The Greatest Keyboard of All Time Reborn (2018) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7wmMZmMinM <comment><USER3> If you're interested in buying one of these, Unicomp ([https://www.pckeyboard.com](https://www.pckeyboard.com)) purchased the rights to continue making Model M style keyboards once Lexmark removed them from their line of products.

If you want to buy one of the originals, [https://clickykeyboards.com](https://clickykeyboards.com) has them.

Also, the Model F ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_F_keyboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_F_keyboard)) is considered by many as being superior to the Model M. IBM made far fewer Model Fs compared to the Ms, so if you find one of these in the wild, it'll be really expensive. [https://www.modelfkeyboards.com](https://www.modelfkeyboards.com) is trying to re-create the original Model F.

<comment><USER4> While it's true that Unicomp have purchased all the rights and equipment to make Model M keyboards, the quality doesn't seem to a candle to the original. I managed to break two in the span of two years. At which point I gave up on them and simply built my own. This could just have been catastrophically bad luck. Or like Linus says in the video, maybe it has something to do with their version being based on the newer, cheaper Lexmark version and not the IBM original.

Model F was a very interesting keyboard. I was rather fond of the 24 function keys on mine. And I now regret not having taken mine with me when I moved out at age 18.

<comment><USER5> Same robustness issues with my unicomp. The alt and spacebar keys don't register if not pressed a certain way (wonky)... all in about a year of use.

I still have a few model m's, but I got tired of not having a "windows" key, so I gave it a shot and can't recommend them.

<comment><USER6> I have a Unicomp, and my roommate spilled water on it once, which caused a bunch of the keys to not register and required a rebuild (which cost almost as much as a new keyboard).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am typing this on a Model M. I wrote my first program in 1969 and I have used every kind of keyboard since. I bought four Model Ms, new in the box, about 10 years ago for $7 each. I expect them to last for the next 20 years (if I live that long).

The keys are black from my fingers and some of the letters are partially worn off.

The model M is the best keyboard that I have ever used.

<comment><USER8> I used to work with a guy who used the original Model M that he had with the PC he was given in the late 80s/early 90s. It's survived multiple coffee spills and at least one case where it was repeatedly picked up and bashed against the desk out of frustration (both key-side down and up). You'll almost certainly get that 20 years.

If you want to restore the keys -- and to be clear, I can't _honestly_ recommend this approach -- but I used to _bathe_ my Northgate Omnikey and clean it with dish soap, followed by a trip to the oven on the equivalent of a "keep warm" setting for a half-day. I was surprised that a lot of the discoloration on the keys wasn't the usual plastic oxidation but was from the oil and grime on my fingertips. It always came out shining and like-new -- partly because whatever they did to print the letters on the keys was very resistant to being worn off. I did it about once every 2 years during the decade and a half that I owned it and it was sold at an estate sale in perfect working condition 15 years after that.

At least one person mentioned using a dishwasher. I've never tried it, and would never do that to a modern keyboard, but I'd imagine the effects would be similar with a whole lot less effort.

<comment><USER9> LTT did a video testing out different cleaning methods - <USER2> keyboards in dishwasher with modern keyboards was safe. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnF42ZoRSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnF42ZoRSw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't help to just keep blatantly reposting this for each and every HN article about buckle spring keyboards:

[https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring](https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring)

"This project emulates the sound of my old faithful IBM Model-M space saver bucklespring keyboard while typing on my notebook, mainly for the purpose of annoying the hell out of my coworkers."

Enjoy!

<comment><USER11> It would be fun to annoy others with it but the extra width of the keyboard also comes with the annoyance that your mouse is further to the right as well. I alternate between using my M and other mechanical keyboards (months between switching) until my memory of the inconvenience of the mouse being further away fades.

<comment><USER10> That is where the Model M "space saver" comes in: [https://tinyurl.com/vcvkf8p](https://tinyurl.com/vcvkf8p)

<comment><USER12> I have a WASD but same layout. I never used the numeric keyboard and it fits on my keyboard tray with a big Mac trackpad much better than my previous full- size mechanical keyboard did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To me (and it seems very much a personal opinion) not having an F-key array on the left - as on the original AT keyboards - was one of the biggest losses made during keyboard evolution. Depends on the software in use of course, but being able to hit a modifier (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) and an F-key without stretching is the reason I still use the old-style layout to this day.

</comment><comment><USER8> Somewhat topic-adjacent -- I'm looking at getting a new keyboard. In my early 20s, I used this specific keyboard and while I liked it (as my other comment points out), it's _super loud_.

Does anyone make a heavy mechanical keyboard with F-Keys on the left any longer? It is a whole lot easier to land on the right F-key without looking down when they're vertical on the left (just like it's easier to hit all the numbers accurately on a number-pad vs. the top row). Being able to one-hand CTRL/ALT+F-keys accurately, without looking, is somewhere between difficult and impossible on modern keyboard designs.

The keyboard I grew up on, the Northgate Omnikey, was heavy, had left-oriented F-Keys, and included replacement key caps for CTRL, ALT and CAPS LOCK (along with a tool to remove the keys!) so that you could put CTRL where CAPS LOCK typically is and ALT where CTRL typically is. It also had corresponding DIP switches that controlled whether the keyboard sent CTRL or CAPS LOCK from that position, so no monkeying around with driver software or OS configuration to make your keyboard behave the way that the key caps indicated.

Are any of you using a board like this which is either USB or PS/2 and has been manufactured in the last 5 years (or is still produced, new, today)?

<comment><USER14> Unicomp makes one: [https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40L5A](https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40L5A)

It will be gloriously clickity clackety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Uh... I remember I saw that video in advance on Floatplane ([https://www.floatplane.com/](https://www.floatplane.com/)) and decided to get an EnduraPro (Basically a ModelM + Trackpoint) from Unicomp.

I've used it for a while but then decided to put it away.

Two big problems:

1\. The trackpoint moves the cursor to the left just right, but it hits a key when moving to the right. Basically it's super fast to move in one direction and super-slow in the opposite. It got me crazy.

2\. The keys are immensely loud. Duh. I was expecting loud keys, but I didn't expect that much loud. I am not kidding here: i decided to finally put away the keyboard when, while typing on an afternoon, I hit the Enter key a bit harder than usual and somehow I got pain in my right ear. I am not sure if this was due to some vibration traveling back through my right arm or just from noise, but man that did not feel good at all.

Oh... did I mention that thing is FU __ING MASSIVE? It 's HEAVY. HEAVY AS F __K.

One of the Model-M disadvantages (that also affects a lot of mechanical keyboards, but no one seems to care, apparenly) is that the key plane is raised from where your palm usually rests, and the angle the key forms is not negligible. One could probably get some kind of wrist strain by using it all the day everyday.

And don't even get me started on the mess I had to do to have it shipped to europe...

I have settled on an IBM SK-8845 keyboard at work and a ThinkPad USB (x220-style) keyboard at home. They're both quieter, the trackpoint works a lot better (the sk-8845 even has the touchpad), they're flatter and they both have a very comfortable palmrest.

In the end, I don't completely regret buying the endura pro but I wouldn't buy it again.

</comment><comment><USER16> For a moment, I thought that they were talking about this project:

[https://kono.store/products/input-club-symbolic- keyboard](https://kono.store/products/input-club-symbolic-keyboard)

For those too lazy to click, it's a project to resurrect the Space Cadet Keyboard. It's still in the planning stages.

</comment><comment><USER17> To me the greatest keyboard of all time is Acer Future, seen in this picture: [https://i.imgur.com/KIjOiuQ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/KIjOiuQ.jpg)

It is great because the trackpad is in the center of the keyboard, which means you don't have to stretch your arm to use the mouse.

The keys feel nice and it is ergonomic. Sadly they stopped making these long ago. Nothing like it is available in the market today.

<comment><USER18> This looks quite a bit like my kinesis pro keyboard which I bought because of CTS. I am thinking about putting a touchpad in the middle..

