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bierjunge

441 karma · joined January 16, 2019

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bierjunge··on Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
Depends on the metric you use. If we take nominal GDP instead of area, Germany is #1 in Europe [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

bierjunge··on Useful Uses of cat
Nobody mentions $_ ? It gives you the last argument used, so:

  cat filename.txt

  grep "what I want" $_
expands "$_" to "filename.txt"
bierjunge··on ESP32-C61: Delivering Affordable Wi-Fi 6 Connectivity
Yes, I've used it in a commercial product with 10000+ deployments. It was the only chip with BLE and WiFi, so there was no other option at the time. If the requirements were different, I would use something from Nordic Semiconductors [0] or some ARMv8 chip.

The hardware itself is fine, but the biggest pain was getting stable WiFi and BLE connections simultaneously, because of only one antenna/radio. RAM was also a problem, it would be great to have at least 512kb. The SDK from Espressif is sometimes a little bit weird, but usable and bugs are fixed quickly. The build system is ok, nothing special.

[0] https://www.nordicsemi.com/

bierjunge··on Latest copyright decision in Germany rejects blocking through global DNS resol
Found it:

https://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/olgs/koeln/j2023/6_U_149_22_U...

bierjunge··on Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban
I'm not a big BASIC fan, so I've done my stuff in C, since it was a Motorola 68k on the TI-Voyage 200. I don't remember exactly how (it's 15+ year ago), but you could mark your app as a "system app" which was not removed during a factory reset.

Add a cryptic name, blank screen on start with a short timeout to return to menu when a key combination is not pressed and nobody will ever notice.

bierjunge··on Static Analysis Tools for C
Annex K is optional and the only compiler I'm aware of implementing it is MSVC (and only Microsoft wanted that in the standard), so the support for it will be nonexistent in "normal" tooling. If you need it, check if MS has something.
bierjunge··on 418 I'm a teapot
Unethical because it can get the devs into legal trouble and the Chinese government is known to be aggressive in their choice of "solutions".
bierjunge··on 418 I'm a teapot
Unethical tip: start returning the content of this article [0] to these devices. The Chinese government will "fix" the devs for you or simply block all traffic to your site.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...

bierjunge··on Pixel Tablet
Apple is great at charging? No, they are not. I have a 2019 Macbook Pro with an Intel i9. When working, the i9 pretty much gets throttled down to the performance of an i5 because the thermal design is terrible, but it's a different story. But even when the CPU get throttled down, my battery gets discharged while being connected to the most performant Apple charger (96W). An no, the laptop is not faulty, I can reproduce it with a second Macbook with exactly the same specs.

And when I'm not using the original Apple charger, because I have a nice monitor with PD over USB-C, the Macbook regularly refuses to charge, not always, but every single time when I need it to charge. No other device has any issues with the monitor (tested with a Acer R13 Chromebook, Pixel 6 phone, Lenovo/Dell/Acer/Asus laptops, Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 Tablet, Steam Deck, etc.)

Edit: PD output of the monitor is also at ~96W

bierjunge··on Z Garbage Collector: The Next Generation
And the last modification was only wording, with the same 13 years old content. [0] Always check what changed in SO posts, because this practice is very common.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/posts/2682962/revisions

bierjunge··on French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
Disclaimer: IANAL

In German law you don't have to assist law enforcement in building a case against you, so you don't need to provide passwords or say anything. But you can be forced to unlock your device via biometrics (fingerprint, faceID, etc.).

I'm not sure how it works, when law enforcement calls you as witness. The law changed a few years back, so you are required to assist them, but I'm not sure to which extent.

bierjunge··on Google has already pulled six products in 2023
Pixel phones seem to be an exception from that. Let's hope Google doesn't kill them too.
bierjunge··on Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
I've got a Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 (https://www.amazon.de/Lenovo-2160x1350-WideView-Tablet-PC-Sn...) for "development" purposes. It's a nice tablet with 2k screen and enough power for pretty much everything, Android 13 and the killer feature for me: a micro-HDMI input. It works like a charm with MacOs/Linux as a second screen, but you can also connect a Switch or SteamDeck, grab a controller and you can play everywhere on a 13' screen.
bierjunge··on Finding a former Australian prime minister’s passport number on Instagram (2020)
Or hackers going into politics like Beto O'Rourke [0] aka Psychedelic Warlord, (former?) member of Cult of the Dead Cow [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beto_O%27Rourke [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Dead_Cow

bierjunge··on Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
The game wasn't always at $30. I saw it for $20 a few years ago (regular price) and I believe it was even lower before, like $15, but I'm not sure.

There is also a Nintendo Switch release, so they will have to pay for the Dev-Kit's and licenses which are not cheap. Not as expensive as in the 80's, 90's, early 2000's where a single Dev-Kit could be six figures, but still a significant expense for a indie studio.

