to have different OSes/versions on my main PCs.

It's also nice to have the option of booting into a pre-configured USB drive with a persistent Linux environment you know will work because it's a time capsule. [It's the pre-configuring part that's a pain, but it can be worth it; do a dd copy to another identical stick once you've got it tuned up and you always have a failsafe.]

</comment><comment><USER35> Printing on Windows has been a dumpster fire for 25 years. Nothing new.

</comment><comment><USER36> I had the latest Windows update break printing, but in a different way. It could no longer connect to the network printer (hosted via CUPS on a raspberry pi). I could load the URL for the CUPS printer just fine in Chrome, but Windows itself couldn't see it. I was also unable to edit anything for the printer in Windows (the option simply wasn't there, and everything was greyed out).

The solution was to set it as the default printer, then add a new printer with the same CUPS URL. For some reason, setting it as the default allowed Windows to see it again. Then delete the new copy, and the original began working and allowed its settings to be edited. Incredibly frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER37> OTOH shared CUPS printers are now installable with 2 clicks and without entering the CUPS URL. I have an old HP printer which doesn't work with Windows itself anymore, but works fine if connected to my Linux workstation.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been ripping my hair out for the last few days trying to figure out why a UPS label printer works intermittently. The stack is a (closed-source windows only) java webserver listening on the local machine and relaying data from javascript on a web page to a printer on the local network. Lot of places for things to go wrong. I spent hours trying to find some kind of reproducible behavior and even went as far as to start rewriting the UPS print daemon in Go so I could switch the host machine to Linux. What a huge waste of time.

<comment><USER39> I presume you're talking about something like this? [https://www.eirepos.ie/product/gk420d-dt-203dpi-eplzpl- usb-s...](https://www.eirepos.ie/product/gk420d-dt-203dpi-eplzpl-usb-serial- parallel-dispensr/)

The file format is likely called ZPL ("Zebra Print Language") and you can actually use LPR to send the data - the raw label data - directly to the printer. Use `lpr -o raw`.

If you google for "lpr print zebra zpl" you can find more specific guides, such as [https://www.easypost.com/how-to-print-zpl-labels-from-the- co...](https://www.easypost.com/how-to-print-zpl-labels-from-the-command-line- on-mac-unix)

<comment><USER38> Yep, this is it. Their print daemon is basically a glorified pipe redirect from a web page to the printer. Unfortunately because of the javascript in the middle, it has to be slightly more involved than just running netcat. But not much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wait wait...Windows have a nasty printer-queue bug since Win2000...that's really not new ;)</comment>


Housing Unaffordability Is the Result of Artifical Scarcity - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20160420.php <comment><USER2> FFS, if you're going to drop a "freahman on week 3 of Econ 101" rant like this you need to provide the customary bong rips in between paragraphs.

Also may want to check into things like "land is a finite resource" and "subsidence" for why everybody can't just magically add infinity floors to their building or "create more housing" without bound.

<comment><USER3> Please don't post snarky dismissals here. Perhaps the article is that bad, but making HN worse isn't a good reaction. We're going for thoughtful discussion here, not bile.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Another Facebook privacy bug - <AUTHOR>

I just noticed that Facebook is showing activity on my feed from people who have not yet accepted ( or denied) my friend request. Take a look at these screenshots
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1877402/feed.png
That's from my feed, you can see that I have full access to that photo album.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1877402/m.png
If I go to this person's actual profile, I cannot click on anything or see any photos at all.
Has anyone else seen this? <comment><USER2> Hah, nice find. I've seen bits of data like "Pending_friend is now friends with stranger_1" but not access to photos.

</comment><comment><USER3> You probably should have blurred the names in her "Friends" box, as well, in m.png .

Hmm... and since liking profiles are now linked from liked items pages (or whatever they're called), her Likes and Interests as well. If an item doesn't have too many... Likers(?), a few page refreshes might make hers one of the six profiles displayed on the page, probably recognizable between the first name and the profile picture (despite blurring of the faces in it).

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure why I even blurred it, I don't care one bit.</comment></comment>


A Geek Of 1909 - <AUTHOR> http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/a-geek-of-1909/

<comment><USER2> Tom Standage's "The Victorian Internet" has a lot of great detail about the culture of the telegraph operator and how it compares to the internet culture today.

