Hacker News: jussij

New comment by jussij in "Tiny quadrotor learns to fly in 18 seconds"

jussij — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:55:54 +0000

That falling on the face is irrelevant, as it's just a byproduct of some pre-determined programming that is not learned. Surely if this was a learned experience the deer after failing on its face would quickly learn it's best to not try and stand up. Why am I standing when I just keep hitting my face into the ground? The reality is the drive programmed into the brain is to stand up at all costs, even if that means landing flat on your face once in a while.

New comment by jussij in "Tiny quadrotor learns to fly in 18 seconds"

jussij — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 05:51:58 +0000

Yet without any external inputs, the deer will eventually learn to walk by itself, suggesting some kind of internal hardwiring.

New comment by jussij in "China Wants to Ditch the Dollar"

jussij — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 23:38:58 +0000

> trying to dethrone the U.S. dollar or replacing it in the global system with the renminbi

Obviously, this will never happen. The reason the USD is so popular is because it is a stable and fungible currency. Those are the exact opposite characteristics of the renminbi.

China adopts a 'closed' capital market system, meaning companies and individuals are not free to move money in or out of the country, except in accordance with strict rules set down by the Chinese government.

The Chinese government has even imposed daily withdrawal limits on its citizens and their bank accounts.

Why would anyone opt to replace a fluid currency like the USD with one that is tightly controlled by a government?

New comment by jussij in "Solar is a market for (financial) lemons"

jussij — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 23:17:16 +0000

> At current rates it will pay itself off in 9 years

One thing to consider, over that period of time, electricity tariffs will most likely go up, meaning that R.O.I. will end up being less than 9 years.

New comment by jussij in "Late 70s and 80s: forget BASIC, we had Pascal and C"

jussij — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 14:30:28 +0000

In 1983 Turbo Pascal sold for about $50.00 meaning some 40 years later that price would be equivalent to about $250.00 given an inflation figure at about 3.5% per annum. By comparison, a very expensive IBM PC shipped with a free version of Microsoft BASIC burnt into the ROM.

New comment by jussij in "Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US"

jussij — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 13:30:30 +0000

And why do Australians think governments should build power distribution systems? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise?

And why do Australians think governments should fund the building and upkeep of federal highways? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise?

Surely the best option is to make sure every public road is a toll road. That Liberal Party approach to road building has worked great in NSW.

Toll Holdings is now one of the most profitable companies in the world, thanks to a Liberal NSW government turning every major NSW 'public' road into a Toll Holding toll road.

That's how good government works, making sure the public pay tooth and nail for a 'public' road as that helps out the donors and the shareholders.

New comment by jussij in "Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US"

jussij — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 10:34:56 +0000

In 2023, Australian full battery electric vehicles made up 7.2 per cent of all new vehicles sold, compared with 3.1 per cent in 2022. That is despite a decade of EV denial by one particular side of Australia government, meaning EV re-charging infrastructure in Australia is still decades behind the rest of the developed world.

New comment by jussij in "40% of US electricity is now emissions-free"

jussij — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 08:27:10 +0000

Back in 1856 Eunice Newton Foote, created an experiment showing CO2 traps heat from sunlight, by putting jars containing varying degrees of CO2 in direct sunlight.

What she wrote in her paper describing that experiment was the heat rise happing in the jars fill with CO2 could also happen to our planet.

“An atmosphere of that gas,” she noted, “would give to our earth a high temperature”.

So, the science describing this phenomenon is nothing new. When it comes to the science, there is no longer any doubt.

New comment by jussij in "IDEs we had 30 years ago"

jussij — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 23:49:14 +0000

Back then BRIEF was also an amazing development environment. Now it was not so much an IDE and more of a programming editor, but it was still amazingly good for software development.

New comment by jussij in "Everyone expected a recession. The Fed and White House found a way out"

jussij — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 08:00:48 +0000

Firstly, while total debt might have quadrupled, in that time the size of the economy has also grown, and that means the debt has become easier to finance. Debt sits at about 130% of GDP, and was about 68% of GDP back in 2008, meaning when measured against the size of the economy it has not yet doubled. Also, by comparison debt to GDP hit 116% in 1946 and managed to return to 31% of GDP in 1974, showing that given the political will, the USA has no trouble paying down its debts.

