DIY pulse laser gun - <AUTHOR> http://hackedgadgets.com/2011/03/07/diy-pulse-laser-gun/ <comment><USER2> Time to visit the mall and play the string prize game with that:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=string+cut+game+prize&tbs...](http://www.google.com/search?q=string+cut+game+prize&tbs=vid:1)

</comment><comment><USER3> He should get together with Rayethon to work on a hand held version of their Ship-Mounted Laser Weapon......

</comment><comment><USER4> This is unbelievably dangerous and should not be in the hands of people who think of it as a toy.

</comment><comment><USER5> How well can laser light pulses travel through fiber optics? (I am talking about intense laser pulses such as this - not regular lasers)

Could you have larger version of this in a backpack with the gun portion being the end of a fiber optic line? Could you join multiple impulses together into a single fiber for added power?

<comment><USER6> Not my field, but I'll play with some numbers on a Friday afternoon. From some googling, I'm getting an estimate of about -1dB attenuation for the fiber optic and end connectors for a meter long fiber in the near IR. Which would give about 20% losses.

The linked-to gun said it did a 1MW pulse, so to match that with 20% losses you need to start with 1.25MW, giving you 0.25MW loss. But the video doesn't state a pulse time. You can use (<http://www.mhi- inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm>) to play around with times... assuming it fires for 0.001s (I would guess it is shorter than that) and all that loss shows up as heat, it would be less than a BTU, so easily cool-able.

Assuming your backpack could carry enough energy to have it fire at that power level for a full second, that conversion page says the waste heat from the fiber would melt a 1.6 pound block of ice. Such a backpack would do well to have a top-loading ice reservoir.

However that loss percentage is probably for reasonably unbent fibers, and the whole point of the backpack-to-gun fiber is to allow bending quite a bit. For a higher power system, I'd think it better to skip the fiber optics and instead have something like the laser turrets they put on the front of planes (<http://www.mda.mil/system/altb.html>). Have a small version of that come up over the wearer's shoulder, with the turret sitting in front of the user so they can aim anywhere in front of them. Even with 8 mirrors in the path to get the business end somewhere comfortable, 98% efficient mirrors would have 15% losses.

I also happened upon this much lower powered backpack laser <http://www.cleanlaser.de/wEnglish/produkte/backpack.php>, and its bigger cousin, [http://www.cleanlaser.de/wEnglish/produkte/high-power- cl-100...](http://www.cleanlaser.de/wEnglish/produkte/high-power-cl-1000.php).

<comment><USER5> So in thinking about this more - it seems that using a fiber relay system is less than ideal - and instead what we may want is a series of tubes with mirrors. Tubes and mirrors with joints that allow articulation of the tube system.

Further, based on the description of the plane-mounted anti-missle laser system, which uses a telescoping system to focus the beam - it would seem that we could incorporate the telescoping functions into our articulated tube,

It should be a trivial exercise to combine multiple beams via prisms and mirrors, at east a solveable problem.

So - we will need the exoskeleton I mentioned in my other post as we will need the rigidity of the system to mount our series of tubes to.

Interestingly, the .mil article refers to KW class lasers - rather than MW class.

I think some testing needs to be done with shooting this DIY laser through a telescope as well.</comment></comment></comment>


NNTPChan:  a decentralized image board - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/majestrate/nntpchan <comment><USER2> huh, neato one of my projects got on hacker news.</comment>


"Startup Company: The Game" now on Steam Coming Soon - <AUTHOR> http://store.steampowered.com/app/606800/Startup_Company/ <comment><USER2> Woot!</comment>


Facebook: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPYmEZxACM <comment><USER2> Leave it to John Oliver to explain contemporary reality. More often than not I do agree with him, he's a classical liberal, but bothers to gather some facts about what he's talking about. This facebook-Myanmar scandal really didn't get enough media attention, at least I didn't see a lot of it. But it's a good example to see how "neutral" technology can be used for wrong purposes. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg remained calm throughout all the hearing, Cambridge Analytica or not, looks like he's doing whatever he wants. Thanks for sharing this.</comment>


How 7 Famous Movie Special Effects Sequences Were Created - <AUTHOR> http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=86079 <comment><USER2> I like to read sometimes stuff that I wouldn't imagine myself reading, in order to "get out of the box". This was one of my choices and I had a lot more fun than I expected, while also learning a few things.</comment>


Show HN: Deltatrail.io – The easiest way to track production changes - <AUTHOR> https://www.deltatrail.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, OP here. Still in beta but looking for feedback and if anyone wants to kick the tires, let me know - firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER2> No clue about the product, but comments for the website:

1.6MB of JS loaded, 5MB total on first visit (300kb css!). You need to get that number down. Maybe cut backend stuff out of the bundle?

Test your site on ultra-wide monitors and other weird setups.

/manifest.json is soft 404.</comment></comment>


Avoid the Feature - <AUTHOR> https://500ish.com/avoid-the-feature-f031a42e9e71

<comment><USER2> I have to say I disagree with this. Sure your app may break, but the rarity of being featured completely outweighs the bugs fixes. The pure exposure of a feature will help with other press coverage which will help with long term customer acquisition.</comment>


The duct tape programmer - <AUTHOR> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2009/09/23/the-duct-tape-programmer/ <comment><USER2> "[...]unit tests are not critical. If there's no unit test the customer isn't going to complain about that."

Love this quote. It's absolutely true, but the programmers who inherit and have to take care of you code are probably going to have a lot to say about it.</comment>


Five Technologies That Will Rock Your World - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/dealbook/five-technologies-that-will-rock-your-world.html <comment><USER2> > The Flying Car

Oh, sure. Why use enough just enough energy to propel yourself forward to your destination when you can _also_ use a massive amount of extra energy to fight gravity the whole way?

> capable of flying above congested roads...

If flying cars became popular, this advantage would be destroyed by the congested skies.

> will require a new kind of air traffic control

Boy howdy. And create new categories of horrific accidents. Let's not build a world where a drunk driver can plow through the roof of a school, shall we?

A more sensible answer to traffic is 1) more remote work and 2) better mass transportation.

<comment><USER3> You kinda realise we are on a technical site right? This answer is wholly dismissive of where technology is going. How about the flipside?

> The Flying Car

New technologies such as metallic hydrogen are on the horizon. Coupled with better advances in battery tech, we may see the advent of a hybrid approach where VTOL is used via battery and propulsion with hydrogen.

That said. Flying Cars may be mandated so that it's for use intra-cities or states. But then localised will be for autonomous driving.

Having synergistic travel mediums will allow people to travel further and faster. Imagine having flying cars, hyperloop, autonomous driving and spaceX to combine to get you from A to B over a great distance in a matter of hours? All running on clean energy?

More importantly, all AI driven without the need for human intervention?

> will require a new kind of air traffic control

Sure, AI driven. There's nothing wrong with having an AI that ensures cars fly amongst already agreed routes.

> "Boy howdy. And create new categories of horrific accidents. Let's not build > a world where a drunk driver can plow through the roof of a school, shall > we?"

How about No? How about having AI actually fly the car? We already have planes which go on autopilot for most of the journey. AI for flying cars should actually be a whole lot easier, than driving on the road.

There will be no drunk driver, because there will be no stick.

If you actually look at all the differing technologies that are coming out. Graphene, AI, Chemical processes, Battery Tech, etc, etc, etc. It's not difficult to see the next 5 or 10 years being a whole lot different to now.

<comment><USER4> _How about having AI actually fly the car?_

In other words, I'm not going to see flying cars in my lifetime, then? I mean, from my POV, that is some serious hand-waving, at least until we get some demonstrable AI in consumer products that's anywhere near what I'd trust to drive a car, let alone fly something.

<comment><USER3> > I'm not going to see flying cars in my lifetime

How old are you now? 20, 30, 40? Given an average life of lets say 80. That's 40 years. So much could happen. Are you serious?

> at least until we get some demonstrable AI in consumer products that's > anywhere near what I'd trust to drive a car

Google started the self driving concept back in 2009. 16 years later, here we are. Also, that's half of what's left of a potential lifetime.

Waymo is testing on public roads now [1].

