Hacker News: dunconian

New comment by dunconian in "The Joy of Folding Bikes"

dunconian — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 22:58:51 +0000

One of the fun things about these bikes is you’ll get many curious onlookers in the US and delight them by showing them how it folds up. Kids seem to love the demonstration and it’s cool explaining how bikes work, especially the hub gear.

New comment by dunconian in "Hello, World"

dunconian — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:55:15 +0000

> On another note, is there any archive footage of these NASA pictures of space with insane good quality?

Yes! I think this and the original are available in full resolution. All NASA material published is public domain IIRC

https://images.nasa.gov/

New comment by dunconian in "Hello, World"

dunconian — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:50:18 +0000

They took a Nikon Z9 as well which was a pretty substantial upgrade! Though I’m unsure what camera this was taken with. https://petapixel.com/2026/04/02/a-nikon-z9-made-it-aboard-t...

New comment by dunconian in "Ask HN: Distributed data centers in our basements"

dunconian — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:53:34 +0000

This has been attempted a few times around the UK, but as other commentators have pointed out physical limitations and lack of environmental controls become issues, and the economics don’t make sense. They make a great story though.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32816775

New comment by dunconian in "Roulette Computers: Hidden Devices That Predict Spins"

dunconian — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:31:52 +0000

A great reference, thanks! I can imagine both Thorp and Shannon desperately trying to solder loose wires in a toilet booth could make a great awkward scene in a future film

New comment by dunconian in "Roulette Computers: Hidden Devices That Predict Spins"

dunconian — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:08:04 +0000

Fun fact: roulette computers were (arguably) the first wearable computer [0] in 1961 and co-invented by Claude Shannon of information theory fame.

[0] https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/2007.030.014

New comment by dunconian in "Reading QR codes without a computer (2023)"

dunconian — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 15:24:41 +0000

I also learnt the dubious skill of reading QR codes by hand. At work 1% of the QR codes that we received were not scannable. However when decoded by hand (thanks you this guide and others) they all contained the string we expected.

But there was an error in the error correction pattern. It would flip a bit on the message length. The QR data changed from a string of 4 characters to a string of 933+ characters, and either

- Be unreadable (xzing)

- Return 933+ characters of garbage (cognex)

- crash

- return the previous barcode scanned (iOS)

I really learnt something about Reed Solomon error correction that day. I have the QR code framed somewhere. Sometimes when bored I’ll scan it and confirm that it still brings up whatever I scanned last.