Hacker News: milcron

New comment by milcron in "Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)"

milcron — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 02:17:34 +0000

>Manufacturers usually painted their pencils if they were looking to cover up imperfections in the wood. Accordingly, typical paint colors were dark: purple, red, maroon, or black. But Hardtmuth was looking for a way to advertise the caliber of its graphite rather than its wood.

Bright color to stand out, as opposed to dark colors hiding imperfections. Another stretch, perhaps.

New comment by milcron in "Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete"

milcron — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 16:28:04 +0000

If a woodpile isn't dense enough, then surely building homes and furniture out of wood isn't dense enough either.

Can you think of a better way to store carbon!

New comment by milcron in "I don't trust Signal"

milcron — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 01:59:27 +0000

The open-source base OS is fine, the closed-source services layer and cloud platform are not.

New comment by milcron in "Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid"

milcron — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 20:37:44 +0000

Electricity isn't a great market. End-users with solar power are allowed to use the grid as a perfectly free battery, which is why everyone is dumping power on the grid at high noon.

New comment by milcron in "Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid"

milcron — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 20:35:54 +0000

That's mostly due to the hydroelectric dams, though. Negative prices come from too much solar power in the middle of the day.

New comment by milcron in "Coinbase Custody is exploring a range of new assets"

milcron — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 01:52:07 +0000

1 Satoshi is currently worth $0.000069, and transactions are being approved for as low as 2¢. So this isn't currently a big problem.

In the future, bitcoin could be extended to have more digits. Or perhaps this will be dealt with on a second layer. Lightning transactions could deal with sub-satoshi quantities.

New comment by milcron in "Coinbase Custody is exploring a range of new assets"

milcron — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 23:31:15 +0000

>Dogecoin seems to have a great use case due to its cheap price

What does the price per token have to do with anything? You can buy a fraction of a bitcoin, so I don't see how doge has any advantage over BTC here.

New comment by milcron in "Security Begins at the Home Router"

milcron — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 01:55:28 +0000

This is quite possibly overkill, but I'm pleased with this setup at home:

    Cost | Purpose        | What
    $109 | Router         | PCEngines apu2c2 http://pcengines.ch/apu2c2.htm
     $10 | Router Case    | http://pcengines.ch/case1d2blku.htm
     $17 | Router Storage | http://pcengines.ch/msata16g.htm
     $30 | Gigabit Switch | https://www.amazon.com/D-Link-Gigabit-Unmanaged-Desktop-DGS-108/dp/B000BCC0LO/
     $80 | Wifi           | Ubiquiti Unifi Lite https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Lite-UAPACLITEUS/dp/B015PR20GY/

With this setup, the router only does _routing_, so you also need a Wireless Access Point (WAP). Connect it like so: Modem->Router->Switch->WAP.

Install pfSense on the router, configure the Unifi using Ubiquiti's Java app, and you're done. It's about $250 all together which _is_ more expensive than consumer routers, but IMHO it's worth the superior quality. The APU board is well-documented (PCEngines provides schematics!) and the firmware is based on Coreboot. The processor supports AES acceleration for faster encryption (great if you use VPNs!) PfSense is an enterprise-grade router/firewall with scads of graphs and features. And the Unifi has a great antenna with excellent range. Not to mention this setup leaves you with six spare ethernet ports on the switch.

New comment by milcron in "I’m leaving China"

milcron — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 21:56:51 +0000

"concerns about the illiberal, authoritarian communist government of China"

New comment by milcron in "CopperheadOS update: Developer suspended from Reddit"

milcron — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 20:24:50 +0000

>Well I don't really want to use Android. What I want is a long-battery-life GNU computer that fits in my pocket.

Librem5 is definitely something to watch: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

I'm also watching the Pyra, but development is super slow: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/

New comment by milcron in "CopperheadOS update: Developer suspended from Reddit"

milcron — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 18:42:24 +0000

Daniel sounds rather burnt out, and also needs to find a new job. I wouldn't expect updates at the same pace.

New comment by milcron in "Comcast, in 2nd Try, Offers $65B Cash for 21st Century Fox"

milcron — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 22:13:49 +0000

They could have more confidence now since the AT&T merger with Time Warner.

New comment by milcron in "[dead]"

milcron — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 21:04:44 +0000

It wasn't at first. The change happened over a year ago.

New comment by milcron in "I fear Google's control of the web"

milcron — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 20:07:53 +0000

Not to mention AMP on every news site, and Google Analytics on nearly every page.

New comment by milcron in "Does China’s digital police state have echoes in the West?"

milcron — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:16:50 +0000

Which part of history are we rhyming with at the moment?

New comment by milcron in "Amazon follows Google and Apple and bans system-wide ad blockers on app store"

milcron — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 19:53:17 +0000

>I also like going back into my browser history.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Firefox has browsing history, if that's what you mean.

There is a different product Firefox Focus which erases your history when the browser closes, maybe you're thinking of that.

New comment by milcron in "Amazon follows Google and Apple and bans system-wide ad blockers on app store"

milcron — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 02:35:42 +0000

Firefox for Android supports full extensions, so you can install uBlock Origin or even uMatrix.

New comment by milcron in "People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses"

milcron — Tue, 29 May 2018 20:08:45 +0000

> Venmo IS PayPal, just with different branding

They were a startup in 2010 but got bought by PayPal in 2013.

New comment by milcron in "I wish mum's phone was never invented"

milcron — Thu, 24 May 2018 00:18:34 +0000

It might not be new, but newspapers had to target the general public. Today's feeds are hyperfocused on individuals and their preferences.

New comment by milcron in "What Data Does Facebook Collect When I’m Not Using Facebook, and Why?"

milcron — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:13:28 +0000

On some phones, Facebook comes preinstalled as a system-level app that cannot be uninstalled.

Idk what to recommend other than getting a phone that doesn't do that to you.