Hacker News Reader

yuon There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

From Footnote 1: [...] If we were to use the full dynamic range of 24bit and a listener had the equipment to reproduce it all, there is a fair chance, depending on age and general health, that the listener would die instantly. The most fit would probably just go into coma for a few weeks and wake up totally deaf.

yuon 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

Nature article http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100520/full/news.2010.253.ht...

Nature asks and eight experts comment on significance http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100520/full/news.2010.255.ht...

yuon Top computer games of all time

Spacewar! made #9, Tetris #2.

One-page format: http://www.v3.co.uk/articles/print/2259867

yuon Ask HN: What's your favorite scientific paper?

  - Codd 1969/1970 Relation algebra, operations, model papers
  - Crick, Watson, (Franklin, Wilkin) Nature article on DNA.
  - Shannon, Information Theory as listed/ mentioned.

yuon ClojureQL - SQL DSL for Clojure

LINQ is nice and if it helps db4o which is GPL has Java and .NET languages support.

yuon CrunchPad Federal Lawsuit Filed; Some Additional Thoughts

Great points. Earlier today I read an AP story before seeing this (now COB Friday). While I have not gone through the posts at TC, the AP story appeared to have checked/ covered/ summarized both sides http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=990515

Interesting Arrington said neither has rights to the product. Just pointing out from an independent AP source instead of TC.

yuon TechCrunch, Fusion Garage -- Tech blog, Singapore startup feud over tablet PC

Arrington: [CruchPad] paying a lot of bills... $400,000...

Rathakrishnan: CrunchPad did not contribute code or funding... never agreement on terms of an acquisition... neither funding nor buyout were materializing...

Arrington, November 30, posted on TechCrunch that Fusion Garage and its investors had suddenly decided to dump the CrunchPad team... neither side owned rights to the product.

Rathakrishnan on Monday refuted Arrington story and introduced JooJoo.

Arrington filed suit to block sales of Fusion Garage JooJoo.

yuon Intel 48-core Single-Chip Cloud [pdf]

  * 24 "tiles" with two IA cores per tile
  * A 24-router mesh network with 256 GB/s bisection bandwidth
  * 4 integrated DDR3 memory controllers
  * Hardware support for message-passing

IA x86 compatible. Availability not announced. Experimental.

yuon Snap Circuits SC-300; for those asking about learning electronics 101 202

Amazon has positive product reviews; am not affiliated with either. Please be awared of choking hazards. Happy Holidays!

yuon Ack - better than grep, a power search tool for programmers

python has grin http://pypi.python.org/pypi/grin

yuon Common ground and cultural prominence [pdf]

Why do well-known ideas, practices, and people maintain their cultural prominence in the presence of equally-good or better alternatives? [...]

yuon Ask HN: Why do web frameworks always use database?

Taking 'information heavy' to mean large data size/ volume. File system can be seen as a basic database. When data access paths are not pre-defined e.g. URL, slug, tag, etc., a systematic way to organize and query is required. Three examples: (a) not knowing what user may query, text indexing today almost index every words. (b) given predefined access path, NNTP have used mostly files. (c) mail servers have both. IMO, in general, addressing domain specific requirements, database systems (relational, logical, network...) are not slower, harder to update/ backup. As pointed out in another comment, disk IO is slow. Both file and database systems feature various ways to speed that. Understanding requirements, then architect, design, and choose a solution stack carefully.

yuon Dyson blade-less fans 98% less power than air conditioning

Dyson Air Multiplier explained: http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00250/Dyson_...

yuon Introducing Atlas: A Visual Development Tool for Creating Web Apps

HTML JavaScript, front/ back-end, desktop/ web app... well defined technology for commercial applications.

Internet / web application platform is not likely to go away.

Lightly developed on NeXT Obj-C, spring controls ~20 years ago. Glad seeing good NS ideas being adapted and extended.

yuon Ancient Genetic Defenses Against AIDS Virus Reactivated

Even having read a few popular science books a few years ago (50-year DNA anniversary), it's been too many years since AP Biology. Could you/ others please recommend a few titles (articles, books, titles), at the AP Biology level, on (a) proteins and RNA, (b) genes and DNA ? Thanks in advance!

yuon Tig, the ncurses front-end to Git

Thank you for pointing that out. The choice of a single source file is a great C feature. The author appears to have started from a few hundred lines in 2006. Grew that 10x, to a few thousand. Curses/ ncurses bring back good memory of various mail and news readers. I bet a few of you tried curses/ ncurses. IMO, character user interface has its efficiency; prefers CUI to icon bars, ribbons, etc.

