News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

johnwalkr

Re:Getting debug access on a Brother printer over Telnet on Friday October 30, 2026 @07:27AM (#50302511)
The kinematics seems harder but the material handling of paper, ink jets, and laser fusing process are all difficult compared to an extruder and require pretty specialized parts.

Aside from making a pen plotter, it would be very difficult to make an open source 2D printer. A 3D printer is an enabler of this, but I would think to be feasible you would have to at least find a popular "business end" of the printer to reuse. There is a project called "openprinter" that is attempting to make an open source inkjet printer but it's really early days.

Re:H.264 Is Magic on Friday October 30, 2026 @07:14AM (#50302396)
It depends but I think it's really rare that "all images shall be downlinked as raw, maximum resolution" is a good idea. But this is a pretty common request to "not lose data". It doesn't make it into the final product, but it is a common request early on in a project. Now keeping storing as raw and being able to download a a cropped raw image later, that is a good idea.
Re:H.264 Is Magic on Thursday October 29, 2026 @03:30PM (#50294533)
I've shared this article many times. I work in space and the vast majority of the time, new people insist that all images should be raw. After all, you go to great expense to get somewhere in the name of science, you don't want to discard any information. And that's true in some cases but typically not for a whole mission or even a whole image if you can crop a specific part. Usually 100 or 1000 images instead of one is more valuable even if the compression is lossy.

That's just image compression though. Very few space-grade cameras support video compression. In a lot of cases it works well even though you think you're after a series of still images.

Re:Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11 on Monday October 26, 2026 @07:36PM (#50252716)
Sorry for the loss, are you able to keep her high score saved too?

I wanted old school MS solitaire in windows 11 since the modern version has ads and extra useless features. I found that the Windows XP version works without hassle. Earlier versions aren't really different but I forget if I tried to run earlier versions. One quirk: however the winning animation is programmed, it takes almost 20 minutes to complete on a very wide monitor[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78z2zlwV-XQ

Re:Every US Electrical Outlet Explained [video] on Monday October 12, 2026 @05:01AM (#50053456)
British and Schuko are both relatively huge. Even the 2-prong europlug that small electronics use, that also can be installed in a Schuko outlet, often make the European version of things like usb-c chargers significantly larger than the US version. I live in Europe but travel a lot. For all small electronics I try to get a Japanese or US version, and then use a small adapter. For travel, a US usb-c charger plus EU adapter is smaller than an EU usb-c charger plus US adapter. British-style outlets can also be coaxed to take a europlug, not that I would advise anyone to do that.
Re:'Jonathan' Is the Oldest Land Animal on Earth on Friday October 09, 2026 @04:08AM (#50017503)
In the same sketch there's also an option for a man in a gorilla suit to come to your workplace and rip out your "hair" in one go.
Re:'Jonathan' Is the Oldest Land Animal on Earth on Thursday October 08, 2026 @08:11AM (#50004864)
It's not what you meant but toupees have gotten really good, the only problem is you can't be a public figure and have pattern baldness one day and a full head of hair the next. There's actually something called "the toupee fallacy" which means assuming an entire category of something is bad based on only noticing bad examples.
I looked it up yesterday and they have the ECU in the loop for the driving simulators (the ones the drivers practice with and that are used for checking mechanical changes). But these use empirical models, they can't simulate everything. You would have to get a lot right in the models and top of that know where to test edge cases and then simulate all inputs correctly for those. You can surely input yesterday's weather conditions but whatever model is there might not predict an output that goes to the next model and so on..

I'm sure there's also all kinds of other HIL testing but it comes down to thinking about all conditions and having models and tests that are realistic enough for those conditions. It's impossible to have perfect coverage.

It's probably kind of lucky that enough cars were impacted so that the issue was revealed instead of having a just a few cars knocked out of the race.

There’s room for debate but automated safety features on a racetrack isn’t like having them for normal highway driving. What if an edge case isn’t found in testing and automatic braking causes a crash instead of prevents it? How do you consider all edge cases when there’s 22 cars driving at 300km/h?

Aside from that it’s preposterous to think the FIA wants crashes or less safety. A large chunk of regulations are for safety and historically the drivers fight against many of the safety measures (in other words, FIA is historically not the ones blocking safety measures).

The simulators have the ECU in the loop but of course most of the inputs are simulated and they come from models for car dynamics and all kinds of behavior that have a lot of correlations and assumptions built in. As in a flight sim, some of the models are empirical (more like curve-fitting than simulation of physics). Losing power in straights is something a team would be highly motivated to see predicted in the simulator as that’s within normal conditions. But it’s not surprising the simulator can’t predict some edge cases, you’d need to get a lot of things right in the modeling and think of weird inputs.

