Hacker News Reader

texanon Purple dye extracted from sea snails made the Phoenicians rich traders (2020)

While this article focuses on Nouira’s rediscovery of this process, much research has been done on how to consistently create specific colors long before his quest began. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekhelet

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/w...

texanon Holding on to negative emotions can have a lasting impact on your well-being

Based on this paper:

Linking Amygdala Persistence to Real-World Emotional Experience and Psychological Well-Being

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2021/03/15/JNEUROSCI...

texanon Pure Skill Minesweeper

Does not take all manners of deduction into account.

For instance if there are a 10 unknown spots left on the board, and only two mines left with an unknown location, so there I can limit the the spots that potentially have a mine to the two sets of two spots adjacent to specific numbers, and thus deduce that the uncovered spot adjacent to only uncovered spots must not be a mine.

In such a scenario, the game penalized for me a deduction that it though was a guess. Causing the game to end, but it was impossible for that spot to be a mine!

texanon Cold-war-style suspicion of Chinese-American and Chinese academics

"A month after resigning, she left her husband and two children in the US and took a job as dean of a school of public health in Shanghai."

Where does her family now live? This seems to say she got a divorce and moved to China?

texanon Jabra: we know our Bluetooth headsets don’t work with laptops

"Wait, are you saying the headset can’t connect to a computer via native Bluetooth? And you knew it the whole time? While you asked me to try a different device, to update drivers, to install Jabra software, to meet with your technician… You were just trying to wear me down?!?"

This encapsulates what is most wrong and abhorrent about US customer service. This methodology is employed by thousands of companies, it is ingrained in the culture of their customer service reps. It is a "Never Back Down" attitude. They will consistently string a desperate customer along, through a maze of reps and procedures, knowing that the customer is more likely to burn out and give up before realizing that the road they are being led down does not result in resolution of the issue.

There are companies that do not engage in such behavior, yet they are primarily B2B rather than consumer facing, and usually in regard to items that are being purchased in the dollar range of tens and hundreds of thousands.

texanon iPhones are hard to use

"Seriously advanced security features like two-factor authentication (which kind? Apple offers two) are exactly the sort of thing only experts who don’t need them will ever set up."

Hmm. This is a reflection of the author's bias towards not having the features he likes on the Iphone be more in your face, and the features he finds annoying are labelled as useless.

The two factor ID, is there as a CYA for Apple, so they won't have to deal with the fallout of their users' accounts being compromised. Those are the types of features prioritized and forced. The same goes for touch ID, in addition to it making new purchases a seamless and more effortless process, it also helps deal with chargebacks and the like. When I use touch ID to call a Lyft, I have esseentially 'signed' the CC receipt of that transaction.

The other features he finds annoying, may be annoying to many people, but those are key features that most people would otherwise not turn on, and as a result have a poor experience with wifi. the list goes on.

texanon Habits of Highly Miserable People

Should be titled: How To Drive Yourself To Suicide

texanon Another Day, Another 50M ICO Exit Scam

I wonder how long before he is in prison or killed.

It wouldn’t have gotten all this publicity if he hadnt exited in a taunting manner. How many other ICOs out there have done the same thing and not blown up?

texanon What Kind of Dog Is It – Using TensorFlow on Mobile Device (2016)

What Dog A Microsoft Garage Project by Microsoft Corporation https://appsto.re/us/OE1M-.i

texanon Spam and Fake News Appearing in Google News

texanon Yellow Fever – Once Again on the Radar Screen in the Americas

I wonder how this will affect the cost and availability of the yellow fever vaccine in the us.

texanon B&H forced Hispanic workers to use separate bathroom: feds

This did resurface recently. As of January, they are moving their warehouse to NJ.

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170113/navy-yard/bh-photo...

texanon Rudolf Kálmán Has Died

It's interesting that there is close to none of any personal background or information available on the interwebs.

texanon Amazon's Alexa is the new Vaudeville

I find it interesting that the author completely looks over Cortana when listing the various voice assistants. Cortana is perhaps the most widespread voice assistant, it being on almost every windows pc.

texanon Improve your touch typing

I would like to see an option to type in languages other that read from right to left. My English typing is alright but when I have to deal with foreign characters, Arabic or Hebrew, it really slows me down.

Is that a possibility, or would the algorithms and systems in place not work with those languages?

texanon Passcard

I assume it is no coincidence that I read about this on the same day that Microsoft published that Microsoft Passport will be integrated in their new browser.

texanon Microsoft Debuts Office Lens, a Document-Scanning App for iOS and Android

This app has been around on the WP platform for a while. It stores the images as pictures which are accessible from the app. I never really understood what ws so great about it.

Hopefully, with their putting it out on other OS's they will have cleaned it up.

texanon Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life

And the flat screen TV? It seems to me that this family has many issues, one of them being how to prioritize. One would think that someone struggling at that level would sell the TV, and get books from the library for entertainment. How many of the kids have phones? I know of several upper-middle-class families where the kids have to earn their own money to buy get a cell.

A culture of independence.

texanon [dead]

And... it's back up!

texanon [dead]

I am currently logged in to outlook, and can access microsoft.com, but Xbox.com is still down.

texanon [dead]

An employee at the Microsoft Store support line said that they were undergoing a system update. I wonder if that is connected. Either way, bad choice of a date for a system update considering the official Xbox One launch tonight.

texanon Game of chess

???

texanon Google releases 'sneak peek' of Glass app development kit

http://allthingsd.com/20131119/new-google-glass-apps-will-tr...

Here is another example of tech that Microsoft's R&D developed, but never fully polished, that Google will bring to market, and make it a useful function, not a fanbase one.

texanon Snapchat Sees More Daily Photos Than Facebook

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/19/snapchat-users-upload...

Is Sanapchat being overhyped? it is a little ridiculous to consider it 'safe to be silly', with every modern smartphone have a screenshot option

texanon Sony PlayStation 4 Defects Linked to Tampering by Foxconn Interns

It seems that Sony has narrowed the damaged units to those sold by Amazon. Hmm. With Amazon being one of the biggest shippers in the country, it is strange to see that they haven't got their system down pat.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/19/amazon-accused-of-bre...

texanon [dead]

wolframalpha.com/examples/Surprises.html

I guess these are just examples. Not a complete list.