Hacker News Reader

platinum1on Open source USB Type-C to HDMI Adapter

Yep, not to mention the manufacturing technologies required to meet the length matching and impedance targets. It's probably not realistic for hobbyist projects. I think this is mostly useful as a reference for making other types of adapters that might only need to use USB 2.0, but still need the microcontroller to negotiate the Type C stuff.

edit: There are two other open source Type C projects (and they stick with the Hostess snack theme):

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/twinkie

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/dingdong

platinum1on 2015 Chromebook Pixel

It does have two Type C connectors

platinum1on Coreboot Blocked from Recent Thinkpads by Intel Boot Guard

Well, on the flipside you have the NSA's recent "Equasion" firmware flasher. Assuming the various hard drive companies weren't collaborating (and I'd assume they weren't considering it was distributed with a virus and not baked-in), signed firmware would have prevented this.

All in all I think for the average user (who doesn't even know what firmware is), signed images are a good thing.

platinum1on Boston Dynamics' New Robot – Spot

Looks similar to what's on top of Google's self-driving cars. I didn't really imagine that much integration between Boston Dynamics and the rest of Google, but perhaps this is a sign that the two groups have joined (or are at least working together).

platinum1on Back to the iPhone 5S

Isn't there something you want to see and not touch, or touch less often you can put in the top? The top of almost all my screens is usually occupied by a weather/calendar/email/news/etc. widget up top

platinum1on Obama Becomes First President to Write a Computer Program

http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-24.pdf

See pages 16-19

platinum1on DDR4 memory interface

Even with DDR3 (and probably DDR4) you can still swap bits within a byte lane, and bytes within a word/channel depending on the setup of the memory controller. Some things change, and some stay the same!

platinum1on Google will stop calling games 'free' when they offer in-app purchases

Economics says people will pay what they think something is worth, and it's up to the consumer to balance the cost vs. the utility they get from it. In your examples the key is if the buyer was fully informed, or surprised and learned something new after buying that changed their mind. It only works as well as the consumer is informed about the product, the market, and the alternatives.

Paying $200 for a bunch of Steam games might be fine, as long as you know what you're getting... Or, you might feel scammed if you thought you were getting a complete game and later discovered you had to pay more via IAP to get what you thought you paid for in the first place.

This change (not calling IAP apps "free") is part of trying to inform the consumer. I'm not sure if it's the best solution as IAP seems like its own category, but that's the goal.

platinum1on Material world: how Google discovered what software is made of

Their metaphor for materials is the combination of two ideas: A streamlining/optimization of screen area, and a set of rules that define how things move. The material metaphor is based on things we can touch in real life. However, this metaphor is not going to be strictly adhered to in order to take advantage of the technology it's implemented on and provide a good user experience.

platinum1on Octopart Excel Add-In

Any chance of a docs/Apps script version?

platinum1on CLaSH: A functional hardware description language

I think what he's saying is the architectural decisions outweigh the implementation language.

When I was taught Verilog for IP implementation, one thing I noticed is that people get caught in the trap of trying to abstract away the hardware or approach it from a higher level. Haskell/Verilog 2001/SystemVerilog all give us tools to do this. However, when trying to make real silicon, you need to understand what is actually getting built (i.e. know exactly how many flip flops you're creating and how they fan out) and then use the language to describe it. If you use a 'for' loop to try to do computation, as you might in a programming language, you could end up with something entirely unexpected or unsynthesizable.

Traditionally you first design your module conceptually on a whiteboard (or Excel, Viso, etc.), then implement it in an HDL. Because of the influx of software engineers trying to get into hardware (via FPGAs, etc.), there has been a trend in trying to obfuscate away the details of the implementation, and this can cause a lot of confusion.

That said, I've heard of projects that already translate native Haskell to HDL with some success. I'm not a programmer so I don't claim to understand if it's a good idea, but I still think understanding exactly what's being output is important to knowing if it can perform in a reasonable way, especially if you're doing something of any complexity.

platinum1on Rendering large terrains

This reminds me of: http://www.zephyrosanemos.com/ - another very impressive webGL terrain demo. One thing I particularly like about the zephyrosanemos is the realtime rendering of the procedural terrain generation.

I'd love to hear a comparison of the two by someone knowledgeable about the subject.

platinum1on Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

According to the article, "the average speeds of Netflix's prime-time streams to Comcast subscribers had dropped 27% since October"

I guess the question is, did all other traffic see the same drop? And what changes in their network would cause this?

platinum1on Google Explains How Not To Be A Glasshole

I think that in the Penny Arcade comic, the captions should be switched.

What you're actually doing is wearing Glass and enjoying dinner per the first frame - but what everyone (at least the PA authors) thinks you're doing is what's indicated in the second frame.

platinum1on Silicon Valley has a dress code

Where I work, my group has instituted "Fancy Fridays" where people wear bow ties, suits, button down shirts, etc. It's not mandatory (participation is maybe 20%), and no one from other teams really notices or cares. One of our RF engineers and one of our PMs likes designer clothes, but most don't. One software engineer dresses like a pirate (seriously). Tie-dye is somewhat popular. And of course, T-shirts and hoodies are common.

I've also interviewed many people wearing a wide variety of clothing, and no one cares about that either. If we judged interviews based on what people wore, drove, ate, etc. we'd never get any competent engineers. A good culture fit means they interested in technology and our product, not that they fit some (in my experience false) stereotype.

As for your test, if there is a big change in how you dress (in any way) after people know you, it will garner notice.

platinum1on We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

You are correct: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/google...

platinum1on Circuit Scribe: Draw Circuits Instantly

It dries faster. I believe that's competitor #2 in the video.

platinum1on Google to Encrypt All Keyword Searches

Looks like Google's been reading http://donttrack.us/

platinum1on A new breed of Chrome Apps

I gave it a try on my Pixel and found that the touch didn't always seem to work as expected - for instance, when I rotate the globe, it would always try to center Africa on my finger and I couldn't tap on cities. I'd prefer if the game defaulted to fullscreen and allowed me to zoom out more - I assume this is because it was originally designed for smaller screens.

Also the game was capturing the ChromeOS volume, brightness, maximize keys (probably as F1-F10 keys) and discarding them.

Past issues specific to the packaged app - great game! Very polished. I love X-Com and this is right up my alley.

As one of the few who have actually used it, can you give us your perspective on the highlights and limitations of the packaged apps API?

platinum1on The Bay Bridge is gradually disappearing from Google Maps

Anyone can update Google maps: http://www.google.com/mapmaker. It takes about a day for changes to propagate through.

platinum1on Why I left Google (2012)

The funny thing is, before he was at Google, he was at Microsoft... and here's what he had to say to CNN/Fortune (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/29/the-problem-with-micr...) in 2011 about Microsoft:

"You want to innovate in mobile? ...deal with the made men who run the relevant cartel. And if they don't like you or your idea, your innovation goes nowhere."

platinum1on Show HN: Forked and updated the Chrome RSS subscription extension Google removed

How is being able to fork an open source extension to an open source web browser an "uphill battle" and not "open and welcoming?"

platinum1on Chromebox

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/features-key.h...

Is that better?

edit: To explain, I think how they expect you to experience the website is: http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/ (from www.google.com/chromeos)

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/features.html

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/features-key.ht...

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/features-device...

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebox.html

So, we're looking at a relatively deep link, which assumes the reader has been shown the main OS features and is looking for which specific product to buy. That said, I agree that this page doesn't do much except show pretty pictures and throw out a few tech specs, and won't sell the product on its own.

platinum1on A course in how to deal with ferocious intensity at Google

Not long enough to write a news article about.