Hacker News Reader

h2odragonon Tracing the Baseband: Cellphone Modems

2010; i expect some changes have happened even at these layers.

h2odragonon Ask HN: Why did consumer 3D printing take so long to be invented?

paper printers only needed such accuracy in one axis of motion, and had gearing to provide it.

hard drives use voice coils, a completely different technology. The circuitry that does that evolved and certainly influenced the creation of microstepper controllers: the neat trick they do is treat the stepper motor as a voice coil in between full steps.

h2odragonon Congressman Massie Invents Automated Chicken-Tractor

Unfortunately, his "Junkyard Wars" episode appears to be unavailable on the net.

https://www.facebook.com/RepThomasMassie/posts/1009013893914...

h2odragonon Ask HN: Why did consumer 3D printing take so long to be invented?

Micro-stepping controller chips.

Before that, the precision available without gearing and feedback wasn't sufficient. There were systems but they were order of magnitude more complicated and several orders more expensive.

h2odragonon The Crypto Industry Spent over $130M on the Election. It Paid Off

The Harris campaign raised over a Billion and the word this morning is they're now $20 million in debt.

Amazing how much more effective the "crypto industry" dollar was than the Democratic Party dollar. Perhaps the Democrats should hire some of the crypto people next election.

h2odragonon Ask HN: What specific thing do you need help with?

breathing

h2odragonon Ask HN: Will you switch to FOSS following Trump's reelection?

If you think Apple will obey Trump orders to spy on its users, but that they wouldn't obey Biden/Harris orders to do the same; I think you have an unrealistic view.

the corporate stance is irrelevant: all it takes is one low level schmuck with access and enough police record to be subject to "pressure".

h2odragonon Ask HN: What are you doing to prepare for the coming year?

id say 10g/day minimum and you might plan for 20g if anyone wants to wash hands. If you ever need it, you will be very glad for whatever you have. Even a couple one gallon jugs can make a power interruption or whatever much less stressful.

Rotate or otherwise pay attention to freshness if you want to drink it.

https://simplypreparing.com/weeks-worth-of-water-storage-for...

serious nuts do things like put 1,000gal underground cisterns in their water systems. and/or frequently drink from local water streams so as to maintain a tolerance for the local "wild" water.

h2odragonon Ask HN: Voting Data Source by County?

pointers to many sources:

https://libguides.princeton.edu/elections

h2odragonon Ask HN: What are you doing to prepare for the coming year?

Stored water is hardly ever a bad idea; but you can't feasibly store enough for any long term. Articulate what you're planning for: days of no power or weeks of no services at all?

If you're worried now about not being able to trust the government next year; ask yourself why you have been trusting them to this point? Whatever your opinion of them, government at all levels is made of people no better or worse than you, as subject to error and blind obedience.

h2odragonon Ask HN: What will change in the next administration?

Even if the Federal "Cognitive Hygiene" efforts continue (mis/disinformation departments), the people running them won't be allowed the free hand they have previously enjoyed in squelching unapproved speech. Publishers will not leap to comply the way they've been doing for 8 years.

lawsuits against the Federal government will have a more receptive audience: lawyers will be more willing to undertake such cases, judges to hear them, the public will be interested in them. The idea that "government is automatically always Good" is being shelved until the next time it's needed. Citizens will again have standing to bring suits.

Antitrust could turn into a big deal, but only if there's some attitude changes in the current big money alliances.

The bigs might sacrifice some of their own in order to insure their own survival. For example, Nvidia might be "too big, too concentrated" but Amazon will be "diverse" enough to be spared.

h2odragonon Man arrested for attempting to destroy Nashville power site

The FBI has a long, documented history of manufacturing its headline terrorism cases from whole cloth. Not just the recent cases like the Bundy bullshit; all the way back before the Black Panthers.

occam's razor and a complete lack of actual white supremacists on the ground suggests this is another example of same.

h2odragonon Chinese student faces criminal charges for voting in Michigan. Ballot will count

https://abcnews.go.com/US/election-fact-check-noncitizens-vo...

