Hacker News: technosmurf

New comment by technosmurf in "The History of Cover Flow"

technosmurf — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 23:04:53 +0000

I thought a big reason for the removal of Cover Flow from iTunes was troubles with patent troll companies in 2008:

https://www.macobserver.com/news/apple-settles-coverflow-pat...

New comment by technosmurf in "FTX’s collapse was a crime, not an accident"

technosmurf — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 23:59:41 +0000

The source is SBF himself, in an interview with Tiffany Fong (covered by Coffeezilla):

https://youtu.be/0rL35_WV3lE?t=77

He said he donated about the same to both parties, with the Republican donations hidden as dark money.

Newer Macs Can Use Another Mac as an External Display on macOS Monterey

technosmurf — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 22:05:17 +0000

Article URL: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/09/airplay-mac-to-mac-external-display/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27453883

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Shank Mod's Custom Handheld Virtual Boy (The Real Boy)

technosmurf — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 05:09:45 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9FhIZkm4cw

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27444430

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by technosmurf in "All-new iMac features the M1 chip"

technosmurf — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 20:46:02 +0000

The arrow keys on the smaller model are unfortunately full-sized (like the older Magic Keyboard 2).

I created an image gallery where you can see all 3 keyboard layouts shown in the keynote video today:

  - Magic Keyboard 3 (lock button)
  - Magic Keyboard 3 (Touch ID)
  - Magic Keyboard 3 (Touch ID and numeric keys, inverted T layout)

https://gist.github.com/spiritphyz/bac975617d513b5b4010a6828...

New comment by technosmurf in "Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop"

technosmurf — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 19:34:25 +0000

Yeah, that repository's README is a little bit outdated.

Here's what I found works or is broken in macOS Catalina and above:

Works: --------------------

  # Preview source code files with syntax highlighting (like colored .JS files)
  brew install qlcolorcode

  # Preview Markdown files
  brew install qlstephen 

  # Preview JSON files with syntax highlighting
  brew install quicklook-json 

  # Preview plaintext files with unknown extensions, like README, CHANGELOG, etc.
  brew install qlstephen 

  # Preview the content of .IPA files
  # Installs inside /Applications folder
  brew install suspicious-package 

  # Preview iOS/macOS provisioning information for .ipa and .xcarchive
  # For 'mobileprovision' files, Xcode has Quick Look plugin collision:
  # https://github.com/ealeksandrov/ProvisionQL/issues/20
  brew install provisionql 

  # Preview the content of macOS apps
  # Installs inside /Applications folder
  brew install apparency 

  # Preview WebP images
  brew install webpquicklook

Broken: --------------------

  # Display image size and resolution in windo titlebar of Quick Look
  # Doesn't work due to API change from Apple
  # https://github.com/Nyx0uf/qlImageSize/issues/45#issuecomment-610852166
  #brew install qlimagesize 
  
  # Preview Adobe ASE color swatch files from Photoshop, Illustrator
  # Doesn't work in macOS Catalina
  #brew install quicklookase 
  
  # Preview the content of Android .APK files
  # Doesn't work in macOS Catalina
  #brew install quicklookapk

As listed in the README, you also need to unset the quarantine attribute. To see the changes, you need to restart the Quick Look Server after the install, and sometimes requires logging out and in again. Here's a script I made, let me know if it works for you:

https://github.com/spiritphyz/Save-the-Environment/blob/main...

New comment by technosmurf in "The Collapse of Puerto Rico’s Iconic Telescope"

technosmurf — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 16:55:49 +0000

Where did you get the idea that the technology's been superseded?

The NANOGrav collaboration is trying to use millisecond pulsars to determine if a galaxy-wide analysis of 47 pulsars can detect gravitational waves.

The team says that Arecibo was instrumental for their data analysis because the telescope was unique in its radio sensitivity:

"Although NANOGrav does not expect the situation to result in significant delays in detection due to years of very sensitive Arecibo data already contributing to their datasets, the loss of Arecibo is a terrible blow to science, and will impact NANOGrav’s ability to characterize the background and detect individual sources in the future."

http://nanograv.org/press/2021/01/11/12-Year-GW-Background.h...

New comment by technosmurf in "My ISP Is Killing My Idle SSH Sessions"

technosmurf — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 04:11:01 +0000

Mosh is designed to only synchronize the last screen of changes and will never support scrolling.

https://github.com/mobile-shell/mosh/issues/122#issuecomment...

http://web.mit.edu/keithw/www/Winstein-Balakrishnan-Mosh.pdf (Section 6)

New comment by technosmurf in "Apple’s iPhone Software Shakeup After Buggy iOS 13 Debut"

technosmurf — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 16:53:18 +0000

When you already have Safari running (or any other app), pull up the dock from the bottom edge of the screen.

Then press the Safari icon (or alternatively, press and hold on the Safari icon and choose "Show All Windows").

Now, all of those floating Safari windows are shown, and you can "toss them away" and close them.

Yes, it's not a very intuitive discovery process :(

iPad Pro, Hosted VS Code, and iPadOS 13

technosmurf — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 14:41:26 +0000

Article URL: https://medium.com/@ow/its-finally-possible-to-code-web-apps-on-an-ipad-pro-90ad9c1fb59a

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20104866

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

US man could face death penalty in Thailand over ‘floating home’

technosmurf — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 00:37:31 +0000

Article URL: https://nypost.com/2019/04/18/us-man-could-face-death-penalty-in-thailand-over-floating-home/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696065

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Using the iPad Pro as my development machine

technosmurf — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 21:16:56 +0000

Article URL: https://arslan.io/2019/01/07/using-the-ipad-pro-as-my-development-machine/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19013836

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

“Whistled Languages” Reveal How the Brain Processes Information

technosmurf — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:10:57 +0000

Article URL: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-whistled-languages-rdquo-reveal-how-the-brain-processes-information/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13040876

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by technosmurf in "What ever happened to Wordstar?"

technosmurf — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 15:13:01 +0000

WordStar is popular with science fiction writers for more fundamental reasons. (Not because it doesn't have spell check or isn't connected to the internet.)

Wordstar treats the text like a long-hand manuscript. You can add notes to yourself like "fix this!" and deal with the edits later. Or, you can block copy large sections of text and have the computer keep a reference to it without having to "copy and paste" it immediately. I've seen George RR Martin write that he likes how easy it is to move large sections of text around in WordStar.

Here's how the SF writer Robert J. Sawyer describes it:

"... as a creative writer, I am convinced that the long-hand page is the better metaphor.

Consider: On a long-hand page, you can jump back and forth in your document with ease. You can put in bookmarks, either actual paper ones, or just fingers slipped into the middle of the manuscript stack. You can annotate the manuscript for yourself with comments like "Fix this!" or "Don't forget to check these facts" without there being any possibility of you missing them when you next work on the document. And you can mark a block, either by circling it with your pen, or by physically cutting it out, without necessarily having to do anything with it right away. The entire document is your workspace...

WordStar's ^Q (Quick cursor movement) and ^K (block) commands give me more of what I used to have when I wrote in longhand than any other product does. WordStar's powerful suite of cursor commands lets me fly all over my manuscript, without ever getting lost. That's because WordStar is constantly keeping track of where I've been and where I'm likely to want to go. ^QB will take me to the beginning of the marked block; ^QK will take me to the end; ^QV will take me to where the marked block was moved from; ^QP will take me to my previous cursor position. And, just as I used to juggle up to ten fingers inserted into various places in my paper manuscript, WordStar provides me with ten bookmarks, set with ^K0 through ^K9, and ten commands to jump to them, ^Q0 to ^Q9...

WordStar, with its long-hand-page metaphor, says, hey, do whatever you want whenever you want to. This is a good spot to mark the beginning of a block? Fine. What would you like to do next? Deal with the block? Continue writing? Use the thesaurus?

After another half hour of writing, I can say, ah hah!, this is where I want to end that block. And two hours later I can say, and this is where that block should go. I'm in control, not the program. That's clearly more powerful, more intuitive, and more flexible than any other method of text manipulation I've yet seen implemented in a word processor. That WordStar lets me have separate marked blocks in each of its editing windows multiplies that power substantially: imagine doing a cut and paste job between two versions of a paper document, but being told that you could only have one piece cut out at a time. Madness! Yet that's what WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and others would force you to do. (In WordStar 7.0, you can even, in essence, have two marked blocks per window, toggling between them with the "mark previous block" command, ^KU.)"

http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

New comment by technosmurf in "Cambodia's vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle"

technosmurf — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 16:30:42 +0000

The agricultural systems around the big temple complexes suggest that over a million people lived in the area.

http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2007/08/metropolis-angkor-world...

New comment by technosmurf in "Search 8M Hacker News stories"

technosmurf — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 23:17:00 +0000

After I do a search, the Back button is broken. Seems like it somehow made 5+ entries and I have to manually look through my search history to go to the previous website. I'd rather use the Algolia search at the bottom of every page.

New comment by technosmurf in "Ask HN: Did you go to a 3 month coding school? Did it work?"

technosmurf — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:28:12 +0000

There are a good number of reviews and testimonials from people who have finished these "developer bootcamp" schools at:

https://schools.techendo.com

The person who runs that website also runs SF Hacker News and its weekly email newsletter.

New comment by technosmurf in "HP Chromebook 11 Review"

technosmurf — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 17:17:20 +0000

I'm surprised that Anand didn't mention anything about the trackpad. The Verge's impression is that it's pretty terrible:

"The trackpad, on the other hand, is pretty bad. It’s sticky and plastic, and doesn’t allow your finger to glide smoothly at all; my fingers jittered around as I tried to move the cursor, and the screen jittered even worse as I tried to scroll with two fingers or pinch to zoom on the screen. It’s a frustrating change from the smooth, responsive Chromebook Pixel, which got all this right — and had a touchscreen too, just in case. Of course, the Pixel is also six times the price."

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/10/4822576/hp-chromebook-11-...

New comment by technosmurf in "In iOS 7, the final straw for Newsstand"

technosmurf — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 13:52:56 +0000

In 2012, it seemed that Newsstand was a lucrative option for some publishers. Future PLC (which makes PC Gamer, Computer Arts and Computer Music magazines) earned $8 million USD in one year. They were really happy with the number of people who signed up for marketing messages (5 million out of 12 million downloads), which was an early stumbling block for publishers because Apple doesn't share the customer contact info by default (traditional publishers always had access to this).

Have other publishers seen a serious drop in users or revenue since then for the article to recommend not putting magazines inside Newsstand anymore?

http://paidcontent.org/2012/09/27/future-has-made-5-million-...

New comment by technosmurf in "How the .0001% Made Its Money"

technosmurf — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 20:19:14 +0000

> Bill Gates shouldn't be listed as someone who inherited his wealth: he did not inherit it.

According to Philip Greenspun, Bill Gates started off with a million-dollar trust fund:

"William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III."

http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325