Here's an article details the other competitors timelines [2]:

GM: Rumors of self-driving vehicles by 2018

Ford: Truly self-driving vehicles by 2021

Honda: Self-driving on the highway by 2020

Toyota: Self-driving on the highway by 2020

Renault-Nissan: 2020 for autonomous cars in urban conditions, 2025 for truly driverless cars

Volvo: Self-driving on the highway by 2021

Hyundai: Highway by 2020, urban driving by 2030

Daimler: Nearly fully autonomous by early 2020s

Fiat-Chrysler: CEO expects there to be some self driving vehicles on the road by 2021

BMW: Fully self-driving vehicles possible by 2021 Tesla: End of 2017

Lets say, that all the manufacturers slip and it's only until 2030 that it's a viable consumer product. That's still 26 years it took to develop. Way way less than half a lifetime.

Now if we extrapolate all that AI and knowledge and apply it to:

[3] - Uber enlists help from NASA in bid to launch flying taxis by 2020

then [4] - [5] - [6] and probably more companies who are racing to make this a reality. Even if it took them 20 years to do so.

You'd still see it in your life-time.

\-----

So please. I'd love to hear a rebuttal.

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/google- wa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/google-waymo- announces-fully-autonomous-ride-hailing-service-uber-alphabet)

[2]: [https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/04/self-driving-car- timeline...](https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/04/self-driving-car-timeline- for-11-top-automakers/)

[3]: [https://news.sky.com/story/uber-enlists-help-from-nasa-in- bi...](https://news.sky.com/story/uber-enlists-help-from-nasa-in-bid-to- launch-flying-taxis-by-2020-11119777)

[4]: [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/21/electric- fl...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/21/electric-flying-car- lilium-google-uber-vtol-jet-taxi)

[5]: [https://www.wired.com/story/delorean-aerospace-flying- car/](https://www.wired.com/story/delorean-aerospace-flying-car/)

[6]: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/17/flying-car- compan...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/17/flying-car-company- aeromobil-says-radical-concept-vehicle-will/)

<comment><USER4> _How old are you now? 20, 30, 40?_

Try again, Sonny. :-)

 _So please. I 'd love to hear a rebuttal._

My rebuttal is that I've walked this earth for a number of decades, and the track record of such predictions has been dismal. We've been "almost there" for decades. Tesla can't even accurately predict when they'll ship you a Model 3, and you're just going to take the word of Tesla, et. al. on when this AI- run technological miracle will happen?

But if you want a rebuttal, here it is: you list car companies that claim to have self-driving cars in the next three to four years. And yet there isn't a single company that has produced anything on a smaller scale (Siri/OKGoogle, home robot, or the like) AI/ML-related that has me thinking, "you know, I could imagine this expanding to something that could drive a car in a few years." Nothing, not a single product. If you have something along those lines that you think would fit the bill, that I can walk down to the store and buy _today_ , I'd reconsider my position (slightly).

But that's cars, for which we have existing infrastructure for routes, refueling, and traveller services. And despite my pessimism, I expect self- driving cars in which I can take a nap on the way to happen within ten years. But flying cars? The thing that we can't even make for practical use even if you want to pilot it yourself? _And_ we want to slap an AI control on it? With very little infrastructure to support the idea? Yup, I will be a pile of stone cold ashes before that happens.

But I hope I'm wrong about the "in my lifetime" part. Because if I am wrong, then I get a flying car _and_ I'll have lived way past the point that I expected to. :-)

<comment><USER3> > Try again, Sonny. :-)

Well, it's all makes sense as to why you are so pessimistic.

You sound quite a lot like my Dad. He's in his 60s and I'm in my 40s. We have differing view points.

To him, technology is slow and things will take literally multi-decades. Because it did for him, that's how he experienced it.

Whereas for me, we've gone from iPhone 3 to X in a blink of an eye. We've gone from DeepMind creating AI to solve Go, to it training itself. Technology is starting to exponentially increase faster and faster. There will be breakthroughs coming that some of us won't even be aware of and that will lead to changes that affect everyone.

But one final thing. Even if you are 60, you still have another good 20 years. You may just see it yet!

<comment><USER4> _Well, it 's all makes sense as to why you are so pessimistic._

Why, because I was writing software professionally before you were born? Maybe your Dad and I sound a lot alike because we've heard that young person saying something about wolves for decades. And your argument to the contrary? Your Dad and I have been hearing almost _those_ exact words (different examples, of course) for decades as well.

You seem to think it's different this time. Maybe is, maybe it isn't. But perhaps you can understand my skepticism. Any article of "predictions from 20 years ago", from any time period, will probably back me up on this.

<comment><USER3> Well, now is different than before.

Before:

\- technology was at it's very infancy

\- the number of capable engineers very small

\- ai the glimmer in engineers eyes

Now:

\- technology at the stage it's bearing fruit of the next iteration

\- the number of engineers is vast and among several companies

\- ai is here to do narrow tasks well

One thing that this period has, that the 60s didn't. Is that someone can leave university and do something so radical, it leaves the big guys speechless. A case in point, the solid lidar. Or look at George Hotz with his self driving company.

You couldn't do that in the 60s.

Or what about jumping another 20/30 years ahead?

\- Quantum computers will be available

\- General AI may be around

\- Self Driving cars, flying cars and HyperLoop variants will be around.

\- SpaceX inter-planetary transport may be around.

\- Mars missions a reality.

As you go down this list. It's not just 1 company or the government that is doing the research or product. It's several companies all competing with each other and pouring Tens of Billions or dollars into the industry.

Those are the differences to then and now.

Trust me. If 20 years ago or 40 years ago. You'd said that we'd have two stage rockets both landing back. You'd be laughed out of the room. Nasa engineers said it was impossible... How things change!

Anyway we can go round in circles. Like my Dad, I doubt you will change your mind. But like I tell him, if you reach 90. You'll see a lot of changes!

<comment><USER4> _Anyway we can go round in circle_

Yeah, I think we've kinda reached that point. I mean, we're going to have to wait twenty years to see who's right. At which point, when you still don't have your flying car, you'll be arguing with someone younger about how cold fusion won't happen in _your_ lifetime. ;-)

No matter, though, as I would be the most tickled person on earth if/when I'm shown to be wrong. Because wrong though I might be, I get to have a flying car!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found this fairly disappointing.

> A.I. Health Care

Actually near to affecting real customers. For some narrow tasks (e.g. melanoma detection) we can start to get the cost down to ~the cost of harvesting the tissue. More and more of these tasks could start to become cheaper and start taking more of the guess work out of Health care.

> Conversational Computing

Other than usable phone trees I haven't seen success here. Lots of work was poured into this last year and very little really lasted.

> Mind Control

The non invasive stuff just isn't that interesting and the invasive stuff is so far away from even the horror stories of early adopters.

> The Flying Car

If there isn't wide adoption then this is just a toy for the rich, maybe it could improve some emergent care situations if it's more usable than helicopters for hospitals. If there is wide adoption it's a public safety nightmare. Living with cars that are stuck to the ground is dangerous enough.

> The Quantum Computer

There are many extremely hard problems between now and quantum computers affecting people's lives beyond breaking RSA. Quantum computers aren't a panacea, they aren't better at every problem, they won't recreate the amazing doubling of power per cost that existed for most of computing history.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, this is a pretty superficial grabbed from the headlines understanding of technology.

For God's sake how can you leave off gene therapy. For three decades the hopes and dreams of nearly every person affected by an incurable disease have lingered on gene therapy. Now we're finally there. This year the first two treatments have been approved by the FDA with more in stage III trials and it doesn't even get a mention?

Also, once you can watch TV while your car drives you, no one is going to care about the time savings of flying short distances. You'll probably be grateful that in the event of a rare crash you won't have the added 9.8 m/s/s of acceleration to worry about.

<comment><USER5> Yeah If I was making the list it'd include CRISPR, GMO foods, autonomous vehicles and VR/AR (especially for mobility challenged people, if I were hospital bound I'd be clamoring for it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With a society that's still fighting to achieve the bottom layer of Maslow's hierarch of needs, the most meaningful types of innovation are: housing and transportation.

