Hacker News Reader

FigBugon Mozilla could walk away from Yahoo deal and get more than $1B

Mozilla spent $15k to remove the word slave from documentation.

FigBugon The Most and Least Expensive Cars to Maintain

By that logic my Nissan Leaf will have $0 maintenance costs.

The only listed maintence items to 120,000 miles are: Replace brake fluid, Replace in-cabin microfilter, Rotate tires

https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuide...

FigBugon Announcing the Qt Automotive Suite

I didn't look at all the LGPL/GPL code they are using, but your understanding seems correct.

FigBugon Announcing the Qt Automotive Suite

You absolutely can't use GPL libraries like this. If you use a GPL library you are required to release your entire application source code under a GPL compatible license.

With LGPL libraries I find a lot of developers aren't aware of the relinking requirement, but it does get enforced. That's why you won't find LGPL libraries being used in the iOS App Store and why you need to buy a commercial license for Qt for mobile.

Of course none of this applies to server apps since they aren't distributed to users. You can use all the GPL code you want.

FigBugon Announcing the Qt Automotive Suite

You also need to make it so the user can replace the Qt binaries with a later / modified version which may not be possible on an embedded device.

FigBugon Announcing the Qt Automotive Suite

There is also JUCE, but it's more focused on audio application development. https://www.juce.com/

FigBugon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2016)

SEEKING WORK

Location: Victoria, BC Remote

Small team: Electrical, Mechanical, Firmware engineers. Experience with pro audio, sports measurement, medical devices. 3D printing, small run prototyping.

www.motusdesign.ca

FigBugon Startups Can’t Manufacture Like Apple Does (2014)

contract manufacturer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_manufacturer

FigBugon Eric Raymond's 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' Turns 19

Yup, a history course would be a good idea. I still find it surprising when programmers, even on HN, don't know where the term "Open Source" came from, as if it always existed.

I was involved in a source code copyright lawsuit a few years ago as an expert witness. It made me realize how immature the software industry is. How many terms we use have no authoritative definition. There are no books that cover the basics that say "this is this" and "that is that"

FigBugon Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

I think the Chevy Bolt looks ok, fairly similar to other current small cars. The BMW i3 is hideously ugly. The Nissan Leaf is growing on me, but maybe that's just because I bought one and now have some form of Stockholm Syndrome. The headlights are stupid looking, but I like the rest of the car.

FigBugon Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?

I haven't dug around in the Miranda IM code in years, but I hope there is some of my code left, even if it's just 1 line, would have been written in 2000.

I do know there are plugins I wrote for ACDSee as a coop student in 2000. I can still see some of the icons I drew.

FigBugon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2016)

SEEKING WORK

Victoria, BC, Canada Remote work ok

Motus Design Group (www.motusdesign.ca) Small contracting/consulting company looking for work

4 Engineers: Mechanical, Electrical, Firmware, Software

  3D printing, design for injection moulding
  Design of sensor systems, instrumentation amplifiers
  Rapid turn PCB fabrication and populating
  Firmware for AVR, ARM, dsPIC
  Desktop & Mobile software (Qt, iOS, JUCE)
  Audio digital signal processing

https://www.instagram.com/motusdesigngroup/

http://motusdesign.ca/

roland@motusdesign.ca

FigBugon The Geographical Oddity of Null Island

Is it anything like Pen Island?

FigBugon Have Software Developers Given Up?

And yet it still couldn't handle flying over new years: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10459-y2k-like-fears-...

FigBugon Qt 5.6.0 released

JUCE used to have a feature where the entire library was distributed as one .cpp and one .h file. It made it very easy to distribute JUCE based source code. The make files were very simple. Unfortunately that is no longer supported.

FigBugon Qt 5.6.0 released

Pretty big. If you want to use LGPL Qt you need to dynamically link, so deploying will get you around 20 MB of libraries. You can do a command line JUCE app in a few hundred KB, or a GUI app in not much more.

FigBugon MAME is now Free and Open Source Software

The term 'open source' wasn't used before 1998 and the OSI popularized the term, so originally at least when people said open source they meant an OSI approved license. The term has become slightly less precise over time.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&ye...

FigBugon Show HN: What parts of your code are not original

Ok. I've downloaded it. Double clicking doesn't seem to run it, but if I open the jar from the command line, it will run. (OS X Mavericks)

Then I go to get an API key, so I sign up for mashape.com? Is this service somehow related to triplecheck.net? I need an API key, but nowhere do I see one.

I think your startup process needs to be simplified or better documented.

Edit: Ok, found the key. Now I need to put my code in the application bundle? Why can't I just select a folder?

Edit2: Apparently that wasn't the key or the app couldn't access the internet. Maybe no NSAppTransportSecurity in the .plist

FigBugon SourceForge and Slashdot Have Been Sold

Natalie Portman, naked and petrified and covered in hot grits

FigBugon Ask HN: Where are all the non-web jobs?

What is the difference between a Computer Programmer and a Software Developer? Software Developer has over a million jobs and is growing fast? And then web developer is another category? Are jobs actually disappearing or are they being recategorized?

FigBugon Qt Licensing Changes

http://multinc.com/2009/08/24/compatibility-between-the-ipho...

Some LGPL2 libraries add a static linking exception. Others the authors don't really care and don't bother submitting copyright violations to Apple.

FigBugon Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

The Windows store is flooded with fake and scam apps.

http://www.howtogeek.com/194993/the-windows-store-is-a-cessp...

http://forums.windowscentral.com/general-windows-phone-discu...

FigBugon Reverse engineering the ARM1, ancestor of the iPhone's processor

Acorn no longer exists, but ARM does charge royalties for their processor designs. Around 1% - 2.5%. They have revenue was £795.2 in 2014, so yes, that pennies and fractions of a penny do add up.

Edit: The cheapest ARM processor I found on Digikey is $0.35, Digikey must be buying them for under $0.15 so that royalties would be under 3/10ths of a cent.

FigBugon Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

Amazon signed Jeremy to do his new show on Amazon Prime, so I'm expecting to see more Jeremy/Amazon promotion going on.

FigBugon Ask HN: What is your job? Do you like it? What was your favorite job?

I currently do contracting, mostly in the Pro Audio industry. I do VST/AU plugins, control surface software, digital mixers, speaker processors, effects processors, etc.

I do enjoy it, even though it pays less than most other industries.

Favourite thing I worked on was a 48 channel touring console. Unfortunately is was cancelled shortly after launch and all released units (except 1) were purchased back.

I also worked on some pretty fancy digitally controlled line arrays and subwoofers. The aiming they could do was pretty cool.

FigBugon Ask HN: Is it possible to find remote job on C/C++?

Usually you get an electrical engineering degree. I was lucky enough to find a company willing to let me learn on the job.

I can recommend these: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0240825152?psc=1&redirect=tr...

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0262014467?psc=1&redirect=tr...

FigBugon Ask HN: Is it possible to find remote job on C/C++?

Do you know anything about audio dsp? I've found jobs in the pro audio industry are pretty easy to do remotely. I do a mix of VST/AU plugins, small audio apps and control surfaces. I get most of my jobs through my network of contacts, but there are a few jobs that get posted here as well: http://www.juce.com/forums/juce-jobs

FigBugon Time for vinyl to get back in its groove after pressing times

Often? I can think of a single online music store that still sells DRM music. Music subscriptions use DRM, but I wouldn't call that 'buying'.

FigBugon Real Time Programming (1998)

> A hard real time task or system is one where an activity simply must be completed - always - by a specified deadline.

It should be noted that completing a task too early can be a failure as well.