<comment><USER19> I have one there. Works well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The history in the video doesn't ring quite right. The heritage of the PS/2 keyboard also relate to mainframe terminals (3270 and maybe 5250) which predate the IBM PC and to the original IBM/AT keyboard which predates the PS/2\. Presumably some of those have electric typewriter heritage as well. I also think some of those older keyboards were nicer than the PS/2 IMNHO.

</comment><comment><USER21> I still have a Model M attached to an older system that I use for playing with different Linux distos on. The date stamp on the back says "28Nov88".

Today my is keyboard is a Filco Majestouch 2 Tenkeyless (Japanese). I also have the Flico "Genuine Wood" wrist rest. I ordered replacement keycaps to match MacOS vs the default Windows keys (any replaced the Caplocks with Ctrl, the way God intended it!). I have one on the desk at home and work. The feeling is not quite as good as the Model M but it works well. Switches are Cherry Brown (45g). The Model M is 70g IIRC.

If you are looking for a keyboard, Filco is worth trying. If you live in Japan any of the big tech shops (Bic, etc) will have a ton on display with different switches you can try out.

When I worked at IBM way back when, keyboards were a "green tagged" part vs. a "red tagged part". Green = order as many as you want with no accounting/reason for doing so. Red parts had to be accounted for (the $$$ stuff).

</comment><comment><USER22> to hell with the M.. my heart still lives with the F. [https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/](https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been on a mechanical keyboard adventure, and I realized most of them are not for me. I don't have any nostalgia for the 80s keyboards, and I can't stand tall keys anymore.

I am using a low-profile mechanical keyboard (Havit KB390L) and it's the only mechanical keyboard that is usable for me.

However, it's likely my next keyboard will be scissor switch again. I will probably go for Logitech MX Keys, seems to be the best option for premium scissor switch keyboards.

<comment><USER24> I agree, it's very difficult to go from my MBP butterfly keys to a mechanical. On top of the enormous amount of travel required, I also would be forced to use a mouse (or external trackpad), which is so much slower than having the touchpad at my thumbs at all times.

Right now, I type quickly on the keyboard, and any time I need to use the pointer all that's required is a slight rotation of my right hand. Compare that to all the mechanical keyboard folks in my office, who also type quickly, but every cursor interaction is a movement of their entire arm. I don't understand how they're okay with that.

Anyone know of a nice low profile mechanical with a built in trackpad?

<comment><USER6> Unicomp makes a version that has a built in trackpoint and mouse buttons. Haven't used it, though.

<comment><USER25> I've read that the trackpoint in the M13s (including the Unicomps) are one of the earlier designs, and trackpoint enthusiasts prefer the newer versions. That's as far as I went down that rabbit hole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Dang, I was hoping for something newer. Model M's today are really hard to work with. It take's majority of your desk space and then you have to use one of those weird adapters that you will have to convert again to plug into most computers. I use the happy hacking boards as they're pretty solid, take up less space and still feel alright typing. Seeing the video does give me new inspiration to go back to the model m though... Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER27> On a related note, I just came across this: [https://www.amazon.com/Freewrite- Distraction-Free-Typewriter...](https://www.amazon.com/Freewrite-Distraction- Free-Typewriter-Frontlight-Mechanical/dp/B01GGE8CP8/ref=sr_1_54)

Looks like a good TRS-80 Model 100 replacement for writers. Although perhaps a bit _too_ anachronistic as you can apparently only backspace!

</comment><comment><USER28> The model M is an interesting keyboard; the sound and tactility is great. However, those keyswitches are quite heavy by modern standards and you may find your fingers getting tired. The layout is also not amazing, and the controller doesn't lend itself to much customizability.

If you work in an environment where loud keys are acceptable, you should try the Kailh/Novelkeys "thick clicks": [https://novelkeys.xyz/products/novelkeys- x-kailh-box-thick-c...](https://novelkeys.xyz/products/novelkeys-x-kailh-box- thick-clicks) The sound and tactility on these switches is incredible.

I think a lot of people that are interested in mechanical keyboards think the only options available are Cherry Browns, Cherry Blues, Topre, and buckling springs... but the reality is that that is the tip of the iceberg. The new designs in the Cherry form factor are much better than anything Cherry makes or has ever made; so if you've tried those and didn't like them (I found them distractingly scratchy and not very tactile; apparently a common complaint), there are a lot of other options before you have to go to a finger-killing model M.

I currently use an Ergodox EZ with Thick Clicks (Jade on the pinky keys, Navy on everything else) and love it. It is the most tactile keyboard I have ever used, and the sound is amazing. I also have an Ergodox EZ with Healios (silent linear) switches and love those too. They are the smoothest and quietest switches I have ever touched; it is almost distracting how smooth and silent they are.

Anyway, there is a lot of good stuff out there and a lot of keyboards support swapping switches without soldering now, so you can try them all. I think most people will like a non-model-M board, simply because we can do so much better now. If you've ever used Cherry switches and said "this is terrible" and though that a model M was your only option for tactility; that's just not the case anymore. There are hundreds of switches between Cherry Brown and buckling spring now; one of them is likely to be "your thing".

Some switches I've used recently:

\- Hako True - these were designed to feel like Topre switches, but they don't feel like Topre switches. They feel linear and get very heavy before activation, so they don't feel good to type on to me. It just feels like compressing a spring and maybe your key will be typed if you're lucky.

\- Novelkeys Box Royal - these are very tactile, but you can very strongly feel the activation point and they feel like they want to get stuck there on the way up. I used these as pinky keys for about a year and they just got scratchier and scratchier until I felt the need to replace them. (Lube is probably the correct fix, but I am too lazy to lube keyswitches.) They are quite tactile, though. Interesting design, worth a try.

\- Hako Royal Clear - these are heavier Box Royals, I think, and I used them for about a year as the non-pinky keys on the board with Box Royals. Pretty tactile, but you can definitely feel some clickiness at the activation point on the way up. They are not particularly quiet, but are a good switch to try out.

\- Novelkeys Thick Clicks - very very very tactile, maybe the most tactile switch I've ever used. Super loud. The Jades really do require you to remove all force from the key to come back up; I notice this but it doesn't bother me in any way. My favorite switch family by far, if you can live with the noise. It's not "oh I can hear someone typing", it's "there is an earthquake nearby we're all going to die" loud. Similar to buckling springs, but not as heavy. Still on the heavy side, though, so if you like really light switches, they are not for you. (If you like light switches, I think you are basically dead with respect to tactile or clickiness, though; the tactile bump is always going to be heavy.)

\- Healios - smoothest mechanism ever. Touching them makes you think they are exuding quality. Silent on bottom-out and upstroke. Nobody will know you're using a mechanical keyboard. They are perfect for gaming, and pretty good for typing. (I'm using them right now.) They are very very light even though they are sold as 67g switches. I had avoided linear switches because I thought I needed the tactility to avoid bottoming out, but I was wrong. Worth a look.

There are also some good switches I haven't personally used; namely the Zilents.

Anyway, my point is that you don't need to go full model M to get good keyswitches. There are better boards and good switches around. Get a board with "hot-swappable" switches and try some out, it's likely you'll be able to build the perfect keyboard. You won't be stuck with a standard layout as you are with Realforce or Model M boards, and you'll be able to use a firmware like QMK to get a perfect layout. (For example, I have ({}) on the home row activated by a thumb switch on the other hand. Must more comfortable for coding than groping for all those keys with your pinky.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the write-up. I'm going to look into the Healios -- I've been wanting a heavy, mechanical, keyboard but I'm in an open office environment and don't want my co-workers to hate me.

On the fatigue side, it might be less of an issue than you expect after you get used to it. In fact, I noticed that while my fingers are more tired when I use a "heavy-switch" keyboard, my posture is better and my wrists hurt less. I suspect that I'm positioning my wrists "more correctly" on the heavier keys because it's necessary in order to still type at the same speed on them[0].

