Hacker News Reader

colsandurzon Study: Claude, ChatGPT Offer Different Shopping Prices Based on Wealth

Just another reason to get a local model

colsandurzon The weekend is 100 years old

Can I have a 4 day work week?

colsandurzon Software-Defined Radio for Engineers (2018) [pdf]

This comment is over-the-top mean and unfair.

Alex was my advisor in grad school and I only know him to be honest, hard working and technically sound. I haven’t read this book closely but I’m not convinced that it’s poorly written based on cherry picking one paragraph from it.

colsandurzon Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

What’s the difference between this and Google Flu trends?

colsandurzon The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

I work at a place with a flat structure and I can’t emphasize enough how true this is.

It’s especially noticeable when you’re not one of the in-crowd.

colsandurzon Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1

What’s wrong with giving people options?

colsandurzon Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750k Meant to Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House (2018)

What do we have Sheriffs? What do they do that local and state law enforcement don't do?

colsandurzon Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

Not sure what he’s doing but this should help:

http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Magnesium

colsandurzon Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows

Not really. To geolocate a user the cell providers would need to know the absolute position of all the LTE repeaters and cells (which they might). But they'd also need to compensate for indoor propagation (which is much more complex than outdoor).

Also AGPS only provides satellite ephemeris, which enables a faster time to fix, not better accuracy.

colsandurzon Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows

A GPS repeater would only give accurate time, not position. The repeater only repeats the signal that's captured by the antenna on the roof. I use GPS repeaters frequently in my labs to supply timing to instruments.

colsandurzon Meals based on vegetable protein sources (beans and peas) are more satiating (2016)

Can anyone link to some recipes that feature plant based protein? Here's a few my wife and I really like:

https://food52.com/recipes/30932-heidi-swanson-s-pan-fried-g...

https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/cowboy-beans/

https://www.ranchogordo.com/blogs/recipes/spicy-baked-royal-...

colsandurzon Show HN: Automated Health Dashboard

Does this work with Apple Health?? Is there an easy way to get data out of Apple Health?

colsandurzon NSA Exposes Tool Used by Russian Hackers

So the NSA is doing what they actually should be doing?

colsandurzon Launch HN: Probably Genetic (YC W19): At-home DNA testing for every gene

Would you ever be able to test two potential parents to see if they're both carriers for genetic diseases? Or, is that a completely different type of test?

colsandurzon Expert Says Indians Will Soon Be Water Refugees Heading for Water-Rich Europe

And the square foot below me has 575x the density of Monaco and there are no problems here!

colsandurzon Engineers create synthetic, sound-silencing structure that blocks 94% of sounds

94% loss is only 12.2 dB (10 * log10(1-0.94) == 12.2)... not that much.

Also, where's the STL if I want to try this myself??

colsandurzon Reasons to turn down the transmit power of your Wi-Fi (2017)

Not only that but APs usually have more antennas, which makes a huge difference. The antennas can also be spaced out more (for better diversity) and be physically larger (typically you get more gain the closer your antenna length is to the wavelength of the signal).

You can also have better analog RF components with more space (filters, LNAs, PAs, etc).

It's not necessarily true that the "advantage" of the AP is symmetric as well. The tx power is limited by FCC part 15 so the difference in tx power between AP and client is probably less than the difference in Rx sensitivity between the AP and client.

Even if the uplink and dowlink are symmetric, the traffic profiles are probably not - there's probably a lot more data going to the client.

colsandurzon Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

Me too. Haven't missed it either.

colsandurzon European Parliament requests recommendation to end biannual clock change

So what's semiennial mean?

colsandurzon Ask HN: Who's mentoring?

Software Defined Radio | Boston | Devin | dwwkelly at fastmail.fm

I program radios professionally and I've taught several short courses on SDR. If there's anyone in my area who's interested let me know.

colsandurzon Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline

What can I do about this?

colsandurzon I want a USB microphone for my Raspberry Pi, any recommendations?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a high sample rate microphone? Something that can do 120,000 samples per second or more? I don't need USB, really just the high sample rate.

colsandurzon Americans Don't Care About Prison Phone Exploitation, Says FCC Official

How do I show the FCC that I care about this???

colsandurzon Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?

I've got a 3rd gen and I like except for button-less mouse, the weird touch-strip for the function key. They fixed both of these with the 4th gen though.

I use Arch and pretty much everything "just works," the camera, sound, wireless, etc.

colsandurzon Ask HN: Looking to purchase a software-defined radio, any advice?

In general Ettus is the best around unless you have a really large budget and want to get something with a backplane (which I highly recommend you avoid unless you have really specific requirements). Ettus is about to come out with a low cost B200 mini which could be a good option. I think it's so they can compete with the BladeRFs and HackRFs of the world. Ettus boards aren't perfect but they've really come a long way since the USRP2 days when I started using them. The UHD is also a really nice library to work with.

The RTLSDRs are definitely the best value (get one with a metal box around it). Also look for the HackRF Blue.

Finally, think hard about what you want to do. You mention decoding TV signals but the RTLSDRs can't do that (in America at least) since they can only do about 3 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and TV signals are 6 MHz wide. You could try using 2 or 3 RTLSDRs for that but then you'd have put them all on the same clock, which can be difficult.

If you can spend around $1500 I'd go for a B200 with a GPSDO. GPSDOs let you accurately timestamp signals and time evens (i.e. start transmitting at some specific time). In my eyes the 210 isn't worth the bigger FPGA and dual transceivers. The isolation between the transceivers probably isn't great (but I could be wrong) and a bigger FPGA isn't worth anything to me.

colsandurzon Hacked Raspberry Pi turned into artificial pancreas

This also isn't an artificial pancreas because you still have to wear an insulin pump and insulin pumps aren't artificial pancreases. To me, an artificial pancreas acts like the pancreas I already have - it monitors and excretes insulin so I never have to think about what my blood sugar is or think about it dropping low or spiking.

colsandurzon Ask HN: What's the best ad-blocking, privacy-enhancing extension set up?

I second privoxy. I never see ads and the memory usage is low, 0.1% on my 8GB laptop. I use it along with polipo (a caching proxy).

colsandurzon Facebook completes construction of first full-scale aircraft, Aquila [video]

Airborne lasercom isn't anything new. Hi-throughput lasercom to the moon is though:

https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/LLCDachievesrecorddatadownloadsp...

colsandurzon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2014)

Location: Boston, MA

Remote: No

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Python, C, C++, Linux, Networking

Résumé/CV: https://devin-industries.com/resume

Email: dwwkelly@fastmail.fm