Hacker News Reader

livatlantison Boeing acquires flight-planning app maker ForeFlight

Indeed! Seems like there are quite a few aviators here on HN. I'll be impressed the day I casually see someone mention a Robin DR400 aircraft... (more or less unknown in the US, but the most common training aircraft here in France, and I believe in Germany too).

livatlantison Google gives Wikimedia millions

Ha! Glad to see H2G2 come up. Lots of great moments there!

livatlantison Ask HN: How's the Paris startup scene?

I'm not in the start-up world personally but from I understand it's all rather vibrant. I went to Vivatech and was, despite the lack of air in the building, quite impressed with the sheer number of start-ups present.

Having French language skills is a HUGE benefit and was not too long ago an absolutely necessity. It's getting better now and you can more or less get by speaking only English, at least in a professional context. Socially it won't be that great, although if you're motivated I'm sure you'll learn enough for everyday conversations rather quickly.

A good website to check out job offers is https://welcometothejungle.co (in French only unfortunately). LinkedIn is big (how I got my previous job). Also, Hired I've heared (no personal experience).

livatlantison Ask HN: Mysterious hacker news post

Unsure why it is not visible in the HTML; the contributor is visible in the API response: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/16763172.json?pri...

livatlantison Nutella 'riots' spread across French supermarkets

I really don't see why this is international news.

One supermarket chain in France gives a substantial discount on a product that kids love, some people in a few of these stores go nuts, this is then filmed and uploaded to the internet.

What are we to make it of? Depends. My guess is that lot of these people are presumably low-income and aren't always able to buy Nutella for their kids. Or they are, but it's a significant part of their weekly grocery bill. So I suppose it was kind of a big deal in that regard, to be able to buy their kids the real deal instead of generic supermarket brands. (Pretty much the same thing, but try to explain that to little kids). In which case it's all a bit tragic, really. Or maybe that's not it at all and the story is about the lengths to which deal-hunters will go for a few euros. But the news doesn't go into all of this — the report was that people went crazy and fought each other for cheap Nutella across French supermarkets.

In any case, it's odd for such an isolated, specific incident to receive international coverage. This isn't even that interesting to people living in France unless you want to try to understand understand the sociology/economics of it.

shrugs

livatlantison Does anyone remember websites?

Ah yes, I remember stumbling into this page when looking for cold-case/solved mystery stories. I got through all 13 pages in one afternoon! Excellent story and writing.

livatlantison Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

Fair point, that was an error on my part. I've corrected it with a note of the change right below it. Thanks for pointing it out!

livatlantison Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

Ok thanks for the replies. I'll go troubleshooting!

livatlantison Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

Author here. Is it? It works on my end. Could you tell me which OS/Safari version you're using? Thanks.

livatlantison Sun Flyer, an Electric Trainer Aircraft

> We designed the aircraft for the niche application of pilot training, where the inability to carry a heavy payload or fly for more than 3 hours straight is not a problem and where cost is a major factor.

So a little less than 3 hours, I'd imagine.

livatlantison Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

... it hurts from laughing too much. Wow.

livatlantison Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

That and I never understood why knödel never took off. I love knödel! I actually brought some back the last time I was in Germany (before learning I could buy them right here in Paris).

livatlantison CHVote: Open-source e-voting system from Switzerland

Ha! Good catch :)

English is my primary language as well but turns out living in a French-speaking country will do this to you.

livatlantison CHVote: Open-source e-voting system from Switzerland

Merged! :)

livatlantison CHVote: Open-source e-voting system from Switzerland

Almost certainly a mistranslation from French, where 'exploité' would be something like 'operated'. That whole paragraphe reads like French.

livatlantison Nokia brand licensee HMD Global is now the new home of Nokia phones

Not sure; I'm in Europe. But I've read on forums that some (all?) of these don't work with American frequencies.

Edit: Found it! [Manual][2] says "You can only use your device on the GSM 900, 1800 MHz networks."

[2]: "http://download-support.webapps.microsoft.com/ncss/PUBLIC/en...

livatlantison Nokia brand licensee HMD Global is now the new home of Nokia phones

I recently got one of the [Nokia classic phones][1] and frankly, it's such a breath of fresh air. I know, I know, I'm being nostalgic and it can't possibly replace my iPhone but it does do several things much more efficiently.

I can load an SD card with lots of podcasts and music and have a player that'll last an entire week. If I have a new file, I can load it on via Bluetooth in the morning before I leave for work. Sure it's not that fast, but for just one 10-minute MP3 at 192 kbps, it's okay.

I have my work iPhone if I need 4G on the go, but when I want to disconnect a little, it's perfect!

Well done Nokia/Microsoft for keeping these phones alive. And for shipping them with Snake preinstalled ;)

[1]: http://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-130-dual-sim "Nokia 130"

livatlantison IA Writer 4

The text embeds/includes are really nice. Makes composing longer text much easier! I've been eyeing iA Writer for a while; anyone here use it? What do you like most/least about it?

