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bootloadon Hills Hoist: The Iconic Rotary Clothesline that Shaped Suburban Australia

"Lance Hill's brother-in-law Harold Ling returned from the war and joined him to form a partnership in 1946. Ling became the key figure in expanding the production and marketing of the Hills Hoists."

My mum's Uncle Rol, Harolds brother, was a part of the team with the firm. Hills Hoists started with an idea to get into business, between two founders [0] during WW2.

The problem: If you were a housewife with kids there was no easy way to hang clothes. [1] String a rope between two poles was the common way to do things. Two problems, you need two sturdy poles and have to move to hang clothes. The company started in at home in Glenunga, Adelaide. Here is view of the order book and Glen Osmond Road factory in '46. [2] Every year after that the company size grew, the factory in '47 [3] and so did the team. [4]

If you were a house wife in the 40s, 50s and you needed dry clothes this was the way to do it. [5] There was another manufacturer on the market (Gilbert Tonnes #24553/25 - 1925) [6] but the patent for the winder (gearbox to raise and lower the hoist) expired. It was only in the 50's did Hills decide to file patent on the winding mechanism. [6] I'm not sure how Hills avoided patent infringement here but eventually the Toyne patent expired and on 22nd March, 1956 the patent was applied for the winding mechanism (crown wheel and pinion). [7]

By the 60's the factory had grown somewhat [8] and the move to diversification started. From Hoists, play equipment, then TV servicing, Television antennas, exhausts and electronics. All this was made possible by two founders, and a good core team.

This is what a manufacturing startup looked like in the late 40's, and 1950s. By the 80's this was a billion dollar company that by the 60s expanded into the UK and overseas. If you look through the photos you really get an idea of how many people were employed and what kind of scale the production was.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/page2

Most kids who grew up in Australia in my generation, had one of these contraptions in the back yard [9] to swing, hang-off and use in ways not thought of by the founders. [10]

I last saw mums uncle Rol at my grand mothers funeral in '85. He'd travelled from Adelaide that hot summer and we talked about his war service (Tobruk) and Hoists. Rol offered a job in the electronics division (Antennas), but I was at Uni at that time, declined and thanked him. Computers were my fascination.

Reference

[0] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8512016128

[1] https://au.pinterest.com/pin/393009504952667831/

[2] http://nationaltreasures.nla.gov.au/3E/Treasures/item/nla.in... / https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8531995775

[3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8531994695/

[4] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8511081973/

[5] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8510969367/

[6] http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/pdfSource.do?f... (pdf) / http://s742.photobucket.com/user/bazza4338/media/Stampboards...

[6] This is the gear mechanism patented https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8532993704/

[7] http://www.dinkumaussies.com/INVENTION%2FLance%20Hill.htm

[8] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8533529532

[9] https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/5721585751

[10] https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsholdingsltd/8511172789/

bootloadon Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook

"I don't understand how google is so incompetent and just left Facebook this field entirely to themselves."

@kaorduaoishiho, at it's core, google has never understood ^social^.

bootloadon T3X – a minimal procedural language

"can be said about a lot of code bases."

True, the poster asked specifically about T3X.

bootloadon Dame Stephanie Shirley: 'Success has a cost. Women today are so naïve'

"The Independent isn't a reliable news source and it has no place on Hacker News."

Show me what news sources are good for Hacker News ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=sudojudo Oh, complain but offer no alternatives.

I found it interesting, ads or not (I adblock everything) and hand't read about Dame Steve. Fantastic to think that F1 made 30 or so of their software employees, mostly women millionaires.

bootloadon T3X – a minimal procedural language

"why should I care about T3X?"

If you look at the source code, you might learn something.

bootloadon Clones of the Apple II

"Surprisingly, it wasn’t a PC clone-maker that forced the question, but one making Apple II machines."

There were far more cloners than mentioned in the article. My second computer was a Apple][e clone shipped in parts from South East Asia mixed in a consignment from Rockwell Collins.

The cost, that magical $2000 dollar mark.

