Hacker News Reader

8_hours_agoon List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots

This information is the result of research by Robert Lee, Seth Schoen, Patrick Murphy, Joel Alwen, and Andrew "bunnie" Huang.

Does bunnie do any non-cool projects?? He inspires me more than any other developer/researcher today.

8_hours_agoon Over the Air: Exploiting Broadcom’s Wi-Fi Stack

This research is effectively a free audit of Broadcom's firmware by Google. At what point does Broadcom approach Google, have the appropriate NDAs signed, and give them access to the source code? If someone is providing a (very valuable) free service to you, wouldn't you want to make their lives easier?

I assume there are some important reasons why this wouldn't occur, but at first glance, it seems to me that the pros outweigh the cons.

8_hours_agoon What’s the Matter with Covert Action?

Yes, I believe that generating believable fiction programatically is still difficult today. Lots has changed since Covert Action was developed (game size is no longer constrained by 3.5" floppies and computer performance is hugely improved), but generating believable story lines without lots of templates is still difficult.

8_hours_agoon Employee burnout is becoming a huge problem in the American workforce

I don't know about other states, but California provides up to 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. "Benefit amounts range from $50 to $1,173 per week and represent about 55 percent of your previous weekly earnings (maximum reimbursement amount is $1,173 per week)."

http://edd.ca.gov/Disability/About_PFL.htm

I wish it were longer, and I wish it paid more, and I wish it were federal, but it's better than nothing.

8_hours_agoon What’s the Matter with Covert Action?

> Suffice to say that generating believable fictions ... is a tough nut to crack.

Dwarf Fortress has smashed this nut to smithereens. Too bad it requires significant computing resources and a huge amount of programming work to implement.

8_hours_agoon Good News on the California Drought

It's more about public outreach than saving a few cups of water. Reminding people that there is a drought every time they go out to eat is an effective way to get people to talk about water conservation, and perhaps even make some changes in their lifestyle to reduce water usage.

8_hours_agoon Pam-ussh may be tricked into using another logged in user's ssh-agent

Wow! That bug report and follow-up is absolutely amazing!! If anyone is ever trying to convince a company to release code as open source, this is the best possible example to give.

8_hours_agoon Ask HN: Keyboard and Mouse for daily use?

The Sculpt Ergonomic (https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboar...), or the Sculpt Comfort (https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboar...)? I'm looking at getting a new keyboard at work, and I'm considering both.

Years ago I had a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite keyboard that I really liked, but they are discontinued now and I'd rather get a new model if it is better or comparable.

8_hours_agoon The Stack That Helped Opendoor Buy and Sell Over $1B in Homes

I like that you do code reviews of every commit, do you have any issues with getting people to spend time reviewing? Also, it looks like you have a very broad code base (backend, frontend, mobile, machine learning...), do all of your engineers review code for all of those areas? I've found that in small teams sometimes only one person really understands a particular section of code, which can result in poor quality code reviews. I'm interested to hear if you've experienced that, or if you've managed to work around it.

FYI, the title of https://www.opendoor.com is: "Opendoorflexible-dateno-repairopen-houseonline-processfair-inspectionfast-closinghome-readycustomer-supportfair-offertransparency | Sell your home the minute you're ready.", which looks like a mistake to me. Probably need to add another test ;)

8_hours_agoon Best Anagram: Moore's law beats a better algorithm

This is a follow-up to a post from yesterday, which had some discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13696196

8_hours_agoon Wherein DNA Lounge will be closed soon, without your help

Use this link instead to avoid being redirected to an inappropriate image (http://imgur.com/32R3qLv):

https://href.li/?https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/201...

8_hours_agoon Don Libes' Expect: A Surprisingly Underappreciated Unix Automation Tool

I had a C class in college where we submitted homework with a program on a server. The program would compile the C code, run it with a bunch of inputs, and then report back if it passed (i.e. the output matched the expected output). The output was expected to be in exactly the correct format, so the submit program would helpfully print your output and the expected output so you could fix any formatting issues.

I got about 2 assignments into the class before I realized that I was being a chump. I wrote a C program that simply printed out the expected output, and submitted it. I received a passing grade on the assignment, so I took it further. I wrote a Perl script which would submit "int main(void){return 0;}", read the expected output, generate a C file that printed out that output, and submit it again.

Apparently the TA for the class never checked the submitted assignments and relied entirely on the submit program, so I was uncaught for a few weeks. My downfall was trying to make the Perl script as efficient as possible (I had extra time on my hands because I didn't have to do the C assignments!). I had run my Perl script a few dozen times while optimizing it, and apparently the TA received an email every time an assignment was submitted. He brought it up to the professor and I was called into his office. Luckily he was lenient and let me just redo the assignments :)

8_hours_agoon Trump Era Real-Time Hate Crime Mapper

I also don't see anything... I assume because there isn't enough data yet? "This map, along with other visualizations, will become functional after 25 crimes have been reported."

8_hours_agoon The first cryptor to exploit Telegram

Nginx is one. It's now headquartered in SF, but it was founded in Russia and still has an office there.

