Hacker News Reader

mig39on Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

At this point, isn't Tesla another example of Chinese companies taking a product and making a better, cheaper version?

A lot of Chinese EVs are much better and cheaper than the Cybertruck.

mig39on SoundCloud has banned VPN access

Doesn't reddit block VPNs as well?

mig39on The Lost Machine Automats and Self-Service Cafeterias of NYC (2023)

If you're ever in the Netherlands, check out FEBO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO -- same kind of thing.

mig39on Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

Looking at the video, the cable looks ... fragile. Would a large bird landing on it do the same amount of damage?

Shouldn't it be thick, armoured cable, attached to a strong wire or something?

mig39on New OS aims to provide (some) compatibility with macOS

To me, it looks a lot like Uncanny Valley macOS. Yes, it's macOS, but something's just not right. Maybe the fonts don't look right, or the spacing of the icons on the dock?

mig39on Precise geolocation via Wi-Fi Positioning System

I take attendance (the old-fashioned way) in my college classes for a couple of reasons:

- Some students are "sponsored" by scholarships or organizations that request attendance data. - I want to know the attendance record for a student who is asking for an extension, or extra-credit work, or some other informal accommodation. - I like to draw fancy graphs correlating attendance and final grades.

But other than that, I don't care if students are in class or not. They're adults. Learning is their responsibility.

mig39on Precise geolocation via Wi-Fi Positioning System

It's a good sales job. Someone sold them a "high tech" solution for a problem that's already been solved. We had attendance rolls long before we had computers.

mig39on How two photographers transformed RAW photo support on Mac

This also works in quicklook. Highlight the photos (command-A for all of them), and press the spacebar. Then there's a "tile icon" that will show you all of them.

mig39on Court settlement calls for NPR to get $36M to operate US public radio system

Isn't that what they do now? They describe a lot of the IP-based transmission stuff in the link.

mig39on An official atlas of North Korea

> No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec.

I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland Railway, which was removed in the 80s.

mig39on Canadian boycott of US travel shows no sign of slowing

I used to travel to the USA at least twice a year. These days I'm off to Europe instead.

mig39on Canada loses its measles-free status, with US on track to follow

Vaccinated Albertan here.

The link states most of the outbreaks are linked to a gathering in New Brunswick, and then Southern Ontario, before eventually making its way to Alberta.

mig39on Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

> None of this is relevant because the US does not want to own Canada.

Why does your president keep saying the opposite?

mig39on Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the head of the USA has threatened on numerous occasions to invade Canada.

mig39on Show HN: A CSS-Only Terrain Generator

Both Rollercoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (which lives on in openTTD) are by the same author, and use the same engine :-)

mig39on NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown

TIL, the Goddard Institute is in the same building at the Seinfeld diner.

mig39on AI, Wikipedia, and uncorrected machine translations of vulnerable languages

> The background here is that Scots is not really a language.

This is supremely ignorant. Scots is its own language. It's a 'brother' or 'sister' of English, with both English and Scots being descendants of West Germanic languages.

The fact that many (all?) Scots speakers also speak English doesn't mean Scots not a language on its own.

You could make your exact same arguments that Irish isn't a language because you could ask a Cork taxi driver whether he knows any English.

Scots = a language with some of the same ancestors as English.

Scottish English = a dialect (and accent) of English

Scots Gaelic = another language, with the same ancestors as Irish and Manx.

mig39on Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

> I wonder if civil forfeiture will work against Trump once he's out of office.

He's only out of office if he dies. There's no way he's leaving voluntarily.

mig39on Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Sounds reasonable. This is ok for Trump to do because of Hunter Biden.

mig39on Privacy Commissioners find TikTok collected sensitive data from children

I read this earlier this year:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/google-hit-with-pri...

But I'm certain there were more similar suits in the USA. I don't think there's been one in Canada.

mig39on Privacy Commissioners find TikTok collected sensitive data from children

I hope they will apply the same standard to other social media companies.

And while they're at it, they should take a look at the data that Google collects from kids using Chrome and Chromebooks.

mig39on NYT says US special forces killed North Korean civilians in botched 2019 mission

"US special forces killed North Korean civilians in botched 2019 mission, NYT says" is the title of the article. Why is it different when submitted?

mig39on Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

Yeah, I don't think Google is the "exclusive" on either Apple OSes or Firefox. Just the default.

mig39on A media company demanded a license fee for an Open Graph image I used

Yeah, one of the tests for "Fair Dealing" exceptions to copyright in Canada is ... could you have produced you work without infringing copyright. If so, then it's not Fair Dealing.

mig39on TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale

Very cool, Krish! Hi from Fort McMurray! I'm going to use this project as an example for a Computer Science class.

mig39on Operational Apple-1 Computer for sale [video]

Yeah, the video mentions both names. Whoever made the title didn't include Wozniak, but the video definitely does.

mig39on New US visa rules will force foreign students to unlock social media profiles

I'm Canadian. Before Trump, I made several trips a year to the USA. all my vacation money was spent there. Now I go to Europe every summer instead.

Meanwhile, I recently received a survey from some industry association in the USA asking what it would take for me to return to travelling in the USA. Like asking a bunch of questions about accommodations, travel, flights, etc. Without even mentioning the obvious.

Do Americans not know how they are perceived in the rest of the world?

mig39on Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

You'll be happy to know that Imagination Library sent monthly books to my 3 Canadian kids as well! We loved every single one of them!