Hacker News Reader

devadvanceon Websites that look like desktop GUIs

Interesting collection. Between the veritable homages (AV notification included) [0] and reinterpretations for various purposes (e.g., music player [1]), it's a fun mix!

It also reminded me of the Nielsen Norman article exploring flat design and comparing it to three-dimensional design [2]. While it's becoming less and less possible, it would be interesting to compare the experience across different UX patterns for first-time computer users. It seems hard to separate familiarity and nostalgia from truly superior UX.

  [0] https://winxp.now.sh
  [1] https://poolside.fm
  [2] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design/

devadvanceon Comparing how different devices display the SSID “á̶̛̛̓̿̈͐͆̐̇̒̑̈́͘͝aaa”

Very cool. It's pretty interesting to see the various failure modes. Some seem straightforward (e.g., the font is missing the glyphs) while others seem to be parsing limitations.

As an aside, this finally convinced me to explore using additional SSIDs in creative ways with emojis.

devadvanceon The Fastest Google Fonts

For purely aesthetic purposes, this might be a fair point. However, there are many reasons to use custom fonts beyond that. One example is accessibility in a very broad sense. In some circumstances, it reasonable to use a font with more legible type across device types, more support for internationalization (i18n), or better support for uncommon characters (e.g., mathematics).

Another example is alternatives to image assets. Emoji are the common example here, but the private use areas [1] mean that fonts can be used to deliver what would otherwise be raster images or SVGs. A great example is mixing symbols in with text without resorting to images or CSS-via-spans to solve the problem. Think public transit icons, for instance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Use_Areas

devadvanceon Should I Use Threads?

This makes for an amusing read, but it would be helpful to have evidence. While threads (kernel or user space) have their tradeoffs, there are tradeoffs to using multiple processes as well. What's the cost?

> On a long enough time-scale, all programs will be proven incorrect. All code has bugs, including your compiler and language runtime.

That's a bit of a false dilemma. Kernel bugs exist too.

devadvanceon Pcileech WebRadar – browser based radar cheat for CS:GO

Based on the README, it looks like it's a partial fork/mod of this upstream repo [0], which is essentially set of tooling that "uses PCIe hardware devices to read and write target system memory".

So if I'm reading this right, the partial fork has changes specifically to read CS:Go data directly out of device memory to another device, which in turn processes that data and renders a web-based map of all player locations.

[0] https://github.com/ufrisk/pcileech

devadvanceon Building a BitTorrent client from the ground up in Go

I didn't realize this existed, thanks for the link! It'll be a great codebase to look through :)

devadvanceon Building a BitTorrent client from the ground up in Go

Awesome write-up and a great way to dig into the inner-workings of BitTorrent. Nice work!

Glancing at the wiki page for BitTorrent[0], I'm a bit surprised that there isn't more of an effort to create cross-platform libraries and clients using Go or Rust for this. Seems like a perfect use case? For example, synapse [1].

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

[1] https://github.com/Luminarys/synapse

devadvanceon Show HN: A tiny isometric city builder in JavaScript

Nice, simple, and fun!

I also appreciate that you're very open to contributions! :)

devadvanceon The 64 Milliseconds Manifesto

It seems as though relying on something a bit more verbose, such as the guidance from Nielsen Norman Group [1], might be more effective in helping people building software.

In particular:

> 0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result.

[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-...

devadvanceon Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

Out of curiosity, is it this page in particular that was hard on the eyes, or dark-theme pages in general?

The interesting part is that the body text appears to have a 5.71 contrast ratio, which meets the WCAG 2.1 Level AA criterion [1] but not Level AAA. I wonder if folks pursuing dark themes are making sure to give enough consideration to contrast.

Oddly enough, this is actually one of the reasons I prefer Chrome Dev Tools. They've been adding a lot of accessibility-focused features [2][3], and as it relates to my question, it seems much easier get some of these essential details from Chrome Dev Tools than Firefox.

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#contrast-minimum

[2] https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/acce...

