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bobdson 3D printing could reduce raw material needs by 90%

They come a lot cheaper than that. The biggest cost is the proprietary materials they use, I'm guessing it would easily add up to more than the cost of the printer over time. Servicing costs should also be pretty high.

I've compiled a list of most cheap printers (slightly out of date, I am going to add more soon): http://punkmanufacturing.com/wiki/

As far as usefulness, the open-source printers are not that different from the cheap commercial machines. A well-tuned RepRap should have comparable accuracy. The printing materials are a lot cheaper, as well as the parts (which you can print) and servicing costs. The commercial printers have better resolution, better materials and better software, at least at the moment, but I think that's going to change.

bobdson 3D printing could reduce raw material needs by 90%

As far as recycling goes, it's very exciting that you can recycle plastic bottles into plastic granules/filament and use them for printing.

I think we are not that far away from a self contained fabricator that turns garbage into everyday plastic parts you need.

bobdson Bitcoins Cryptocurrency explained by Steve Gibson

> it's only natural that the value of one coin would constantly increase

Not really. As I see it, the value is a function of demand. The fact that bitcoins have risen in value so fast, means that demand and confidence is also growing.

There isn't really a hard cap. It's just that it will get increasingly difficult to generate bitcoins, so in effect we won't have more than 21 million. The idea is to provide a predictable increase of the money supply. That is good because you know nobody's going to suddenly dump 21 million more bitcoins in circulation, and halve the value of your coinage.

That's what's happening with USD. They keep dumping trillions of new dollars in the money supply, something I really wouldn't like if I had dollars in my bank account. Just ask Zimbabwe, where they need a cartwheel of money to buy dinner at a restaurant.

So what if demand keeps growing and we need more than 21 million coins? Well the system supports up to 8 decimal points. I guess that will have to do.

As far as money laundering goes, I think it's not that much different from regular cash. I also think that tracking everyone's spending/earning habits is not the best way to stop crime.

bobdson Bitcoins Cryptocurrency explained by Steve Gibson

I've been watching Bitcoin for the last few months. It all seems very smart and cool.

BitcoinWatch offers an overview of what's happening in the Bitcoin network: http://bitcoinwatch.com/

One bitcoin was worth 0.25 USD first time I checked. Last week or so, it had reached ~0.7 USD.

Today it's over 1 USD. I'm amazed.

bobdson Warning signs for the year 10,000

This reminds me of these designs:

http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2006/10/warning_signs_fo...

Nanoparticle Hazard, Nonstandard Spacetime, Macroscale Quantum System...

bobdson Tools never die ... never

Damascus steel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

I'm sure there's tons of tools that are extinct and no surviving record of them exists, so we don't know about them. In that sense, you could say it's all a matter of documentation. If something doesn't exist at a given moment but is documented, it's likely that it will be made again at some point.

bobdson Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code

Wouldn't you want that app even more if you were buying them in bulk?

bobdson Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code

> "I’d have to travel from store to store and spend 45 seconds cracking each card. I estimated that I could expect to make about $600 a day."

Or you could make an app for your smartphone that uses OCR to instantly tell you whether you are looking at a winning ticket.

bobdson Redesign of MailChimp

"DESIGNER TEMPLATES"

When I looked at the old website, I knew what service they provided in a few seconds. Now, I'd think they are some kind of design shop.

bobdson Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works

> just basic stuff presented as if it were obscure or clever.

I think the part about the three filters is at least somewhat obscure and probably the most useful thing I learned from the article.

bobdson Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works

Site was temporarily unavailable when I tried to post a comment, so here it goes:

This post clears up a few misconceptions for me, thanks for that.

I think you will enjoy the following link about "context" related illusions: http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/color12e.html

Akiyoshi Kitaoka is a university professor from Japan that has created a very extensive and amazing collection of illusions, documenting so many subtle ways our eyes play tricks on us.

His homepage is really worth exploring:

http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

bobdson Can a Computer Do Your Job?

> proving to management that they don't necessarily need you.

You really shouldn't let them know how easy you can make your job.

It's quite easy to look busy in front of a computer. Even when you are spacing out.

bobdson Ask HN: Who's hiring remote workers? (February 2011 edition)

Here is the other thread about remote workers.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2161368

By the way, it's 2011 now. ;)

bobdson The differences between your eyes and your camera

The ability to feel electrical/magnetic fields has been achieved by a couple of people.

http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Magnetic_Implant

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/news/2006/06/71087

Of course it didn't go well in the long term, but it's a very interesting experiment. Here is the article about how it went wrong (contains some graphic imagery):

http://news.bmezine.com/2006/04/01/another-two-months-of-mag...

bobdson Little Known Hacker News (2008)

... and a thousand geeks cry "Noooo!" in unison.

