derstander

In some sense achieving high resolution imagery from orbit is simpler in that SAR requires motion compensation on the order of a wavelength. Planes are subject to all sorts of motion like turbulence whereas a satellite’s motion is often far more predictable. Closing the link budget can certainly be more challenging given longer ranges and size, weight, power, and cooling constraints for satellites though.

Axiom Verge

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_Verge

It’s possible you were downvoted without being answered because it’s trivial to Google “Proud Boys”. Here, I’ve just done it for you and here’s the first link: the Wikipedia page on the group —- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys

I haven't (and won't) opine on whether or not I feel those sorts of laws are reasonable: that's not the point of my original comment. The point of my comment is simply to point out that there may be restrictions in your jurisdiction and you should be aware of them. If you choose to engage in civil disobedience on this topic, that's entirely your choice. But ignorance of the law isn't a great excuse for violating it.

Note that if you’re in the US there may be some minor legal concerns regarding rainwater collection on your property. It doesn’t appear to be outright illegal anywhere, but there are nuances you may want to be aware of such as collection limits or usage limits.

In the US the press is not part of the state.

Also the swine flu was much less of a problem for the US: the CDC reported less than 13,000 deaths in the US over a one year period vs stats today of over 34,000 for COVID-19 in just a few months — despite the extra precautions taken.

I’ll preface by saying that, at the time I’m posting, there’s no clarifying information: it’s just “books vs academic papers”.

My response to that is use a well-written book to establish a solid background for the area and then use academic papers to stay abreast of new developments.

Note: I only have limited experience with ATC Radar (small number of models in the US).

Based on my experience, ATC Radar have no difficulty seeing commercial aircraft with a high probability of detection and low probability of false alarm.

Source: completed a performance assessment of several such systems in the early 2000s against their legacy counterparts using aircraft beacon systems as a source of “truth”.

If I remember to come back to this later, I’ll write a little post showing the theoretical detection performance of such a system. If you’d like to try the exercise yourself, the relevant worksheet is a Blake Chart and you can look up surrogate parameters for the Radar via checking the ASR-XX pages on Wikipedia (e.g. ASR-9 or ASR-11). Finding Radar cross sections (RCS) for commercial aircraft models is similarly straightforward. The system is logarithmic so as long as you’re in the ballpark you’ll be close.

SAR processing algorithms are available in open world academic literature (papers and books). Though I don’t know the specifics of the system in the article to know whether that specific algorithm is subject to any sort of export restrictions.

Most implementations I’ve come across are variations of the standard textbook approaches, with modifications made for computational efficiency or a little company-specific secret sauce (think proprietary techniques) thrown in.

If you’re looking for some search terms, you might try: “polar format”, “range migration”, or “tomographic backprojection”. The first two are Fourier-transform based approaches that are relatively computationally efficient. The last, in its textbook form is O(n^3) — less efficient.

I don’t know what sort of actions would fall under your definition of trying to kill e-books. But from my (admittedly unsophisticated) point of view, some publishers seem willing to at least hamstring them if it will net them more traditional sales.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775150979/you-may-have-to-wai...

One or two books a month is my target, too. I enjoy reading and, if I don’t reign in the habit, it will consume all of my free time and begin eating into time I’ve reserved for other things.

I used to tell myself that reading is a better way to spend my time than watching movies or TV. But my counterpoint is that it’s still not what I’ve made plans to do. I’ve found that limiting long-form reading to several hours a week is still enough time to get through one or two books a month.

And when I read excessively, I’ll browse my library’s currently available books until I find something. That’s in contrast with now, when I decide to read a particular book and then wait for it to become available. Though I do carry a “to-read” list and there’s usually one of those available at any given time.

I’ve been following the forums and more RAM is often requested. The Pine64 folks have stated that the SoC only supports 4GB RAM. I do wonder, though, about the utility of pairing the rather modest compute capabilities of the SoC with a large amount of RAM.

A little description of the services provided would be helpful. The name reminds me of the concept of a dead man’s switch. But it’d be cool to know a little more about it before I sign up.

The remark from Feynman may have been fair at the time, but JASON has nominated and has been joined by scientists who aren’t physicists for quite some time: certainly predating the dust-up with DARPA.

I know it probably wasn’t intended, but the proximity of those two things 1) DARPA issues and 2) Feynman on honors could be uncharitably read that DARPA wanted a broader set of disciplines that JASON refused. That’s not true.

I would trust membership of JASON to themselves vs DARPA, but that may just be my own prejudices: I think of the current DARPA as a shadow of its former (great) self without the expertise to pick JASON members without succumbing to various political pressures.

From personal experience, I can tell you the requirement referenced in this snippet feels absurd:

“Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal loan — those originated by private lenders through the now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program.”

