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ccamrobertson

1,287 karma · joined March 2, 2009

Founded Lockitron (prev), Arx Research, Inc.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/ccamrobertson; my proof: https://keybase.io/ccamrobertson/sigs/M6XNRcRemSoA86SE-NEcS3ju8v2bveHQ65LI8cCrR1c ]

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ccamrobertson··on Raspberry Pi blocks changing RAM chips
It feels like there could be a middle ground here where the Pi would show some annoying error message at boot that the RAM doesn't match the CPU's anticipated spec.

Any sellers caught doing this would quickly be flagged by the community as unreliable; also purchase protection is pretty strong these days.

ccamrobertson··on Starlink Signal Leakage Threatens Radio Astronomy's Most Critical Frequencies
While I pine for a dark sky, it makes sense that these operations should move in the same way century old optical telescopes in cities are no longer used for cutting edge science.

The far side of the moon seems like an increasingly viable option.

ccamrobertson··on Make a Portable Wide-screen Mechanical TV
The electromechanical television got me in trouble with my 5th grade teacher. When she stated that television dated to the 1940s, I (obnoxiously) had to correct her that in fact it was invented the late 1920s as I had seen one of the original Baird televisions in the British Museum.

I wish there was a photo of the writer's setup, I would love to see a modern version in action.

ccamrobertson··on Why HPSC Is a Big Deal for Space Exploration
The PDF linked in the article provides much more information on the technical details: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hpsc-white-p...
ccamrobertson··on Chartreuse, a case study in how scarcity and authenticity can drive desirability
...and I still make the Last Word with subbed-in Génépy des Alpes to this day.
ccamrobertson··on Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
I think a lot of these concepts are fun/interesting, but I like that email today functions more like a mailbox than WhatsApp or Telegram. Whilst digital (or paper) spam is obnoxious I dislike the idea of binning every sender into a "unread" box until I approve them. I miss unreads all the time across apps like X and Telegram.

As a first step I would focus on something like broad S/MIME support. Unfortunately I suspect that the biggest email providers are disincentivized from doing this as it would disrupt their business models.

ccamrobertson··on Tell HN: Namecheap gave my account to an unverified third party
As someone still smarting from the loss of Google Domains, I would consider this advice carefully.

When domains are not the profit center the company might just arbitrarily turn them off as a feature.

ccamrobertson··on OS9Map
This is really cool, time to dust off an old PowerPC. I've been thinking about building apps for old Mac OS versions for a while with the advent of LLMs, glad to see someone is doing it.
ccamrobertson··on Taxonomy of the Occlupanida (parasitoids on bread bag tags)
Yes, same. I am now really curious for someone to culture bread tags, milk tops and fruit stickers.
ccamrobertson··on How JPL keeps the 13-year-old Curiosity rover doing science
...and further imagine the science that could be done if we mass manufactured probes rather than using experimental engineering for each one. We could have had dozens of Voyager probes in the outer reaches of our solar system by now.

I would have loved to see more Huygens probes dropped to the surface of Titan or more New Horizons zoom past Pluto.

I don't think human spaceflight is to blame, rather it's what connects taxpayers to space exploration as an inspirational human pursuit. But, I do agree that can be more efficient with how we spend those dollars all around.

ccamrobertson··on AI is slowing down
Agreed. Phrases like "journalists are currently gooning over OpenAI and Anthropic" really put me off. It's a poor attempt at modern muckraking; cheeky yet offering little substance.
ccamrobertson··on US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
It's difficult to take articles like this seriously when they use hyperbole like "...the most evil industry the planet has ever seen [oil]", never mind things like chattel slavery.

I don't own an EV and am sympathetic to the idea that other road users are far more damaging and thus should pay more, however, I would much prefer a flat tax over some insidious Federal tracking device that monitors how much I drive.

ccamrobertson··on Infrasound waves stop kitchen fires, but can they replace sprinklers?
Worse yet, you might not have a choice; the article notes that “sprinklers are already required in all new California homes built in 2011 and later.”
ccamrobertson··on Your phone is about to stop being yours
I've found that releasing and maintaining production Android apps has become more difficult in the last decade as compared to iOS which (surprisingly) has improved slightly.