New comment by jussij in "Everyone expected a recession. The Fed and White House found a way out"

jussij — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 07:49:13 +0000

High debt with high growth is still much better than high debt with low growth. And Trump record on handling debt issue is no better than Biden. Trump added $USD 7.8 trillion to the debt during his term in office, whereas Biden's has added about $USD 5.4 trillion. Like Trump, a big chunk of Biden's debt was COVID relief.

New comment by jussij in "Everyone expected a recession. The Fed and White House found a way out"

jussij — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 05:48:15 +0000

What you're describing is a fairly universal phenomena found in many developed economics around the world. Over the last decade or more many countries have seen a hollowing out of their middle class, with stagnant wages growth and rapidly rising house prices. However, I find it hard to believe the majority of the US population are currently experiencing recession like living conditions, only because the latest US quarterly GDP came in at a whopping 5.2% That GDP figure shows the vast majority of the US population has money to spend, and they are happy to spend it.

New comment by jussij in "Everyone expected a recession. The Fed and White House found a way out"

jussij — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 01:47:44 +0000

The predictions of a 'soft landing' being required have turned out to be false, as the USA economy has shown remarkable strength. Compared to the rest of the world the USA economy is booming, with high GDP growth, high employment and low inflation. And with inflation falling, the Fed now has room to start cutting rates. In an environment of falling interest rates with a strong economy it seems highly unlikely the USA will into fall into recession next year, as that would require something of an economic catastrophe.

New comment by jussij in "Oxlint – JavaScript linter written in Rust"

jussij — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:06:16 +0000

So, which one of those five options is the simple download?

New comment by jussij in "A genetically modified bacterium that outcompetes bacteria causing tooth decay"

jussij — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 05:23:51 +0000

It's very difficult for any major institution to not have problems similar to this, as there will always be individuals in positions of power who take it upon themselves to make decisions that can be construed as corrupt. However, the fact this issue was revealed to the public, reported widely and also found to be a highly dubious shows the institute is working fine. They appear to have systems and processes in place to help stop these kinds of dubious decisions, and because of the blowback from this rather poor decision, I'm certain the people at the FDA working the next round of approvals will make sure they hold up to scrutiny, which will be stronger than ever.

New comment by jussij in "A genetically modified bacterium that outcompetes bacteria causing tooth decay"

jussij — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 04:49:00 +0000

Do you have any examples of how the FDA is starting to put corporate interest ahead of public interest?

New comment by jussij in "D Programming Language"

jussij — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 07:43:33 +0000

There D wiki has this list: https://wiki.dlang.org/IDEs

New comment by jussij in "The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable"

jussij — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 13:07:27 +0000

I think one of the side effects of Open Source has been the devaluation of source code. Many decades ago, Microsoft destroyed the IBM PC by licensing their source code to other hardware manufacturers. Not only did that destroyed the power of IBM hardware, but it also allowed smaller hardware players like Dell to enter the hardware market and defeat hardware giants like IBM. Move on to the present day and software is no longer the king it once was, only because the major players like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon etc now all tend to use the same Open Source software. However, they now run that common code on proprietary hardware systems meaning we have come full circle where hardware is once again the king of the castle, and the real money is the hardware and not the software. And the real problem is, unlike earlier times when a small players like Dell could take on massive players like IBM, these days with hardware once again king, it now requires high levels of capital to compete.

New comment by jussij in "Stealing OAuth tokens of Microsoft accounts via open redirect in Harvest App"

jussij — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 13:22:59 +0000

Ok, I think I understand but correct me if I'm wrong. Normally that return URL would be hidden from view, as it would live in configuration detail found inside of the Microsoft system, attached to the client_id. However, Harvest weakened this security by adding in the additional (and unsafe) return_to parameter to manage their return URL.

New comment by jussij in "Stealing OAuth tokens of Microsoft accounts via open redirect in Harvest App"

jussij — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 13:02:00 +0000

Can someone with OAuth expertise explain this issue in a few more details, as I've read the blog a few times, but still don't understand the actual vulnerability.

From my very limited OAuth knowledge isn't this how it works:

1. The Harvest application asks Microsoft to verify a user. 2. The user is verified by Microsoft. 3. If the user verification is successful Microsoft redirects back to the callback URL, passing back the access token inside the body of the response message.

In this case hasn't the writer of the blog just created a hand-crafted URL so that the return is back to example.com rather than the actual return URL?