Flying cars, or some kind of easy flying transportation would vastly benefit society: we greatly underestimate it. If you can triple the distance a person can travel in the same amount of time, you nearly 9-tuple your employment opportunities. Companies would have nearly 9-tuple the number of candidates.

Unlike land based solutions, sky based solutions can go directly from point to point without needing to follow an arbitrary arc on the ground.

And best of all, you'll have much more cost effective housing options. With housing being as bad as it is on the west coast, I bet people would pay big money to go farther and faster.

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't flying imply a much higher energy usage then driving ? Because then weight is carried by the roads and only one directional force is needed ?

And flying being faster implies even more energy because moving slowly is generally more efficient ?

Especially on shorter distances I wonder how the energy needs compare for flying vs driving.

<comment><USER9> Yes, however...

Flying is much more SPACE efficient. With good computer control you could stack hundreds of "roads" worth of capacity vertically.

Can save time (and thus indirectly energy) by flying directly from A-to-B. This is ignoring the time gained by the likely much faster cruising speeds, as well.

Flying doesn't have to be THAT inefficien, either. Plenty of general aviation aircraft, especially slower ones, can achieve MPG that is really not that bad. The Mooney M20, for instance, cruises at 180mph and burns 10 gallons an hour - so 18mpg. Not bad given the speed! A car going that first will be consuming much more fuel.

<comment><USER10> To add to your last paragraph for folks who find this surprising: If you take a airplane and let the area of the wings go to infinity while taking their wing mass and thickness to zero, the vehicle would expend arbitrarily little energy maintaining altitude; it's basically a giant, extremely slowly falling parachute. Real-world wings do not achieve this of course, but not nearly as much energy needs to be expended compared during cruise as (say) simply hovering by pointing the engine at the ground (if your engine was even powerful enough to do that).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just want better bike lanes, better mass transit, and less dependence on planes to get around in the US. Those three things would rock my world.

<comment><USER12> > less dependence on planes to get around in the US

Why? How?

<comment><USER5> Presumably high speed train.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My money is on A.I. Health Care. It is not about displacing jobs of existing health professionals, but it will expedite the diagnostic process for many patients. For example, AI doing 70% of the analysis and a human technician gives thumbs up or down on. Fast forward 10 years and all of the analysis data aggregated can act as a continuous training model to improve accuracy. Because human anatomy is not going to change and AI analysis will get better with time. It is definitely an area worth considering for VC to look for investment opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER8> > What if Alexa was truly conversational, if you could have a back and forth > dialogue?

This will make our current social media options look like childplay. Its the end game of it all: Facebook, Google, Amazon as everybody's best friend. Why talk to other people ? The person that understands you the best is always with you. Always making jokes, telling good stories, making all these good suggestions on how to live your life and spend your money...

<comment><USER14> If products like Google Allo took off with their "response suggestions", we could just stop talking all together and let Google have conversations with itself on our behalf. This seems to be the future these companies are aiming to drive us towards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> These things are so far off in the future that it is impossible to know when they will end up being useful. Back in 2013 I read this article:

[http://www.businessinsider.in/markets/the-8-game-changing- te...](http://www.businessinsider.in/markets/the-8-game-changing-technologies- forcing-the-business-world-to-evolve/slidelist/21745899.cms)

I really liked the presentation where they not only talked about the technology but also looked at some data points.

Since then I try to read all articles about world changing technology but most of them are fluff pieces gushing about stuff which might not happen in the short term. It is difficult to get good articles on this topic.

Does anyone know any such grounded articles published this year?

<comment><USER16> Machine learning is already in use to aid radiologists and the flying car will still be a stupid idea in 20 years (barring low cost antigravity technology...), so the article is pretty uneven.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> All of this stuff is cool and there is definitely support in both academia and industry for all of this, but I think predictions about how soon it will arrive are off-base by a lot.

What if political and social disruption increases? What if the measures we've used to gauge progress over the last decade are all wrong because they were based on massive amounts of capital inflows from the Federal Reserve?

I cringe typing this because I feel like some paranoid militia-person in the early 90's, but still I think technological progress could easily be hindered as society looks to make social and political progress for a period of time instead.

</comment><comment><USER18> If there's anything to take away from this article, it's that machine learning is the future. I feel like this articles says:

1\. Machine learning for healthcare

2\. Machine learning for language

3\. Machine learning and brain-computer interface

4\. Machine learning and flying cars

5\. Quantum computing

</comment><comment><USER19> This article is about revolutionary technology that we all expect will show up at some point, but when that will happen is uncertain. I don't think we're all that close to true conversational computing -- I think that would herald the dawn of true AI and we're nowhere near that. How close are we to quantum computing? Hype stories about quantum computing were a regular fixture for the better part of a decade but I haven't read one in a while. Are we significantly closer or did progress flatline?

</comment><comment><USER20> > Think of it this way: A quantum computer could instantly crack the > encryption that protects the world's most private data.

How can they be so sure that no one uses symmetric encryption algorithms? I get that this article is meant for lay people but that does not make it alright to throw around false superlatives.

<comment><USER21> The article is complete garbage.

[https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/)

"If you take just one piece of information from this blog: Quantum computers would not solve hard search problems instantaneously by simply trying all the possible solutions at once."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can anyone explain why the helicopter (which exists IRL) is not considered a flying car?

<comment><USER23> Helicopters are loud, expensive to operate and maintain, difficult to fly, slower than airplanes, and crash more often.

But, they are much more flexible in terms of where they can land. This "point to point" aspect is what people really mean by "flying car".

If you had a quiet, inexpensive, safe, self-flying, small helicopter then I guess you'd have a flying car!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You can't miss these thirteen clickbait titles that about one weird trick and the internet is going crazy over it right now!</comment>


Bitcoin dealer seeks credit protection; dead owner had sole access to $250M - <AUTHOR> https://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/bitcoin-dealer-seeks-credit-protection-dead-owner-had-sole-access-to-250m-1.23621105 <comment><USER2> Insane. Perhaps regulation is not a bad thing.

No way sole access made sense.</comment>


Napster: A New Killer Internet App (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://evolt.org/node/564 <comment><USER2> Napster is the future of the internet. It _will_ come back. But the world has to evolve on a social level before this can happen.

We saw the same with the printing press: the Powers That Be first banned it, then tried to control it, and eventually had to relent. It will happen with data sharing too, eventually. It might take a century, but it will happen.

<comment><USER3> > We saw the same with the printing press: the Powers That Be first banned it, > then tried to control it, and eventually had to relent.

All of those phases have already happened - banning (RIAA lawsuits), control (iTunes), relent (Spotify). We've reached the endgame - it's streaming.

If you want to store and maintain a personal 128GB collection of MP3 files with incomplete titles and data, that's your prerogative, but you're going to be in a tiny minority.

<comment><USER4> Must be nice to have a high bandwidth connection with 5 nines uptime, no risk of your account being revoked, or the content licenses abrogated or expired.

It is of the utmost importance to inculcate the newest generation of media consumers that renting is preferred to ownership.

<comment><USER5> I slogged through keeping a local archive of my carefully-ripped audio collection on a hardware RAID-5 storage server for decades. When I finally gave up in favor of Google Play (and subsequently Apple Music), it was liberating.

At the end of the day, the "content" we're talking about here is purely entertainment. You can live without it. And even if the hammer falls, and the copyright holders go backwards, things like Napster and Limewire and eDonkey will rise again.

At 10 years old, I never understood the line in SW EPIV, where Leia says, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." (Seriously, the line haunted me for years.) But it's a perfect allegory for this situation.

Of course, I'm still waiting for the blowback against Facebook, so...

<comment><USER6> I had the exact same experience, but then about 2 weeks ago, one of my favourite albums got deleted of All Music. So I had to search the disc, rip it, and then upload it to my account, which works for now but certainly put a dent in the experience.

Let's see how it plays out on the future.

<comment><USER7> >Let's see how it plays out on the future.

Exactly as you'd expect. Aphex Twin had a CD that included the video on the data portion of the CD (I think it was Windowlicker, circa 1999) - but you had to unlock the video online. After a couple of years, the server shut down, and you no longer had access to the video.