8_hours_agoon Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Microsoft Team doesn't currently have a self-hosted option. I hope it's in the pipeline because my company can't use an offsite IM service. It would be nice if Microsoft added support and then Slack followed. Competition is good!

8_hours_agoon George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

Do third-party "autopilot" systems require ISO 26262 certification? I know that car manufacturers and tier-1s spend lots of time and money getting their safety-critical code certified. Do the same requirements not apply to aftermarket solutions?

Actually, now that I think about this more... does Tesla's autopilot have ISO 26262 certification? I hope that the recent advancements in self-driving cars isn't a result of tech companies bending or breaking the rules, but I don't know enough about when ISO 26262 is required (if at all).

8_hours_agoon Microsoft Surface Studio

The new MacBook Pro has something similar to this, except it looks like it's less than 1 inch tall:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/return-of-the-mac/

8_hours_agoon The Calyx Institute Now Has 4G/LTE Wireless Service

A Boing Boing article about this was submitted last month, but it didn't get much attention. For a $500 yearly membership fee ($400 after the first year), you can receive a mobile hotspot and truly unlimited (no throttling!) 4G/LTE data. The Calyx Institute is non-profit, so the membership fee is a tax-deductible charitable donation!

Here's the previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12560605

8_hours_agoon Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

This kind of stuff still happens all the time today. A few years ago I worked for a small government contractor which did a lot of phase 1 and 2 projects for the DoD. Most of the contracts we got were for developing experimental technologies to make soldiers more effective, which involved a lot of guessing what the soldiers actually wanted. After making a shiny demo (usually held together with duct tape, ugly perl scripts, and prayers) which the government PM would fall in love with, we would do field testing which would inevitably end with the soldiers reporting that it was a cool piece of technology, but almost completely useless to them. Anyway, it was lots of fun to work on those projects :)

8_hours_agoon Cracking the Coding Interview Tutorial

Give them a computer and some resources. Let them work on a problem for a few hours. Then have a discussion with them about how they approached the problem, any limitations of their implementation, and what they would do if they had more time.

I don't see how whiteboard-style coding interviews can scale any better than that approach.

8_hours_agoon People are still bad at gauging their own interview performance

We don't pressure them, just give them the offer and continue to sell the company. It isn't like we hold the door shut until they accept :)

8_hours_agoon People are still bad at gauging their own interview performance

The company I work at has a good solution to this. We fly candidates out for an onsite interview and at the end of the day, if we decide we want to hire them, we give them an offer in person. Our goal is to get them to verbally accept before they head back home.

8_hours_agoon How difficult is it to preserve metadata when moving a file?

This is part 4 of a series of articles about writing a custom "mv" command. Here's the first one: http://yakking.branchable.com/posts/moving-files-1-copying/

Here's the whole list: http://yakking.branchable.com/tags/move/

8_hours_agoon How I Built a Custom Camper Van (2015)

It looks like he took a ferry:

http://theroadchoseme.com/panama-to-colombia-vehicle-ferry-x...

8_hours_agoon Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps athletes poor

> The highest salaries among U.S. athletes are earned by baseball players, and it's not even close

If you sort by average per year it isn't quite as clear cut as that. Excluding the first 3 outliers (2 Ferrari F1 drivers and Floyd Mayweather) the next 10 highest paid athletes per year are split roughly 50-50 baseball and basketball.

There are more baseball players on the list in total than basketball players, but I'd argue it is because there are ~750 total MBA players and only ~450 NBA players.

8_hours_agoon Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

There's a lot of good gems in there:

"Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon."

"It's much easier to pass a stack of prints among a group of people than to set up a viewing session on the TV."

It makes you wonder what new technologies we dismiss today will actually start a revolution. Of course, not everyone was wrong about the future of digital film; this guy was spot on:

"In my opinion, the popularity of electronic camera is dependant upon the popularity of computers. If this so call multimedia become a reality, then more people may want electronic cameras."

8_hours_agoon Why we use the Linux kernel's TCP stack

The author mentions multiple times that they would not want to use a closed source TCP stack, which I don't completely understand. It is common for enterprise software licenses to have the option to view and modify the source code, and also include support from the engineers who wrote it. Aside from the cost, is there a reason why having it fully open sourced is an advantage?

8_hours_agoon My roommate received this email from a Microsoft recruiter today

The entire situation is ridiculous, but Mitchel's response probably won't go over well with his employer.

8_hours_agoon Dwarf Fortress Development

I agree 100%. I am very fascinated by Dwarf Fortress, but with a full time job, a family, and hobbies, I only spend a few hours every other week playing games. I donated money to them, but every time I think about actually starting to play I get intimidated by the incredibly steep learning curve. There are many other games that I can start playing and having fun immediately

That being said, I'm glad that I donated. I feel that I've gotten my money's worth just from reading about it every few months and knowing that I am supporting indie game developers. Hopefully at some point it will become more user-friendly so I can actually play it. Or maybe I should drop some hobbies...

Does anyone know how long it takes an average new player to get to the point where Dwarf Fortress is more fun than confusing and frustrating?

8_hours_agoon Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

It would be interesting to see this test run again with ad blockers enabled on each browser (the latest version of Edge has support for extensions).