I think the main thing is to be consistent. I used to play piano and for about two years after I moved in to my first apartment, I had to switch to a (non- weighted) electronic keyboard due to budget/space. When I returned to a regular upright, I couldn't actually _play_ a lot of the music I had learned on the synth because I wouldn't apply enough pressure to result in a sound. After about a month of regular practice, I ended up replacing the electronic keyboard with a much more expensive one with weighted keys and never went back.

[0] And as much as I try to be _really careful_ ... adjusting my typing posture, consistently, would be about as difficult as adjusting the way I walk, consistently. It's second-nature and burned into my brain. I'd only adjust if I received a consistent reminder, like missing keypresses.

<comment><USER28> I also find it hard to type on light switches. I feel like heavy switches save me from a situation where my brain wants to type a letter, but upon feeling the start of applying force, it thinks "that is not the letter you want". On light switches, the key is registered before the feedback loop executes completely. (I'm on a light keyboard right now and probably hit backspace 10 times typing those sentences.)

For me, the biggest thing to make typing feel comfortable was to not use weak fingers constantly. I touch type, on qwerty, and certainly don't mind using my pinkies to press qazp;/, because they don't come up very often. But getting enter, backspace, and programming symbols off the pinkies made a huge difference for me. That is why I recommend keyboards that use QMK or similar; you have the power to move keys around and really get what's good for you. (I also like the Ergodox because of the four extra keys activated by your pointer finger, and the four big thumb keys for enter, space, and modifiers. Having said that, I think the Ergodox layout is generally not that great; the small keys around the big thumb keys are nearly impossible to press. I use them for arrow keys, insert, delete, pg up, pg down... and never press them. I use C-n/C-p/C-b/C-f for movement, don't use the delete key, and have a macro for shift-insert. If those keys were removed from the board I wouldn't be sad at all. They are just a waste of space and ~$10 worth of keyswitches.)

Edit: one other note, I'm actually using Roselios, not Healios: [https://zealpc.net/collections/switches/products/roselios_sa...](https://zealpc.net/collections/switches/products/roselios_sakurios) My understanding is that they are exactly identical except for the color of the stem. I am not sure why people care about what color their keyswitches are... I just bought what was in stock ;)

<comment><USER8> > I feel like heavy switches save me from a situation where my brain wants to > type a letter, but upon feeling the start of applying force, it thinks "that > is not the letter you want".

I've run into this, myself, but never thought about it being related to the resistance of the switches. However, I'm convinced that's it after thinking about it.

Related to this is the most _annoying_ thing I run into with my basic keyboards is over-stretching for CTRL+V. I _always_ catch myself about 1/4 of the way into pressing the key and instinctively adjust. On my mechanical with decent resistance, my finger bounces off the `B`, lands on `V`, and everything is fine. On my laptop keyboards, which have a varying degrees of "too short of a distance" between pressed and not pressed (even my Thinkpad), this almost _always_ results in the CTRL+B being hit immediately before the CTRL+V (lovely bookmark pane, now _go away_!)

<comment><USER28> C and V are definitely in weird places on staggered keyboards. Most "touch typists" even use the wrong finger for C because it's in such a strange place. You might like an "ortholinear" layout, which puts everything in a finger's column in an actual column, making it very clear which finger is responsible for which keys. Typing C/V/B feels a lot better, especially C.

The downside of trying an ortholinear keyboard is that there is some significant adjustment time. I think it took me a about a month to switch from a normal staggered 60% keyboard to an Ergodox EZ, and I have a lot of trouble going back to a non-ortholinear layout. People on Reddit assure me I am an idiot, though, so maybe it's just me.

I bring it up because the layout really does help with that lower row, and if you are explicitly noticing mistyped keys there a lot, it might be worth trying it out. You will never be able to use a laptop again, though, so it might not be worth the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love these keyboards (and mechanical keyboards in general; the tactility and sensitivity is so satisfying). I just wish there was a silent option that wasn't still loud as fuck.

The main problem is that noise isolating/cancelling cans won't protect you from the clackety-clack, which for a lot of people can be as infuriating as listening to someone eating loudly.

<comment><USER30> Back in the 80s when everyone in the office was using one, no one apparently cared or noticed the noise. Though we didn't have everyone hiding behind cans and there was often a bit of a coffee shop lite buzz of background chatter.

I think everyone got over sensitive about it as we all hide behind a playlist.

<comment><USER31> > Back in the 80s when everyone in the office was using one, no one apparently > cared or noticed the noise.

Remember what the alternative was back then ... a bunch of people using _typewriters_.

Compared to typewriters these keyboards are a massive improvement in noise.

<comment><USER30> True, though I was more thinking of the computing context, where what went before might have been a VT100 or 52, maybe a Wyse or IBM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I miss having the function keys on the left, Word Perfect 1987-style.

ETA: Aha! [https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40L5A](https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40L5A)

<comment><USER8> Yes, _please_. It's so much easier to hit the right F-Key (without looking down), especially when combined with ALT/CTRL, when they're on the left. I wish this was still an option these days.

Thanks for the link. Damn, I haven't seen a 122 key keyboard since the 80s!

<comment><USER32> Right? Right? It was like playing chords on a piano, or maybe like those rows of buttons on an accordion. Top row F keys, feh!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This wacky and fun chemistry PhD reviews keyboards.

His reviews are highly relevant for this thread: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Chyrosran22](https://www.youtube.com/user/Chyrosran22)

</comment><comment><USER34> I miss my Model M, having gotten rid of it in 2016 because I knew no open office outside of China would accept me using one. Now I just use a das with the quieter cherry switches, it feels so inferior.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is making me miss the Northgate Omnikey keyboard I had 30 years ago.

<comment><USER8> I think every one of my comments has mentioned this keyboard. IMO, it's the best keyboard that was ever made and I'm seriously considering buying one on ebay (along with all of the stuff required to plug it in to current hardware).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have an M13 made in 1994 by Lexmark. It is distinguished by having the track point built into the keyboard. I do prefer its feel over that of 'modern' mechanical keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just saw one of these on Craigslist. I used one of these for years at my first "real job" and loved it, but _wow_ is it noisy.

In the 90s, my dad and I built custom (higher-end) PCs for small businesses and individuals. We carefully weeded out parts that we didn't like and put a high priority on excellent displays[1], good keyboards and mice[2]. To this day, I'm surprised at how little thought is paid to such a critical input device. And it's not that users don't care about it, it's almost like it was forgotten.

My personal preference, in this category, though was the Northgate Omnikey[0]. It was a multi-platform keyboard that was able to be plugged in to an AT/XT, Amiga and a few others. The model I had was left-oriented F-keys (I miss that!) and included extra keys and tools so that you could put the CTRL where "Caps Lock" was, and "alt" where the left CTRL was, which was how we configured them ... no more accidental CAPS LOCK hits when aiming for "A". Unfortunately, my parents sold it in an estate sale a while back. I doubt they got anywhere near the $100-$200 that these sell for when functional (depending on condition ... most are _very_ yellow due to the plastic oxidizing but you can still find some that maintain their gray-white/blue color). Pretty rare to find a keyboard that resells for about the price they were new (sans inflation).

I'd put the IBM at a very close second. The Northgate was easily on par as far as "feel" was concerned, but the IBM keyboards had this _loud_ "ping" sound that sort-of rang after a key was pressed (springs), which the Omnikey lacked. I couldn't own a keyboard like that if I wanted to continue programming since, at the time, most of my programming[4] was done between midnight and 3:00 AM with fleeting parental approval (fleeting ... if I woke them up).

I feel that keyboard quality is something that manufacturers have missed the ball on -- especially on notebooks. This Christmas I picked out a Thinkpad for my parents. They love it. My Dad now wants a new desktop keyboard, though, because he _really likes_ the Thinkpad keyboard. I was a little puzzled -- his current board feels _exactly the same_ to my fingers. After thinking about it for a bit, I'm fairly certain I know where the problem is: despite the same feel, his desktop keyboard weighs almost nothing. Every time you touch a key, or even reach out for it, it slides a little. So every few sentences, you're re-positioning the keyboard. At my typing speed, this means repositioning the keyboard _constantly_.