Of course, someone released a crack, and eventually the advent of YouTube negated that particular problem.

I still keep local copies of my music. Part of this is because I have a not insignificant amount of music that I listen to that is not and might never be part of a subscription service. Part of it is because I've experienced early attempts at controlling access to music and video that I purchased, and saw how that failed, and I don't plan on risking that loss again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was the author of MP3 Fiend, which was doing really well back in 1999 (CNET 5-star Editor's Choice). Then Napster came along.

While I appreciate that its 1999 interface was just as ugly as mine, what I didn't have was P2P. And obviously, that was the "killer technology".

<comment><USER9> Interface looks great to me. I know what every single piece of the UI does immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Napster. Worked there in 2000 and 2001. It was surreal (at least for me) to work at a place that was always in the news at the time. I can understand how employees at Faang must feel at times. Not a total distraction but it's there. Napster was an interesting place.

<comment><USER11> How good a job did Justin Timberlake do in portraying Sean Parker?

<comment><USER10> Only saw Sean Parker in a meeting once (and I don't believe I was ever introduced) so, difficult to comment on that. My sense is that he was more involved at the beginning of the service. I got involved around the time Bertelsmann made the investment in the company.

<comment><USER10> I guess technically it was a 'convertible loan'. Whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I've used it mostly for finding obscure or impossible-to-find music. I mean, > where else are you going to get a copy of The Mr. Belvedere Show theme song?

This is a nice reminder of just how much things have advanced in a short 20 years.

In four mouse clicks and under 5 seconds, I was watching _the video_ for it.

Select -> Right click -> Search with Google -> Click.

<comment><USER13> YouTube solved the problem of piracy enablers getting sued out of existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wish Mesh Networks were a bigger thing. I wish that casual P2P over them was a thing. Music. Books. Pictures. News. All spread by just walking around, gathering content that matches tags you subscribe to.

<comment><USER15> there are a lot of people working on various aspects of this. hopefully something usable will be available in the next couple of years.

[https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/)

[https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki](https://www.open- mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki)

[https://heropunch.io/Tracker](https://heropunch.io/Tracker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember launching Napster for the first time. Millions of popular and obscure songs at your fingertips. It was exhilerating to experience the power of peer-to-peer.

The genie was out of the bottle.

<comment><USER17> Tooth paste out of the tube is what Gene Kan tried to coin for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "if the recording industry knew about this, they'd probably shut it down."

<comment><USER19> Well Lars must had read the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since my genre of choice is dance music, I use Soulseek, which I think has done a great job of carrying Napster's torch.

The trouble is that many of the tracks I'm into come from the personal collections of assorted DJs or diggers on Youtube, so obscure tracks are often in poor quality: I've had to resort to using Discogs to purchase the original vinyls and recording them through a sound card. I am not yet a pro at digitally cleaning up some of the minute crackling that occurs, and buying a brush to clean the records hasn't helped much...

<comment><USER21> >> I've had to resort to using Discogs to purchase the original vinyls and recording them through a sound card. I am not yet a pro at digitally cleaning up some of the minute crackling that occurs, and buying a brush to clean the records hasn't helped much...

Source: vinyl junkie, vinyl DJ, professional audio engineer and girl who presses her own vinyl here in Toronto - You really have to acetate wash your records and only use the highest quality gear. There's little you can do beyond that. If a record is messed after you acetone it, unfortunately removing the crackle sounds is kinda going in and modifying the original sound itself. You don't _really_ know what else you're getting rid of.

I use a Pioneer PLX-500 which has a built-in USB. I generally get an extremely low level of noise especially off of new LP's.

<comment><USER22> > _There 's little you can do beyond that._

Depending on how much you want to spend, some flavor of iZotope RX will let you de-crackle and perform other types of audio restoration in a very transparent way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The nostalgia for this UI/UX is astounding. These were truly golden days of a sort.

<comment><USER23> This seems like something that would be held up as an example of why programmers shouldn't do the UI but I think I'd hold it up as an example of why they should.

Those buttons along the top look like an early implementation of tabs or a stack switcher that are common today. The search interface doesn't infantalize the user. I bet if you changed the windows theme it would match as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > It's a true community sharing all their music.

That's the point. Sharing is caring. Also this is what culture is about... not about the pop shit we get shoved in our face all the time. If anything, mp3 sharing made me buy more records (12" vinyl), not less.

<comment><USER25> Counterpoint: I hate having to track files on a hard drive, love pop music, and could never be bothered to buy a physical piece of media ever again. Don't yuck my yum, I think that's a better point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone explain the T1, T2, T3 classification of internet speed? Back in the day, I don't remember it being used where I lived.

<comment><USER27> I remember seeing them a bit, but not knowing what they meant. I've found this which explains it a bit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-carrier)

> The most common legacy of this system is the line rate speeds. "T1" now > means any data circuit that runs at the original 1.544 Mbit/s line rate. > Originally the T1 format carried 24 pulse-code modulated, time-division > multiplexed speech signals each encoded in 64 kbit/s streams, leaving 8 > kbit/s of framing information which facilitates the synchronization and > demultiplexing at the receiver. The T2 and T3 circuit channels carry > multiple T1 channels multiplexed, resulting in transmission rates of 6.312 > and 44.736 Mbit/s, respectively. A T3 line comprises 28 T1 lines, each > operating at total signaling rate of 1.544 Mbit/s. It is possible to get a > fractional T3 line, meaning a T3 line with some of the 28 lines turned off, > resulting in a slower transfer rate but typically at reduced cost.

<comment><USER28> The T1 users were like internet royalty to us dialup users back in the Napster days. I often pondered where they must be to get such an amazing connection (Universities, I assume). Now even in rural England I get a reliable connection that's over 50x faster. Even mobile is faster than that. How times change.

<comment><USER29> AHH, if only I lived in the countryside, rather than in a London suburb where my maximum ADSL speed has for at least the last decade been barely better than a T1 downstream, and hardly better than dialup upstream!

<comment><USER30> I'm stuck in Putney grrrr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Got to remember mp3. THAT was the killer tech that enabled everything.

<comment><USER9> Before that we used real audio files. I remember downloading so much music via .ra files on IRC via XDCC. Back then it was a great choice because we were still using modems. The quality was basically AM radio level, but the files were tiny so the trade off was worth it.

<comment><USER32> On my 28k modem with my Win 3.1 machine, I relied pretty heavily on MIDI files. I had a good collection Greenday, Nirvana, and movie theme songs (Ghost busters, Jaws, Jurrasic Park, Spaceballs, etc..) Oh, and I recently discovered that browsers no longer even support MIDI files.... yes, I _recently_ tried to create a webpage that would play music on load, don't ask me why...I'm just an awful person sometimes.

<comment><USER9> I'm hugely nostalgic for the early web, I don't blame you at all.

If you've never seen it, this is worth scrolling through: [https://www.cameronsworld.net/](https://www.cameronsworld.net/)

<comment><USER32> Thank you. That was amazing. The dancing girls especially made me reminisce (of my 13 y/o days). My parents never knew that I installed some secret dancing-girl thinger on the home-computer. I constantly wonder, and struggle with, how the internet impacts my 14 y/o stepdaughter in ways of which I'm unaware.... and how to approach it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> written by metafilter founder mathowie

<comment><USER34> About Napster and on evolt, the whole thing was a nostalgia bomb as soon as I clicked the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> What an application. I will download right away and try too.

</comment><comment><USER36> "I could go on and on about how I feel mp3's promote the sales of CDs, but that's an argument for another day."

Yeah. That worked out. ;)

</comment><comment><USER37> I was always amazed by the old jazz recordings that were never released on CD but were on Napster. Somebody cared enough to convert vinyl to mp3.

</comment><comment><USER38> 'killer app.' I heard that was the term 'Bill Gates' was also asked about during his hearing in the Gates vs USA case.</comment>


Microsoft Wants People To Throw Windows 7 Launch Parties - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/171407/microsoft_wants_people_to_throw_windows_7_launch_parties.html

<comment><USER2> If you sign up to throw the party but don't invite anyone, do you still get the free software and party favors?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll get right on that...

