Hacker News Reader

restalison Summary After Four Months with Ada

I use the quote separator for digit grouping on any occasion, i.e. also outside of computer code. There, we usually have non-monospaced fonts, for which the use of underscores is glaringly uglier compared to use of single quotes. I don't know if you took this design decision from somewhere else or not, but it was an inspired decision nevertheless.

Also, I'm glad and honoured to have a comment like yours in my history. Sorry for late reply.

restalison Summary After Four Months with Ada

C++ has (albeit only since version 14) the single quote as digit separator, which is (IMHO) a better choice: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/integer_literal

restalison Why geothermal isn't ubiquitous and how it might get that way

The wells would recharge even without Earth's existing surrounding heat reserves. Moon (and Sun) induced tidal forces do manifest not only in the body of water but also in the Earth's crust, and the resulting tension/friction is quite a source of energy/heat.

restalison Always Be Quitting

People will read, but only up until it gets too much or abusive of their attention. Error messages can be cryptic and cause some mental trashing until the reader realized her bad investment of attention, gives up, and makes a mental note to self to lower the expected value of error messages in the future. Emails? Not when you get overburden with the amount received and when a lot of those have a very tenuous relation with you (but if a future demand pops up for a knowledgeable person, you're in the recipient list, so you're considered ready and waiting). Documentation? Alas, there's only so much of it that can be really useful for a reader and only so much quality grooming that the confluence of various budgets (writer's patience and attention being the most important ones) could support. One reason people prefer to ask directly is because this way they get a chance to control the interaction and direct the answers to whatever they really need and thus avoid waste.

This being said, I am one of those technical guy having to answer to a lot of (seemingly lazy) people, which is something that often drives me crazy. The trick I come up with is to show my genuine impatience, redirect new people to the ones I've already explained the same thing, and let them milk each other for information.

restalison No evidence UFOs are alien craft, unclassified US intelligence report to reveal

"If the objects are real, and (big) if they are violating the laws of physics as we know them, that means that our understanding of physics needs to be revised. Physics is physics."

One little issue here though. The current understanding of physics is the result of study performed on inert systems, under total (or big enough degree of) scientists' control. Areas which aren't easy to be subjected to experiments are avoided. (Among other things, choosing something like that would pose a high risk of loose speculation on the limited data sets at hand, and an even higher risk of results staying unverifiable by independent parties, both reflecting badly on the scientists involved.) When confronted with something hardly explainable like UFO reports, the easy way out is denial or questioning the source and information veracity.

restalison U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

I'd say that the surface of attack here is the industrial equipment's link to general computing equipment (which it's expected to be less secure). The solution just can't be to secure the whole world of software that may somehow end up on general use computers. The point is, my remark is still valid, as a discussion on critical systems got mixed with clearly non-critical ones.

restalison U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

"this kind of rigidity is not part of our tech culture"

Yes and no. "No" because there are best practices and bits of midleware that although may still get improvement over time, receive nevertheless fewer and fewer changes (and have logarithmic looking dynamic of development). They mature. Advising strongly things that passed the test of time and broad use scrutiny just makes sense, regardless if that may look "rigid". (Not that many implement their own double linked lists nowadays.) Then "yes" because the our "tech culture" pool is big enough to also accommodate fashion, hype, and a whole lot of other psychosocial can of worms...

restalison U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

"And they can only build the aircraft they are certified to, using the same certified components, and the same certified tools."

And that level of rigor is appropriate for the stakes that selling mass produced commercial aircraft implies. The discussion context was critical systems. But then you threw "word processors" in there. Why?

restalison Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC

"And yet it's just as plausible that the moon landings, like this circumnavigation of Africa, could have simply been a momentary flex of a civilisation at the height of its powers, not to be repeated for thousands of years."

These seem predictably rare events to me. There are very fiew individuals that afford to engage in such endeavors and the odds of succeeding are acting both as deterrent and physical limiting factor to any attempt. The fact that happened is an exception. Not until the odds improve and a strong enough incentive changes things. The incentive for Moon landing has been political. Once achieved, it dissipated, and there isn't much sense for it to be repeated until a new motivating factor will appear.