PS: The only thing this introduces is that we're just one tiny step away from raw files, since these are iA-specific syntax. Not complicated, of course, you'd just need to include all the embedded files too. But to recreate the main file outside of iA, it would require at least some processing (copy/paste but still).

livatlantison India’s Telescope Detects Crack in the Earth’s Magnetic Shield

The article mentions that the study "...may hold clues for a better understanding of future superstorms that could cripple modern technological infrastructure on Earth,...".

What kind of crippling of modern tech infrastructure are we talking about? Electrical interference? Radiation overdose that leads to... data loss? Could someone more familiar with the topic enlighten me?

livatlantison Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?

Great question! YouTube.

I don't use YouTube at all for music recommendations/discovery but every once in a while, I'll chance upon something amazing.

A comment on an upload of Seventh Wonder's The Great Escape[0] led me my discovering Shadow Gallery's First Light[1], which I enjoyed almost as much. (Almost. SW's track, based on Henry Martinson's 'Aniara' poetic cycle is, in my opinion, at another level. Martison was awarded a Nobel prize for his work but unfortuntely commited suicide as a result of fierce criticism against this decision).

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjO7y-98Ak

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Qt1eqJ26s

livatlantison The French Number – Connect to a random French person and talk about anything

wow, I never though I'd come across a casual reference to Odigo on the internet (and it isn't from me). Gosh I loved Odigo -- met so many people that I eventually lost contact with. You could even talk to other people browsing the same website as you (interesting, of course, because I wasn't on any social networks -- mostly forums and metal websites).

livatlantison A Friendly Introduction to The Riemann Hypothesis [pdf]

This is fantastic! I know next to nothing about number theory (despite my interest in primes) and this had me in stitches. Thanks for the link.

livatlantison Ask HN: How do you escape Google?

This is possible. For email, I now use Fastmail[0]; they've only been getting better these past few years and now even have native mobile apps. The web interface is effecient and very usable! The only things I really miss are (i) undo send and (i) the forgot-your-attachment reminder.

I use Fastmail also for calendar; it supports WebDAV and works very nicely for me on iOS.

For search, yeah, I use DDG as well but find I use !g quite often. Especially for non-English searches. I've heard StartPage[1] is also nice.

I still use Chrome as my main browser, but am looking for alternatives. Besides Safari, I've toyed with Links[2] and Min[3].

For directions, it's still mostly Google Maps although I sometimes use Apple Maps on iOS. I've been explorer Here Maps[4] and have been quite happy with them (especially because you can download entire cities, or even regions, for offline use, including search). For biking, Bike Citizens[5] and Citymapper[6] are also nice (if your city is supported).

I'm sure there are lots of OpenStreetMaps-based services I'm missing.

Edit: If you want to migrate your mail, you can use Google's data download tool[7] to first download everything and then import it into Fastmail or use Fastmail's import tool[8].

0: https://www.fastmail.com/ 1: https://www.startpage.com/ 2: https://links.twibright.com/ 3: https://minbrowser.github.io/min/ 4: https://maps.here.com/ 5: http://www.bikecitizens.net/ 6: https://citymapper.com/ 7: https://www.google.com/settings/takeout 8: https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/migratemail.html

livatlantison Ask HN: Good software for interactive exploration of quantum/particle physics?

Excellent question! I found the CERN Virtual Atom Smasher [0], which you might find interesting. I haven't personally played with it enough to be able to tell you how it is; it is directly from CERN, though.

0: http://test4theory.cern.ch/vas/

livatlantison Ask HN: Why are academic websites so bad?

That's one of the reasons I like 'em. And this is a designer talking! Sure, a nice simple base CSS could fix line width, letterspacing, general kerning... but I'd much rather take plain old HTML that I can access from pretty much any browser on any OS anywhere in the world, than the Javascript-fueled "immersive" websites laaaarge images and fancy effects anyday.

Having said that, of course, I should concede that the choice isn't binary. Still.

livatlantison Microsoft and LinkedIn's vision for the opportunity ahead [pdf]

On Slide 15, they casually write:

"Today Cortana knows about you, your organisation and about the world. In the future, Cortana will also know your entire professional network to connect dots on your behalf so you stay one step ahead."

Great, Microsoft. Can't wait. /s

Between the limitations of the word "know" (without going into the semantics of consciousness/intelligence), LinkedIn's well-deserved reputation for being creepy and Microsoft's ambition to "connect dots on your behalf", I can't say I'm thrilled.

Hopefully, managerial incompetence will come to our aid.

livatlantison Boiling Water Shapes Martian Terrain

  Small ridges forged by
  evaporating water
  Martian vaporware

livatlantison Instagram insists littergram app is renamed

Well, you can always adapt your speech to your audience. But I don't see why it should be seen as elitist.

livatlantison Instagram insists littergram app is renamed

Yeah that was the first thing I noticed as well. I'm somewhat surprised (a little sad, even) that the BBC chose not to write it in the subjunctive mood, which is precisely what is required here.

I thought when I read the headline that Instagram was insisting (that is, reiterating) that Littergram was already renamed.

livatlantison Ask HN: What would you use to build a super simple web app?

Will check those out, thanks.