</comment><comment><USER4> Lamer than the guy I saw walking around with a shirt that says "I'm a PC." with a Windows 7 logo on the back.</comment>


Twitter feed of Hacker News stories as soon as they reach 20 points - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/newsyc20 <comment><USER2> Clever but how about a real RSS feed of those so I don't have to go to an RSS feed, then twitter, then bitly, then the original link?

Especially since with the shortened URL I don't really know where I am going.

<comment><USER3> _Clever but how about a real RSS feed of those so I don't have to go to an RSS feed, then twitter, then bitly, then the original link?_

Yes, use Readability to parse the pages and show the full text of the article directly in the RSS feed.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Readability parse is a good idea, but implementing that would need more time than I can spare right now. If anyone wants to do the legwork on that, please contact me and I'll be happy to put it in the feed.

<comment><USER3> Someone has done it before[0], but the feed doesn't seem to be available anymore.

0: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=542334>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like how you included both links. The problem I had with the other twitter feed is that it linked only to the original story and not to Hacker News.

<comment><USER5> This one (disclosure: I maintain it) links directly to the HN page: <http://twitter.com/HNComments>

<comment><USER4> nice, thx

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If anyone is interested I built a Yahoo Pipe that pulls in stories with 10+ votes: <http://blog.abrah.am/2010/05/hacker-news-10-rss-feed.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> YAHNTB!! (Yet Another HN Twitter Bot) ,,, added to the list here: <http://twitter.com/joemurph/hn-bots/members>

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator> is also good if you want anything that hits the front page (surprisingly it has almost 14,000 followers.. which seems sky high compared to the number of HN users to me.. :-))

</comment><comment><USER9> This totally solves the problem I asked about a month ago. Thanks! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1453143>

</comment><comment><USER10> This is actually useful. Care to share how you implemented it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a Python script I run every 5 minutes with cron. It uses BeautifulSoup to scrape the newsyc front page, Tweepy to send out out tweets, and sqlite3 to keep track of which stories have already been tweeted.

<comment> mike-cardwell Why use an sqlite DB when you can use the twitter feed its self to check whether or not a story has been posted?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because twitter is unstable, and the api is rate-limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about if the original link is small enough to fit in without truncation (bit.ly), then show the original link as well as a bit.ly link to the comments.

I hate losing the domain information in bit.ly links, and the @hackernewsbot (<http://twitter.com/hackernewsbot>) does a nice job of showing the original URL when possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well done!

Any idea how difficult it would be to support an arbitrary user customizable point threshold?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd have to create multiple twitter feeds for different point thresholds. If there's a particular one you have in mind, let me know.

<comment><USER13> Something like 100 - so it's only 2 or 3 stories per day would be nice.

<comment><USER14> Here's a challenge.

Create an app that lets you request an average of n stories per day and translates that request into a threshold.

<comment><USER12> Yep, that or create a simple web-app where users can log in (using OAuth preferably) and configure the number of stories they see a day or the karma threshold and then spin up a custom RSS feed for them.

Might be a fun weekend project...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If it isn't too much trouble a version of this for 40 points (and maybe 60) would be great. I find 20 to be way too much traffic in my Twitter feed, so I unsubscribed from it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just a newsyc20 tweet that said (via my twitter-id)

Figuring out the HN poster's twitter id and then including that in the tweet makes newsyc20 even more interesting

</comment><comment><USER17> The trailing close paren is becoming part of the bit.ly links. (At least on IE and Firefox, for me.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for catching that. I've changed the code to use square brackets instead of close parens.

<comment><USER17> It's doing it on the square brackets too. =) It's not a huge deal; as another person replied to me, bitly seems to ignore them and get you where you're going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing I'd like to see is the YCombinator logo for the logo, helps it stand out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done

<comment><USER18> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nicely done, Jeff, useful!

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice. Now do the same thing for reddit.

/ducks</comment>


World's isolated tribes face contact, extinction - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/08/MN4611595T.DTL&tsp=1

<comment><AUTHOR> In regards to the proposed question..Dilemma is whether to leave them to fate or push for assimilation.

I feel it is more honorable to leave them to fate to self evolve as a new world infringes upon them. What about you?

</comment><comment><USER2> I say parachute them a small wood stove fired electrical generator along with satellite internet connectivity and a few dozen Macs.

In 5 years they'll all be developers and demanding $200 an hour for their services.

<comment><USER3> I know you probably wrote that as a joke RL but I currently use a kid from equador to do some of my design work. He is absolutely brilliant at CSS and I don't have to pay him anywhere close to $200 an hour.</comment></comment>


Hunting the Con Queen of Hollywood - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/hunting-con-queen-hollywood-1125932 <comment><USER2> An interesting thread in this story is the "pay to play" nature of the businesses that people were getting conned in. My only exposure to that business has been in small time music performances, and I instinctively steer clear. In my world of regular tech-industry employment and (for that matter) as a freelance musician the "opportunity" to front my own money in return for a job would be an instant red flag and polite no-thanks response.

<comment><USER3> The perpetrator(s) are very shrewd about getting the mark significantly involved by the time they are asked for money. They are alone in a foreign country with a flight paid for and the promise of work before they are asked. Still like to think I would spot it, but in the situation I am sure a lot more difficult.

I wonder if is definitely a single voice impersonator or a deep-voice application. I don't hear any glitches and you'd have to have a lot of voice samples and confidence there wouldn't be glitches during the conversation.

Also probably a single impersonator, because if they were successful with synthetic simulation they probably wouldn't stick to impersonating just one gender.

<comment><USER4> > I wonder if is definitely a single voice impersonator or a deep-voice > application.

Technology can't do that yet.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Technology can do that. Voices can definitely be simulated. Even _faces_ can be simulated with the voice if you want to do video calls. (More artifacts there)

Claims are from seconds to 20 minutes of the original speaker's voice to creat a model that can be made to say anything:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/24/15406882/ai-voice- synthes...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/24/15406882/ai-voice-synthesis- copy-human-speech-lyrebird)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7mgn/baidu- deep...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7mgn/baidu-deep-voice- software-can-clone-anyones-voice-with-just-37-seconds-of-audio)

[https://www.npr.org/2017/05/05/527013820/new-software-can- mi...](https://www.npr.org/2017/05/05/527013820/new-software-can-mimic- anyones-voice)

Definitely artifact-y with less source material, but it is very possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good example of why trust validation is important and why social engineering is one of the most difficult threat vectors to protect against. Hacking the human brain to get trust is a lot easier in most cases than cracking a lot of digital defenses (although it seems a lot of people neglect basic digital defense too...). With some companies I've worked for, I've realized how sometimes customer support could be easily duped, because they want so badly to help the person who is obviously having difficulties and paying us so much money... :P

<comment><USER6> I once worked for a large telco, and although there were some basic security and verification processes in place internally, they were not rigorously enforced. An imposter or social engineer with malicious intent and the level of company-specific inside knowledge this scammmer had about their chosen targets for impersonation could wreck havok at my old employer, or I suspect many other large companies.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of the story about a hacker who got in by pretending to be an interior decorator for an office revamp

[https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/qv34zb/how-i-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/qv34zb/how- i-socially-engineer-myself-into-high-security-facilities)

<comment><USER7> Previously discussed. Thanks jsnell

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15516526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15516526)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That recorded phone call sounds very much like a man impersonating a woman's voice to me.

<comment><USER9> In my mind it is defintely a male voice. Telling his victims he is a woman could be the very first con. If they believe it, it tells the scammer they are gullible. Like scam emails being obvious about being a scam so that if anyone seriously replies it must be a terribly gullible person … which makes a great victim.

<comment><USER10> It's not even close to socially acceptable to tell someone on the phone that they "sound like a man," or "sound like a woman." If they didn't believe you, you'd never find out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's really sad that our government is so dysfunctional that they can't do anything to help. It's pure laziness, dysfunction and mismanagement as to why when you call the FBI and they brush you off. What good are they?

</comment><comment><USER12> > "There is an important element of social engineering going on with these > victims," says Snezana Gebauer, K2's head of investigations and disputes > practices, who has worked on the case with Kotsianas. "They know everything > about their victims' personal lives and use the necessary pressure points, > and they use publicly available information about the executives they are > impersonating."