Federal loan? Check. Working for a 503c? Check. Oh, wait — the type of federal loan you took out is the wrong kind. So you need to consolidate under this other kind. And yeah, it resets it such that none of the payments you made for the past 10 years count.

I’m lucky enough that it personally doesn’t really matter to me. I took on the loans for my education when the foregiveness program wasn’t in existence so I certainly wasn’t banking on a bailout. But the FFELP was still in existence when this program was being developed so I have no idea why those loans weren’t included.

Another important example seems to be the cavity magnetron in WWII. Developed in the UK, it provided about a thousand times more power than the klystrons the US was using at the time and let the Allies maintain a lead in radar technology: probably an important component of the Allied victory, though under appreciated by the public at large. UK designed, mass-produced in the US. The “Tizard Mission” that this was a part of sounds pretty fascinating and I’ve always told myself I’d pick up a book on it someday.

As dddddaviddddd said, it's a price tracker for Amazon. To go into a little more detail: you can enter a product name or Amazon URL and it'll show you first and third party pricing history. You can also set a price threshold on a particular product and it'll either tweet or email you when the product price drops below that point. You can even do it without signing up or logging in.

I've set notifications on a couple items that I regularly order and when they drop below a certain price I order enough in advance.

I agree — I spend about a week every quarter with the wife at a rural AirBNB without access to internet or cell phone. There are a lot of positives (to me, anyway).

We actually cook pretty much every meal so we’re eating healthier and spending that time together instead of taking turns cooking while the other works. All of the time we spend on reading short articles on the internet is shifted to things like reading full length books. Instead of watching TV, movies, or playing online games we end up indulging in arts & crafts.

I also get to do a lot more conceptual / big picture thinking whereas normally I’m just thinking about how to execute my current and upcoming tasks; I keep a notebook and it’s pretty easy to tell if I was at the AirBNB or not depending on the types of notes I was taking.

I end up feeling less harried after a week there. And my experience has not been the same for “normal” vacations (I.e. sight-seeing, visiting family/friends, etc.). Those types of breaks are important for other reasons, but they don’t have the same type of clarifying effect for me. Maybe if I were better at resisting the siren call of the internet.

Derek Yu also has a pixel art tutorial: http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutor...

I know I'm a little late to the discussion, but I think your comment might be more well-received if you were to provide evidence to support your claim about the author's financial incentivization. After reading your comment, I looked briefly at the linked article and found the author's wikipedia page. It seems as though his primary product doesn't involve sleep. Are you saying he's financially incentivized via ad revenue from his blog posts on sleep?

In any case, I guess what I'm saying is you seem to have researched the topic and your spending an extra minute or two giving a few more details will probably save a bunch of other folks ten times that, in aggregate.

> Does that mean it wasn't sustainable? Could it be due to rising minimum wage?

One recent trend that could incur additional costs for libraries would be e-books. I had always sort of assumed (without evidence) that the cost to benefit ratio for ebooks greatly favors publishers vs. consumers. I found a couple articles that suggest as much [0][1], but they do seem to be biased against ebook publishers. Does anyone have more information?

I know a library doesn't -need- to jump on the ebook bandwagon, but ebooks are one way for libraries to service a more rural clientele. I know the Boston Public Library and New York Public Library (probably among others) offer library cards -- including ebook borrowing privileges -- to all residents of the state.

[0] https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/here-is-a-breakdown... [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/why-do-libraries-pa...

Thanks for that note about the Discord server. I'd run into the same problem with the v3 documentation while participating in a few weekend game jams earlier this year. My decision was that I would simply use Phaser v2 if I were to try another game jam. I'll definitely be considering Phaser 3 again pending a quick look at the Discord server.

> In addition to that there are "left handed" inks for fountain pens that dry crazy crazy quick.

How's the feel with the quick-drying fountain pen inks? In the ballpoint arena, they just seem less enjoyable to write with -- just my opinion, though.

> My current favorite ballpoint is the Zebra F-701

Another lefty here. I like the general look of the F-701 but the plastic click mechanism bothered me. I replaced it with the click mechanism from an F-402. I also used the F-402's clip because it's plain metal without any branding. It seems to be a fairly popular mod: there are even guides online [1].

I'm not the biggest fan of the ink, though. It's not terrible, but I much prefer Uni-Ball JetStream ink. I used SXR-7 refills but had to mod each one.

I really wish I could find a nice understated pen body that takes JetStream refills. The Ti Arto is the closest thing I've found, but I'm not totally in love with how it looks and I'd like to be for >$50.

I switched back to just using Uni-Ball JetStream 101s because I write a lot and it was a hassle to mod each refill. They don't feel as nice as the 701 and they certainly look a bit cheap. On the upside, I don't worry about losing them, though.