"Wandering workers who went from job to job were known as 'boomers.' There were no formal job interviews; applicants were simply sat down on a busy wire to see if they could handle it. Since they could find work almost anywhere, many boomers had an itinerant lifestyle; a great number of them suffered from alcoholism or mental health disorders. In a sense, the telegraph community was a meritocracy --- it didn't matter who you were as long as you could send and receive messages quickly --- which was one of the reasons that women and children were readily admitted to the profession." p. 140

"Indeed, despite the strange customs and the often curious lifestyle of many operators, telegraphy was regarded as an attractive profession, offering the hope of rapid social advancement and fueling the expansion of the middle class. Courses, books, and pamphlets teaching Morse to beginners flourished. For the ambitious, it provided an escape route from small towns to the big cities, and for those who liked to move around, it meant guaranteed work wherever they went." p.143

Substitute some current computer language for Morse and you could definitely be talking about the present.

[http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable- Nineteen...](http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth- line/dp/0802716040)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if this is the same Lynn Marsh? [http://www.google.com/patents?id=3QxXAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=3QxXAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&dq=lynn%20marsh&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER4> "Lynn has worked a newspaper wire for an eight-hour turn, but he prefers the click of the railroad message to that of the newspaper story."

Very cool. I wish I could have found an internship/job like that when I was 11.

</comment><comment><USER5> Andrew Carnegie (the later steel magnate) was also a superb telegrapher at a young age. He was one of the first to telegraph directly by ear, instead of using a ticker, according to a biography.

<comment><USER6> This is very true. He also read voraciously from the library and was a huge momma's boy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Source: [http://books.google.com/books?id=ow7OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA53...](http://books.google.com/books?id=ow7OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what he felt like when only a few years later he was obsolete.</comment>


Microsoft, Brilliant team up to offer quantum curriculum - <AUTHOR> https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/quantum/2019/05/23/microsoft-brilliant-team-up-to-offer-quantum-curriculum/ <comment><USER2> How close are we to quantum computing being a thing that I have to actively think about? My understanding is that it's on the horizon but not all that close.

I'm impressed at the heavy investment in tooling and education by microsoft -- they've often laid the groundwork for market segments that they've gone on to dominate by making development really easy.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, it's not on the near horizon. I found this article illuminating:

 _The Case Against Quantum Computing_ \- [https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/the-case- agains...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/the-case-against- quantum-computing)

<comment><USER4> > I argue that they can't. In the physical world, continuous quantities (be > they voltages or the parameters defining quantum-mechanical wave functions) > can be neither measured nor manipulated exactly. That is, no continuously > variable quantity can be made to have an exact value, including zero. To a > mathematician, this might sound absurd, but this is the unquestionable > reality of the world we live in, as any engineer knows.

Wasn't this problem addressed just recently? [https://www.unibas.ch/en/News- Events/News/Uni-Research/The-g...](https://www.unibas.ch/en/News- Events/News/Uni-Research/The-geometry-of-an-electron-determined-for-the-first- time.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From a pricing perspective it looks like the first two chapters out of seven are free, and then it would cost 30$ a month to continue (or 12$/month yearly).

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing that includes all of their courses, not just Quantum?

<comment><USER7> That's correct. Their course offerings are all you can eat with that subscription.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I predict that all of the money that these big companies are pouring in to quantum computing (which is motivated by a fear of missing out on the next big thing) will turn out to be a mistake from their perspective, not because quantum computing never works out, but because the next big thing turns out to be something else and blindsides them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know of a relatively accessible book that introduces quantum mechanics well?

<comment><USER10> We (Brilliant) do have an introductory course on quantum mechanics as well. It goes into more of the phenomena (like spin, photons, etc.) than this computing course that mostly focuses on information. Let us know what you think: [https://brilliant.org/courses/quantum- objects/](https://brilliant.org/courses/quantum-objects/)

If Brilliant isn't your cup of tea – check out mcintyre's spin-first treatment. Generally speaking avoid any textbooks with cats on the cover (ie. Griffith's is popular but only so-so IMO). That being said, we went with a cat on our course ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > For a limited time following the release of this blog post, the first two > chapters of Quantum Computing, including an interactive introduction to > coding in Q# will be available to all registered Brilliant users for free.

I wish these strings were not attached and the course was published on free platform. More people learning QC is itself a benefit then minor revenue generated by few.</comment>


The App Store is broken, long live apps - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/09/23/the-app-store-is-broken-long-live-the-apps/ <comment><USER2> Or to sum up, "your apps are sold from a store that also sells music. Niche app devs face the exact same problem niche musicians have faced for years: how to reach an audience without spending buckets of money."