Addition: Diolkos, considering the cost and efficiency of how it could have been operated and maintained back in the antiquity, was clearly an artifact that could work only for short distances, where the gains were significant enough to justify it, and there was little sense for it to be constructed on the scale that rails were later constructed.

restalison JPL's Design for a Clockwork Rover to Explore Venus (2017)

"Fluidics has been used for years in industry however. Both in automation and for vector control on Jet engines and other areas with high temperatures."

Here on Earth we assume that the areas with extreme conditions can be contained, and normal conditions can be taken for granted for everything else. Yes we have engineering involving high temperatures, we also have easy available heat sinks. That is totally different from Venus, where we'll have to assume that the entire system will quickly reach to the environment's high temperature, that there will be little to no practical means to significantly cool off the equipment, and that that will be the assumed normal functioning parameters in the long run. This is a challenge, because as I said, we have limited technology that does not rely on conditions comparable to those on Earth. Part of the challenge in "all solutions will need to be adapted to the conditions on Venus" is that there was little incentive for this to happen naturally on Earth and thus it now can benefit less from the "free" progress that otherwise happened in society at large. There aren't good off-the shelve solutions to be picked and used. These have to be yet expensively researched and developed.

"Wind technology is a mature technology however. I cannot see why other means of energy generation on Venus would have a head start."

The issue is not how well the technology works (even in Venus' ground conditions), my comment has been about the mechanical nature, i.e. a bit on a lower level. Anything with moving parts will be exposed to a high degree of wear and need for maintenance. From an engineering POV you normally want to either avoid that or compound the problem by designing maintenance.

"You just need to reach something like an airship or balloons higher up. At higher altitudes you temperature and pressure is no longer an issue and you can use whatever technology works on Earth."

Not getting into the technical means of production and reception of the sound in Venus' conditions, nor into the reason for choosing sound as means of communication, this calls for a chain of balloons placed close enough to be able to "hear" each other in order to relay information up to an altitude where normal EM communication can be used. That's something we have yet to develop here on Earth. It would be interesting to know how we'd ensure balloons positioning, considering the unavoidable winds and other interference from atmospheric activity.

Despite the reserved attitude conveyed in what I've written here, I'm actually all for Venus exploration, and I consider it the most important next-target in human evolution, as may be reflected in my previous comments, for example like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594285

restalison JPL's Design for a Clockwork Rover to Explore Venus (2017)

What I can tell as an engineer, is that the main issue boils down to the level of maturity for the technologies you mention in your writing. It's not enough to have publications demonstrating feasibility, as from labs to field applications it's a long way, where non-trivial work has to be invested in things to make them useful enough for any practical purpose. The weak chain-link is electronics tech, which has been developed to cover energy handling, sensor data acquisition, information processing, and electromagnetic field based communication, to name a few. Things change, and as Robotbeat's comment here¹ says, we may rely on silicon carbide based chips now, for information processing at least. You mention using sound for echolocation and communication on short range scale, but the main communication issue is on long scale. You mention wind power but, due to its mechanical nature, there is wear and tear involved that has to be also addressed as part of an engineering solution to confer it any practical value, and not much thought has been allotted to those kind of conditions. To sum it up, in regard to Venus ground activity, the technical means we still have at our disposal are currently still mediocre, unfortunately.

¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175751

restalison OpenBSD Adds Support for Coordinated Mars Time (MTC)

We have months because there is a big celestial body close to our planet that helped humans track long-scale time since before any formalized time system, so we had to fit it in, but on Mars? Even though there are Phobos & Deimos (which orbit too fast for any similar long-scale time tracking practical purpose), how visible are they to a martian surface observer with unaided aye? I guess that indeed there probably won't be anything, or at least not something local for that time-scale.

restalison OpenBSD Adds Support for Coordinated Mars Time (MTC)

"a Martian colony would still need to care significantly about the seasons and time of day"

Sure, in most if not all of the places future humans may come to inhabit, the celestial bodies will obviously have a strong influence on their lives and so they'll have to care. But, as I see it, this is more like marking events in a tool-tracked independent time system instead of having the time system devised around what's happening with celestial bodies around them because they can't do any better.