It makes me wonder if in all of this effort to make things lighter and more portable, the industry miscalculated by applying that logic to peripheral keyboards. I'd prefer my keyboard to weight twice as much as my current laptop. To me, I'd rather have a keyboard heavier than a notebook PC. Between the two I use most regularly, one is wired, the other is wireless, both would move with a reasonable gust of wind. Why do I care if it's convenient to carry when it _never leaves my desktop_? There's much greater value is in it staying put while I use it. At my office, several developers I work with have purchased their own keyboards. Some of it is "cool factor", but one thing I found consistently about the boards they've chosen -- _All_ of them weigh in at 3 times the weight of the typical $15 board and most have sticky rubber feet. About half hadn't realized the difference until I pointed it out. I even had one co-worker that got upset at the realization -- he'd narrowed the choice down to 2 keyboards and opted for the lighter one. I made him unhappy with his decision. Oops!

[0] [https://deskthority.net/wiki/Northgate_OmniKey/101](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Northgate_OmniKey/101)

[1] I can't remember the brand, but nearly every computer monitor was XGA 14"; we only sold 16+" and went with Trinitron models and models with similar technology (at the time, I think Sony had an active patent on the technology, but we had quality issues so we switched to a different brand that I assume didn't work exactly like the Trinitron, but still had the color clarity).

[2] We never found a mouse worth a damn -- we experimented with an early model of ball-free mice, but it was trash.

[3] I'm sure there's an intelligent, technical, term for that but I don't care to search for it.

[4] I was writing a BBS from scratch in Borland/Turbo Pascal after deciding to toss out the code from my Telegard hack. I've actually tried to revisit that using SSH as transport (instead of dial-up) but ran out of motivation.

<comment><USER37> WRT [1]. Mitsubishi's Diamondtron was the other one. Pretty much the only way to get a flat fronted CTR at the time.

<comment><USER8> Those were excellent and I know we used them at one point. I want to say the brand we settled on in the final years of the business was a Nokia 17" that used a -tron variant. I'm not positive[0]. I had one of those from the mid-90s until around 2010 as a second screen. The color quality on this display spoiled me. I could never find a flat panel that produced such deep blacks and bright whites. When you'd drag a photo from the CRT to any of the flat-panels, it looked like you applied a filter to mute all of the colors a bit. It was completely functional when I recycled it and I'd never had an issue with the thing in the 12-15 years or so that I owned it.

[0] I tried to find the model with a quick Google Image search, and this looks familiar: [https://www.recycledgoods.com/nokia-17-crt-monitor-svga- mode...](https://www.recycledgoods.com/nokia-17-crt-monitor-svga- model-447l-447l058/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I feel rick-rolled, please warn about linking to Linus, I only open his videos in incognito mode!

<comment><USER39> Why?

<comment><USER40> His isn't that interested in the content and doesn't want his feed to end up with perpetual LTT recommendations.

<comment><USER39> oh OK.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I start/run a company without being resident anywhere? - <AUTHOR>

I'm pretty much always traveling, so I don't have a fixed residency. My parents own two apartments in two different parts of the world and I also have a large family spread across the world who I frequently visit - usually not staying in a country longer than 2 months. I'm 19 years old, EU-Citizen and developed a SaaS app which scaled rapidly to about 7k/mo revenue in about 6 months. I ran the whole thing illegally, which was pretty stupid I know - hence I took it offline while I decide how to structure the business/accounting side of things and also rewrite the code to be more scalable/automated. My questions are:
In which country should I form the company? Ultimately I want it to be fast and simple (aka electronic), countries like the UK and Singapore have all-online and quick company formation.
What's the best way to automate accounting? I was looking at xero.com as they provide an API which I can use to automate customer invoices and handle payment processor receipts - which brings me to my next problem, how am I supposed to open a business bank account without a real proof of address/residency?
Where am I supposed to pay my personal taxes? <comment><USER2> Your main things to consider when choosing a country:

1) Which country do you have nationality in / property in (or in this case do your parents have property in). It's probably easier to get paper-work done, bank accounts sorted, etc. in that one.

2) What are your longer term plans for the business - is it going to be a side-project or do you want to build it into a real business ? - in the later case you should be thinking about where would make sense in terms of hiring employees, raising investment, etc.

As for automating accounts I'd just hire an accountant and book-keeper and not sweat automation.

In terms of legal status you may not have even broken any kind of law yet, many countries will let you run businesses as an individual (without registering a company) as long as you file personal taxes on the revenue. Depending how recently you took that revenue in you may not even have reached the filing deadlines so it may just be a case of putting together the correct accounts.

But to start with I'd recommend finding an accountant you trust (preferably one with other SaaS clients).

Registering a business bank account without residency is going to be a huge pain though. Not sure what the best solution is (unless you're willing to actually settle down and become less nomadic).

</comment><comment><USER3> Set up the company in your home country, it will make your life much easier. Otherwise, unless your country has a double tax agreement with the country where you registered your company, you will need to legally declare the company drawings as income, and you will end up paying tax twice.

If your company is registered in a different country than where you file your personal tax return, you will also have a very hard time if the tax years don't match up (for example if one country files tax returns in June, and one in December).

Basically, you can't avoid paying tax anywhere, so don't try. Just get a good accountant back home, and it won't matter where you travel.

I've spent the past couple years traveling this way with a company registered back home and had no problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Estonia supports online business registration there also, and I can recommend an accountant if you like.

Can't you just choose an EU country to use an official base of operations? Sooner or later you will stop travelling, and non-payment of taxes will catch up with you. If you are receiving income in country (x), you might as well declare that to be your residence for tax purposes, even if in real life you aren't there for the (usually 6 month) period required to be paying taxes.

If you can find a trustworthy accountant, it could be that you can officially form the company with them, and get them to open the bank account in their name and your name.

Anyway, as posted already, you really need to consult with a lawyer or expert accountant. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Some thoughts, more knowledgeable people might want to comment:

Set up a company in some "tax heaven" offshore country (source). In some another country (destination), register yourself as an employee of that company.

So basically, you (from the source country) will pay the salary to you (to the destination country).

You should choose the destination country which do not tax salaries/incomes paid by companies in foreign countries (there are countries like this, including in [eastern] Europe).

</comment><comment><USER6> Consult a local lawyer, reputable firm who knows various countries tax laws and ease of incorporation. Or come to Canada.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love Canada and actually have family in Toronto and Montreal. I did visit Canada on a 6 month tourist visa which I got when I landed there but immigrating to Canada seems like a nightmare, as they are looking for people with specific skills and education.</comment></comment>


Are parts of India becoming too hot for humans? - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/03/asia/india-heat-wave-survival-hnk-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> A new fact I learned today and which doesn't make me any happier:

'Survivability was based on what is called "wet bulb temperature" \-- a combined metric of humidity and the outside temperature.

When the wet bulb reaches 35°C it becomes impossible for humans to cool their bodies through sweating, hence it indicates the survival temperature for humans. A few hours of exposure to these wet bulb conditions leads to death, even for the fittest of humans'

More info : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet- bulb_temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature)

<comment><USER3> So a wet bulb condition occurs at 50% relative humidity and 46 °C (115 °F). Many places are reaching that already. Thanks for the tip, I hadn't heard of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you have to ask, then the answer is no.

Ideally avoid news about India from CNN,BBC,...

Most of these journalists have never set foot outside of their hotels in Delhi or Mumbai.

Travel 5km outside of urban core and India remains the same as it always has been. It's a tropical country so of course its going to get warm.

What has happened is really awful urban planning with zero account on the laws of thermodynamics. So you have European style urban heat effect from concrete but worse since its India.