What they probably could do yesterday, on top of checking a ton of telemetry, is understand which inputs were weird and put those into a simulator and get some hints for the FIA to work with. If you’re not aware, the FIA provides the ECU to all teams so that the telemetry used to check compliances and power modes are fair across all teams, and things like traction control are not there. This is why the FIA had to provide the firmware update.

Re:Doing a Machine Learning PhD While Working in Japan on Friday October 02, 2026 @09:48AM (#49933493)
I had no idea they were ending this program. I had a MEXT scholarship for a PhD in aerospace engineering. In my case I tried the recommendation via school first and didn't get it even though I did have a letter from a Professor. By coincidence a year later I had an internship in Japan with another Professor and with his support I got into the program via the embassy route.

Your experience mostly tracks with mine, but in my case there was a lot of interaction between Japanese and foreign students, and international journal and conference submissions were preferred. Many courses were offered in English and those that weren't, I could do homework and tests in English. Thesis had to be in English, even for Japanese students. It was a goal of the program to also help Japanese students get comfortable with international collaboration and working in English.

In my case I stayed in Japan for a decade and it was overall a very good experience.

One note about working as a student in Japan. You can work up to 28 hours a week without limitations as you noted. You can even work remotely for a foreign company, which is unique because if you have a work visa and freelance in Japan either as your main job, or a side job, your main client is supposed to be Japanese. This is a slightly grey area, your taxes are to be paid in Japan, and the company will be "operating in Japan" so be very careful about doing this by the books.

Re:56k.rip – the 1996 dial-up internet experience on Wednesday September 30, 2026 @11:14PM (#49917297)
I fondly remember the text of pages loading almost instantly over dialup, and then over time images popped in. If you were lucky the author included image sizes, so elements didn't resize and move around.

A modern website has so many round-trip things happening for ads, tracking, and whatever goes on behind the scenes for frameworks and services are used. A lot of this is multiple round trips and blocking so you have to wait to start reading, and if something times out the website fails to load.

Between about 2012 and 2020 I had a mobile phone plan that throttled to 100kbps when I ran out of data (which was often). Throughout that time google search and hackernews worked at that speed normally, but in that time period the percentage of websites that fail to ever load changed from about 25% to virtually 100%.

Re:My Recent Woodworking Projects on Sunday September 27, 2026 @10:53PM (#49873035)
It's even more important when it comes to heads. You can look up the rules in your region and for your application. Slats in homemade bunk beds and cribs have killed a lot of kids.
Re:Replacing the old battery on rechargeable bike lights on Sunday September 27, 2026 @10:36PM (#49872920)
Seconding point 3a. I think many people assume brighter is better and also assume they can't possibly be dangerously blinding bright compared to a car's headlights or even deliberately want to fight back against headlights. But despite how bright and poorly aimed a lot of headlights are, a small light with literally no cutoff can be even worse. You could make it so a pedestrian can't see a car, or make it so a driver can't see a pedestrian.

Plus it's annoying. I was in a French city a while ago with a very nice pedestrian area full of outdoor tables. It's so nice to sit for dinner and look out at the surrounding old buildings, canal, people going by. Unfortunately every 30s or so you get blinded by the lights of a cheap scooter.

Re:My Weird New Hobby: Wandering Around Tokyo on Google Maps on Thursday September 24, 2026 @10:58PM (#49839700)
The thing that people can't put their finger on about pictures of Tokyo is lack of cars parked on the street. It makes so many pictures timeless, especially if there are few people in view.
Re:iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 on Tuesday September 15, 2026 @10:24AM (#49713029)
The best part is when you click on or press enter when you see "chess", but this is just as "cheese.com" is appearing so you open that instead.
Well the "native syllabary" is derived from Chinese characters, it's not something that was there and then Chinese characters were shoehorned in later.

I think at some early point most Japanese learners (that don't already know a Chinese language) think kanji should be dropped. And at a later point I think most would change their mind as the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Re:Reverse Engineering My ADHD Test on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @09:37AM (#49521871)
As I said getting a diagnosis varies by region and doctor. A lot. It's practically impossible in some countries. And also depending on region or personal circumstances, it may not be easy to find another doctor or psychiatrist. Also note that in many countries, only a psychiatrist can diagnose it. Even if diagnosed, you might live in a region where most medicine for ADHD is illegal or have a doctor that won't prescribe them. If you just get disbelief after 6 months of waiting, and after another 6 months just get told stimulants are bad, you might give up.

If you search (eg reddit) for ADHD adult diagnosis, it is filled with horror stories. There's even lots of posts of people diagnosed and medicated for 20+ years that move to another country and can't get a prescription. Or you get a prescription, but the pharmacy won't dispense it or insurance won't pay for it. A typical post on these topics also has one or more people responding "I'm in the same place and it was easy" but also has one or more people responding "I'm in the same place and I tried for 3 years before giving up". By the way, it's also common for women to have more trouble getting a diagnosis compared to male siblings and friends with the same symptoms.