[1] https://clickypost.com/blog/2015/2/1/how-to-hack-the-zebra-f...

I’m not trying to be obtuse. Some cursory searching suggests that Pichai grew up in India — which does have freedom of speech. They do have more restrictions than the US, though the US has some restrictions as well; I was familiar with the “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” metaphor but only recently learned that it came from a case where SCOTUS held that “Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting service of the U.S. armed forces during a state of war.” My gut reaction is to find suppression of that sort of speech objectionable because it’s political.

I’m just wondering what countries you consider to be free and where you draw the line when you say one country has freedom of speech and another does not given that both have some restrictions. It seems as though you are saying that the US is free and India is not. Which side of the line do countries in Western Europe fall? Is the US alone in its freedom?

I was wondering the same thing myself. I know it's unscientific / biased, but I usually take a quick peak at the Amazon reviews. Here's the summary, in case it helps anyone else:

- Programming Voice Interfaces = no reviews

- Mobile App Development with Ionic = 3.5 stars (3 reviews)

- JSON at Work = no reviews

- Refactoring JavaScript = 5 stars (2 reviews)

- CSS Refactoring = 4 stars (4 reviews)

- Interactive Data Visualization for the Web = 5 stars (16 reviews)

- Learning React Native = 5 stars (2 reviews)

- Learning HTTP/2 = 4.5 stars (7 reviews)

- SVG Animations = 4.5 stars (8 reviews)

- Working with Static Sites = no reviews

- React Native Cookbook = no reviews

- CSS: The Definitive Guide = 5 stars (13 reviews)

- Using SVG with CSS3 and HTML5 = 5 stars (1 review)

- Learning React = 4 stars (22 reviews)

- High Performance Images = 5 stars (1 review)

The sample size of reviews for most of the books is a little limited, but I'm planning on picking up the bundle at the $15 level anyway -- CSS: The Definitive Guide is well-reviewed (and expensive by itself).

I agree. Having grown up in a rural area near raccoons and eastern coyotes, I definitely prefer the latter. I don't _know_ why, but if I were to wager a guess it's probably because they remind me of dogs. Maybe an unconscious bias shared by a lot of people thanks to the domestication of the dog.

Raccoons, in my experience, definitely seem intelligent. I think the author just needs a proxy for a villain. I can't be alone in thinking that the author has chosen poorly; the fault he finds in the coyote is, by his own admission, not shared by the raccoon. The raccoon is successful in both the mini- and meta-games.

I'm not sure if you're using the strict philosophical definition of rationalist or not (the "requiring evidence" phrasing makes me think not -- that would apply to empiricists, not that they're mutually exclusive though they were at odds in the past). If you are, I'd suggest that the body of early Buddhist work contains lines of thought that aren't dissimilar from Plato who was most definitely a rationalist.

If you're using the term in a more general sense, then social science provides evidence for the efficacy of various Buddhist practices (e.g. mindfulness). I know the state of affairs in the social sciences are suboptimal (e.g. the replication crisis) but it's the body of knowledge we have to work with now.

I've been trying to learn a bit more JavaScript myself. I'm an engineer by trade but I've worked on some web applications, so I have some practical experience with JavaScript (for typical front-end as well as with Meteor for full-stack). Despite that practical experience, I didn't feel that I had a solid understanding of JavaScript outside of libraries and frameworks.

I'm personally going through Haverbeke's "Eloquent JavaScript" -- both reading the chapters and completing all of the exercises. The 2nd Edition is written with ES5 in mind, the 3rd with ES6. The latter is only available online currently -- a print edition is stated to be in the works.

To practice my JavaScript, I joined a couple game jams where I used Phaser to build a couple small games over the course of a couple weekends. It was a mixed bag: I felt that I was learning the nuances of Phaser rather than strengthening my general JavaScript knowledge. I've been trying to replicate the "immersion" experience with JavaScript, though I've only been able to use it for personal projects at home: I can't use it at work (we build our analysis tools in MATLAB or Python, there's little experience in our group in JavaScript, and JavaScript is not typically used in our discipline).

[1] http://eloquentjavascript.net/

But security researchers don't exist in a vacuum: they're part of larger society. If the security researcher subgroup has a code of ethics that diverges too far from the popular perception of what their code of ethics should be, I could see popular pressure to bring them into alignment (all the way up to using the legal system).

I'm not saying the non-security researcher users on HN have an opinion representative of the public as a whole, but this comment and a previous question asking another user what security research they've published may point to such an ethics disconnect between security researchers and the broader populace -- or simply a disregard for the concerns of the broader populace. I think it would be beneficial for security researchers (or any professional group) to listen to ethics concerns of the broader group they're a part of.

On another note, I would also assert that abusive actions by vendors do not excuse abusive actions by researchers (and vice-versa).