The solution is already in the pipeline with insane growth in solar power.

As climate change heats up ( pun intended ) India is not going to be the biggest loser here due to the monsoon. It gets more rainy and the weather stays stable overall.

The most destabilization of weather is going to happen in Russia, EU, Canada, Australia and North America. So please try to fix your own backyard first ( since you guys shat your pants in the first place anyway ).

<comment><USER5> What journalists? Sources for this article are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.. a whole lot really, not one thing coming from a journalist.

> Last year, there were 484 official heat waves across India, up from 21 in > 2010.

That's by definition of the the Indian government, not journalists that have never left their hotel.

<comment><USER4> > Last year, there were 484 official heat waves across India, up from 21 in > 2010.

Does it mean India is unlivable ? What if we changed the headline to USA being unlivable ? how often has CNN published USA being unlivable ?

CNN is responsible for climate change as much as any large oil company, they have always invited climate change denialist on their network.

There is also a undertone to 'India being unlivable' that rubs some people the wrong way. They said the same thing about Africa / India being unlivable for white colonist 300 years ago. So CNN should try to be neutral and informed in their writing - they could have said "North Indian cities like Delhi are becoming unlivable".

Putting all of India in one basket when India has extremely varied climate, make it seem they are much more uninformed.

<comment><USER5> > Does it mean India is unlivable ?

No, of course not. The headline isn't to give a yes or no answer, but to simply explore the question, list some things we know and some studies.

I guess as Indian you get to read a _lot_ of patronizing shit on the web, and I totally respect your resentment, but this article was submitted by someone from MIT, it wasn't written by their staff.

> how often has CNN published USA being unlivable ?

Not unlivable, but literally searching for "cnn when will the us become unlivable" I found these for example:

[https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/climate-change- rep...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/climate-change-report- bn/index.html)

[https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/07/health/hothouse-earth- war...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/07/health/hothouse-earth-warming- intl/index.html)

> _More than 200 countries pledged to take action on climate change under the > Paris Accord struck in 2015. The agreement pushed signatories to work > together to keep temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial > levels. However, there are no binding targets, and the US later pulled out, > dealing a blow to global efforts to form a united front against climate > change._

I have no love for the CNN either (mainly for their cheerleading for and getting fat off war, as I see it), but here I have to say, fair enough?

> There is also a undertone to 'India being unlivable' that rubs some people > the wrong way.

As I said above, in general being pissed off by that is something I totally understand (not as in "I know what it's like", but you know what I mean I hope), but this is about the wet bulb temperature, so "literally unlivable", not colonialist attitudes.

> So CNN should try to be neutral and informed in their writing - they could > have said "North Indian cities like Delhi are becoming unlivable".

I agree that most headlines suck (and that's not to excuse it), but just as I checked the article to quote the relevant bits (which are more nuanced than the headline was), I realized they changed it to _" Are parts of India becoming too hot for humans?"_, which is at least something.

By the time this shit really hits the fan, however bad it gets, the people who caused the most harm will be dead and gone either way. Even you and me won't see the worst of this, this could get centuries deep, and industrialized civilization might as well get used up in war, leaving "us" (humanity) with _fuck all_.

FWIW, I think "the West" kinda owes a lot of reparations, to a lot of countries, I don't hold your anger against you at all. But we need to be sober and fierce more than anything, though not for us little people to bicker, and not to be bitter. I guess it's patronizing and easy to say for me, but I can't change where I was born. We just have to roll our sleeves up wherever we are, and then we'll still get enough people who will genuinely resist the inconveniences (or taxes) coming out of the woodworks. There'll be plenty of battles ahead, let's not have needless ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did multicopters suddenly take off? - J-dawg

Drones / UAVs are developing incredibly quickly, and being used for all kinds of things.
One thing they have in common is that they're all the quadcopter / multicopter type. (I'm talking specifically about the small to medium sized kind used for filming etc, not big military drones)
Given that model helicopters existed for many years before "drones" came along, I'm curious as to why the multicopter became the dominant design, seemingly over a very short time period. Presumably some technical hurdle was overcome to make this possible? What was stopping it from being invented sooner? And what makes the design superior to a scaled-down version of a full-size helicopter? <comment><AUTHOR> I was looking for the previous discussion on this topic and could not find it, but to recap my contribution to it;

Multi-copters became possible when several technologies got light enough and cheap enough.

The first was perhaps 6 and later 9 degrees of freedom MEMS (silicon) sensors (gyro, acceleration, magnetics). Early helicopter models required too much work to fly, but these sensors combined with cpus made multicopters 'fly by wire'

The second was a rechargable and _light_ battery chemistry (Lithium Polymer batteries) which allow a multicopter to fly for a useful amount of time.

The third was brushless motor controllers which allowed for the creation of high power, but _light_ , motors that were also efficient.

Some will also add high power SoCs (embedded 32 bit computers of 'cell phone class') but early multicopters were powered by 8bit controllers so I'm not sure that this is as important as the other three.

The things that are common to all of them, lightness and energy efficiency, these made the multicopter _possible_ and as the price has been driven down with mass production for these parts it has made them easy to obtain for a big enough market. (and that is a positive feedback loop, the market grows, the quantity increases, the price goes down, the market grows ...)

<comment><USER2> The MEMS sensors, high power SoCs and sophisticated battery chemistry in a light/cheap form were all (arguably) enabled by the mass production of smartphones.

Now that multicopters are beginning to ramp up the mass adoption curve and drive innovations of their own will we see this same kind of technological cross pollination happen to other fields with what's being created for multis?

The pace of innovation in brushless speed controllers has been exciting to watch, but I can't think of what other applications there are for brushless motors that accelerate quicker or can change direction nearly instantly. Lots of work seems to be happening in the position tracking arena, with everything from cameras to sonar arrays to lidar being considered and used both professionally and on the hobbyist scene.

I really want to see one of Googles project tango boxes used as a sensor to do real time object avoidance on a quad.

<comment><USER3> Adressing object avoidance. Intel and AscTec are ahead in the game ;) [1]. But I agree that this indeed will become more and more prominent and really interesting in the coming years!

"[...] Someday obstacle avoidance technology in UAVs will be like seatbelts in cars: You simply don't start going without it!" [2]

\- Daniel Gurdan, CEO Ascending Technologies GmbH.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k)

[2] [http://www.asctec.de/en/ascending-technologies-and-intel- col...](http://www.asctec.de/en/ascending-technologies-and-intel-collaborate/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Around 2002 two german guys set the path for today's quadcopters. They built the X-UFO and developed the X-3D and X-3D-BL sensors [1], which for the first time enabled amazing control capabilities for the still rather unknown quadcopters [2]. This led to the first success stories and the market kind of jumped on the train. Media did it's job and here we are. Technology has advanced a lot since then [3, 4]. Better and smaller sensors and microprocessors. More sophisticated materials and design, production and marketing processes. This surely played a big role as well, now that consumer market UAVs and flying toys can be produced quite cheaply. Also various open source projects popped up and nowadays even beginners can build and program their own quadcopter and PID controller.

As for helicopter vs. quadcopter - The latter is much simpler to fly, especially with autopilots and control units such as the X-3D or today's AscTec Trinity. Also safety for consumer products is an issue, where quadcopters with their embedded propellers have the bonus. And its omni- directional nature of movement yields more freedom and fun, especially as a toy.

[1] [http://www.asctec.de/en/ascending- technologies/company/](http://www.asctec.de/en/ascending- technologies/company/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csti6mHZNF4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csti6mHZNF4)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k)

[4] see ChuckMcM's comment

<comment><USER4> One of the AsTec founders (Daniel Gurdan) has an interesting back story.

Playing with explosives in his basement he lost part of his hand. Being an avid juggler he was sad that he could not juggle clubs anymore.

He built himself an robotic hand which won the first price at the German youth science competition [1]. He was 16 at the time.

