Hacker News Reader

krisgeeon Ken Thompson flies a MiG-29 (1999)

I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets when I was younger and took the Survival Instructor Course. We were only on base one night out of the week (Saturday night for Sunday morning review, then back inna woods) I remember one of the weeks the CF-18s were paying us a visit and doing flights at all hours. It was pretty awful at the time because that was your one guaranteed good night of sleep a week but I do remember being enchanted by the whine of the engines spooling.

Shame I was colour blind and didn't get told till I was 15 (at which point my career choices were Astronaut, Fighter Pilot, SAR helicopter pilot).

krisgeeon Unions and Airlines (2010)

Not trying to be snarky but are there any historical examples of across the board raises that have stuck after a union gets busted?

krisgeeon GoPro S-1

The greatest part of GoPro's marketing is their youtube page. They just post videos shot with GoPros and like amateur versions of the same. I go there when I'm feeling like I need a taste of the outdoors and I've also got a GoPro on order, coincidence? Maybe but probably not.

krisgeeon Anki – Powerful, intelligent flashcards

> I find pictures helpful but usually I use them to illustrate the example sentence and not the word itself.

And this is why you are supposed to create your own flashcards. Everyone learns differently and your self-guided learning is no different.

Personally I use pictured even for abstract stuff, I just try and find a picture that says "hopeful" or "amazing" for me and then I use that as my picture since I figure it'll forge the connection.

krisgeeon We don't eat swans

>and it's working for them.

Yeah, against massive international outcry from people who don't live here and don't understand that fisheries is literally the only job left.

krisgeeon Is Consciousness Computable?

> why does it exist, where does come from, is it a nonphysical property of the body or vice versa

Are any of these actual debated questions? Outside of religious arguments I don't think anyone can question that (in order) the answers are

It doesn't need a why/It was the best tool our ancestors evolved for their niche

It comes from electrochemical reactions in your brain

Of course it isn't you die when you are killed, getting head injuries can change your personality/memories.

Since your brain exists in physical reality the question "can we run a perfect simulation of physics" is also exactly "can we compute conciousness". Since it's looking pretty good that we can run a simulation of reality at the level we work at it's also looking pretty good for that whole "mind" in a computer thing.

krisgeeon The Dumb Way We Board Airplanes Remains Impervious to Good Data

>If airplanes got rid of the overhead bins

This. And actually enforce the baggage limits they say they do. I usually only take a small carry on that fits under the next seat but I've seen people with enough provisions to supply the entire eastern front as carry on and it's ridiculous that they're even allowed.

krisgeeon One Man's Quest to Make Business Travel a Lot Less Awful

To be honest this is a good idea and it's a pain point I've had before. Meet a potential one night stand when you're travelling but can't use wherever you are staing. Nice room you can book really quickly as a place to spend the night would be great. Locate them near downtown cores and it's like Love Hotels except better (and hopefully less sketchy).

krisgeeon Mono and Roslyn

Isn't Roslyn under Apache? Or am I misunderstanding the point here?

krisgeeon In Some Ways, It's Looking Like 1999 in the Stock Market

Some people really like meeting strangers and especially travelling strangers.

krisgeeon Apple iPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move (2007)

>The mobile-phone industry is becoming a cozy cartel between the network operators and a limited range of manufacturers. It could certainly use a fresh blast of competition from an industry outsider.

HA! Yeah that really worked out eh?

krisgeeon How a Light Saber Works

As with all things Star Wars Wookiepedia has an extensive article on how lightsabers work "in universe".

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber

krisgeeon How a Light Saber Works

You don't need to be force sensitive to use a lightsaber but it helps because it's weightless so someone without force enhanced reflexes is likely to slice off an arm or foot trying to actually fight with it. I'm pretty sure though there are a couple of expanded universe characters who use lightsabers but aren't force sensitive and of course there's General Grevious who is a robot.

krisgeeon How a Light Saber Works

IIRC in universe a lightsaber is essentially an infinte blaster shot trapped in a magnetic loop. The crystal tunes the magnetic loop, so blocking blaster shots is simple because the blaster on the "outside" bounces off the same field keeping the plasma "inside" and for the same reason you can have proper sword fights.