One interesting thing about riding a bike is that to turn right, you must initially turn the handlebars to the left (called countersteering). This is subconscious, not explicitly taught and virtually everyone disbelieves this at first when told. But it's something that needs to "click" in order to ride a bike. It's the reason it is so hard to ride a carnival trick bike with a gear added to reverse the handlebar/steering relationship; you don't consciously know how to change your input. There's even some videos by bike youtubers that learn to ride a bike with reverse steering, including the subconscious countersteering part. When they switch back to a normal bike, it once again takes time to relearn.

To relate this back to the comment thread, people don't even always know the full extent of what they have learned.

Re:Reverse Engineering My ADHD Test on Monday August 31, 2026 @09:07PM (#49516741)
I think I get your point. It's cruel to require Kafkaesque testing and that just makes it not worth it try. But too simple of a test can also misdiagnose.

The chance to be diagnosed with an appropriate gate varies greatly based on where you live and which doctor you can see and more. It can be anything from a 5 minute conversation, to 6 months of inconvenience, to no chance of even existing in your lifetime, to suck it up and don't ask because your career will end.

Re:Reverse Engineering My ADHD Test on Monday August 31, 2026 @08:30PM (#49516510)
I want to add that the comment is also funny to me because it and the blog post are very relatable to me. I don't mean to dismiss it at all. It's really important to get a good diagnosis for anything like this and not dismiss it or lock into the wrong diagnosis because of your own tunnel vision.

You wrote "the test is quick, easy, and painless" but I also want to note that it's not always. Depending on your country, parents, specific doctor, etc it can be very difficult to get a proper diagnosis and help. In some places a big criteria is diagnosis during childhood so if you're 30 or 40 you might have no chance. Or a chance but it depends on your parents retroactively answering a questionnaire, or finding an old report card with the right words.

As you said it's life changing to get the right help and I encourage everyone to pursue this.

Re:Reverse Engineering My ADHD Test on Monday August 31, 2026 @08:06PM (#49516347)
I have a question (and please take it in jest)! In between buying a telescope, seeking out an opinion on ADHD, accidentally hacking an online test, and then blogging about it, how many things on your todo list(s) did you not do?
Re:Reverse Engineering My ADHD Test on Monday August 31, 2026 @08:02PM (#49516317)
This comment is so funny to me, because I imagine you being distracted to make the comment before making it to the end where the psych did indeed review the new results.

Well I only know that because I skipped to the end. Then, while scrolling up I realised I missed the whole side-quest about promising to not cheat the test again, taking the test again, but then "accidentally" finding an exploit the system, and then cheating the test again, but this time cheating even more to see the results.

Then, scrolling up more I see that this whole thing started with seeing stars and then buying a telescope on amazon (probably at 3am).

And here I am commenting on HN instead of replying to an email...

Re:Apple used to be weirder and maybe more fun on Monday August 31, 2026 @07:32PM (#49516104)
I agree, today it's like having one of the latest Mac Studios, one older Mac Studio and a couple of MacBooks. Or even just one maxed-out Mac Studio. Enviable but credible.
I find it weird that in specific cases it's such a huge effect yet most of the time I can't notice it. Once when I got a new prescription I googled why the X in the red circle icon for closing a window is so off-centered, but it's just a case where chromatic aberration is really noticeable.
Re:Transfer files over an Ethernet patch cable on Monday August 31, 2026 @12:34PM (#49511702)
Me too, I always have a dongle and an ethernet cable just in case but this removes the need for a cable (I always have 2+ usb-c cables). I've also just found something similar for HDMI, also removing the need to carry an HDMI cable. Trying to think of more things, not sure why I didn't think of searching for these before because I have made something similar for the console serial port connector for raspberry pi and Jetson boards.
Re:Transfer files over an Ethernet patch cable on Monday August 31, 2026 @12:15PM (#49511489)
Inductance coils (usually inside the RJ45 jack itself) are what provides isolation. They are made from very thin wires so if something goes wrong this is the first and hopefully only thing that will break. If you apply enough voltage of course you can break things beyond this.
Re:Transfer files over an Ethernet patch cable on Monday August 31, 2026 @06:07AM (#49507875)
What a clever idea. I carry an ethernet dongle but this one is just the male end and a female usb-c port, meaning your existing usb-c cable is useful and you don't need to carry an ethernet cable.
Re:Transfer files over an Ethernet patch cable on Monday August 31, 2026 @05:34AM (#49507673)
Depends on the device, in principle if both have thunderbolt and you use a thunderbolt cable it should work. I've done it between 2 macbooks many times.
Re:Transfer files over an Ethernet patch cable on Monday August 31, 2026 @05:30AM (#49507651)
Ethernet is electrically isolated at every port (unless you really go out of your way in to design it otherwise in an internal design). Your advice is still correct but it's more about lightning or something gone wrong, it's not an immediate risk.

Older »