Google Play removed a perfectly functional NFC utility app we released after a year of no updates (despite the fact that it didn't require any to work on the latest Android version at the time). By contrast, the App Store doesn't care as long as we continue to pay the annual developer fee.

We opted to open source the app and let users sideload the app as an alternative; now that will be far more difficult as we are no longer "verified" Google Play developers.

Really unfortunate, glad I'm not an Android user myself.

ccamrobertson··on Universal Founders
Make rice and beans, accept founders, hire batch partners and launch founders via demo day...to take over the universe.
ccamrobertson··on The chess bot on Delta Air Lines will destroy you (2024) [video]
United sadly removed games from its in-flight entertainment so I can no longer trounce 6 year old Magnus.
ccamrobertson··on Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices
One simple solution here (and for all sorts of legislated fines and thresholds) would be to tie them to inflation; it looks like the fine of $5,000 dates to the early 90s.
ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Zenode – an AI-powered electronic component search engine
I'm playing with modifying a BitAxe design (https://github.com/bitaxeorg) by allowing for more chips on a single board. It's theoretically pretty simple, but locating a buck that can handle the current I want to support is tricky!
ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Zenode – an AI-powered electronic component search engine
I'm toying around with a custom board and searching here is far better than shuffling through the old Digikey filters. Awesome!
ccamrobertson··on Starlink in the Falkland Islands – A national emergency situation?
Huh, an arbitrary tax from a remote sovereign. Sounds familiar.
ccamrobertson··on Launch HN: Karsa (YC W25) – Buy and save stablecoins internationally
Congratulations on the launch! Stablecoins are a powerful use of blockchains and it’s great to see a novel means of distributing them.

A lot of commenters on HN are deeply biased against anything to do with blockchain, so best to ignore the noise here and keep shipping.

ccamrobertson··on YC X25, the spring 2025 batch
Honestly, X is such a cool prefix I would opt for this batch. It sounds like you are part of some skunkworks batch.

The "F" batches are a bit confusing due to the YC Fellowships eons ago whichd I recall were prefixed with "F" as well.

ccamrobertson··on I got a heat pump and my energy bill went up
I've heard about these systems, and they indeed sound really cool. Unfortunately living in a 50 year old home with a patchwork of poorly sized ducts, no attic and a tiny crawlspace this will never be economical for me to do.
ccamrobertson··on I got a heat pump and my energy bill went up
I want the nuclear future with practically emission free power that's 'too cheap to meter'. I want to stop caring about SEER ratings and be able to leave windows cracked all seasons to bring in fresh air. I want power companies that keep brush and trees away from their lines.

Until that happens, I'll hang onto my gas furnace and water heaters.

ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
Coins get you into more trouble than cards :)
ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
No, great question. We offer an open source SDK library that can interface with chips today (https://github.com/arx-research/libhalo) and will open source the web app.

Both would allow you to interact with Burner entirely offline as well if you use it for cold storage — libHaLo can easily be used with an off the shelf NFC reader through its CLI interface.

ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
Maybe, but our first customers are people who want to gift crypto.
ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
It turns out that many people don’t spend the gift cards designated for specific retailers, but rather trade or sell them for cash in their local market.
ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
Good question.

We’ve spoken to a lot of people who have done this, and more often than not the recipient in the midst of some life event doesn’t imbue a QR code with value (and loses it/throws it away).

ccamrobertson··on Show HN: Burner – A low cost wallet to gift crypto
Burner comes with a pre-generated key or you can request that it generate a new key with entropy you supply (in part, it's hashed with entropy from multiple sources). In both cases you always need to trust the hardware, but this is true with any hardware wallet.

I would always recommend using a multisig for storing large amounts of funds regardless of the wallet vendor.

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