Hacker News Reader

jakecoppon Backyard approaching lighting at Adelaide Airport

Looked like it's been hugged to death (HTTP 525)

See https://web.archive.org/web/20220405002759/https://wongm.com...

Doesn't appear to have all the images unfortunately.

jakecoppon Block a tweet, its author, and every single person who liked it

Does this make all suggested algorithmic content Japanese?!

jakecoppon No news is good news

I heard about about the war build up in the Economist weeks/months before it hit most Australian news media (ABC/SMH).

jakecoppon Show HN: Fri – distraction-free writing in the terminal

Goyo is wonderful, it's nice to have all your vim config intact.

My only confusion is having to :q twice to exit vim :D

jakecoppon Secure messengers in war time

I see the author recommended Signal - it's worth noting the German armed forces use a self-hosted Matrix installation! [1]

[2]:

> It is an easy strawman to compare Signal to technology from the 90s and completely ignore IRC and Matrix, especially now that Matrix has started growing: Element recently gained Series B funding of about 30 million, how the French government has completely adopted Matrix in the government and all the German armed forces are connected to Matrix. Even though Matrix is not as well-known as Signal, it is already considered the messaging app of choice for top-secret communications. Matrix offers not only protection for you against a government, their scope is big enough for governments to get protection against other governments.

[1]: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Bundeswehr-setzt-kue...

[2]: https://digital-justice.com/articles/skip-signal.html

jakecoppon Selenium may explain brain boost from exercise

Selenium BrainDriver :D

> the ability to copy drawings correctly in older adults

That's an interesting measure of preventing cognitive decline - is this a common metric?

jakecoppon Japan’s love affair with the fax machine (2021)

A great explanation of Hanko is this podcast episode by 99% Invisible: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/hanko/

jakecoppon Some people want to run their own servers

> It’s compelling to look at the non-hosting users, conclude that they are a smashing majority (99.8% !!!!), and make a sweeping conclusion that no one wants to host their own servers. Yet it’s precisely because of those 0.2% that the system is capable of existing. Take them away, and the whole system dies.

The Matrix chat protocol is like this - you have many more users than servers, but you can switch servers, the servers can talk to each other (federated), and there are even multiple implementations of server software.

I've moved almost 100 friends (in their 20s) onto Matrix - Element is getting really good, and some use FluffyChat or SchildiChat. They aren't running their own servers, but they can if they want (unlike Signal), or they can switch down the track.

It's pretty easy to host your own - it took me an hour or two to set a Matrix server up on a $5/month VPS, and maintenance involves running one setup command again: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

jakecoppon This Year in Matrix

I'd love to hear how this goes if you are interested in writing a blog (or comment!)

jakecoppon Instagram Is Facebook Now

That was the part that captured me too. I really want to create a "personal feed" or newsletter out of a Matrix [1] group chat with threads [1] enabled, where I can post once a week or so and my friends can react/reply.

[1]: https://matrix.org/

[2]: https://matrix.org/blog/category/this-week-in-matrix#threads

jakecoppon Instagram Is Facebook Now

On the theme of the personal newsletter mentioned in the article, I really like the idea of using a group chat on Matrix with threads [1] as a personal newsletter - where I can post something say once a week and my friends can react or add comments if they wish.

It means they can get a direct notification (if they'd like), on a self hosted platform (my Matrix server), with any client they choose.

[1]: https://matrix.org/blog/category/this-week-in-matrix#element...

jakecoppon CD box sets are wonderful

> Also see a lot of new releases of 'trendy' music on CD and digitally, but no tape or vinyl.

Interesting - which releases are these? I'm having the opposite problem - recordings like Flight Facilities releasing on vinyl but not CD [1].

[1]: https://www.discogs.com/master/1105473-Flight-Facilities-Wit...

jakecoppon CD box sets are wonderful

Can you notice the difference with SACDs for classical tracks on good speakers? I've never had the good fortune of seeing a SACD player.

> It's just special.

Agreed, the process and the album art definitely can't be replicated.

> Obviously, they could do this with CDs -- and in the late 90s, we did see some record labels/bands play around with different colors and designs for CD labels, but it still isn't quite the same.

I'm starting to see this with recent CDs - some have a lot of thought into the digipak (cardboard fold out) packaging and liner notes. There seems to be a recent trend from jewel cases to liner notes but I'm not sure if this is real or not!

> There's also something to be said about the statement piece you have by having a really beautiful record player in your house, that you don't get with a CD player.

This I've got to disagree with :D Vintage CD players from the 80s/90s in all black are stunning [1], especially when paired with a similarly designed amplifier and preamp.

I love the idea of a MiniDic comeback - another vintage tech I've never had the chance to see!

[1]: https://www.audio-high-store.com/the-best-vintage-cd-player-...

jakecoppon CD box sets are wonderful

> Hard to agree that vinyl sounds like rubbish.

