t413
Re:Our self imposed scarcity of nice places
on Friday November 05, 2021 @02:16PM (#29122872)
I think what it's missing is the full lack of cars. You still don't own your streets in SF! The few days Valencia street was closed to traffic in lockdown, for example, were incredible. Street musicians and people dancing, tables and picnics all over with people who wanted coffee having dinner with friends who wanted pizza alongside vegan sushi. It didn't feel like a party for festival, it felt like _life_.
Re:Solar is dirt-cheap and about to get even more powerful
on Monday July 12, 2021 @07:41PM (#27816352)
Sunpower. Here's a list of panels sorted by efficiency: (just one I've been using while researching for a project)
https://www.energysage.com/solar-panels/?noidx=true&sort_by=...
I think they're the only on-the-market 22% efficient panel. This bloomberg article talking about 700W panels is inane, they just increased the panel size past the standard commercial 1mx2m.
Re:100M more IoT devices are exposed via Name:Wreck
on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @01:09PM (#26809957)
I'm a bit stumped about how to look for vulnerabilities for this. The linked tool, https://github.com/Forescout/project-memoria-detector doesn't mention the exploit and there's no list of specific vulnerabilities. Any idea folks?
Re:California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclas...
on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @03:35AM (#24987328)
My understanding is that a ballot measure must be modified only by ballot measure. Adding in a 7/8ths clause is a way of allowing, with difficulty, the legislature to change things.
Re:Apple removes then restores DoNotPay app in the App Store
on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @11:25PM (#24986436)
As of now it appears to still be up: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/donotpay/id1427999657
Re:US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in ...
on Friday September 25, 2020 @11:24AM (#24590783)
Yeah, the headline seems to imply it’s some new ‘big bad’ where the article just slowly exposes that it’s a non-explosive missile. Killing fewer people by not combusting the surrounding area sounds like an improvement.
Re:Apple Lightning
on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @11:51PM (#23709812)
Actually, yes. At least anecdotally– I _had_ to do this when my iPhone 5's lightning port was damaged.
When traveling overseas a cheap charger died, partially frying my lightning port. The phone completely refused to charge and I grew more and more desperate as the battery slowly drained over the next day before eventually dying. Now trying again to charge the dead phone had a surprising result: it actually charged enough to boot up! Ridiculously: it then stopped charging once booted and drained again in about 2 minutes.
The solution I developed was to plug it in _then_ power it off and it would charge (slowly) while completely powered down. Removing power for even a moment would boot the phone and stop charging.
I'd absolutely guess that, in a pinch, you could charge your modern iPhone with a non-working cable if you did the same procedure: plug in, power off, let charge while off.
Re:Google Maps Hacks
on Monday February 03, 2020 @07:02PM (#22230802)
+1 agreed– just a toggles for 'disable traffic optimization' and 'prefer 2+ lane roads' would do the trick.
I'm definitely adding a pretty bad outlier to real-time traffic data about stopped traffic.. Very similar to what this cute hack is doing.
Re:Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alterna...
on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @07:07PM (#20407509)
It may feel super cozy and normal when driving a car around– but the reality is that it's a metal multi-ton piece of heavy machinery. I'm sympathetic to your plight but.. really it _should be stressful._
Especially in a pedestrian-heavy center where walking should be (and thankfully is!) the norm like in Berkeley.
Re:Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alterna...
on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @07:00PM (#20407467)
Low Earth Orbit.
Re:Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law
on Thursday April 11, 2019 @05:03PM (#19639182)
> and it's why I no longer ride my bike in the city anymore
So is your response to just drive a car then? That's a most-poignant tragedy of the commons.
Re:Tesla Model 3 becomes best-selling car in Switzerland
on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @04:38PM (#19628550)
I've met [Phil Sadow](https://www.fastcompany.com/90209541/meet-the-renegade-whos-...) the other day in Berkeley, he's pretty fully p0wned the S,3,X systems and replaced the tesla endpoints up with his own server. If you're really worried about this enough then there may be a way.
Re:Marine Electric: A Wreck That Changed the Coast Guard
on Thursday February 14, 2019 @02:08PM (#19164841)
It's true, well done planet. [google maps view](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mobjack+Bay/@37.3314833,-7...)
Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free
on Friday January 25, 2019 @07:24PM (#19003869)
You're not wrong, and this is the same argument used in regards to bicycling. Something I hear all the time: 'You ride in this city?! Isn't it super dangerous?' When the solution is armor-up with a car and contribute to problem I just think we're thinking about it wrong.
Re:Count the people around you by monitoring wifi signals
on Thursday January 17, 2019 @07:18PM (#18935930)
It's a great example of the breakdown in understanding of a system. People envision WiFi as a wireless pipe or cable whereas in reality you're broadcasting in every direction out to infinity.
When reality doesn't match peoples' expectations they legislate a 'fix' (making listening illegal) rather than fixing the fundamental technical issue (with encryption, randomized IDs, etc).
