Hacker News Reader

zczcon Home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut

"Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated through social media, though it was unclear if they blew up by themselves or were simply near walkie-talkies which blew up." [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/18/middle-ea...

zczcon uBlock Origin is no longer available on Chrome web store

You can also manage profiles by typing about:profiles in address bar

zczcon Show HN: Full Text, Full Archive RSS Feeds for Any Blog

Looks like a nice tool for extending existing RSS sources. As for the sites that don't have RSS support in the first place, there is also RSSHub [1]. Sadly, you can't use both for the same source: history4feed's trick with the Wayback Machine wouldn't work with the RSSHub feed.

[1] https://rsshub.app/

zczcon They don't make 'em like that any more: the 3.5mm headphone jack socket

As far as I remember, TRRS playback control was implemented first by Nokia, but Nokias had 2.5mm jack and switched to 3.5mm only after iPhone.

zczcon Claude's API now supports CORS requests, enabling client-side applications

They have just updated the FAQ:

> Can I use the Anthropic API for individual use?

> [Updated yesterday]

> Yes, individuals and hobbyists are welcome to use the Anthropic API. However, please note that use of the API is subject to our Commercial Terms of Service, regardless of whether you are an individual or representing a company.

Previously:

> No. Access to the API is subject to our Commercial Terms of Service and is not intended for individual use.

zczcon Make Firefox Private Again

More privacy-related about:config settings: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_...

zczcon Show HN: Lisp in C#

So, it is a shortcut around the tenth rule: "Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun's_tenth_rule

zczcon The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes

Looking at the beatfreq values in the XML source of the preset [1], it's indeed combination of 4 to 11 Hz beats (mostly theta) and 2 Hz (delta).

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnaural/files/Presets/Minds...

zczcon Uno: Create Beautiful Cross Platform .NET Apps Faster

There are two Avalonia products: free and open-source Avalonia UI and paid Avalonia XPF. Looks like [1] XPF allows making existing WPF apps cross-platform while Avalonia UI is more for developing from scratch.

[1] https://avaloniaui.net/Blog/migrating-wpf-applications-avalo...

zczcon Zilog Z80 CPU – Modern, free and open source silicon clone

And eZ80 (binary compatible, but not pin-compatible with Z80) is still being manufactured by Zilog.

zczcon Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

Interesting, the "hack" of eating in order is just return to the traditional way of eating veggie appetizer first, then meat main dish, and then dessert.

zczcon ArVid: Russians squeezed 4 hard drives into one VHS tape in the 90s

In this tradition, 7-Zip GUI still has a dual-panel mode

zczcon ArVid: Russians squeezed 4 hard drives into one VHS tape in the 90s

The program in the video uses Turbo Vision interface, so the closest thing is DOS Navigator [1]. Also DOS Navigator has some Arvid support [2], so it could be Dos Navigator itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Navigator [2] https://github.com/maximmasiutin/Dos-Navigator/blob/master/A...

zczcon Surf the web like it's 1999

That was interlaced GIF, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Interlacing (the demo image in the article is from Chrome which tries to approximate the image with rectangular regions, the 1990s browsers showed not yet received lines as blank which made interlacing effect)

zczcon Penrose – Create diagrams by typing notation in plain text

https://www.plantuml.com/

zczcon The pro-Israel information war

As far as i understand, the main goal of the Israel operation is to remove Hamas capability to launch another Oct.7-style attack in the future: prevention, not retaliation (though one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians).

zczcon Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage

And clock face mimics the sundial, therefore clockwise is sunwise

zczcon New motherboard improves old CRT television

Looks like machine translation from Russian original: https://mysku.club/blog/aliexpress/67872.html

zczcon micro – A Modern Alternative to nano

I think mcedit is close (included with Midnight Commander): similar keybindings, pull-down menu on top, resizable windows

zczcon Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000)

Slide 19 content (from .ppt):

  Serialized Development

    The model from NT 3.1 -> Windows 2000
    All developers on team check-in to a single main line branch
    Master build lab synchs to main branch and builds and releases from that branch
    Checked in defect affects everyone waiting for results

Diagram:

  Developer
  Developer
  Developer
  Developer
    -> Single MainBranch -> Product Build Machine -> Product Release Server

zczcon Show HN: OPML list of Hacker News Users Personal Blogs

Put this line in html:

UPD: type="application/atom+xml" for Atom, type="application/rss+xml" for RSS

zczcon The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)

Other sources:

https://dnda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/project_muse_528...

https://thecheapestuniversity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01...

zczcon UK universities accused of helping to develop Iran's 'suicide drones'

Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/18NeK

zczcon Txti is shutting down

It's markdown-based static webpage hosting: http://txti.es/how

zczcon HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

https://xkcd.com/743/

zczcon Google Pixel Fold

Historically the diagonal was a natural metric because it corresponds to the diameter of the early round CRTs (e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:7JP4)

zczcon Steven Spielberg: ‘No film should be revised’ based on modern sensitivity

Well, Spielberg himself replaced guns with walkies-talkies in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial#/me...

zczcon John Carmack on AI affecting coding jobs

Transcript:

— Hey John, I hope you are well. I am really passionate about CS (specifically Software Engineering) and I want to pursue a career in it. But I can't help but be a bit concerned about the future availability of coding jobs due to AI (chatgpt4 and stuff). I understand it's hard to predict how things will be in the next 10-15yrs, but my main concern is that I may be putting in all this hard work for nothing. I'm concerned Al will make my future job(s) obsolete before I even get it. Any thoughts on this?

— If you build full “product skills” and use the best tools for the job. which today might be hand coding, but later may be Al guiding, you will probably be fine.

— I see....by “product skills” do you mean hard and soft skills?

— Software is just a tool to help accomplish something for people — many programmers never understood that. Keep your eyes on the delivered value, and don't over focus on the specifics of the tools.

— Wow I’ve never looked at it from that perspective. I'll remember this. Thanks for you time. Much appreciated.

zczcon PostgreSQL 14 Internals

In Russian there is also a PostgreSQL 15 version: https://edu.postgrespro.ru/postgresql_internals-15.pdf, see https://postgrespro.ru/education/books/internals

zczcon Lessons learned from 15 years of SumatraPDF, an open source Windows app (2021)

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