The quadcopter was his follow up project and a main component of that project was that the copter was controlled with a glove[2].

Referenced articles are in German, but the images are worth a click.

[1] [http://www.jugend- forscht.de/projektdatenbank/jonglierhandsc...](http://www.jugend- forscht.de/projektdatenbank/jonglierhandschuh-servotechnische- fingerprothese/1999/1/7.html)

[2] [http://www.jugend-forscht.de/projektdatenbank/die-ufos- komme...](http://www.jugend-forscht.de/projektdatenbank/die-ufos-kommen- selbstregelnde-fliegende-robotikplattform/6/rotor.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you ever flown a (toy) helicopter? They are very non-intuitive. The torque of the main rotor causes every course change to have side effects that have to be compensated for.

Change the engine speed (lift), and the tail rotor needs to be adjusted so the copter does not yaw.

Change the tilt of the rotor blades to lean fore/after or drift to the side, and the engine needs to be sped up just a little to avoid slight loss of lift, and the tail rotor needs an ajustment to avoid yaw for the increased torque.

With multiple lifting, fixed, rotors, the electronics adjust the motor speeds for you to DWIM when you manipulate the sticks.

<comment><USER6> My friend with a helicopter license felt cheated the first time he flew a plane and discovered how easy it was.

<comment><USER7> I once took a helicopter lesson, and I watched some videos about flying before hand.

One of the guys said: "A plane wants to fly. A helicopter wants to crash". This seems true to me: flying a helicopter is a continual act of not crashing.

It makes complete sense to me that a quadcopter is 100x easier to write software to autonomously fly vs a helicopter design.

<comment><USER8> There's a popular quote in the pilot community:

"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to."

Harry Reasoner, Approach magazine, November 1973

<comment><USER2> The pedant in me feels obligated to point out that helicopters can accomplish unpowered landings using autorotation.

If I had to make a choice about which unpowered craft to be in though-- I'll take the plane!

<comment><USER8> Autorotation requires action from a skilled pilot, it doesn't happen automatically. It's also one-shot maneuver - if you fail it, you're done, and you can't abort it like you could abort an unpowered plane landing.

<comment><USER9> How do you abort an unpowered plane landing?

<comment><USER8> You basically answered it yourself upthread - the plane has lots of forward velocity on approach, which gives the pilot a pretty big window to abort by gliding away, turning some of this forward velocity into lift.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I've been into the hobby (building, flying and racing multicopters) for about 10 months now-- I personally think it was a combination of factors with the biggest one being the advent of the tiny / cheap gyro and accel sensors mostly used in smartphones. The catalyzing event for the hobbyist side of things was the release of the Nintendo Wii-- since the wiimote controllers were a readily available and relatively cheap source of these components the hobbyist "scene" really converged around an open source project to hack together active flight controllers from wii controllers and arduino boards. These flight controllers are what allows multicopters to hover so effortlessly-- the computer does all the hard work of balancing motor speeds on the millisecond timescale. (If you could go back and give one of these boards to the guys at NASA in the 60's they would have called it cheating.)

Obviously I've painted that with a very broad brush and people with different opinions will show up to tell me about how I'm wrong and a noob-- but this is how I see the history in a nutshell. Traditional model RC electric airplane components were also getting better and cheaper in conjunction with the birth of $20 flight computers. Faster and more efficient motors running on smaller better speed controllers, all powered by lithium polymer batteries that not only have great energy density and discharge capability but have become almost a commodity product thanks to modern consumer electronics.

</comment><comment><USER10> MEMS sensor (gyros/accelerometers) technology developed for smartphones made cheap multicopter control systems possible.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think small and mid-sized quads have dropped in price / increased in quality because of the fall in the price for gyroscopes, accelerometers, and ICs that can do decent sensor fusion. If you have ever broken these parts, you know that quadcopters are effectively impossible to fly. As for the preference over helicopters, multicopters all have fixed pitch rotors, which are cheaper.

I think they also benefit from increased mindshare given UAVs in the news.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't speak to why it wasn't invented sooner, but I do think that the biggest reason that they've taken off (pun?) is that they are much easier to fly and much more stable than a helicopter. The fact that many of them now have cameras attached to them that offer professional-quality photos and videos, along with the ability to get a live feed while in-flight, is definitely making them more and more popular every day.

<comment><USER13> I'd agree with the ability to get images and post them is a huge draw.

But I just spent a few minutes reading some about quadcopters vs even helicopters and from what I have read everyone so far seems in agreement that the quadcopters are less stable and less efficient then a helicopter design. It is the software stabilization that makes flight even possible, but even then they aren't very stable.

I had always wondered about this, as I have seen model helicopters (and full sized) maintain a level hover for significant time periods, but I can't ever recall a nearly still level hover from a quadcopter. From reading it sounds like that is tough to achieve given that they are constantly adjusting power to each of 4 motors to maintain flight and without the ability to change pitch of the blades that is the only option. So while mechanically easier to build they aren't necessarily more stable.

<comment><USER2> >but I can't ever recall a nearly still level hover from a quadcopter.

Seriously? Every one of the DJI products can do this out of the box using just GPS/accel/gyro/barometer. Newer ones can do it even better by adding in a camera pointing at the ground that works like an optical mouse. Some really insane stuff can be done if you throw an active positioning system into the mix: [http://www.ted.com/talks/raffaello_d_andrea_the_astounding_a...](http://www.ted.com/talks/raffaello_d_andrea_the_astounding_athletic_power_of_quadcopters?language=en)

<comment><USER13> Just saw that, thanks for the link. I stand corrected, I hadn't personally seen them stay very still in a hover before, maybe it was operator inexperience.

<comment><USER2> If the quad has only an accel and gyro sensor onboard then yes, the stability will be based primarily on the skill of the pilot and how well the machine is tuned.

With a GPS and barometer thrown in, position hold should be pretty close to a still hover unless there is significant wind or unresolved problems with the power train

<comment><USER8> I'm surprised that GPS has enough accuracy to do a position hold. Why, then, my cellphone GPS is accurate only to 5-10 meters?

<comment><USER14> The copter doesn't need to know where it is, just whether it is moving and if so, how far and in what direction. Because the error in GPS measurements doesn't vary much in small time frames, that can be done more accurately than absolute position measurements. See [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From an aerodynamic efficiency and maneuverability standpoint, a traditional single rotor helicopter is far superior. However, the operational benefits, safety, and mechanical simplicity (way less expensive when they crash) of the multirotor configuration make it a very popular choice. The confluence of better battery technology and cheap/lightweight controllers has allowed for increased viabiliity. As the commercial drone industry matures and payload carrying missions become viable, I expect there to be a shift in popularity back to the single rotor configuration. For example, more than 30% of Japan's rice paddy fields are sprayed with Yamaha's single rotor drone [[http://textually.org/drones/2013/06/032493.htm](http://textually.org/drones/2013/06/032493.htm)]. There is an exception here; the multirotor configuration is a more stable platform for shooting video.

</comment><comment><USER16> Being able to do this: [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsxyV- kgfio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsxyV-kgfio)

Using these: [2] [http://www.fatshark.com/product/1757.html](http://www.fatshark.com/product/1757.html)

Is also a contributing factor to the popularity ;-)

<comment><USER2> You can watch this happen in real time too-- every once and a while a video like this will bubble up through social media, hitting the reddit frontpage and making the rounds on facebook. Then TC or pando will run an article featuring the video and suddenly all the domestic part shops are out of stock for a week!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think cheap rare earth magnets was a factor, although I suspect only a part of the reason. The motors are now far smaller, lighter and more powerful, as well as cheap to produce. Given you need four of them, they are now light enough that a small (therefore also cheap) battery can give a useful range to them, so you can have a very effective device at mass-market prices.

</comment><comment><USER18> Controller boards and multi-axis sensors became cheap, powerful, and easy to work with. Companies then sprang up with pre-made kits that weren't too expensive.