I forget if you can shoot a Jedi with a regular bullet but I'd imagine s/he could just dodge it regularly since blaster bolts travel significantly faster.

krisgeeon Nothing to Hide – Game inspired by government surveillance

Yeah I thought it was pretty heavy handed too. It's a fun game though and of course, Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped

krisgeeon Only 90s Web Developers Remember This

Luckily the title of babies first scripts as well as annoying autoplay, flashing gifs and terrible layouts had been taken over by tumblr. If you ever feel the need to know why 99% of professional devs aren't 12, check out a couple of "custom" tumblr styles.

krisgeeon The Optical Mouse (1981) [pdf]

Completely spit balling here but wasn't the abstraction of your cursor originally a finger? If so the 45 degree tilt with the 'finger' pointing to the left makes sense if you just reach out with your right hand and point at something on the screen.

At least for me when I'm pointing at a regular computer monitor my hand is tilted not strait up and down.

krisgeeon Real money, invested with algorithms

>that everyone has an equal chance to react to market moves and price changes.

A rich person or big trading house can buy rack space close to New York or whatever city their market is based on, a regular person cannot. This ability gives a significant advantage to rich people/business owners, therefore the market is not fair at all.

krisgeeon An open letter to Dong Nguyen, creator of Flappy Bird

Dong Nguyen as a developer might be a smaller name but I guarantee you the ability to put "from the developer of Flappy Bird" is going to have similar effects to being TV famous.

krisgeeon How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry

>Why do companies chase this market? They're very fickle, and rarely appreciate any sort of gameplay mechanics.

Because they spend money.

krisgeeon How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry

The problem is that everyone with opinions hates IAP even though they're ridiculously good at making money.

krisgeeon How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry

Valve also had a virtual monopoly on digital game sales, billions of dollars of alternate revenue and huge teams of engineers and artists to build that Steam market and make the initial bunch of items.

Valve is incredibly unique yet people keep telling tiny companies making mobile games that they should be like Valve.

krisgeeon How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry

Chess is deep but it's not complex. Starcraft is both deep and complex. Candy Crush is shallow and simple. I can't think of a game off the top of my head that's really complex and really shallow but whatever it is it's definitely not on a mobile device.

krisgeeon How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-30-core-gamers...

Good article that got passed around in my office on Friday. People who are 'gamers' and by extension people who make games tend to look at "whales" as gullible stupid people but a lot of us tend to exhibit the same behaviour about other things all while congratulating ourselves for not pay 5 bucks to support a game we've played for 50 hours.

That said I think there is a really really fine line you have to walk to keep your IAPs "ethical" and it's very temping (and profitable) to fall on the Candy Crush side of things.

krisgeeon Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

So in order to process you non-bank transactions you need to use a centralized processor that charges you a fee for transferring your money?

krisgeeon King.com, makers of Candy Crush Saga – Trademark Trolls with a Double Standard?

Yeah I've heard/played out this story a couple of times now. Investors want you to "make it like Candy Crush" and they get their way because the company has to make payroll somehow.

krisgeeon Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

One question then, what motive is there to support the blockchain once mining has ended?

krisgeeon Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

It's 100% attitude. Doge is fun and playful while bitcoin seems to be the domain of crazy libertarians and people who just want to be the new bank.

krisgeeon With Traction But Out Of Cash, 4chan Founder Kills Off Canvas/DrawQuest

eh, I don't know. I remember when he first announced Canvas and most of 4chan simply responded "so what?" moot does mean something to most 4chan users but mostly just because they get to post in a moot thread I'm not sure you can really capitalize on that userbase, at least not in a monetizable way.

krisgeeon What are the lesser known but useful data structures?

I was going to say Trie but it was the first response to the SO thread so I guess it wasn't as little known as I thought.

I implemented it because I was making a game that had scrabble elements in it and needed to check ahead to see if the player had a word that could still take letters (a prefix) or if they'd hit a dead end. Fit the whole SOWPODS into a remarkably tiny space with millisecond lookups. Probably my favourite part of the project.