[3] https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/01/devtools#i...

devadvanceon The Tragedy of UCS-2

This is actually mentioned in the submission, but it does so through surrogate pairs. In short: the first of two bytes references a different "plane" of code points, and the second byte refers to a code point in that additional plane.

What's cool is that UCS-2 and UTF-16 behave the same way in this regard, so you can see how this works in JavaScript as well. There's a great HN post about the length of an emoji being 2 in JS [1] from 2017.

Practically speaking, I had fun learning this while writing an Angular app to read SMS backups [2]. It's frustrating and cool at the same time.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13830177

[2] https://github.com/devadvance/sms-backup-reader-2/blob/maste...

devadvanceon The Tragedy of UCS-2

Fun fact: for SMS, UCS-2 is used when a message requires more than 128 characters to be rendered.[1]

If you've ever noticed that entering an emoji or other non-ASCII [2] character seems to dramatically increase the size of your SMS, that's because the message is switching from 1-byte characters to 2-byte characters.

[1] https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-is-ucs-2-character...

[2] It's actually GSM-7, not ASCII, but the principle is the same: https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-is-gsm-7-character...

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2019)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces. Our products include a smart cities platform, Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, Connect Communities, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript (ES6), React, Python, Go, Docker, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Android, iOS, and more.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineer, Transit
  * Staff Software Engineering, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineering, Front End
  * Senior Software Engineer, Smart Cities Client Experience
  * Technical Lead, AdTech
  * Technical Lead, Ad Products
  * Graphic Designer (Marketing)
  * VP of Sales (Place Exchange)
  * Director, Business Development (Place Exchange)

You can see some of our open roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

If you're generally interested in smart cities or you see a role on the list that you're interested in, feel free to reach out to me at matt.joseph [ at ] intersection.com with "Hacker News" in the subject.

For a bit of background on what we're building, check out this post: https://ixn.intersection.com/building-smart-city-kiosks-with...

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2019)

Our stack includes modern JavaScript (ES6), React, Python, Go, Docker, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Android, iOS, and more.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineer, Transit
  * Staff Software Engineering, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineering, Front End
  * Senior Software Engineer, Smart Cities Client Experience
  * Technical Lead, AdTech
  * Technical Lead, Ad Products
  * Technical Lead, Fleet Manager
  * Graphic Designer (Marketing)
  * VP of Sales (Place Exchange)
  * Director, Business Development (Place Exchange)

You can see some of our open roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

devadvanceon Tell HN: My usability pet peeve – am/pm times with a leading zero

At least for Google Calendar, it's pretty easy to avoid the mental math by using the built-in time zones. You can select the time zone when creating the event[0].

[0] https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37064

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2019)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include a smart cities platform, Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, Connect Communities, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Go, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineer, Smart Cities Platform
  * Senior Software Engineering, Front End
  * Senior Software Engineer, Client Experience
  * Senior Software Engineer, Transit
  * Technical Manager, Service Desk
  * Tech Lead, AdTech
  * Tech Lead, Ad Products

You can also see some of our open roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2019)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * 2019 Summer Internship, Place Exchange
  * Senior Software Engineer, Transit
  * Senior Systems Engineer
  * Technical Manager, Service Desk
  * Senior Data Analyst
  * Senior Engineering Manager, Link Mobile

See and apply to roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

If you have questions about our smart cities engineering work, feel free to reach out to me at matt.joseph [ at ] intersection.com

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2019)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer
  * Senior Software Engineer
  * Senior Python Developer
  * Senior Engineering Manager, Link Mobile

See and apply to roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

If you have questions about our smart cities engineering work, feel free to reach out to me at matt.joseph [ at ] intersection.com

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2019)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer
  * Senior Software Engineer
  * Staff Application Security Engineer
  * Test Engineer, OMS
  * Senior Python Developer
  * Senior Engineering Manager, Link Mobile
  * Service Desk Manager, Smart Cities
  * Director, Programmatic Partnerships
  * Senior Data Analyst
  * Lead Sales Coordinator
  * Senior Associate, Field Engineering
  * Associate, Field Engineering