If you're interested in seeing the start of this craze, check out the Wii Copter. The sensors in the Wii controllers, and also cheap boards like the Arduino, made it so any hobbyist could build one.

</comment><comment><USER19> Pun intended?

Anyways, a university experiment video that went viral [0] is the first I recall seeing a quadcopter in action. Maybe the tipping point if you care to investigate further.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4)

<comment><USER20> Yep, same here. May have seen another article or video that same year but that was the one that stuck in my head. Kind of sad that I didn't even get a "toy" quad until this year but I ought to be building my own sometime this summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was going to reference the software that makes it possible for complete amateurs to fly these things, but there's no reason that the software couldn't have been developed 30 years ago. So the answer is probably battery technology (driven by cell phones).

<comment><USER5> Lithium-polymer batteries are much better than the old Nickel-Cadmium batteries we had when I was a kid. Also, brushless motors (with electronic controllers) are much more efficient than brushed motors. The power to weight ratio of electric propulsion in the last 10 years is incredible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Simplicity and cost. At its most basic form a quadcopter is just two sticks, 4 motors with four speed controllers a flight controller and a battery. [1] if crashed they are easily repaired. a single rotor helicopter on the other had is more mechanically complex, more fragile and more expensive to repair. The reason they became popular was that different technologies (battery, ESCs, flight controllers) all aligned and some very good work was put into open source software to control them lowering the barrier to entry.

[1] [http://undcon.com/rc/quadcopter/img_20101002_011858.jpg](http://undcon.com/rc/quadcopter/img_20101002_011858.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER22> Legal observation:

The tip of a single blade helicopter has much more energy than the tip of a roughly 1/4 radius of a quad-copter blade.

Despite the complexity, if the copter is large, I would think there's much less liability baked into a quad-copter.

<comment><USER2> Reality backs this up, a stunt pilot more or less decapitated himself with a heli a while back and while I've seen plenty of rough multicopter injuries ranging from bruises to lacerations I'm not aware of anyone who has managed to kill themselves with one... yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think its mostly the fact that technology caught up and became cheap enough. Battery technology, motor technology (brushless), electronics (ESC's which control the motors, and the onboard boards with gyros and accelerometers) and many other things.

I'd attribute it the most to battery technology. As part of the hobby myself, Ni-Cad batteries were the go-to's. But they were crappy. Li-Pos have existed before, but the thing about multi-rotors and flying in general is it doesn't need a high capacity, but a high output rate, which we can get now.

</comment><comment><USER24> The two new biggest upcoming industries (VR and Drones) seem to have their origins with smartphones. Cheap screens and cheap/accurate gyros. Which all 3 got their start from cheap/fast computing.

</comment><comment><USER25> The reason that you see so many multicopters for the smaller ones is that they are much mechanically simpler, and thus cheaper to manufacture. All you need mechanically for a multicopter is a number of independent rotors that you can vary the speed on.

A traditional helicopter has a very complicated assembly to allow powering a rotor that can tilt forward, backwards, and to the sides, as well as change the angle of the blades. This is a lot more expensive to produce.

It is more efficient, in a power to weight ratio sense, to have only a single motor, which is why you see this design on full-sized helicopters. But for smaller, cheaper drones, you don't need as good of a power to weight ratio to make it worthwhile, and the cheaper simpler design makes them easier to mass- produce and sell to amateurs or professionals on a budget.

The things that probably have led to an explosion of them recently include electronics getting cheaper, and control systems getting better. Regular helicopters can be piloted by a skilled operator with some training. A mutlicopter needs a automated control system to keep it balanced. As electronics for the control systems have gotten cheaper, as well as MEMS sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes built into ICs), these control systems have become cheap and easy to integrate into mass produced products.

In addition, battery technology has been improving, as has electric motor technology. While previously only the single big fossil fuel engine was the only viable power source, as battery capacity has increased and electric motors have gotten more efficient, it's more viable to have small electric copters.

Another thing that makes these more accessible to casual amateurs, and again makes mass production more viable, is that most people now carry around a flexible input device with wireless control capabilities. That means that you can sell devices without a dedicated controller, can do things like streaming video back from the drone, and so on, increasing the range of things that you can do with one.

Other technological improvements also help feed into this. Having widely available, small, light HD and 4K cameras means that you can actually do something useful with these drones; back when to do any real filming you needed a big, bulky camera, they weren't as efficient for getting aerial shots, but once there are small, light, high quality cameras, it becomes feasible.

</comment><comment><USER26> The quadcopter design is much simpler and cheaper but less stable (before electronic stabilization) and efficient than a helicopter. The popularity is probably due to a combination of easy handling (with modern gyros/electronics), robustness, low cost and the trend to film everything. Helicopters are difficult to control and more suited to serious applications (carrying weight, long flight times...).

</comment><comment><USER13> I really don't know, but a quick search popped up this article.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/12/23/what-makes- the-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/12/23/what-makes-the- quadcopter-design-so-great-for-small-drones/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Those who are interested edx is featuring a course on quadcopter [https://www.edx.org/course/autonomous-navigation-flying- robo...](https://www.edx.org/course/autonomous-navigation-flying-robots-tumx- autonavx-0)

</comment><comment><USER28> My understanding is that the quad rotor configuration is more stable at low reynolds numbers, but I'm not a rotary wing expert.

</comment><comment><USER29> Part of the reason is the JavaScript community, specifically [http://nodebots.io/](http://nodebots.io/).

A few Felix G made a module to control Quadcopters using JavaScript. There have been robotics hackathons at every major JS event worldwide since.

<comment><USER30> This sounds rather far-fetched to me.

<comment><USER29> Original presentation in 2012: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl5v3bsMH_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl5v3bsMH_E)

Past events:

Oct 5, 2012 - Berlin by Core Team & JSConf.eu

Oct 20, 2012 - Dublin by Paul Campbell

Oct 31, 2012 - San Francisco by Christian Sanz

Nov 8-9, 2012 - Seattle, WA by Chris Williams

Nov 10, 2012 - Brighton by Remy Sharp

Dec 1, 2012 - San Francisco by Christian Sanz & Jyri Engeström

Jan 23, 2013 - Zurich by Jordi Boggiano

Mar 2, 2013 - Oslo by Trygve Lie & Gregers Gram Rygg

Mar 16, 2013 - London by Andrew Nesbitt

Mar 23, 2013 - Bath by Andrew Nesbitt

Apr 20, 2013 - Helsinki by Janne Aukia and Team

May 11, 2013 - Scotland by Andrew Nesbitt & Julian Cheal & Scotland.js

May 30, 2013 - Amelia Island by Core Team & JSConf.us

Jul 27, 2013 - Manchester by Andrew Nesbitt

Aug 10, 2013 - Southampton by Andrew Nesbitt & Julian Cheal

Aug 18, 2013 - London by Andrew Nesbitt

Sep 7, 2013 - Cincinnati by Jim Weirich & Carin Meier

Sep 13, 2013 - Berlin by Core Team

Sep 21, 2013 - Bristol by Andrew Nesbitt

Sep 28, 2013 - Berlin by Henri Bergius (NoFlo Edition!)

Oct 4, 2013 - Lisbon by A few Portuguese guys

Oct 13, 2013 - New York City by Core Team

Nov 23, 2013 - Sheffield by Julian Cheal & Caolan McMahon

Dec 6-7, 2013 - Amelia Island by Chris & Laura (RobotsConf!)

Jan 23, 2014 - Istanbul by Kod Mutfağı

Feb 12, 2014 - London by Andrew Nesbitt

Mar 17, 2014 - Warsaw, Poland by Core Team & Makerland

May 29, 2014 - JSConf, Florida by Core Team & JSConf

(and there's a year of other events since then - they need to update the website)

See [http://www.nodecopter.com/](http://www.nodecopter.com/)</comment></comment></comment>


Will Micro Businesses Die from a Thousand Tory Cuts? - <AUTHOR> http://minutehack.com/opinions/will-micro-businesses-die-from-a-thousand-tory-cuts <comment><USER2> Well lets hope that _someone_ somewhere in that government has a clue about what is supposed to be the future of employment anyway.

