Hacker News Reader

Varchton Don't Let Robots Pull the Trigger

Some weapon systems arm themselves according to certain conditions, altitude, time from launch, etc. I think one could argue that some missile systems are already robots that "pull the trigger".

Varchton What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009)

When a discussion is interesting enough for me to want to follow it, I will search the page for "minutes ago" to find the newest posts. It might be nice if new posts were highlighted for some amount of time.

Varchton Pee, Not Chlorine, Causes Red Eyes from Swimming Pools: CDC (2015)

You could try to convince yourself of the therapeutic benefits of urine, might be better for your psyche in the long run.

Sort of like, spit in fast food builds antibodies.

Varchton Why I Prefer Dynamic Typing Over Static Typing (2017)

I guess this is what happens when everyone gets a trophy.

Varchton Magic Lantern

This is poetic, my eye is good but I can only hope to half your rhetoric.

Varchton Magic Lantern

Really it is not that subjective, there is an art to it, there is some nuance to a mood or style you are going for but there is a definite good and bad.

Varchton Magic Lantern

As I and wikipedia understand it, "Color grading is the process of improving the appearance of an image..."

Varchton Magic Lantern

The term color grading should probably put in quotes here. A few looked pretty great to me but a lot did not.

Varchton Time Travel (2006)

Unless changing the past splits time into 2 with both outcomes.

Many-worlds [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

Varchton Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

There are no original ideas left? That's depressing.

Varchton Americans Cross Border into Mexico to Buy Insulin

Not quite the proof I'd like to see. Johnson&Johnson sells a lot of things, the more purely pharmaceutical companies are closer to 1:1 in the graphic.

Then we have, Most of this marketing money is directed at the physicians who do the prescribing, rather than consumers. As Oliver pointed out, drug companies spent more than $3 billion a year marketing to consumers in the U.S. in 2012, but an estimated $24 billion marketing directly to health care professionals.

$27B in marketing but the graphic shows over $65B in R&D?

Varchton Americans Cross Border into Mexico to Buy Insulin

Source?

Varchton The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Feature Extraction

You know, we love our overloaded terms? In this context it means "Decentralized storage". Keeps people on their toes, keeps the AI guessing.

Varchton Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

In fact, it actually validates the thought that the idea is viable.

Not sure you can go that far. The first part of your statement sounds reasonable though.

Varchton Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

Don't forget to do some research to see if it already exists, often it does.

Varchton Canada's forests emit more carbon than they absorb

You are correct, I misattributed the top comment as part of the article, was an honest mistake.

"Old growth forests tend to exist in a carbon steady state; younger, growing forests tend to be net carbon uptakers. This situation is due to natural disturbance regimes in forests, like fire and pine beetle, having historically signifiant impacts in large part because of climate change."

Varchton Canada's forests emit more carbon than they absorb

Caused by global warming (human?), fta.

Varchton California will not complete $77B high-speed rail project: governor

How Jerry Brown Became ‘Governor Moonbeam’? [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/weekinreview/07mckinley.h...

Varchton California will not complete $77B high-speed rail project: governor

Yes, these are the questions to ask, related [0].

In the article they mention the number of parcels needed grew by 500, did owners subdivide in order to increase returns?

[0] https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html

Varchton California will not complete $77B high-speed rail project: governor

Because Moonbeam's buddies could buy 1000's of acres of worthless desert for pennies and then sell it back for a nice little profit[1].

[1] https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html

Varchton Could Get Millions to Turn Factory into Condos, Is Not Selling

Do industrial themed apartments, have a mini museum up front with a couple of the cooler machines and measuring tools. If she needs to keep machining to satisfy her fathers wishes save a couple 1000 sq/ft and buy a few modern CNC machines that can do the job of the existing antiques.

Varchton A speedy 3D printer that uses light projected into resin

I think "into" is the new part as opposed to "onto".

Varchton One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

I think you guys are onto something. At $100 a pop, my family, just counting out to first cousins, could buy a pretty nice sequencer.

Varchton Self-driving cars will "cruise" to avoid paying to park

Agreed, it is quite possible that an influx of "steady state" (compared to human piloted) vehicles for humans to follow around will improve traffic conditions overall. A large component of traffic is the "accordion effect".

Varchton Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

There are over 100,000 Google and Facebook employees, just a small percentage of them with good old fashion loyalty to their companies could explain the amount offended here.

Varchton Simulating blobs of fluid

I didn't miss it but I was skeptical at the performance, I thought to myself "be cool if mouse wheel scrolling agitated it, OMG it does!"

Nice work, am a big fan of fluid sims too. Who says the internet is not fun anymore?

Varchton Chinese spy allegedly caught stealing self-driving car secrets from Apple

the article doesn't help sluice that out much... "Another alleged Chinese spy has been caught apparently trying to steal secrets from Apple’s mysterious self-driving car project."

Varchton Google’s also peddling a data collector through Apple’s back door

OK, thank you for clarifying. It does read that way though, basically "Google was not abusing it like fb, thanks to Techchrunch they will lose their cert anyways".

Varchton Google’s also peddling a data collector through Apple’s back door

You are chastising Techcrunch for reporting the truth? There are some things we just don't need to worry our little heads about?

Varchton U.S. Accuses Huawei of Stealing Trade Secrets, Defrauding Banks

For most things, feel free to reproduce patented parts for your own consumption, just don't give them away or try to sell them.