restalison OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

I understand the appeal of having time tracking systems related to easy noticeable celestial bodies movement, but when such enlargement to a multi-planetary context happen, it makes more sense to think of an entirely new system altogether. Even more so considering that almost everyone relies on tool based time tracking for their activity instead of looking up at the moon or the sun. The first direction towards a solution that comes to mind is about a natural-units derived system, like one based on Planck time or something.

restalison Scientists create simple synthetic cell

I imagine that from engineering POV, having self-replicating cells that will also do the useful work won't be optimal. This self-contained single-cell system was the only one that could work in the wild initially, but after a while even in natural systems like our bodies we have cells (like those red ones from our blood) that are produced by specialized tissues (red bone marrow), are designed with a specific function and with a simplified structure (like to be small, without cell nucleus), and disposed by other specific tissues (in the liver). If I had to design a system (and a business) it would involve printing specialized (non-replicating) work cells and some control/disposal mechanisms. The research focus on simplest living and self-replicating cells looks interesting but not that much oriented on any practical purposes.

restalison Scientists create simple synthetic cell

Just think about the mass of all microscopic organisms outside the labs that suffer mutations all the time. Worrying about innocuous bacteria turning into something bad on accident within comparatively very limited environment of a laboratory doesn't make much sense. Think also of the many free floating bacteria cells in our environment that die due to various factors, whose bodies then have to break apart. Compared to what may happen in a lab, I imagine that those pieces of dead cells floating around freely may pose a greater risk of falling and fitting somehow within living host cells altering their function. (That's one of the mutation vectors, BTW, be it constructive or destructive.) The only scenario that makes sense to seriously worry about when a lab works with/on a virus or bacteria is if the material they started with carries inherently a high risk, or (worse) if they focus on weaponizing it (but that would not be "unknowingly" as you mention).

restalison Scientists create simple synthetic cell

Maybe that's the beauty of it. Maybe now's exactly the propitious time to play fast and lose with these things. The world today is more prepared than it has ever been - the overall impact may not even register as an independent event and be taken only as another wrinkle to current pandemic.

...but for the record, the above is not an advice. Here's the mandatory and responsible advice: kids, have fun (with science), but wear the things to keep it safe!

restalison Scientists create simple synthetic cell

As all engineering, it boils down to requirements. Mycoplasmata, from which JCVI-syn3A has been developed, is reported to "survive without oxygen", which means that it's not necessarily a "pure" anaerobic organism. We must assume that there has to be an existing mechanism that protects this bacteria from highly reactive oxygen. If the design requirements don't include surviving the natural environment, then that is one of probably many more areas to trim genetic "fat" from. However, I don't know much about their work on synthetic bacteria nor the environment used for it, so it's possible that the aforementioned mechanism to be already removed from its genes.

restalison Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

"I've no idea how long a typical Suez transit is."

For yachts it is (supposed to be) two days. It's one day to Ismailia on either way and then one for the rest. (The paperwork however, may take longer, but can be arranged in advance.) See more at https://www.noonsite.com/report/suez-canal-transit-informati...

restalison Top Saudi official issued death threat against UN's Khashoggi investigator

"What use do you think the UN should have? Should it be like a military force?" "UN's purpose never was and never has been to confront nations or blocks"

That's funny, because Wikipedia tells us that UN "aims to maintain international peace and security" and it was involved in a war shortly after its establishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

restalison Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

"all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way"

This is true. However, from a similar (mild form, partially dealt with) ASD observer point of view, I also noticed that the said peculiarities in one's character are like food ingredients. It's about the way one manages to blend them in a recipe and to cook them into something tasteful (for others) that makes or breaks the social connections. Having ASD is like having no smell or taste of your own and you have to rely on the observed reactions in others for measurements. Obviously, it's a challenge to be a cook in such circumstance and the best strategy (if you care) then probably is just to assume damage and operate in damage control mode all the time.

restalison Code Budgets

Talking about the cost for a line of code is like talking about the cost for a line of blueprint design. Forcing cost evaluations for non trivial problems is like forcing a curved surface onto a plain map. It may be considered doable if admitting a high enough level of error, but it's just a pain to do it, every time.

restalison How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

"In some sense, we're all parasites on plants, that in turn feed on the energy delivered by the giant fusion reactor in the middle of our solar system."