See and apply to roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

devadvanceon New Version of the “Roadmap of Web Applications on Mobile” Now Avail from W3C

Reasonably useful condensed list, but a couple concerning aspects:

1) (more important) Aren't many of these specs driven by WHATWG these days and not the W3C? [1]

2) (less important) If this is about building for mobile, I'm not sure it's reassuring that the compatibility tables on the site go beyond the device width at default scale on mobile. I'm on a Pixel 3.

[1] https://spec.whatwg.org

devadvanceon How Peter Jackson Made WWI Footage Seem Astonishingly New

There was a popular post a little over a month ago [2] about this very topic. That particular example used deep learning in a similar way to what you described.

It looks like there are previous attempts [2] that have even been turned into APIs [3]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18363870

[2] https://github.com/richzhang/colorization

[3] https://demos.algorithmia.com/colorize-photos/

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2018)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer
  * Senior Software Engineer
  * Mobile Engineer
  * Senior DevOps Engineer
  * Staff Engineer, Network Security
  * Sr. Engineering Manager
  * Technical Product Manager
  * Systems Engineer

See and apply to roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

devadvanceon Learning to Predict Depth on the Pixel 3 Phones

It's important to keep in mind that while it seems to be approached as "simulating" the effects traditionally achieved with mechanical effects of a camera, it has a basis in fundamental optics. Creating a sense of focus in a portrait with a camera lens is analogous to how the optics in our eyes work. Thus, this particular effect is more natural than some of the more Photoshop-esque techniques.

A good example of "what else" might be the color pop feature in the Google Photos app. It uses the depth information to selectively decolor the "out of focus" portions of the photo: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/11/google-photos-color...

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2018)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, Docker, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer
  * Senior Software Engineer
  * Mobile Lead, Link
  * Mobile Engineer, Link
  * Senior DevOps Engineer
  * Staff Engineer, Network Security
  * Staff Engineer, Application Security
  * Sr. Engineering Manager
  * Technical Product Manager
  * Systems Engineer
  * GIS Planning Associate, Deployment

See and apply to roles here: https://rebrand.ly/ixnjobs

devadvanceon A Penthouse Made for Instagram

This reminds me of an article on The Verge two years ago documenting the semi-intentional convergence of interior design [1]. Admittedly, there was a focus on spaces like short term rentals and coffee shops, but the effect seems translatable; we seem to be converging on sterile, "personalized but not personal" designs.

I'm curious if, similar to the dislike many have for the unrealistic airbrushed images of the human form, we will arrive at a place where these sterile, fatastical spaces are no longer in vogue. In many ways, it encourages a similar level of unhealthy pursuit of the unattainable.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12325104/airbnb-aesthetic-...

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2018)

Intersection | https://www.intersection.com | Manhattan, New York City (NYC) | Multiple Roles | Full-time | On-Site At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern JavaScript, Python, Scala, Swift, Ansible, AWS Services, React, Android, iOS, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Software Engineer
  * Senior Software Engineer
  * IoT Solutions Architect
  * Mobile Lead
  * Mobile Engineer

See and apply to roles here: https://grnh.se/ce9f7d421

devadvanceon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2018)

At Intersection, we are at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Our mission is to improve daily life in cities and public spaces, with products that bridge the digital and physical worlds by delivering connectivity, information and content to enrich our everyday journeys and elevate the urban experience. Our products include Link (such as LinkNYC), Transit, and programmatic advertising.

Our stack includes modern Javascript, Python, Scala, Ansible, AWS Services, and a little bit of plain grit.

Here are some of the roles we have open:

  * Senior Software Engineer
  * IoT Solutions Architect
  * Mobile Lead
  * Mobile Engineer
  * Associate SDET

See and apply to roles here: https://www.intersection.com/join-our-team/your-job-search/?...