<comment><USER3> Or more accurately: "Isn't it hard to get noticed on the App Store? We made an app for that."

This is basically just an advertisement, not much useful information in it.</comment></comment>


Microsoft ending sponsorship of SQL Saturday - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/IrishSQL/status/1050526847153393666 <comment><AUTHOR> I've learned so much from these events, hopefully it won't impact these wonderful sessions that have made me build my business on sql server.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wonder if they plan to do another event like this later. Learning SQL is always helpful.</comment>


Gravatar is unintentionally fascist - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/LNRid.png

<comment><AUTHOR> And the question is - is there any easy way of making sure that this kind of symbol can't be generated in their algorithm?</comment>


This Week In...dispute between Leo Laporte and Jason Calacanis - <AUTHOR> http://getthenext.com/archives/512

<comment><USER2> I am an entrepreneurp and after a few shows, i eventually unsubscribe Jason's podcast. I think he is trying to make startup into a gong show and he is doing a disservice to the profession. Leo, on the other hand, is a class act and we have much to learn from him. <http://buzz.dennykmiu.com/be-a-magnet-be-leo>

</comment><comment><USER3> Shouldn't this message have been delivered as part of some sort of puppet interview?</comment>


Sass 3.3 is released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sass-lang.com/posts/184094-sass-33-is-released

<comment><USER2> > You can now write &-suffix (or &_suffix, or even &suffix if you really want) > and Sass will make it work.

Now you can finally use BEM in Sass without the need of verbose mixins. Good stuff!

<comment><USER3> AlwaysTwisted has a really great guide on this for more info and copy-and- pastability. [http://alwaystwisted.com/post.php?s=2014-02-27-even- easier-b...](http://alwaystwisted.com/post.php?s=2014-02-27-even-easier-bem- ing-with-sass-33)

So excited about this, absolutely brilliant. I did notice some frameworks that I was using (I think it was Bourbon) breaking with SASS 3.3 though.

<comment><USER4> I think they've been waiting on Sass 3.3 to release the next Bourbon update. There have been pull requests that were accepted long ago (hyphens mixin comes to mind) that still aren't in the released version of Bourbon.

<comment><USER5> Agreed this would be great but I would be curious to see how Bourbon would deal with their extensive and growing LibSass user base which has the feature set of Sass 3.1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's been a real bummer using sass the last 6-12mo with no sourcemaps support in chrome. It used to work, then Chrome changed something and it all went to hell.

I'm using it with rails, anyone able to get things working with sprockets, etc?

</comment><comment><USER7> Still can't import pure CSS files without having to rename them to .scss. It's been in talks for over two years now, very disappointing.

<comment><USER2> I don't remember if I've tried it but I thought this was fixed in 3.0.

[http://sass-lang.com/documentation/file.SASS_CHANGELOG.html#...](http://sass- lang.com/documentation/file.SASS_CHANGELOG.html#css__directives)

<comment><USER7> That adds a CSS import rule, doesn't embed the content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whatever line-wrap/justification setting they're using is horribly, illegibly broken on mobile Safari. Some irony.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't look good on mobile Chrome, either, and in horizontal mode the menu overlay dominates almost half the screen.

<comment><USER10> Looking very good here at latest chrome on latest Android.

[http://imgur.com/kuSeXfn](http://imgur.com/kuSeXfn)

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't call random, non-hyphenated word breaks like that "looking very good"!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I don't dabble often in markup, I'm curious.

Is Sass still mostly entrenched in the Ruby world (any alternative implementations?) or has it picked up adoption with other devs compared to Less?

<comment><USER13> There's lib-sass[1] a C implementation, but it's not at feature parity yet.

[1] [http://libsass.org](http://libsass.org)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for posting that! I started looking for an implementation that I could embed/distribute easier just the other day. I didn't stumble across this one and it looks promising. This is one area tools built on Ruby, Node, and similar platforms often fall short.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not a Sass expert here, but does anyone know if anything in this release helps with the problem of not being able to @extend items within media queries?