Re:The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations
on Thursday May 24, 2018 @07:18PM (#17149362)
Those 'ultrasonic deterrents' should be completely illegal to deploy on/near any publicly accessible property. Having run into them many times over the years here in the US they're horrifically loud, painful, and less of a deterrent and more a punishment for having less-degraded hearing.
Re:Why I Regret Making My House a Smart-House (2013)
on Sunday December 11, 2016 @04:31AM (#13150321)
Sure: amazon.com/gp/product/B00HPIYJWU is the door sensor and amazon.com/gp/product/B00E1OVFAK are the dimmers I have.
Re:Why I Regret Making My House a Smart-House (2013)
on Saturday December 10, 2016 @06:53PM (#13148691)
Yes, it seems like Control 4 was the root of his problem. My architect aunt always builds homes with similar expensive and locked-in systems and although they do seem to last reliably for years they're 10's of thousands of dollars and locked into a certain set of functionality and hardware. But there are alternatives now.
My $50 Wink hub runs my apartment's 5x $30 z-wave dimmers, 1x $25 front door sensor, and 1x $75 z-wave thermostat and 1x $15 cree xbee LED bulb I cannibalized to drive some low voltage LED fairy lights. That's $315, ordered piecemeal and all delivered amazon prime. It's been rock-solid reliable for about two years. I recently added Amazon Alexa voice control and used the open source 'HomeBridge' node project to add Siri integration (which ROCKS).
There are inexpensive connected-home systems now. Spend an afternoon wiring one up!
Re:Flying Aquila: Early lessons from the first full-scale test flight
on Thursday July 21, 2016 @02:08PM (#12138771)
This is the only article of original substance on the internet, everyone else copied pieces from it. I still can't find an answer (or even anyone asking the question): How does it land?
There's no landing gear, it takes off from a dolly, and it's only designed to stay up for 'months at a time.' Does this mean it needs extensive repairs after it crash lands on runways that are half its width? The ScanEagle UAS also has no landing gear but is small enough to be caught by a cable mid-air [1].
Having no journalists present for their test launch and only getting officially produced videos and non-critical reposts is not enough.
Re:El Capitan and Homebrew
on Thursday October 01, 2015 @03:32AM (#10309742)
Will homebrew switch the default install location out of /usr/local for new installations then? I doubt most developers will want to dive into recovery mode just to install wget.
Re:Irving, TX ninth grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school
on Wednesday September 16, 2015 @02:50AM (#10225038)
Thanks for this! I offered a FaceTime tour of our scientific robotics labs. When I was in middle school learning and playing with electronics I would've loved that.
Re:Is it just me or is networking really hard?
on Sunday September 13, 2015 @03:36PM (#10212532)
Boost ASIO for me. The ability to single threaded high-speed servers and then to extend to multithreaded with a things like thread pools and atomic stores is invaluable.
Re:Simple genetic models for autism spectrum disorder
on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @02:05PM (#9305552)
"This model makes strong and as yet not fully tested predictions, namely that females are the primary carriers in cases of genetic transmission"
No kidding. Quite interesting though, especially when combined with "The high reproductive costs of autism ensure that most strongly associated genetic mutations are short-lived" and ASD showing a gender bias toward males.
Re:Whiteboard Clock
on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @03:46PM (#9070805)
The writing on this one is much nicer! Add selective erase so only one character is (usually) ever erased and you've got yourself a very neat novelty clock.
Re:A trucker trying to hack the haulage industry [video]
on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @05:31PM (#8889600)
you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop
You bring up good difficulties. Still-- most of those problems have solutions and I sure hope it's sooner than 50 years from now we see self-driving long-haul trucks on the road.
Re:Show HN: Picky Pint – Scan beer lists with a photo
on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @01:22PM (#8631646)
Very similar to WhatWine App (http://www.whatwineapp.com): ocr menu parsing and reviews / recommendations. Cool! (Not my app, just saw it at a hackathon)
Re:A "Hacker's" Guide to the Bay Area
on Saturday October 05, 2013 @08:41PM (#6502622)
The fitness section missed rock climbing! It's a great community that's very popular with young engineers. Mission Cliffs (touchstone gyms) and Planet Granite are the big names and there's endless beautiful real rock around the area to be found too.
Re:Live map of SF MUNI
on Wednesday April 17, 2013 @02:12PM (#5566031)
Replicate the functionality of transloc (try ncsu.transloc.com) and it'll be golden. Filtering routes and visible route paths!
Re:A simple solution to credit card fraud, and why you won't see it an...
on Friday February 22, 2013 @01:33PM (#5265763)
The financial companies are the most technology adverse group out there. They are risk handling and money moving engines and not interested in innovation. Every advance in technology is a direct result of legislation (like the recent addition of check scanning at ATMs) and legislation never follows the cutting edge.