The parts were re-assembled and that's what I used from High School into my early Uni days until I started using PCs, punchcards and Vt100/Mainframe to learn programming. With a Z80 card, 80 Column card money was made off this machine spitting out resumes via a dot-matrix printer and a large supply of spooled paper. If I remember correctly the shell was a direct clone of the 2e chassis. The operating system was a direct clone. Most of my software was cloned and that's were I learned how to program 6502 machine language to interface with hardware. [0]

Reference

[0] Marvin L. De Jong, "Apple II Assembly Language" https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De-Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_...

bootloadon Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

I mentioned R8 specifically (hand built), what's the A4 problem? How does this compare to Chinese cars (Great-Wall, Cherry) Especially where extensive asbestos is still used in brakes?

[0] https://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2012/08/16/chinese-cars-r...

bootloadon How to Get into VR

"There's a fundamental problem that nobody in this generation of VR has been able to really solve yet, which is making a headset that is comfortable to wear for long periods."

If anyone does this, Steve Mann will: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/steve-mann-my-au... This is my favourite image showing the trend: https://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/3171307367

bootloadon Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

"How does the school of mathematics of the University of Goettingen help make German factory workers competitive with Chinese ones?"

The search for precision and applied scientific discovery. [0] Enlightenment drives every aspect of German manufacturing. Factory workers are in an environment that makes things driven by these processes.

[0] An immediate example that comes to mind is the electric signal activation of the liquid suspension (magneto-rheological fluid) in the Audi R8. cf "The Audi R8: The Suspension" ~ https://www.audiworld.com/articles/the-audi-r8-the-suspensio...

This is an extreme example. It also highlights why Chinese/German manufacturing is different. One is aiming at mass market, low cost. The other high cost but desirable. The low cost German manufactured cars are measurably better than the Chinese.

bootloadon Why Walking Helps Us Think (2014)

"is pretty easy once you get muscle built up and get used to the obstacles."

There are hills, and then hills ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3957949381/

bootloadon Why Walking Helps Us Think (2014)

"I have to complete stay moveless, and when I stay moveless for awhile that's when my mind will work at its extreme capacity."

Two different types of thinking. Focused thinking where all your memory slots are consciously controlled. Un-focused thinking (diffused mode) where random connections between different ideas are made. [0] The unfocused thinking is where you get the ^aha^ moment. So yes I'd reckon every programmer/hacker/scientist/mathematician is pretty much doing what you describe.

[0] Barbara Oakley, PhD, PE., "Focused and diffuse modes of thinking- a brief on how it functions" ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzjsk5e7srI

bootloadon Quitting The Silicon Valley Swamp

"For years, I've “called out” Silicon Valley's “bad apples”, but by the start of 2017 it was impossible to distinguish maggot from apple from the rotting barrel itself. My workdays were an endless perp walk of sociopaths, psychopaths and criminals with names like (Pando investor) Peter Thiel, Travis Kalanick, Emil Michael, Palmer Luckey, and Gurbaksh Chahal – not to mention their enablers and co-conspirators like Paul Graham and Sam Altman, Rachel Whetstone and Steve Hilton, Joe Lonsdale, Arianna Huffington, Sherwin Pishevar, and a thousand more like them."

Interesting. The authour calls out bad behaviour of an industry and individuals and singles out ^Tech^. I'd say most business is like this full stop, tech is just more visible than say finance, armaments or dining.

bootloadon A Researcher Has Come Up with a Mathematical Model for a Viable Time Machine

Paper here: "Traversable Achronal Retrograde Domains in Spacetime" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14236095

bootloadon Traversable Achronal Retrograde Domains in Spacetime

Article here: "A Researcher Has Come Up with a Mathematical Model for a Viable Time Machine" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14236087

bootloadon Why Walking Helps Us Think (2014)

". When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain. Many experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention. Walking on a regular basis also promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus (a brain region crucial for memory), and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them."

New neurons. The next line about walking being easy tells me you live in a flat area with no obstacles.

"A small but growing collection of studies suggests that spending time in green spaces—gardens, parks, forests—can rejuvenate the mental resources that man-made environments deplete."

Uneven ground. I always look for uneven ground. Walking on concrete, man-made paths is the equivalent of looking at brick walls.

bootloadon The Invisible War for the Open Internet

thx @pdonis, comments are second class submissions.

