News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

theltrj

Re:Magic/tragic email links: don't make them the only option on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @08:02PM (#42629730)
Thank you for writing this! Getting users to implicitly trust clicking a link as a login mechanism....what could possibly go wrong?
Re:What Happened to EVs? on Thursday January 04, 2024 @06:39AM (#38865793)
the first line of the article "a record 300,000 electric cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023"; the spreading of FUD around EVs continues, nothing new here; this time it is from the opposite end of the spectrum from the crowd saying "Getting Americans to ditch driving altogether would be the most effective way to reduce emissions, but it would require a massive rethink of our transport system."

classic case of the great being the enemy of the good;

effectively you've created your own personal Sales/Marketing DRIP campaign, neat, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_marketing
Re:PostgreSQL: Kubegres is available as open source on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @08:42AM (#28758572)
Is there something new here from the April announcement? Did something change?
Re:Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client on Friday January 22, 2021 @01:04PM (#25874241)
Pidgin? What year is it again? Glad to see it still around.
Not sure, but there is an argument out there that a cell phone + social media is as addictive as a slot machine, read some of Georgetown's Comp Sci Professor, Cal Newport: https://www.gq.com/story/cal-newport-digital-minimalism
Re:The Case Against Patents (2013) on Tuesday July 10, 2018 @12:09PM (#17499364)
wants? this is the way it has been done for a long long time in the US (the first US patent grant was from George Washington in 1790), there is Property category where there is at least Real Property & Intellectual Property, patents which are in the Intellectual Property 'bucket' so to speak

There are multiple of forms of intellectual property beyond patents: copyright, trademarks, etc

This is the way the legal system has always worked, not an invention of a modern corporate interests, the ancient Greeks recognizes some forms of patent, the modern version is based around the implementations of Italy's patent system in the 1400s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law

no conspiracy here....but yes corporations do like to see a return on their significant research and development investments

boo paywall
Re:The Unfortunate Rise of Patents in the Startup World on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @10:19PM (#6055797)
It is interesting to see the electronics/computer science side of the patent debate. On this side of the argument there is a desire for a short duration, very narrowly tailored patents (for some that is even too much) because technology moves so fast. On the biomedical/genetics research side of the argument there is a desire for long lasting, broadly tailored patents because it takes so long to develop medicine, do clinical trials, get FDA approval, etc.

What I find most interesting is that I believe most (not all) members of this side of the debate 1) don't know there is another side and/or 2) don't care about the needs of the other side. This author makes good points, but lacks proper context I believe.

Statements like '20 years was set in the days of horse and carts, does it make sense in the modern age?' are great for pandering to an already complicit audience. However, the point is that for some industries 20 years makes sense, and for some of them 20 years isn't long enough.

I'd be willing to bet Myriad Genetics or Monsanto thinks 20 years is not enough.

Why does this have to be framed as people being ignorant? Could it be they don't want to have to give up the limited rights they still have left?

Microsoft wasn't forced to do anything here. They overestimated the value of their product, plain and simple.

The whole argument is a non sequitur. The products and companies the author is hoping people defer too, are not prevalent in mainstream society yet. Ubuntu and Arch Linux do not have stores in the mall. Sparkfun is not making arduino based mp3 players and phones down by the food court.

I think this highlights an interesting point, but we aren't there yet as a culture, globally.

Re:Elon Musk: "I am terminating the interview." on Saturday June 08, 2013 @04:58PM (#5846327)
supercaps need waaaaay more energy density before they are going displace batteries.....there is a lot of published research into battery/supercapacitor hybrids, the benefit is primarily seen in short transient charge/discharge moments

In a car the use case would be driving with a lot of hills or a ton of start/stop (urban city) driving

Once you get out on the highway where there are long transients discharge moments, you won't see much benefit from the supercapacitors. Depending on the circuit topology it could also be a drain on the overall efficiency of the circuit.

Also, supercapacitors are very expensive....plus you need the high efficiency power converter ($$) between the two to manage the different power sources

Re:Elon Musk: "I am terminating the interview." on Saturday June 08, 2013 @03:46PM (#5846050)
"Folks who buy $90,000 cars tend to replace them every few years, and the bid for a four-year-old Model S may prove disappointing if it's going to need an expensive new battery in a few more years."

Seems odd that there are three different models/pricing options in the model s but they only mention the $90k price (85 kWh)....smaller battery (65 kWh) = smaller cost, not sure why this is so difficult to understand.....the Nissan Leaf is a 24 kWh battery and it is under $30k now

Also the battery has an '8 years, unlimited miles' warranty, idk I could say a few years or I could say almost a decade.....poor framing of the basic facts

Despite Barron's scare tactics, there is new tech on the horizon for high energy density/low power density metal air batteries, but somehow that discussion got left out.

Re:How iTunes crushed music sales on Friday April 26, 2013 @01:58PM (#5614390)
i guess in 2013 iTunes overtook piracy in crushing the music industry because I see one of those articles every year, what exactly isn't crushing the music industry?
Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Tuesday April 09, 2013 @06:25PM (#5521831)
I think many want to learn so quickly because we need to run faster and faster just to stay in place within the technology fields....just look at all the new things we see on hacker news each day
Re:If Only I Knew This Shit in College on Friday March 29, 2013 @11:31PM (#5464229)
love the target audience
Re:HipChat is now free for teams of 5 users or fewer on Thursday March 21, 2013 @04:09PM (#5418523)
I'm a little unclear, can i connect via an IRC client to this?
Re:Why I left Google (2012) on Tuesday March 19, 2013 @10:01AM (#5400899)
Definitely seen this before as well, not interesting then, not interesting now...
Re:I love you, dad on Friday December 14, 2012 @09:20PM (#4924380)
tragic, so sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing
Re:Poll: What databases does your company use? on Monday November 26, 2012 @02:58PM (#4833665)
SAP Hana
Re:512 Paths to the White House on Saturday November 03, 2012 @01:02PM (#4737136)
is there a library out there that mimics this visualization? very powerful stuff
what a bunch of bullcrap....facebook login required to vote = no vote
Re:This is the MagSafe to MagSafe 2 adapter on Wednesday June 20, 2012 @08:44PM (#4139947)
"....shown next to an oversized novelty quarter for size comparison." Was a novelty foam finger not available?