So we are already a little bit off from the numbers you posted. I assume, the 30% you cut off is for taxes. Good idea, but Steam and all other platforms where the game is sold also want a piece of the cake. I don't know the numbers for other platforms, but Steam takes 30% of the listed price.

So even with a $30 price tag on Steam, they get $21 after commission. An that is pre-tax... They need to buy hardware for their developers, rent an office, pay developers and so on. So even the founders are not getting rich. A "boring" job in business software can make you more.

bierjunge··on Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users (2015)
They have at least sales and partnerships: https://business.whatsapp.com/
bierjunge··on Launch HN: MagnaPlay (YC W23) – Indie gaming subscription service for PC
Correct me if I'm wrong, but HB includes a lib of 50+ indie games with the Humble Choice subscription. Why should they split revenue with you as a competitor?

edit: https://www.humblebundle.com/membership/collection

bierjunge··on Linux's strcmp() for the m68k has always been broken
IIRC Texas Instruments uses 68k CPU's for their calculators. I'm pretty sure my TI Voyage 200 I've bought in highschool (15+ years ago) uses one and it's still great.
bierjunge··on Soyuz module on International Space Station is leaking something
And even if there is a significant injury risk, it's still better than certain death.
bierjunge··on The Terayacht Project
From their website:

>WE CAN BUILD IT !

>Immagine to join together the world biggest yacht firms in an unique project.

>(None of the below brands are now involved yet in the project)

This text is accompanied by logos of companies which are NOT involved and probably never even heard of this project. I highly doubt they can build anything.

The 8 billion needed to build a monstrosity like that seems possible, but doing it in 8 years? I don't thinks so. There are way too many technical challenges to solve and there is no shipyard in the world which could construct it in one piece. Making it modular, would be possible, but not in this time frame.

And the design for the ship is terrible, no maritime engineer would sign that off.

bierjunge··on Privacy respecting weather app for Android
It's the KIT (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, former Technical University of Karlsruhe) in south western Germany. IIRC they have the oldest computer science institute in the country and sent/received the first emails in Germany. So yes, they have some standing in the research community, but they renamed in 2008 or 2009 and still got a new .edu domain.
bierjunge··on iOS allows DNS request to escape the VPN tunnel
Just for clarification, it was not campus wide, only a small part between some institutes. Also, the hardware was not consumer grade thanks to the electrical engineering, geodesy and geoinformatics labs.

Still, it was illegal and could get everyone expelled, so I wouldn't do it again.

bierjunge··on iOS allows DNS request to escape the VPN tunnel
GPS can be easily spoofed.

Back in the university days, we (me + a few friends) used to get some radios and antennas to create a signal stronger than the one coming from satellites. It was always fun when the semester started and all freshmen were using Google Maps to navigate through the campus, but the map always showed their location in North Korea. Good ol' times.

bierjunge··on Stop parking apps from exposing your location
Photographing public space is somehow different from monitoring it with a camera 24/7. Here in Germany, installing a camera which also captures the sidewalk next to your property or a part of your neighbors property would be illegal.
bierjunge··on The Curious Design of Skateboard Trucks
Obligatory Gou Miyagi video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVGgqvsz3qA

This guy is also awesomely creative in skateboarding and in video creation.

bierjunge··on Congress.gov API
You missed this -> 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
bierjunge··on Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants
Thanks for the answer. I'm no webdev, but deleting this line will fix it.

<script> (function(w,n) { if (typeof(w[n]) == 'undefined'){ob=n+'Obj';w[ob]=[];w[n]=function(){w[ob].push(arguments);}; d=document.createElement('script');d.type = 'text/javascript';d.async=1; d.src='https://s3.amazonaws.com/provely-public/w/provely-2.0.js';x=...} })(window, 'provelys', ''); provelys('config', 'baseUrl', 'app.provely.io'); provelys('config', 'https', 1); provelys('data', 'campaignId', '6555'); provelys('config', 'widget', 1); </script>

If a guy like me, without any experience in JS can find it in less than a minute, it shouldn't be a problem for you to fix it.

bierjunge··on Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants
Can you please explain why are you faking the signup popups? They repeat every few minutes with the same names and cities (e.g. I saw the popup for "Sg from Hamden, Conneticut signed up for Boostly" at least 3 times now). This looks very sketchy to me.

And a second, more technical question. Why are you loading "font-awesome.min.css" (Cloudflare) and the IBM Plex font (font.google.com) every time you show the popup?

bierjunge··on Germany’s ultra-cheap train ticket saved 1.8M tons of CO2
Karlsruhe - Hamburg (~600km) -> 5 hours with ICE (the Basel - Hamburg connection) or 6 hours with an IC.

Karlsruhe - Paris (~550km) -> 2.5 hours with TGV (and it's mostly cheaper than traveling with DB).

bierjunge··on Show HN: I created a library to create product tours / walkthroughs
Firefox seems to be not supported...
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