<comment><USER5> Yes, the new [@at-root]([https://github.com/nex3/sass/blob/master/doc- src/SASS_CHANGE...](https://github.com/nex3/sass/blob/master/doc- src/SASS_CHANGELOG.md#at-root)) directive. It is verbose but will allow you to extend root level extends. However this creates selector spaghetti in your CSS and should be avoided if possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sass 3.2.15 was also released today. I'm staying with it for a while to avoid breaking anything I have right now.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's just some kind of script. It is not CSS.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for weighing in, professor. Yeah, I really can't imagine why would anybody ever care about this tool that tens or hundreds of thousands of people use every day to build web interfaces. Especially here, on Hacker News, of all places. What is the world coming to? It's not even CSS!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Community Strategy - <AUTHOR>

I created this strategy for a start-up I'm launching soon, so I can get a better picture of who is using my product and how my product can be optimized for them.
I really want to know what you guys think of it so we can improve it. Perhaps if you have some more examples for how to achieve this, I will gladly add them to the strategy so others can also benefit from it.
I want this to become something really helpful that everyone who wishes to build a community around a product can easily use.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17l_q2qeseDuPE9XQK7z4HspfAI1kXV7NNngGhpygHVg <comment><USER2> Clickable: [https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17l_q2qeseDuPE9XQK7z...](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17l_q2qeseDuPE9XQK7z4HspfAI1kXV7NNngGhpygHVg)</comment>


Review my project: Anonymous email - <AUTHOR> http://www.maskur.com/ Is this a useful service? Is it simple to understand? Other comments? <comment><USER2> This is only anonymous in a casual sense. The relaying party knows who both of you are. For anonymous email in the cryptographic sense, see <http://mixminion.net/>.

This type of site has value for the low-risk situations where you don't want to deal with the high latency of remailer networks. You trade all but the most rudimentary security for that convenience. And in a lot of situations that is fine (like the lock on my front door).

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks interesting, but I think you're going to run into a trust issue.

If I wanted to email someone anonymously, I'd feel more comfortable just going and registering a free email account with gmail or hotmail or something. Then I don't have to worry about what happens to the data on your servers.

What's the argument for using this over just registering an anonymous account somewhere?</comment>


MIT's Infinite Size CNC Router - <AUTHOR> http://www.alecrivers.com/positioncorrectingtools/ <comment><USER2> This would be an amazing boon to hobbyist woodworkers (and i hope that's what they mean by "consumer version"). A large amount of time routing is spent making jigs or patterns templates or transferring measurements or ... Even simple things like dado grooves require clamps and a straightedge.

Given the right price, almost every woodworker on the planet would likely buy this.

They mention the precision is 0.009" average error, which is good enough for woodworking, but not say, metalworking, or even any kind of precision plastic parts.

They also mention "digital automation" in general, which this wouldn't replace. Cabinet shops/etc use CNC machines not just because they are accurate, repeatable, etc, but because they do not require humans to baby them.

<comment><USER3> This is very cool and has a lot of potential, however a few comments. I have done a lot of hand routing and also have a 3-Axis CNC Router. Both hand routing and CNC each have their own Setup Costs. (1) I can see this device being very useful for artists and designers that are doing a lot of one-off shapes and designs (perhaps for Set Design, pattern makers, templates, etc). The setup costs to prepare CNC files for these types of Jobs account for the majority of the costs. (2) However I would guess that the majority of field (vs. shop) routing is done to "shape" the edge of wood (i.e. with a ogee or roundover, etc). Short of having an on site upside down router table, this is typically done (a) using a plunge bit with a top mounted guide for the Router guard to follow or (b) using a router bit with a small Guide Wheel that follows a top or bottom mounted template/guide edge. The router bits with Guide Wheels can not easily be used for plunge routing and are a pain to use in multi-pass scenarios. I don't know if they can get the precision, however I would think that if this team could offset their sensors to follow the middle of a piece of trim allowing someone to shape the edge of a piece of wood "FreeHand" (after applying some guide tape) and get away from Guide wheels, Clamps, Guides, etc. That would be a MAJOR use case. (3) After watching the Video, I would urge users to wear dusk masks when routing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I think this idea is awesome, it solves a _common_ problem in a unique and creative way, I sadly cannot watch the video: "Unfortunately, this EMI- music-content is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights."

Oh my, one more video I cannot watch just because I am german and one more day of my life ruined by them :(

<comment><USER5> The video demonstrates the use of the router with no additional explanation.

Observations from the video:

1) On the screen is a picture of the object, with a blue path representing the actual path of the router and a circle representing the fault tolerance of the system. Apparently, keep the path inside of the circle and you win.

2) The computer can move the router independently of its mount, within the tolerance represented by the onscreen circle.

3) It looks really easy to operate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Programming it to make straight cuts without setting up a fence alone would make this a buy for me, shapes be damned.