Would be an interesting experiment to have a page to submit HN comments as posts (add a title, get a few ppl to recommend).

bootloadon The Invisible War for the Open Internet

"showed the ad based on geolocation."

thx @quincyla, Google doing the, "your reality isn't everybody else's reality". So localised search hits harder with adverts.

bootloadon The Invisible War for the Open Internet

" I just realised someone had submitted this to HN."

I did, important and a good read.

Trivial Q. What search term did you use on google to get show the paid adverts google inserts above "freecodecamp"? Was the term generic? I get this result (no adverts, many links to freecodecamp): https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/34191703472

bootloadon The Invisible War for the Open Internet

"This is insanely wordy. I would appreciate a TL;DR;"

Start here: "How to Read a Paper" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14228912

Is it that hard to read the title and the first 100 words. In papers this is usually the abstract. If you can't find the meaning inside the first one hundred or so words it is waffle and may not be worth reading.

Here is a hint. Network neutrality, enshrined in law, is under attack by large ISP companies for control and profit. There are precedents in our technology history. Tech companies are not run by benevolent skivvied, sandal wearing hippies, who hang around the Dalai Lama in their spare time to be enlightened. If you disagree with my editorialising, that's what happens if you ask someone else to re-interpret the story. Read the entire article instead.

bootloadon Rising up from closing down: Surviving and thriving after a store shuts its doors

Related to this post "A Hedge Fund Manager Who’s Shorting America’s Malls" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14209161

"'I think more and more people are choosing to spend their money online and my observation is now we kind of stay home and shop and we go out and eat, which when I grew up it was the complete opposite,' she said. 'Once you've had … a great online experience, I think you're quickly converted to 'well it's easy, I'm time-poor', it just makes sense to the average consumer today.'"

Interesting because this is play by 'Shoes Of Prey' [0],[1] from online to a real store has not worked out. The economics of building an offline store did not work out.

Reference

[0] https://fellt.com/2014/07/shoes-of-prey-and-jodie-fox-the-st...

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22shoes%20of%20prey%22&sort=b...

bootloadon Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

"What is wrong with using a competitor's API to get real-time tactical information about them?"

Legal terms of service.

bootloadon US Considers Banning Laptops on Flights from Uk Airports

"The bans sparked criticism from technology experts, who said the new rules appeared to be at odds with basic computer science."

What strange customs Americans have. Exactly how do you get a laptop into the US legally without shipping it with your ^insecure^ luggage?

bootloadon PX8 – A PICO-8 compatible fantasy console written in Rust

good Qs @0xcde4c3db, dunno.

bootloadon Computer scientist Viral Shah helped build Julia from Bengaluru, India

The original HN post in 2012. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3606380 / https://julialang.org/blog/2012/02/why-we-created-julia

bootloadon Computer scientist Viral Shah helped build Julia from Bengaluru, India

"I am from Hyderabad, India and felt racist reading that title - "IT coolies"."

That's why I edit the titles, totally missed the point of innovation from a foreign hacker widely used in SV and around the world. Point proven.

bootloadon PX8 – A PICO-8 compatible fantasy console written in Rust

"a VM built as a set of Lua APIs and memory constraints. However, the creator seems to be doing a Java-like push where the language, runtime, standard library, and development tools are all marketed as one "technology", so it's not especially clear to me"

Look beyond the technology and you see a tool that allows you to; play games other people make; let you tinker with; or build your own.

bootloadon Apple has hired the guy who 3-D printed his own brain tumor

    Where is the Google Maps, Facebook, 
    or Dropbox for health?

Interesting question. More details of Keatings efforts in this article ~ https://www.vox.com/2015/5/2/8532381/steven-keating

bootloadon Me and SVG

"I don't see what this has to do with the argument ... If you take this interpretation then we're back to the same thing, what does this story ..."

Complains a lot.

bootloadon Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

"The gap here is smaller ($30k vs. $50k) but still significant."

Healthcare, stability and democracy (sans land/house prices) make up a lot for this.

bootloadon Go: package sqlite

source: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/855271867162083329