Hacker News Reader

ani-anion Firefox Preview adds support for recommended extensions, including uBlock Origin

I believe GP's statement on international apps was sarcastic and subtly pointed out that this technological siloization would foster narrow worldviews.

ani-anion Firefox Preview adds support for recommended extensions, including uBlock Origin

I think your "dystopian picture", while very interesting, is an extrapolation the current mobile landscape, where internet usage is already mostly done through social media apps rather than browsers. This, of course, gives free rein to advertisement.

However, the main reason these apps gained all this traction is that the Web is simply not made for small devices with touchscreens. It's the discomfort of using web browsers on mobile that created the tipping incentive to adopt these streamlined apps. As long as people keep using more comfortable devices (eg. laptops) that can easily browse the Web, this segment will not have that "discomfort" incentive to move away from the Web and onto more restricted platforms.

Yes, there could be other incentives - you mention junk sites and security issues - but these aren't strong enough to outweigh the main advantage of browsers, which is the breadth and momentum of the Web, something that users still value. I hope I'm right.

ani-anion List of Epidemics

Looks like someone just added it.

ani-anion A 60 GHz phased array for $10

This chapter by Brian Wowk is a good start. It explains the basics and compares optical phase arrays against holography (that poor word, keeps getting abused!):

https://www.phased-array.com/1996-Book-Chapter.html

ani-anion Sonant: A tool for creating generative music based on random walks

Source is here: https://github.com/kgolid/sonant

Some of the generative art on the author's website is really neat (neater than this music generator, IMO!) Eg. "Byrne proofs," which generates imaginary visual proofs. Whenever I come across these things, I dream about some kind of generative art museum. Definitely something I would subscribe to!

ani-anion Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

What the article doesn't state is what advantage the Barnacle offers over a more traditional boot design. OK, there's the online payment thing, but that could be equally implemented with a boot. So why the convoluted design? Is it because you can drive around a bit (dangerously) while the barnacle is on?

ani-anion Inside the digital clock from a Soyuz spacecraft

This led me to this declassified document according to which Soviets used a mix of color codes and directly stamping values on resistor housings:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809...

The document is from 1950 though, so it greatly predates the standards used the 1983 Soyuz here.