Why do so many people think that HN will be ruined if a few more people join? I've been reading HN a lot longer than my account's age implies and I don't think the quality has changed.

The only real problem if you ask me, is that with more people submitting stories, things will not stay long on the /newest page.

In my opinion it's better to have 100 stories with 20 comments each, rather than 10 stories with 200 comments and the usual huge thread under the top comment.

bobdson When The Drones Come Marching In

Smaller UAVs might be hard to recognize among birds and other clutter. And you can probably apply some stealth technology to increase your chances of staying undetected.

As far as assasination machines go, an insect-sized UAV with a tiny dose of poison would be hard to beat.

bobdson Tell HN: Sourceforge servers compromised

This was posted a few days ago, probably related:

"sourceforge entry point seems still active."

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Jan/424

http://extraexploit.blogspot.com/2011/01/sourceforge-entry-p...

bobdson Air Force wants cryptographic security for iPhones, Android

I didn't mean the OpenBSD alleged backdoors. I meant future backdoors that would be required by law. I remember reading a news article about that recently (might have been a few months ago).

bobdson Air Force wants cryptographic security for iPhones, Android

http://www.cryptophone.de/

This German company has been selling commercial phones enhanced with their crypto software (for SMS and voice) for a while now.

bobdson Air Force wants cryptographic security for iPhones, Android

The recent buzz about NSA, or whichever three-letter agency it was, pushing for crypto backdoors. And by friends, I just mean other people in government/military/intelligence.

I don't really have a point here, just a thought that popped in my head.

bobdson Air Force wants cryptographic security for iPhones, Android

Maybe while they are at it, they can convince their friends that crypto backdoors are bad for everyone.

bobdson Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

I was reminded of the following excerpt in Howard Marks' book "Mr. Nice", who wanted to study Philosophy of Science in Oxford University many decades ago:

"There was a problem with respect to how my diploma course would be financed. In those days there were two main grant-giving bodies funding postgraduate study: the Department of Education and the Science Research Council. The former limited its grants to graduates in non-scientific subjects while the latter would only fund students undertaking research degrees in the pure sciences. These regulations precluded my Philosophy of Science studies being funded by either body."

bobdson Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

Anyone else thinking about all the ways the gaming controls can be used on non-game applications?

I'm pretty sure you'd be able to code efficiently on the Pandora, given some custom key-bindings.

bobdson Dasher:A Novel Text Entry System For Mobile and Other Devices [video]

Here is their Git repo:

http://git.gnome.org/browse/dasher/tree/

Last commit only a few days ago, that's good.

bobdson How to remove software cracks and keygens from file hosting sites

That's the free part too, so anyone can use it.

Although I suppose it won't be long until a cracked version of CrackTracker appears on those file hosting websites.

Another interesting concept would be to package this in a DLL and include it in the software you want it to protect. When someone runs a cracked copy, it will go see if it can find any relevant links in the browser's history and then auto-report them.

bobdson Twitter Can Predict The Stock Market

(Preface: I pretty much know nothing about stock markets and trading.)

Isn't there a whole industry that revolves around paying people to provide you with their trading strategies? How is that considerably different than what's happening on Collective2?

Having a good strategy doesn't mean you have the money to actually trade on it. Or that you can slowly build up your trading bankroll using the same strategy.

Then there's strategies that only yield modest returns. Why not make some money on top of that by renting it out? If you let a dozen people use your strategy, does acting on that information give you much of an advantage? I would guess that depends on how much money those people are trading on your strategy.

I would also guess there aren't many big players renting strategies on Collective2. It's an interesting concept and I think the fact that they've been active since 2003, somewhat validates the idea.

The best thing about it seems to be the ease of using an automated trading agent. I don't know how easy it is to do that elsewhere, but one reason to put your strategy on Collective2 (I'm guessing you can keep it private) would be to use their automation facilities.

bobdson Twitter Can Predict The Stock Market

A good place to start: http://www.collective2.com/

You can rent your trading strategies to others, or rent someone else's strategy.

Also some good info/tools regarding automation.

bobdson The LESS CSS Grid

There's very little to learn, totally worth it if you ask me.

I'm also a fan of Notepad++, seems like it would be easy to integrate less.js as a plugin.

bobdson The LESS CSS Grid

Sidenote:

If you are not a Ruby guy and want to use LESS without much hassle, try lessphp: https://github.com/leafo/lessphp

bobdson The LESS CSS Grid

That's a great idea. I've been trying to think of better ways to combine the power of 1kbgrid and LESS.