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/12/nx-s1-5147789/voting-election...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yj98grr5lo

Isn't it good to be reassured this is so uncommon that no more precautions were actually needed to prevent it.

h2odragonon Nearly half of Americans think members of the opposing political party are evil

Very few people are actually involved in politics on a personal basis. Those few have reason to be more passionate.

Everybody else, whose only involvement is to be a victim of politician plans, has no call for the levels of emotion that some of us invest in political puffery. We've got people bragging over "I'm no longer speaking to family" over ephemeral tribal alliances less relevant to their day to day lives than sports teams.

all enemies are Hitler and yesterday's heroes are today's villains for heresy because they did not hate hard enough. Evil is abundant.

h2odragonon Once Linux's Biggest Enemy: Darl McBride Dies and Nobody Notices

I don't recall anyone talking about him as a person, in association wit "SCO lawsuits". it was always the "SCO group" company that was reviled in the press.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes

Remember Microsoft buying into the lawsuit on SCO's side?

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/fact-and-fiction-in-...

h2odragonon Trump to raise tariffs to 60% on all Chinese goods if elected

Trumps "promised" tariffs are always worse than Biden's extant ones.

> During his first presidency Trump instituted a limited number of extra tariffs, chiefly against China. Upon taking office, President Joe Biden kept them in place and even extended them. But what's different about these new proposals is that they are rising across the board by up to 20 percent, or so it has been said on the campaign trail.

and also: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/us/politics/us-biden-chin...

h2odragonon Ask HN: Your thoughts on Linus Torvalds' view on AI: 90% marketing, 10% reality?

I think Linus is correct, and demonstrating his new abilities with diplomacy with his phrasing.

Take a look at what the Metaverse bubble has left us vs what it cost, in direct dollars and in lost opportunities to pursue other goals.

this cycle of AI is as bad or worse. at least the leftovers when the bubble pops are going to be more generally useful than the VR detritus. Getting the Cult of CurrentThing to stop mindlessly objecting to power generation is a big win; but i doubt they've secured that long term.

Leftover nvidia vector processors may have legitimate uses after they get scrapped from the big AI places, too.

h2odragonon The Prozac Era. What Next?

the opium trade was cleaner

h2odragonon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

Will WIRED be advocating the same penalty for everyone who has violated this law?

Odd that they've never turned this up before now, in all their previous reporting on Musk and his enterprises.

h2odragonon US Government memo shows Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy but executed her anyway

Intercepted Russian communications, however, suggest otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

h2odragonon Americans, your calls and texts can be monitored by Chinese spies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...

h2odragonon Americans, your calls and texts can be monitored by Chinese spies

https://archive.ph/wvuMU

h2odragonon Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Intel

I have Nothing against anyone who does the best they can in a bad situation.

Observing Intel, my feeling has been that "best you can" has been "bail out" since just after the PPro. The company has worked hard to waste a whole generation of talent and possibility. It took immense effort.

Anyone who looks at that performance and says "I was proud to be part of that" is not someone who will be happy working beside me, anyway.

h2odragonon Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Intel

Just buy the patents and stuff. You wouldn't want to infect a working company with the Intel disease.

I wonder how bad "worked as a manager at Intel" poisons a resume.

h2odragonon Ghost Nonprofits and the Manufacturing of Virtue

Make sure you get the name vanilla enough when setting these up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

h2odragonon Freud and the Beatles causing cultural change, or riding along?

modern marketing and social trends are the schismatic faith fights without the acknowledgment of the religious basis they used to have. We're not Monophysites and Nestorians now; we're Swifties or Tesla drivers.

h2odragonon Writes and Write-Nots

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41960914

h2odragonon Ask HN: Why are so many people in tech in denial about AI?

Is it possible the people administering these tests are less than honest about the outcome? Perhaps they have a vested interest in the results they've shown?

h2odragonon Ask HN: Why are so many people in tech in denial about AI?

Because we've seen the hype cycle run before, With AI, with VR, where unrealistic promises are made and widely believed for no real reason, and no one cares when they're never realized.

"AI can do X" for all X is an unrealistic hope.

h2odragonon Startups Get Their Own DC Advocate with Y Combinator's Luther Lowe

When an affinity group hires lobbyists, the activity they affine about is dying.