I think that's wrong. By definition, a parasite interacts with a living organism. For example worms that eat the remnants of fallen leafs are not parasites, they are saprophytes. Humans as well can live consuming bits of fallen fruits that do not take part in plants' further reproduction (i.e. fruit's seeds) and would otherwise just rot (and can thus be considered dead tissue).

restalison What Do the Rich Want?

"cause income inflation. It will eat away at the wealth of the rich far faster than taxation would and they can't run away"

I'm not sure what "income inflation" is, so assuming it's just currency inflation, that may be a bad move as the rich hedge their wealth better than the poor. Also, for US the inflation is not easy to do, for it being a global traded currency. The most important thing to realize though, is that those rich people living in your country is in fact wealth accumulated (mostly) by your country. You can have the chance to bid those rich for many things that will benefit society at broad and there is a high chance that they will care about the things happening in your shared county/state/country more than about what happens somewhere else. The smart move is to find ways to tap into that wealth by enrolling their cooperation instead of looking for effective ways to cut that wealth away.

restalison Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test

You're right that the destruction of equipment and loss of material resources in general is a failure that could have been prevented with a more cautious approach, but that's not the entire picture. Another resource, one that Mr. Musk cares more about, is time. He both affords to and is willing to throw material resources at the technology development problem, even at a loss (i.e. the stated "1/3 chance of success"), just so he could "move fast and break things" (from time to time, if it comes to that). In this context, even with that prodigious blow at the end, having at least some of the testing goals met can be a genuine success in Musk's own eyes, not just a sell for the rest of us. The political actors, on the other hand, had to play the perception image game because that's the world they reside in. The politicians' primary objective in that space program has always been the prestige that comes attached from bearing it to fruits. Sure, in a race they went on in a similar fashion and threw copious amounts of material resources, but for them the cost of technical failures were not so much about loosing material as were about loosing face, hence the propaganda that had to handle/mitigate that. Same rocket science development game, different rules for the actors involved.

restalison Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test

Landing may not have been one of the primary objectives, but it clearly was an objective, since they didn't just let it crash at will after having completed the flight maneuvers.

restalison Cities Experiment with Remedy for Poverty: Cash, No Strings Attached

"We are not rich enough to buy cheap stuff." - I'll promote this too, whenever I can, as long as I'll have expensive stuff to sell. As for friends and family, it's just "lean to quality" (not necessarily the expensive type).

restalison Mars Problems vs. Venus Problems

You're a visionary, and I'm so glad reading you rise the gravity issue. When it comes to it, this consideration and the whole extraterrestrial direction-setting exercise, as simple and rational I expect it to go when I speak with others or read their comments, become instead a maturity test I'm waiting for in people willing to take it, and sadly I rarely notice anyone passing it. Another related thought I've had the joy seeing echoed in this discussion thread was the first sentence of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24574145

Mars is a rock useful for many things, no doubt, but not for humans to live on. As challenging as it seem right now, Venus' problems are solvable, and it just happens to offer the necessary conditions for humans to live on and avoid speciation. If this kind of terrestrial gravity was nowhere to be found but on a planet somewhere as distant as Pluto, we'd still had to go for that (and be thankful for it to exist in our Solar system at all) instead of going for Mars-sized planet and orbit. It just fascinates me that it happens to be the closest us. Humanity will get there and will learn a lot from the process, which is nearly a must-have experience for any further much costlier colonization endeavor on another planetary system.

restalison Space Tethers: Stringing Up the Solar System

There will be a lot of factors constantly perturbing the trajectories, so lacking the ability to take corrective actions should be out of the question. Unless something happens too close to the point of contact, I expect the situations to be calculated and compensated for. Also, that tiny window that you talk about doesn't actually have to be that tiny. There can be engineered a string of potential contacts with multiple tethers on slightly different orbital altitudes to lower the risk, and for fungible cargo like fuel or other kind of supplies, that may fall be within the acceptable risk margin. Of course, people and other high value cargo can be serviced by other means if necessary.

restalison FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler

Citroen Ami is not quite a car, it's classed as quadricycle. For the sake of providing an example though, there are cars (recognized as such) having even a lower price: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano