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coolnow

371 karma · joined June 1, 2012

I like hardware, software and hosting.
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coolnow··on To Become Wise, Do Less
What do you define as successful? Purely by financial success or does it include a good work/family life balance with kids etc?
coolnow··on Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria
As with most things, humans are generally predictable. People in every generation will feel like their own society threatened in one form or another.

I'm not afraid of change - i grew up around technology during the 90s where we played outside every day and consider myself "up to date" wrt the current zeitgeist. I firmly believe technology (especially space tech) is the way forward but i still have reservations about the current sate of social media due to the effects on the psyche i see in people in my life. But that's just my experience.

coolnow··on Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria
I normally don't post here but i just wanted to say that i've noticed the same thing around me and have also felt the crushing depression that comes with the realisation that everyone is addicted to something that's destroying the very fabric of our society.

And your point about fixing loneliness through a painful but personal journey is spot on. If it doesn't hurt, you're not really doing it properly.

Go out and meet new people, talk about new ideas and remember that all storms will pass.

coolnow··on I quit social media and now I want a cigarette
You mean Marlboro Red Long and die?
coolnow··on No human genome has ever been completely sequenced
I'm not sure how many they've actually sold but i do know that they have a loan/test program where you can pay a relatively small amount (around $2000 or less) to get set up with a MinION kit. The main recurring cost is the flow cell. I'm currently trying to figure out how to join together short multiplexed samples (150bp - 200bp) and get it sequenced on the MinION. Current short-read sequencers from Illumina or ThermoFisher cost orders of magnitude more than Oxford Nanopore's offering. Hopefully someone else is trying to use the platform for short reads.
coolnow··on BeagleBone Blue – A complete, Linux-enabled robotics computer
Then maybe remove and replace the special characters?
coolnow··on Scientists Talk Privately About Creating a Synthetic Human Genome
There are too many, rarely understood processes involved in fertilisation and subsequent embryogenesis. I don't think we can fully create a human (or even other complex life forms) fully synthetically. Rather, i think scientists would just exploit tried and tested natural mechanisms such as embedding half of the synthetic genome into the spermatazoon with the other half residing in the oocyte and letting "nature" take its course.

There's just too much knowledge we're missing right now (even the calcium signalling cascade initiated by the sperm fusing with the egg isn't fully understood). Of course, who knows where we'd be in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years?

coolnow··on Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available
Am i correct in assuming that getting peer reviewed binds you to their terms, one of which must be to disallow other means of distribution?

I know at uni, our tutors told us to politely email researchers for a copy in case our subscription didn't cover their research. I didn't bother with this as booksc (libgen) and sci-hub are faster.

Reminds me of the pre-netflix era.

coolnow··on Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available
Is it possible for you to release a PDF/LaTeX source via other means?
coolnow··on Adam
Anyone else reminded of the Metal Gear Solid series? The cutscenes (especially in MGSV) had the same exact shaky cam and overall feel in this clip.
coolnow··on Why people keep trying to erase the Hollywood sign from Google Maps (2014)
It gives you directions to Hollywood, Worcestershire (UK).
coolnow··on Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Automatic Spying Cannot Be Stopped
>Why do you care about spyware if games are more important?

I use my Windows machine for gaming only, whereas the rest of my computing is split between my MacBook and iPad.

coolnow··on Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Automatic Spying Cannot Be Stopped
Okay, tell me how i can play all my Steam games then (no, not just the Source Engine ones).
coolnow··on Murder in the Alps
Not to mention the auto playing video ad that played in full screen on my iPhone.
coolnow··on 402: Payment Required
>Do you ask for a refund when you bought a newspaper and, after reading it, you don't like what you read?

No, because i know what to expect from different newspapers and in the very very rare cases where i buy them, i do that only after skimming the front and relevant pages.

>Do you ask for a refund when you bought an app on the app store and you stop using it after 1 hour because it doesn't fit your need?

Yes, all the time.

What's your point?

coolnow··on New Chromecast 2015
That only happens when you factory reset (and with less apps than that) or you upgrade to another big version, doesn't it?
coolnow··on Cybiko
I wish it was still possible to buy one relatively cheap in the UK. This was a big part of my childhood. Me and my siblings would communicate with each other around the house and even with neighbours down the block. So many memories.
coolnow··on Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief
Probably the fact that she's relatively new and seen as an outside by most in the community who wants to "ban behaviour" yet goes after ideas (see: /r/fatpeoplehate drama, while subreddits like /r/coontown and other racist shitholes were allowed to stay). Their stance on brigading that seems to not apply to /r/shitredditsays. People seemingly shadowbanned for speaking their minds. Her lawsuit (that she rightly lost) against her former employer where she claimed her gender was the reason she wasn't promoted?

Pao was the face of reddit as CEO and had to rightly "face the music", not because she's a woman. I find it incredible to see things boiled down to "they hate her cuz she's a gurl".

coolnow··on Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief
Uhm, how? Although there were lots of trolls just looking to rile people up, a lot of the criticisms about her allegedly snubbing other females for promotions and baseless lawsuits that amounted to the same exact figure her fraud of a husband was being hounded for were perfectly valid. Or are all those forgiven because she has a vagina?
coolnow··on Did you buy that latte 2 hours ago? Think about leaving the coffee shop
>UX/UI failure on the part of the coffee shop

I know this is HN, but is it necessary to shoehorn computer references into situations where it's not needed?

coolnow··on Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin
Reddit still has those subs about beating women and lynching black people, right? Get over yourself, voat is better than every single example you listed.
coolnow··on Ask HN: Has political correctness in tech gone too far?
I feel the same way you do, especially the part about white males being attacked most of the time. And i'm not even white.
coolnow··on How Naughty Dog Fit Crash Bandicoot into 2MB of RAM on the PS1
Thank you so much for this. MGS is my all time favourite series and i spent countless hours on the PS1 version and also the Integral version on PC.
coolnow··on NirCmd – a multipurpose Windows command line tool
Just wanted to drop in and say Nirsoft are wizards and i've been using their tools for a decade now without any problems.
coolnow··on U.S. GDP Shrank in Q1 2015
"$0.10/hr, people would be still lined for blocks to take the job when the alternative is nothing."

Are you serious? You could find more money on the floor than work at a job like that.

coolnow··on Did I ever mention that I fucking hate the fucking web
No, because the 5 year old phone is broken.
coolnow··on Did I ever mention that I fucking hate the fucking web
On a Nexus 5, sure, it works. Both Mac and PC. Sister's Moto G, same thing.

Once on my Nexus 5 i got an error about copying a folder with lots of contents (some kind of backup i did i think). It forced me to archive it via a file manager on the phone and then transfer that instead. Only happened once though, and on Mac, which needs a standalone app to communicate with the device.

coolnow··on Did I ever mention that I fucking hate the fucking web
You can't blame the (quite old) phone for being difficult when one of the main interfaces is broken. And there are many apps that let you explore your phone via wifi instead of using Kies. Just searching "wifi file transfer" or "wifi file manager" gives you plenty of hits.
coolnow··on Microsoft Surface Hub
Yes i do, and i also remember when they didn't release it for the wider market.
coolnow··on Microsoft Surface Hub
Why? I think it was pretty clear that the Surface brand is Microsoft's entry into touch-based computing, which this product also heavily utilises. But hey, i'm not the typical obtuse HN reader.
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