I don't /want/ to be employed by a company. I did it for many years, and I'm sick of politics and mental sclerosis. I want to be a mercenary. I'm a great engineer (no really, been doing that 30 years, and I've loved every bit of it) and I want to do /just that/. As a contractor, I can do that. I take the risks with it too, I can be out of work, or even leave a project I don't like if I feel like it. Yes I make more money, but there's /risk/ involved. Oh, and I _do_ pay taxes, I'm quite happy about it too. I'm not googleapplezon!

And the thing is, my clients don't need me full time. They'd don't need to, once the development and design phase are done, well, I can go and do something else -- so they pay me more, but it's a fixed cost, not an ongoing one.

So common .gov, stop fscking with us!</comment>


Exponential Backoff and Jitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.awsarchitectureblog.com/2015/03/backoff.html <comment><USER2> > It's worth noting that none of these approaches fundamentally change the N^2 > nature of the work to be done, but do substantially reduce work at > reasonable levels of contention.

I don't think that statement from the article is true if I understood correctly... the performance gains are precisely because you're reducing from N^2 to N log N.

An interesting theoretical question would be to identify the optimal backoff policy. I think FullJitter should be close to optimal, but maybe you can squeeze out a little more with something more sophisticated.

Edit: I just realized the DecorrelatedJitter (not sure why it's called that?) makes a lot of sense as a minor optimization because if you already waited a long time and still failed, that suggests there is a lot of contention, and you should wait even longer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great post. There's a classic LBL paper about self-synchronization in (I think) time protocols that demonstrates the same conclusion in a more dramatic way.

<comment><USER4> Maybe this one? "The Synchronization of Periodic Routing Messages" (1994) [1]

[1] [http://ee.lbl.gov/papers/sync_94.pdf](http://ee.lbl.gov/papers/sync_94.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Yep! Sally Floyd f.t.w!

Thanks for finding that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a coincidence, I found myself writing a little Go lib for exponential back off yesterday, and was wondering what the purpose of introducing jitter was and what effects it would have. I need it for interacting with the Twitter stream api and they're pretty clear that when they say exponential they mean it. But jitter looks very useful in some situations after reading this, so I added that to my lib as well...

It's here if anyone's interested it [https://github.com/Diggs/go- backoff](https://github.com/Diggs/go-backoff)

<comment><USER6> If we're talking about implementations in various languages, I might as well link to my capped backoff with jitter implementation for python.

[https://github.com/ekimekim/pylibs/blob/master/libs/backoff....](https://github.com/ekimekim/pylibs/blob/master/libs/backoff.py)

(apologies for the long link, I keep all my one-file python libs in a single git repo for sanity. I _think_ i've uploaded this one to pypi, where it's available under the name "backoff")

<comment><USER7> Hi Mike!

Thought you might be interested in my Elixir impl, though not as featureful: [https://github.com/rickhull/backoff/blob/master/lib/backoff....](https://github.com/rickhull/backoff/blob/master/lib/backoff.ex)

Example usage: [https://github.com/rickhull/backoff/blob/master/examples/dem...](https://github.com/rickhull/backoff/blob/master/examples/demo.exs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't this be completely alleviated by placing each new connection into a queue, instead of rejecting it and telling the client to try again? Or am I reading this wrong?

<comment><USER9> The simplest way to understand OCC is to basically take any of your models and add a version attribute and whenever you update an object you also do an UPDATE ... WHERE version={obj.version}.

This is useful when you don't want writes to overwrite previous writes. If the version check doesn't hold it fails letting your client know that your assumptions about the state of the data are wrong. You then have a few options, like either redoing your computation using the new state or not doing anything at all because the current state is good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The version with jitter but without exponential backoff is still doing O(n^2) work, I'm pretty sure, although with a (much) smaller constant.

Just something to keep in mind.

Also, I find the inherent time taken / work done tradeoff interesting. Something involving a limited amount of server state might work better on the work front while keeping the work done limited. (Something like "please don't try again for x ms" sent as a reply)

The ideal case is, what, 2n-1 calls (everyone sends at once, server replies to the first guy and schedules all other clients such that there is no contention) and O(n) (what is the scale factor here? 20ms?) delay? Are there any algorithms that come close to the limit?

</comment><comment><USER11> I wish the experimenter had explored random distributions other than uniform. I suspect uniform distribution may be non-ideal here and other distributions may produce better results.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've always thought of "jitter" as just adding a dash of entropy to the system I'm building.

I suppose a textbook example is... If I'm managing a pool of long-running threads I want to periodically bounce, I could write logic to throttle respawning threads. Or I could just add a rand() to the conditional -- introduce "jitter" \-- and let probability theory "throttle" for me.

I'd rather build on top of probability than statistics.

</comment><comment><USER13> Randomness is an easy way to ensure you're not doing something systematically wrong.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice post.

Use of pure color in a graph makes me sad, though. This colorblind guy had to crack open a paint program and match up RGB values. A few dotted/dashed lines go a long way (and I suspect, for more than just colorblind folks, too).

<comment><USER10> Next time, just do a hue shift. Alternatively, there are filters that lighten red / darken green (or vice versa).

(Assuming red/green. There are analogous methods for other types of color blindness, however.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What code editor do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a Windows user. I use Notepad++ though I'm starting to hate it because of its bugs.<p>What code editor do you use? <comment><USER2> Pretty standard gvim setup. For writing Rails applications a lot more plugins come into play, but for writing plain C the simplicity is nice. [http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/2009-12-07-113456_1024x600_s...](http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/2009-12-07-113456_1024x600_scrot.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> I use UltraEdit32 for everything but Java. It's feature rich, highly customizable, and works the way I do. For example it supports cross system editing via ftp or ssh.

For Java, I use eclipse. The interface is non-intuitive, but the number of tools cant be ignored.

<comment><USER4> I was just using searchyc to see if anybody had asked this question, because I am frustrated with my editor.

I use UltraEdit32, and the damn thing is always locking up on my when I go to open an sftp directory. At least two or three times a day, I have to shut it down, and restart it, to get it to open the remote directory. You don't have this issue?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sublime Text: <http://www.sublimetext.com/>

Visual Studio for C# though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Currently giving Komodo Edit from Active State a shot. I too am trying to get away from NPP

</comment><comment><USER7> vim for everything, everywhere. Vim rules.

</comment><comment><USER8> textmate (only for os x though)

</comment><comment><USER9> _yawn_ && who cares</comment>


QWAZR is a new MVC Service: GitHub + Cassandra/JavaScript/Freemarker = QWAZR - <AUTHOR> https://www.qwazr.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We just launch QWAZR. It is a beta, and it's free. You may create a simple website using our hosted MVC framework. Feedback wanted!</comment>


Show HN: Weekend product coding: Varnish cPanel Plugin - <AUTHOR>

Hi Folks,
If you're a HN regular, I'm afraid this is not your typical "Show HN" entry. It's a software product just not the kind you're accustomed to here. So bear that in mind.
The product is a cPanel plugin written so that anyone could install and manage Varnish from cPanel WHM (vendor: http://www.cpanel.net). From a business plan p.o.v, the goal is to create a new revenue stream to complement our already established fully managed VPS and dedicated server business.
The product has one landing page: http://www.unixy.net/varnish
I'm hoping to get feedback on just about anything and everything regarding this product including the presentation. I promise to gather as much data as possible and present the numbers within a few months.
Facts:
1) Early beta
2) Licensing code piece still being worked on
3) All signups will be processed next week
Cheers! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.unixy.net/varnish></comment>


Jussie Smollett Timeline: Mystery Deepens as Police Review Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/arts/television/jussie-smollett-attack-timeline.html <comment><USER2> Apparently it's a hoax. The mystery is why this is on HN.</comment>