Hacker News Reader

JL2010on Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

Christian Science Monitor: is this a reputable source known for good journalism?

JL2010on Louis C.K. "I've never seen a check from a [TV] comedy special"

being broke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0rSXjVuJVg

and if he were rich: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO9PwbtlOIU

These were a while ago.

JL2010on Show HN: Version 1.1 of our $99 hackable Bluetooth smartwatch

http://www.getinpulse.com/developers/faq/

Not much there but they mention an ARM7 microcontroller. I remember seeing one of their job postings here and they were asking for ARM experience as well.

JL2010on Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

I'm still hoping he'll release that geographical data...

JL2010on Turn Your Smartphone Into A Robot

They are using the audio jack to send command data to the robot base. Notice how the iphone is not connected through a dock or 30-pin connector. Very clever indeed!

Making a "real" iphone accessory through the 30-pin connector is simply not possible for hobbyists/small outfits. This also makes their communication interface with the robot somewhat portable. I like :D

JL2010on Team Fortress 2 in WebGL

Fair distinction. Half-Life 2 SDK open sources a decent amount of code. Take a look at his source code, a lot of it is a re-implementation of Valve's map and model data structures in Javascript with similar naming convention. Hence why I called it a "minimal port" or "ported just enough components" to load a map.

JL2010on Team Fortress 2 in WebGL

Minor remark about the headline: This appears to be a TF2 map loaded into a minimal Source Engine WebGL port as an example. TF2 itself was not ported, just enough of the Source Engine components to load a map - he could've used a map file from just about any Source Engine powered game.

Awesome project :)

JL2010on This is what happens when one guy practices art every day for nine years

Wow, now that I think about it, I haven't committed 9 years to anything remotely productive yet.

Coming on 5 years with electronics, programming, and guitar/music (started all of these in college!). The electronics and programming are part of my job(s) but I'm at least happy to be pursuing music purely out of my own interest and doing it nearly every day. Would be interesting to see how I've progressed in these fields in another 4 years or so...

JL2010on Lessons from Valve - How to build a designer's paradise

I imagine their digital distribution system (Steam) is very much like what you described (complex, interconnected, scalable systems). Valve is quite diverse.

JL2010on New gaming laptop with innovative UI by Razer

It's an aluminum unibody according to this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/238897/razer_blade_eyeson_wit...

Not plastic.

JL2010on A hacker's guide to college

This estimate is accurate. I decided to total my tuition for a computer engineering degree at UBC (started in 2005) and it comes to $26,797 - before tax, without housing, and all other mandatory school fees included. Those who are starting now will probably pay a few more $K in the coming 4 years.

JL2010on A hacker's guide to college

Not to put too much weight on these University "rankings" but I would say that the two schools you cited aren't exactly comparable. The University of Toronto consistently ranks top 40 in the world. Again, not to discount other schools and what students are capable of at any institution, but "quality adjusted" I think Canada is a pretty sweet deal.

JL2010on The desktop is not dead dammit

The only time that I've ever really needed a laptop was at college. I was constantly on the go, always in a collaborative environment with others, working on projects or assignments, etc. But when I got home and needed to really hunker down and get something done, then in went the VGA cable and USB peripherals.

My Thinkpad doesn't get a whole lot of use these days, I've gone with a desktop to suit my needs and I keep the laptop around for those odd times where I travel.

JL2010on Retiring a Great Interview Problem

I had a similar question with a twist asked of me during an interview. It went something like this:

Given a list of all the short strings in the periodic table of elements (e.g. Na, F, Al, etc) and a list of all the words in the English language: 1) write a method that finds the longest possible English word you can spell given any combination of the strings in the periodic table of elements. Re-usage of elements in the same string are allowed. 2) Describe what kind of data types you would want for the two lists and describe anything special about them. 3) Give a big O estimation.

I thought it was a great question :)

JL2010on John Mayer: "Manage the Temptation to Publish Yourself"

That's more or less what I read as well. Keep his audience in mind: Berklee music students. Talented, young, bright and ambitious - he's just telling them to sort themselves out and "find themselves" first. Promotion can come after quality content.

JL2010on .NET Gadgeteer (Open Source Arduino-like devices for .NET)

I have one of GHI's budget offerings in arduino form factor, the FEZ Panda II, and I really like it. In terms of quick prototyping and debugging I think the .NET Micro-framework is a hit.

However, I don't see it being useful outside of the hobbyist/prototyping domain. The run-time environment would be considered too bloated for the purpose of simple embedded systems (by simple I mean without an OS/RTOS) and requires more expensive hardware to support it.

However, I'm quite happy using C# and the .NET libraries! I'm putting together a wireless sensor network with a coordinator that doubles as an embedded web server to control various things via a web interface :D. Development time has definitely been reduced compared to writing everything in C.

JL2010on The Higgs Boson - A one page explanation

And with that comment I'd like to share this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y Physicist Richard Feynman describes an experience where he and a fellow student visualized the elementary concept of counting in different ways... "What we're really doing is having some big translation scheme going on where we're translating what this fellow says into our images."

JL2010on Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles

As someone who interned twice at RIM during their peak (Van Halen concert peak), I got the feeling my second time around that their best people had already left after making millions off of their stock options. Some of them to start up their own projects. I'd like to see it turn around, it was a great environment when I was there, I was able to get the bulk of my experience at RIM. Sort of feels like your old elementary school is closing down :(

JL2010on Team Fortress 2 now free forever

If anyone hasn't seen this yet, I highly recommend watching this interview with Gabe Newell conducted by a high school marketing/economics class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMI0BxB0yA

Gabe Newell is a founder of Valve Software and I believe he is a true visionary in the industry. Steam would likely not be what it is today if it weren't for his leadership at Valve.

JL2010on Team Fortress 2 now free forever

I think what the OP meant was paying for their content distribution servers, not game servers.

JL2010on Tesla Roadster reaches the end of the line

The hope is, on the utility side, that the introduction of "smart grid" and "smart metering" technology will help to introduce staggered scheduling of smart appliances and devices such that they do not add significantly to peak times.

For example, if your car has implemented the ZigBee Smart Energy Profile it will connect to your smart meter (HAN network) and will know to start charging only over night (or only if it absolutely has to) when the demand for electricity is far less and most likely cheaper - after the utility implements more levels of peak pricing. We're probably a decade away from such things.