So it seems Google/Alphabet finally found how to monetize their new robocaller!

</comment><comment><USER9> Fascinating read. My hypothesis why the scammer knows intimite/non-public quirks of impersonated people: The scam seems to be a larger operation, e.g. local people in Thailand surrounding the victim. So why shouldn't they also have inside people in the industry working near those impersonated people? The spies relay everything to the shared scam database/wiki and the scammer on the phone plays his role and pretends to have experienced it first hand.

</comment><comment><USER13> OA says in several places that the FBI said when contacted that the amount of money involved was too small to warrant an investigation. Just wondering (as an interested Brit) if the FBI would get around to looking at the whole series of scams as a single case and begin to think that the _total_ would be enough to meet the threshold? As the scam escalates, the likelihood of someone getting into trouble abroad increases.

<comment><USER14> Using common sense, it should be the total sum of money that matters. I can't imagine the FBI not being interested in someone stealing 1 dollar from 1 billion people in separate criminal acts.

<comment><USER13> Exactly, but the FBI (or whoever) has to recognise that the billion crimes are connected and to do that you need record keeping and some keywords/criteria applied to each case/report. Just wondering if they do that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >A designated Indonesian "moneyman" arrives on a moped to collect the funds.

Do people working in Hollywood or documentaries usually hand over sums of cash to anonymous guys on mopeds?

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of Frank Abagnale's book 'Catch me if you can'

</comment><comment><USER17> Previous submissions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hunting%20the%20Con%20Queen%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hunting%20the%20Con%20Queen%20of%20Hollywood&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

<comment><USER18> Users get ornery if you link to previous submissions that don't have comments.</comment></comment>


Top Chrome Web Apps for Web Designers and Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.templatemonster.com/2010/12/08/10-chrome-web-apps-web-designers-web-developers/

<comment><USER2> Ooh awesome! My app's #7!</comment>


Ask HN: How can I become a homeowner? - <AUTHOR> I'm a young-ish person, dreaming the American dream of purchasing a home.
Like a lot of people my age, I've had an almost pathological aversion to taking out loans or using credit cards extensively. I don't have suspect credit history, so much as little credit history at all.
The good news is I have negligible student debt and healthy savings, in addition to a job and current income stream that allows me to put a bit away each month. I already have about 10% of the downpayment for what I think I could afford saved up. I just have no idea what the next steps are.
Thanks in advance for any advice or resources to help cure my real estate ignorance. <comment><USER2> advice I would give someone I know:

1\. bankrate.com - go to 2-3 lenders go with best APR. 2\. don't buy the most expensive house on the block. 3\. don't buy any big purchases until it's closed. 4\. look for good schools even if you don't need it. 5\. stay away from condos and new builds. 6\. shop home owners insurance yourself and save.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could go to your bank (or whatever bank you like) and ask them to determine how much of a house loan you would qualify for.</comment>


The Ultimate Mobile Computer: Connecting an Asus Transformer and a Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> http://samuelstern.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/my-ultimate-mobile-setup/ <comment><USER2> I have a Nexus 7 with a bluetooth keyboard, I rooted it and installed Debian. I can SSH into it and pretty much do anything I want (I use ConnectBot or Terminal IDE). I have installed Vim, PHP5 Cli, MySQL and also PHPUnit. For testing sites locally in a browser, I have installed KSWeb. I also use an RDP client to access the LXDE desktop on Debian. Is there really a need to SSH into an RPi when one can have a setup like this?

<comment><USER3> What kind of keyboard are you using? I also have a Nexus 7, but it's hard to find any decent keyboard. Does it hold the tablet, or do you have to support it yourself?

<comment><USER2> This one [http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-920-003390-Tablet-Keyboard- An...](http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-920-003390-Tablet-Keyboard- Android/dp/B0054L8N7M)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the title I was expecting the RPi to be permanently inserted inside the Transformer somehow. Being at the mercy of the vagaries of 3G reception / public wifi provision is the sort of thing that puts me off doing this kind of thing myself.

Why an RPi as the backend though? Why not something that will compile your code faster? I recognise that not everyone is comfortable with renting a virtual server, but if you're going to leave your MacBook at home, can't you ssh into that?

<comment><USER5> The backend question is a big one and I agree that an RPi seems to be a poor choice. Samuel Stern has a MacBook Pro, which has much more power, single- thread and multi-threaded. Nevertheless it probably consumes much more energy than the RPi.

Other people rent some server, e.g. Matt Might uses Linode [0], but something like $20 per month flat is really expensive, if you would use it rarely and not for business. Maybe Amazon EC2? Though I doubt it fits the use case of weekend use plus one or two hours per week day.

[0] <http://matt.might.usesthis.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't get what the Raspberry Pi is for. The Transformer is a lot faster and already runs Linux, you could just install Ubuntu/Debian in a chroot and use that instead of sshing to the Raspberry Pi.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not found it easy to install Ubuntu or Debian on the JellyBean Transformer. Since I had already ordered an RPi, this seemed altogether easier. The RPi also has the advantage of being able to serve as a single-user server when I want to quickly test a rails project or a backend for one of my apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More of these articles please! I really like hearing from other mobile people.

Macbook pro is a no-go; the battery life is dropping _fast_. And it's not old. My Macbook 13 inch is better but also going down. Even with a new battery it's just too short lived... I have a Hypermac battery and that's definitely the best buy for mobile mac use. It is really great, but they cost way too much (imho). I really the way these machines 'feel', but battery life is more important for me.

When I am in a cramped space or need a lot of time and need all my development stuff (even Java), I use my Pandora which works like charm. For a bit less power and same form factor I also still use my Zaurus C860 which works fine and runs things like Haskell fine. It's just not that easy to do some Crash when bored/relaxing.

Pandora has over 10 hours battery life for me and I can swap batteries in no time (so 20 hours). Disadvantage; it's extremely small and low res. I would recommend and buy one any time.

Transformer prime (TF700) and Pandora are really great; both very portable systems and just work on the Pandora (full linux install with SSH/VNC/X).

I think, if it could install Linux, the Nexus 10 with a keyboard would be great solution. The resolution is insane and only for that I will get it. With a bit of hacking it seems like a fantastic 'monitor extension with a brain'.

</comment><comment><USER8> You know, you can do pretty much the same thing with an iPad and the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard. I do that with a Prgmr instance and it's pretty awesome, but by no means perfect. I'm starting to think the ARM Chromebook might be closer to perfection as I can SSH from chrome anyway and you can get cheap 3G on there.

I would love a 3g/4g enabled ARM based Macbook Air with 12 hour battery life. Of course, iPad 4 with 4G LTE would be pretty close for pretty cheap....

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my mobile setup. Let me know if you have any questions about the specifics or ways I could improve this. I just finished it today and thought I'd share.

<comment><USER9> I'm probably missing something crucial here, but I was just wondering why you actually need the Raspberry Pi?

I'm don't own any Android devices so I'm not an expert, but wasn't the idea that you could easily install and run a Linux userland with all your tools, directly on the Transformer Prime?

<comment><USER10> Writing, compiling, and executing Java and Haskell code can't be done (easily, at least) on the Transformer Prime, so he's just exploiting the batter life (along with it's inexpensiveness, and effortless syncing) of the Transformer and using it as a mobile access point to his pi where he can code.

<comment><USER11> The question is really: Why an RPi, specifically, instead of, e.g., your macbook or any other desktop-class hardware you have at home? When thinking of a development machine, the first thing that comes to mind is pretty much NOT an RPi. In fact, for my own RPi development, it is more efficient to develop under Linux (possibly run in a VM), and cross-compile to ARM than it is to compile on the RPi directly.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason for the Raspberry Pi is that it meets the following criteria:

1) Always available (MacBook may not be open and charged) 2) Energy efficient 3) No variable cost (as opposed to EC2 or Linode) 4) Very powerful when headless (Linux is better than OS X here)

It's not the most powerful backend but that wasn't really the point of this project. The point was that for $35 I added a dedicated Linux backend to my already awesome Transformer tablet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> different people already mentioned it: Why do you need a pi!? you can changeroot or ssh into any arm linux distro from android, it even flatout replace it. Did I miss something important?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not easy on the Jelly Bean Transformer Pad, and I have heard it greatly compromises battery life.