</comment><comment><USER7> Prediction: The router will be cheap, the special plywood with the calibration stickers will be very expensive.

<comment><USER8> I imagine eventually they could do away completely with calibration stickers and just use regular surface tracking with any old plywood.

<comment><USER9> But then you might want to use it with lets say glossy plain-coloured melamine sheets - most surface trackers have a lot of problems with this, so the calibration stickers are a cheap and reliable solution.

The only issue I can see is kick-back from the router bit, especially if you use larger diameter bits - this can throw the router significantly, and unless the control system compensates quickly yet gently, you may well lose tracking, leading to undefined results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A neat application, indeed - but there is definitely something to find flaw with: it is purported to provide the ability to route arbitrarily large pieces at a very low cost. However, a human operator is not like a gantry-style CNC router, they cannot simply "fly" over the work area. Typically, must operate the router in a "push and pull" fashion to maintain control. A human would become weary very quickly if you put them in a harness over a 50-ft piece of material and forced them to push and pull with their arms hanging below them. Finding motors with enough torque, but not so much to put the human in danger (you wouldn't want a software flaw to push the router in a dangerous direction without the operator being able to override it with their own physical strength) will limit what bits and materials the process can be used on. Granted, I'm fairly certain few are expecting to CNC route metallic materials by hand. =)

Overall a cool new application - I find the display on the screen one of the best features, and, in fact, I'd kill to have something like that -without- the motor correction. One could, with some work, replace the motors with encoders attached to spinning shafts, which were limited in which direction they could spin, and get rid of the tape - simply showing the user that they are following the pattern or not.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome! But in this case, instead of introducing the human element, wouldn't it be (relatively) easy to make the entire apparatus self-driving and programmable? As in, mount this thing on a Roomba-like robot and give it a coarse driving path?

<comment><USER12> Getting a grip on the surface good enough to give you the control you need in the presence of sawdust is a lot harder than it looks at first glance. You might be able to make it work by putting a big magnet on the underside of the surface to attract the router, though.

<comment><USER13> It would have to an extremely powerful magnet though, since it can't be right below the router.

<comment><USER12> It could if had its own set of wheels+servos. But it would still have to be powerful enough to attract the router through the surface.

<comment><USER14> I think that the magnet idea could work if you added 3 electro-magnets to the router chassis and made another chassis (to ride around underneath) with 3 corresponding ferro magnetic pads.

<comment><USER15> You could just have removable weights on it. Suction feet is the other obvious one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It would be neat if it could follow a line drawn on the board, eliminating need for a digital version of the design and the calibration stickers.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't want to be pesimist, but I give it 6 months to a open source alternative to be released.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why do you need to put barcode markers on the surface? What's wrong with optical mice?

<comment><USER18> My guess is for a sort of absolute positioning as opposed to the relative positioning of an optical mouse. A mouse produces deltas relative to your previous position, while the bar codes are always in the same place. The problem with relative positioning is that even a small inaccuracy will accumulate over time, resulting in edges being off in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Genius - even though the router is made by Dewalt, I hope it's patent protected and licensed by MIT so we can start seeing this in Home Depot / Lowes without one company owning the rights.

<comment><USER19> Of course, my question is answered by this: "A consumer version of the position-correcting router is being developed, to be released by a forthcoming startup." - No doubt the same people in this video, technology licensed from MIT. Company to be acquired by Dewalt within 24 mos. after commercialization.

<comment><USER7> Not really within the remit of Dewalt, whose branding is "big manly construction equipment", and this is more of a fine-woodworking/hobbyist product. (The pros will still use their big CNC table routers, which don't require human intervention, and can cut much much faster) Maybe Dremel?

<comment><USER19> Dewalt is basically the prosumer brand of Black & Decker (which owns Dewalt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> what about projecting the sticker patterns onto the wood rather than real stickers?

<comment><USER21> The wood will move slightly when it's cut, so that won't work.

<comment><USER20> I am quite sure this can be countered - the wood could be clamped and the router could be tracked and the picture adjusted.

Further, the amount of movement would not make your routes completely useless/wildly inaccurate.

<comment><USER22> What you just described is getting halfway to a CNC machine.

Another benefit of this system would be portability. You can set it up and use it almost anywhere, like at a job site.

Having a system with clamps, overhead tracking, etc. is going in the wrong direction. It's not like the stickers are some huge inconvenience or expensive consumable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>