yuon The National Parks: America s Best Idea

KQED (9) 10:00pm - 12:00am Pacific

The National Parks: America's Best Idea: Great Nature (1933-1945). The years 1933-45 are recalled. Included: the Civilian Conservation Corps are created during the Depression to undertake renovation projects...

yuon 4.4M year old Ardi skeleton has chimp and human features, UC-Berkeley scientists

WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125440678661956317.html

yuon 4.4M year old Ardi skeleton has chimp and human features, UC-Berkeley scientists

LA Times (HN) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=855061

yuon Night sky from eye to telescope: Milky Way panaroma at 800 mega-pixel [swf]

* ESO GigaGalaxy Zoom http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/about.html

* NASA Astronomy Picture of the day http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090926.html

yuon Mind Hacks: Treating cluster headaches with LSD and Psilocybin

My cluster headaches started in college. Was mis-diagnosed as migraine with different doctors until I started working and saw a neurologist. Various early migraine treatments in the late 80s and early 90s did not work. Duh!

When I could and when it started, I calmly wrapped up what I was doing, find a room, close the blinds... banged my head against the wall, literally, to feel better and trained myself to know it will end in a few hours.

No comment on treatment as I know of none. I sincerely urge those have this condition seek the best doctor for help. Anyone know if these are still true or apply to you:

* Cluster headache affects mostly males

* Cause of cluster headache has not been determined

* Cluster headache occurs less as one gets older

yuon The National Parks: America s Best Idea

Pacific time today 12pm now, 4pm, 8pm, 10pm.

The sumptuously filmed history of America national parks begins in 1851...

yuon Celebrate/support America's Best Idea, day of service at 391 national parks

* National Day of Service and Celebration http://www.nps.gov/september26/

* Paving the Way: National Park-to-Park Highway http://www.pavingtheway.tv/

* PBS National Parks: http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

* National Parks preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx8WbZIWCSM

* Find a park: http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm

yuon No formal training, guy launched 100,000 ft balloon. Took better space pictures.

So much coverage... yet may be skewed toward MIT and other schools. This guy got better pictures as CBS reported. Some how, wanted to point out and give this guy a little coverage. And give a pat on the back to those keep it simple. Without formal training, this hacker has a different point of view. We all benefit when we participate and try...

yuon MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

With no formal training, Ron Meadows, a pool service guy from San Jose, built a stratospheric balloon package and took photos at 100,000 feet. http://cbs5.com/watercooler/stratosphere.balloon.launch.2.11...

yuon 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books

Full shortlist:

  * The Age of Wonder: How the romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Harper Press)
  * What the Nose Knows: The science of scent in everyday life by Avery Gilbert (Crown Publishers)
  * Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Harper Perennial)
  * Decoding the Heavens: Solving the mystery of the world's first computer by Jo Marchant (William Heinemann)
  * The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin)
  * Your Inner Fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin (Penguin)

yuon A digital raw file is not an original image

Am continuing to learn about both digital and film. Bought a Canon Elan 20? years ago. To point out what I picked up in reading, chasing the links... Zeiss.com: "35mm ZM lenses achieved 400 lp/mm on film; ZF ~300 lp/mm, medium format lenses up to 280." Looked up average grain size, resolving power, sampling theorem... For me, it remains: choose the tool for the task; consumer DSC JPEG did that in recent years.

yuon EWG study analyzed 1,268 mobile cell phones radiation emissions. Find yours...

Apple iPhone, 3G, 3G S are mid to high.

  Top 10 make model with least radiation:
  1.Samsung Impression (SGH-a877) [AT&T]
  2.Motorola RAZR V8 [CellularONE]
  3.Samsung SGH-t229 [T-Mobile]
  4.Samsung Rugby (SGH-a837) [AT&T]
  5.Samsung Propel Pro (SGH-i627) [AT&T]
  6.Samsung Gravity (SGH-t459) [CellularONE, T-Mobile]
  7.T-Mobile Sidekick [T-Mobile]
  8.LG Xenon (GR500) [AT&T]
  9.Motorola Karma QA1 [AT&T]
  10.Sanyo Katana II [Kajeet]

yuon Trevor Blackwell (YC and Anybots) Contributes to Hollywood Movie Surrogates

YC Anybots meetup / screening around September 25 ?

yuon Ask HN: What terminal emulator do you use ?

Putty mostly. Dated? though TeraTerm has/had good out of the box DEC, HP, IBM terminal emulation; customer engagements.