<comment><USER13> Not true. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.meefik.linu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.meefik.linuxdeploy)

In chroot'ed mode, I do not find that my battery life is any less outstanding than without the chroot.

It's not easy to support dual boot, and I would not be surprised to find out that booting into Linux directly would compromise your battery life. But I would be equally unsurprised to find out that it does not. It matters mostly that you need to have a properly configured kernel.

Not sure if it's possible to share one kernel between android and non-android. But I'm fairly certain that the bits that make booting into regular linux impossible are not the ones that control longevity and battery life. (A little bit fairly certain, anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently installed Ubuntu on my first generation chromebook. ([http://chromeos- cr48.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/chrubuntu-1204-n...](http://chromeos- cr48.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/chrubuntu-1204-now-with-double-bits.html)) This is a perfect setup for me. I have a linode as well, but found that 3G and wireless wasn't good enough for out and about (I live in Yorkshire UK).

I cannot say enough good things about the chromebook w/ Ubuntu. It is an endless pleasure to use. The one caveat to this is that I only use a handful of terminals and the browser. I suspect that using any of the other GUI features of Unity is probably miserable (as they are on my i7 machine too)

</comment><comment><USER3> This was supposed to be my dream setup too. I got a Raspberry Pi which is gathering dust on the shelf now. I was so eager to use it when it came out, then I had a faulty microSD card and lost all spirit to turn it into a credit card-sized media center. I hope if I can find some spare time, and a working SD card, I'll achieve this goal.

I also needed an Android tablet a couple months ago, because I didn't want to miss the tablet side of the Android. (There are not many tablet exclusive apps, but I'm way too obsessive to miss them.) But unfortunately I couldn't spare too much money and ended up with a 8 GB Nexus 7.

I wanted it to replace all my laptop needs -I haven't had a laptop for many years, after my last one died and got a desktop which I still love- but without a hardware keyboard and a big enough display, it's only great for reading anywhere. (Which I also don't, I'm too busy most of the time, and at the other times plain lazy.)

I hope Android ecosystem will mature even more in the near future. Look, Ubuntu is installable on the Nexus 7 right now. (I haven't done this yet, you can see the pattern here.) That basically means almost everything you can do on Linux, you can do it on your tablet too. And if you can support it with something with more horse-power than Raspberry Pi, you can call it a thin client/fat server pair.

The only thing left is to have a good tablet that can run Linux, has a big enough display, and has keyboard accesories. I personally don't like Microsoft, but the new line of Surface tablets look promising. As long as it lets me run whatever OS I want to, I'm all for it. Asus Transformer is not a bad option, but having the keyboard double as the cover and keeping it light sounds so much awesome.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is kind of a newbie question... but how does one develop java code through SSH?

I thought SSH was run through terminal command line. ie. all text. I can understand coding in vim with python or ruby through the command line. I'm not sure how its done with languages that need an IDE? like java

<comment><USER16> No languages strictly _need_ an IDE. I don't really work with Java so I can't comment with how well you'd get it integrated in VIM. There are a few tips here that could help [0].

[0] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/253170/tips-for-using- vim...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/253170/tips-for-using-vim-as-a- java-ide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A detail, but the RPi does not have a 1Ghz ARM processor. Only running at 700Mhz by default. Of course, you can overclock it, but it's not the same.

<comment><USER18> Actually the latest official firmware automatically overclocks it to 1Ghz if needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been thinking about getting this kind of setup too, without the Pi(Also, I'm in Brazil, it's probably hard to get one around here)

What I was thinking of was getting an Asus Transformer and running Ubuntu on it, I've read that's possible(maybe without touchscreen, but I just need a long battery, keyboard, command-line, vim, browser)

could somebody tell me what's wrong with this?(I see browser could be an issue if touchscreen doesn't work there, but I already use Vimium and I guess I could circumvent this, I'm more worried about general malfunction or higher battery consumption)

I'd also like to know if it's possible to get this(vim, terminal, ruby, etc) directly in a Android JellyBean(since Android runs a fork of linux...)

<comment><USER3> There's a vim app on Play Store, which I tried and loved it. I used it on my Nexus 7 tablet with software keyboard and attaching my USB keyboard via USB- OTG adapter, and it was a great experience. If I had a Transformer, I'd do all my coding on it without any hassles.

<comment><USER3> Here's the aforementioned app: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.momodalo.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.momodalo.app.vimtouch)</comment></comment></comment>


The Neuroscience of Intelligence: Jordan Peterson interviews Richard Haier - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY4sShDt9to <comment><AUTHOR> I've recently become interested in where science and politics meet, and this is one subject I've been researching. Dr. Richard Haier is not named on the Wikipedia page on "Race and intelligence"[0] which claims "Currently, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component, although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it plausible that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually appear." in the first paragraph.

It might just be that I have to do more research, but my impression from the research that I've encountered (especially the twin studies) is that G (general intelligence, which IQ is designed to be strongly correlated with) is strongly correlated with genetics, and even influenced by genetics to a greater degree than by the environment; the Wikipedia (but Wikipedia in general as well) article[0] appears highly politically motivated to me. It at least greatly conflicts with the contents of this interview.

One argument on this subject that I feel is persuasive is this: "Why have African societies been much less developed technologically and intellectually (e.g. in writing, language) than Western societies for over 3000 years? Can you blame 3000 years on oppression? Furthermore, if you say the cause was oppression, why did those races let themselves be oppressed if they were equally capable?"

\---

The video description for your pleasure:

There is almost nothing more important to understand about people than intelligence. It can be measured more accurately than anything else in the social sciences. It differs tremendously and importantly between individuals. It is the single most important determinant of life success. It's very existence, however, remains subject to substantive debate, most of it highly politicized.

Dr. Richard Haier[1,2] has recently written a major book on the topic, The Neuroscience of Intelligence[3], summarized in the following manner: "This book introduces new and provocative neuroscience research that advances our understanding of intelligence and the brain. Compelling evidence shows that genetics plays a more important role than environment as intelligence develops from childhood, and that intelligence test scores correspond strongly to specific features of the brain assessed with neuroimaging. In understandable language, Richard J. Haier explains cutting-edge techniques based on genetics, DNA, and imaging of brain connectivity and function. He dispels common misconceptions, such as the belief that IQ tests are biased or meaningless, and debunks simple interventions alleged to increase intelligence. "

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence) [1]: Dr. Richard Haier's personal website: [http://www.richardhaier.com/](http://www.richardhaier.com/) [2]: his Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Haier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Haier) [3]: his book, The Neuroscience of Intelligence: [http://amzn.to/2em55A9](http://amzn.to/2em55A9)</comment>


Hint: Runtime Haskell Interpreter (GHC API Wrapper) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mvdan/hint <comment><USER2> I've played with Hint, but it can be tricky to use since it's built on the GHC API which is pretty gnarly.

I tried using the GHC API in a project ( [http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/cabal2db.html](http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/cabal2db.html) ), and everything kept crashing saying "the impossible happened". You need to be very careful in initialising GHC's environment just right (mainly setting the "dyn flags"). Unless the code you're interpreting is very narrowly constrained, your application will need to expose a whole bunch of options to be able to handle things like language extensions, library paths, package databases, preprocessors, template haskell, etc. at which point you're basically reimplementing the GHC command. Trying to infer these options basically ends up reimplementing Cabal.

In the end I wrote a GHC core-to-core plugin ( [http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/ast- plugin.html](http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/ast-plugin.html) ) which serialises ASTs into s-expressions and dumps them to stderr, so I can manipulate them without hitting landmines in the GHC API.

Also, make sure not to evaluate datastructures too early. For example, the same AST datatypes are used to represent code before and after type checking; before type checking, locations which should describe types contain undefined, so evaluating the whole AST (e.g. to serialise it) will cause a crash. This is particularly unfortunate since these ASTs involve _lots_ of datatypes, so it's natural to traverse them using generic programming approaches (e.g. Scrap Your Boilerplate) which, by their nature, will traverse all nodes :(

I really like Haskell, and GHC is certainly an impressive piece of work. It would be nice if it were more modular though, so it's easier to run a particular piece on its own (e.g. 'given these modules, infer an instance of "Foo Bar"')

EDIT: BTW, since the article is Hint, I've actually ended up using my own alternative, available at [http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/nix- eval.html](http://chriswarbo.net/essays/repos/nix-eval.html) (it's also in Hackage, but the API's been changing a lot recently). It's basically a convenience wrapper which calls the `runhaskell` shell command, piping Strings of Haskell into stdin and spitting back stdout. Whilst very hacky, this seems to be more robust than Hint and, crucially, it allows dependencies to be downloaded, compiled and made available via `nix-shell`.

I've also made a layer on top which uses phantom types, but haven't rolled that into the library yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> hint is a really fun little project. I used it in a toy project to add Haskell as function language to PostgreSQL here: [http://github.com/ocharles/plhaskell](http://github.com/ocharles/plhaskell).

It's really messy code, and I have to do a bunch of hacking to invent a type from the PostgreSQL function metadata, but once I do that I can invoke hint: [https://github.com/ocharles/plhaskell/blob/master/PlHaskell....](https://github.com/ocharles/plhaskell/blob/master/PlHaskell.hs#L174)</comment>


Startups: a hidden lifestyle at MIT - <AUTHOR> http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N14/startups.html

<comment><USER2> I often think back to why I came to MIT, especially when the semester gets tough. I remember I came to the admitted students weekend and toured one of the dorms. The walls were covered with murals and the floors with junk --- motors, robot parts, circuit boards. People had built their own lofts; someone had rigged their door to open automatically when it recognized them. Someone had hooked up a camera and a projector so that you could "draw" on one of the nearby buildings with a laser pointer.

So of course, I came to MIT. I remember discovering pg's essays around sophomore year and starting to consider starting my own company, but my transformation really began when I set foot here at MIT, where creative and curious people build mind-blowing things every day.

At first it's intimidating. These people all seem so smart! Who am I to build a roller coaster, paint a 20 foot mural, build a loft, hack a PS3, build a crazy device and start a company out of it? You hear about these things in the abstract and you're intimidated. But then you get home and see people building a roller coaster in your courtyard and you realize: Who am I _not_ to do awesome things? Life is too short, damn it. It seems obvious to the entrepreneurially minded, but it's hard to describe the impact it had on me. I could've learned the same course material in many other places. But I cannot overstate how powerfully this cultural immersion changed my life.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like there is an incredibly strong hacker culture there.

Is working on personal projects outside class considered the norm?

It certainly wasn't when I was at uni, not with CS students anyway. After studying most CS students spent their time playing video games, watching movies, smoking pot or doing other activities.

Making a door with face detection or similar would be very unusual.

<comment><USER2> In reality, everybody's very busy, but enough people find time to hack on things that it's very frequently an inspiration to hear/see what people are doing.

Most people seem to be just surviving. But there a decent amount of people who hack on things frequently, and a small, but still sizable number of very prolific hackers. There are some people that comfortably take 8 or more classes a semester. Certainly some of those types of people choose to take a normal course load and have a lot of time to hack. But it seems like the more common situtation is that you end up neglecting your schoolwork and getting poor grades.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I found when I was at university that it was very difficult to take on a personal project and still be motivated to do my school work.

I would start hacking on something and not notice the time going by, so I would end up having to do assignments the day before. This was easy to begin with since the course starts easy but after a while becomes impossible.

The only way I can see it being possible would either be to have super high intelligence and productivity or military level discipline.

That's why I am amazed to hear of people who start whole companies whilst still getting top grades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the time I arrived at MIT in '08 to the time I left in '11, I witnessed a pretty huge shift in the interests of MIT students towards startups. Many people who probably would have gone into finance or defense diverted themselves to the startup world. The 100K competition at MIT and things like StartLabs have gotten big. Dropbox being homegrown was a big thing.

For me, it's been awesome to see the best engineers doing their own companies instead of joining defense contractors or GS.

<comment><USER4> > _From the time I arrived at MIT in '08 to the time I left in '11, I > witnessed a pretty huge shift in the interests of MIT students towards > startups._

I've witnessed now multiple decades of change, and the interests of the student body vary according to the fashion of the day.

If I were to advise fellow alums about preparation, I'd advise: Prepare for change. As trite as that sounds, it's been the only consistent trait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Sleep, friends, p-sets — choose two,"

I have not had the opportunity to attend MIT, however I have worked with several people who did. One of the common attributes I've noticed between all of them is an ability/drive to work hard, and get things done. To almost ignore their physical self. To me, aside from the bit of genius each possesses it's this personality attribute that I suspect is the secret to MIT's notorious success rate.

As someone who has experienced a severe burnout, managing my time, and carefully monitoring my energy has become a major priority. What baffles me is how these people can accomplish this without experiencing the same burnout I did when I tried.

<comment><USER2> Burnout does happen, but you don't necessarily hear about it.

<comment><USER6> Burnout definitely happens. I've been there, and most of my friends have been there. It's just not a popular topic to talk about.

I would say I think it happens less often, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I graduated in '09, everybody was worried about going into finance because of the '08 disaster. Now, all of a sudden, startups seemed like better ideas because finance was so crappy.

I, for one, am incredibly excited by the startup community at MIT. We were just there for the StartLabs career fair (hi asuth!) and it was really refreshing to see how many students showed up to it really interested in entrepreneurship and working on interesting projects with world-changing ambitions.

It's really great that we have a Dropbox to aspire to, being another MIT company. That really does mean a lot; just having someone to aspire to and hopefully beat is a big driver, at least for me.

<comment><USER4> > _Now, all of a sudden, startups seemed like better ideas because finance was > so crappy._

When the Fed raises rates, then it will be back to the tech bust once again.

So make hay while the sun shines.</comment></comment>


Our Nearest Star Has a Planet, and These Are the Ways It Could Be Habitable - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/our-nearest-star-has-a-planet-and-these-are-the-ways-it-could-be-habitable <comment><USER2> As vast a distance as 4.3 light years is, it's still amazing to think how much closer Proxima is than most of the other stars we see. While the light that's currently reaching us from the vast majority of stars was emitted long before our species existed, the light from Proxima was emitted after the financial crisis.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353441)</comment>


IOTA: CFB's Response to Neha Narula's Blogpost - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Iota/comments/6z4y3x/cfbs_response_to_neha_narulas_blogpost/?st=J7ENZ0W1&sh=b960bd03 <comment><USER2> That is a pretty poor response, the IOTA team doesn't seem to know how cryptoanalysis works. Theoretical attacks usually are found first, then specialized attacks like the chosen message one shown here, then more general ones. Cryptoanalysis takes time, and it is best to fix your system when you still have time and not wait until a full, generic, attack is known.

The first rule of hash functions is "Don't write your own hash function" writing cryptographically secure hash functions is hard, and even expert researchers get it wrong as often as they get it right. Better to use one that has been analysed already than coming up with your own.</comment>


On Modal Messages and User Experience - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/dsimov/euroia-2015-on-messages <comment><USER2> Serendipitously, on the third slide, slideshare popped up some dialog about a feature which I just closed immediately out of habit.

<comment><USER3> Here is a screenshot of the dialog [http://i.imgur.com/8mldN68.png](http://i.imgur.com/8mldN68.png)

The fix to this one would be to use something non-blocking, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One big problem that modal dialogs help with is time spent permission checking, which the presenter hints at with his file viewer trying to access X:\Office\HR Management.

Let's say you have a list of things you can view, but you can only delete some of them (following some business logic about permissions, say). Do you provide a delete button on each of the items on the list, then show an error message for the items for which the user cannot delete and tried to? Do you spend a long time rendering the page to check the permissions of every item?

</comment><comment><USER5> _both 12 /05/14 and 2014-05-12 mean 12 may 2014_

Except they don't always, it depends where you are. In the USA 12/05/14 means 5th of December.

<comment><USER6> I believe you might mean 5th December

<comment><USER5> Yep, thanks. I brainfarted. Fixed now.</comment></comment></comment>