Maybe I was too harsh - the warm, compressed sound isn't for me :)

> Also, the art sleeves are nice.

I do absolutely love the size of vinyl art sleeves - I've noticed some friends effectively buying vinyl to display rather than to listen to.

jakecoppon CD box sets are wonderful

I for one think CDs will be the new vinyl!

(in a few years, when everyone who's been collecting vinyl realises it sounds like rubbish [1][2] and they don't use it anymore - but still want the physical medium experience)

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0bMI2JB-vY [2]: https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/761231

jakecoppon I Don't Want to Be on Call Anymore

What rates are typical for being on-call for a week? (my team has a rotating weekly roster, Australian team).

jakecoppon SugarCoat: Private browsing without breaking the web

Are there any plans for this to be implemented in Firefox? I don't feel like jumping over to Brave.

jakecoppon XMPP, a comeback story

> ad-hoc implementation of Matrix, which hardly even deserves to be called a protocol.

Please explain why you believe this.

This is the spec: https://spec.matrix.org/latest/

These are the spec change proposals: https://spec.matrix.org/unstable/proposals/

jakecoppon WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted backups security assessment

https://digital-justice.com/articles/skip-signal.html

Agreed - I've moved ~80 of my friends from Messenger to the free Matrix server, and I host my own server. It's a wonderful experience.

jakecoppon WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted backups security assessment

Why on earth do people trust a closed source messenger owned by Facebook, which backs up to Google?

Signal and Matrix are open source and full-featured.

jakecoppon The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people

I hadn't heard this before, could you provide a source or examples?

jakecoppon Discord Is Integrating Ethereum

Might be time to move to Matrix hey :D

Element provides free accounts, managed hosting designed for communities [1] or you can host your own [2].

There are plenty of clients in case you don't like Element [3].

[1]: https://element.io/communities

[2]: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/

[3]: https://matrix.org/clients/

jakecoppon Legacy Train Control System Stabilisation (2012) [pdf]

Car stopping distances from 60mph/100kph are ~100 metres. 39,888 people died in the US in 2018 from car crashes. [1]

Emergency braking distance of a TGV from 300 kmph (186 mph) is something like 3,500 m [2], carrying ~450 people.

Moving block signalling systems take into account the current positions and velocities of both trains, and generate a maximum speed and braking curve. See [3] for the details, it's pretty fascinating systems design!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

[2]: https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/16...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System

jakecoppon Legacy Train Control System Stabilisation (2012) [pdf]

Melbourne's new Metro tunnel (and Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury lines) will use high capacity moving block signalling, with a minimum headway of 120 seconds!! [1]

I assume this will be similar to the European Train Control System Level 3 [2] (which does not exist in a cross-vendor spec yet afaik) - it's being built by Rail Systems Alliance, a consortium made up of CPB Contractors, Alstom and Metro Trains Melbourne.

[1]: https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/metro-tunnel/about/tech...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System

jakecoppon Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

Cactus Comments [1] is a comment section replacement, but the comments are just posts in a Matrix room - effectively a public Matrix room viewer!

I've thought it'd be cool to expand on this to build a strictly chronological social network - that just interleaves messages from your group chats (or a group chat that only you can post to, which becomes your "feed").

[1]: https://cactus.chat/

jakecoppon When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

If you want more visualisation like that Daft Punk sample, see how the samples in Jamix xx's Girl come together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LCqcC61mk

jakecoppon When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

Radiohead listeners might like the recent (Nov 5th) release of Kid A Mnesia - unreleased material from the recording sessions of Kid A and Amnesiac!

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

jakecoppon Telegram Ad Platform

> Signal's has the axis tilted all the way to the "security" end, so that the product is unusable if you aren't a technical expert already.

How so?

What's wrong with Element's UX? It's improved an awful lot lately.

jakecoppon Improving first impressions on Signal

> To keep Signal a free global communication service without spam, we must depart from our totally-open posture and develop one piece of the server in private: a system for detecting and disrupting spam campaigns.

Interesting. Matrix solves this problem by not associating a username with a phone number or email address (unless you opt in to). Does anyone have views on if this will work into the future?

I'm moved ~90 of my friends onto Matrix (along with plenty of group chats), and most of them quite like the Element [1] app (though there are rough edges on iOS I'm hearing).

[1]: https://element.io/

jakecoppon Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

Eric Migicovsky, Pebble founder who now runs https://www.beeper.com/:

> These bridges are actually just an intermediate step. Since Matrix itself is an amazing chat network, eventually as more people start using bridges on Matrix, they’ll notice that their friends are already on Matrix, eliminating the need for bridges gradually over time.

> I really believe that the world will be a better place when everyone is in the Matrix. Matrix is the non-proliferation treaty of chat.

https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus...