Hacker News: thefalcon

New comment by thefalcon in "Deep image prior 'learns' on just one image"

thefalcon — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 23:51:20 +0000

Thanks!

New comment by thefalcon in "Deep image prior 'learns' on just one image"

thefalcon — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 17:32:21 +0000

Okay, I admit it, I'm not enlightened. Will somebody please Explain Like I'm 5?

New comment by thefalcon in "The Poor Man's 3D Camera"

thefalcon — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 18:47:30 +0000

This is probably my favorite article I've read on here all year. User experience is so important and so hard and so iterative (and requires so many new sets of eyeballs) that far too many people and organizations call it quits at the 10% mark without ever realizing it -- this is as true in web design as it is in game design. It's great how spending time learning lessons in one can translate into improved performance at the other.

Mark Rosewater, lead designer for Magic: The Gathering, likes to talk about how he looks for designers with experience doing things other than designing games because they can bring new perspectives and approaches that can help redefine their game design problems in new ways. I completely agree, and again feel like that same lesson can be applied in reverse—hire great game designers to work on your UX, assuming you can pull them away from their game designing long enough! It'll be good for them and good for you.

New comment by thefalcon in "Apple delaying HomePod smart speaker launch until next year"

thefalcon — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 18:24:15 +0000

They announced the iPhone months in advance of its availability. Even the iPod was announced three weeks in advance of its availability date.

New comment by thefalcon in "The Coin Flip: A Fundamentally Unfair Proposition? (2009)"

thefalcon — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 00:47:22 +0000

I think in this case "biggest swing for the house" should be interpreted as "biggest edge in favor of the house," not anything to do with variance. Everyone knows the house always wins in the long run (that's why "the house" is so much nicer looking [well, bigger, anyway] than your house).

New comment by thefalcon in "How to Get Rich Playing Video Games Online"

thefalcon — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 18:26:51 +0000

That's why you build a personal brand while you're riding the coattails of a popular game. See Day9, who plays whatever game he feels like playing on his scheduled "day off" and streams it. He definitely has fun, even if it doesn't make him money (he recently streamed Mario, for example, which Nintendo [probably] claimed the revenue for) he's still building his personal brand and personal audience. His fans will follow him no matter what game he starts playing, because they're following him. But you're right that it's a hit-based system and if you don't become a hit (which requires a lot of effort and a lot of luck) then you're going to starve trying to "play video games for a living."

New comment by thefalcon in "Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels"

thefalcon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:59:16 +0000

No it isn't. The deal was announced today, the linked article is from six days ago. Speculation and rumors are not the same thing as a done deal.

New comment by thefalcon in "Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels"

thefalcon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:57:07 +0000

I have no faith that a Snow Crash movie would live up to the novel, as much as I want it to exist anyway. A series would be better, especially one with a planned ending.

New comment by thefalcon in "Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels"

thefalcon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:55:08 +0000

This is a brand recognition play, and LotR has huge (general audience) brand recognition.

New comment by thefalcon in "Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels"

thefalcon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:52:00 +0000

I found the Runelords series by David Farland really enjoyable and cinematic. Great exploration of a fascinating magic system, with some very memorable characters to boot.

For Sci Fi, Netflix is currently making a series based on Altered Carbon which I'm very excited for - I love that series to death (Richard K Morgan, author).

New comment by thefalcon in "Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels"

thefalcon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:31:55 +0000

Hopefully they're incentivized to pour a huge budget into these given the "competition" of the movies (and GoT) and they make it worth the Prime subscription. (Personally Prime has so much value add these days for me I can't imagine not being subscribed anyway.)

New comment by thefalcon in "Dead grasshopper discovered in van Gogh painting"

thefalcon — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 01:11:18 +0000

"Van Gogh used a type of red pigment that gradually faded over time. That suggests the painting looks slightly different today than when it was completed."

There's something kind of cool about older art changing over time and the process of trying to determine what it might have originally looked like. Reminds me of Philip Mould's work removing a yellowed varnish to uncover a painting (more) as it would have looked 500 years ago: https://twitter.com/philipmould

New comment by thefalcon in "Segwit2x Bitcoin Fork Suspended"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:10:36 +0000

I have more of a general aversion to the actions of the (Core) people who support SegWit, including false promises, censorship, and other shenanigans like the 2x trojan horse which we've just seen play out: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/duplicates/6iecx7/if_segwit_act...

New comment by thefalcon in "Segwit2x Bitcoin Fork Suspended"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 19:14:11 +0000

There was a spate of articles calling Bitcoin forks "dividends" and other such nonsense which I'm sure a lot of people bought into.

New comment by thefalcon in "Segwit2x Bitcoin Fork Suspended"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 19:13:20 +0000

Yep. In September Business Insider reported a 91% correlation between the price of Bitcoin and searches for Bitcoin on Google: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-correlation-goo...

New comment by thefalcon in "Segwit2x Bitcoin Fork Suspended"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 17:33:18 +0000

The Segwit2x effort began in May with a simple purpose: to increase the blocksize and improve Bitcoin scalability. At the time, the Bitcoin community was in crisis after nearly 3 years of heavy debate, and consensus for Segwit seemed like a distant mirage with only 30% support among miners. Segwit2x found its first success in August, as it broke the deadlock and quickly led to Segwit’s successful activation. Since that time, the team shifted its efforts to phase two of the project - a 2MB blocksize increase.

Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for Bitcoin. Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together. Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x.

As fees rise on the blockchain, we believe it will eventually become obvious that on-chain capacity increases are necessary. When that happens, we hope the community will come together and find a solution, possibly with a blocksize increase. Until then, we are suspending our plans for the upcoming 2MB upgrade.

We want to thank everyone that contributed constructively to Segwit2x, whether you were in favor or against. Your efforts are what makes Bitcoin great. Bitcoin remains the greatest form of money mankind has ever seen, and we remain dedicated to protecting and fostering its growth worldwide.

Mike Belshe, Wences Casares, Jihan Wu, Jeff Garzik, Peter Smith and Erik Voorhees

Mike Belshe CEO, BitGo, Inc

New comment by thefalcon in "Segwit2x Bitcoin Fork Suspended"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 17:29:06 +0000

I don't understand this desire to immediately assume bad faith in these situations. It's a complicated situation, involving a lot of actors. Yeah, probably some of them are acting in bad faith. But probably most of them are just trying to develop a functional cryptocurrency. This stuff is very hard, and having it all so decentralized only makes it harder.

Personally I was hoping for the 2x fork to succeed, or, barring that, for some kind of miracle switch over to Bitcoin Cash, which has the 8x capacity without the baggage of Segwit. But realistically this is probably the best outcome for Bitcoin for the reasons outlined in the message.

New comment by thefalcon in "America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning"

thefalcon — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 16:57:21 +0000

Thankfully 50,000 likes on Facebook is cheaper than the object at the store. (Only somewhat kidding. Don't buy your kids Facebook Likes.)

New comment by thefalcon in "Parity Wallet security alert"

thefalcon — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 22:00:38 +0000

I never understood why you would ever write-protect a floppy. Then again, I had a Mac 512k with a single floppy drive. (Insert Disk A; CRANK WHIRR GRIND SPIT; Insert Disk B; WHIRR WHIRR CRANK GRIND SPIT; Insert Disk A...)

New comment by thefalcon in "iPhone X Teardown"

thefalcon — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 23:32:08 +0000

As I understand it, Apple committed to X years of the lightning port to certain MFi vendors, which (if true) is just another checkmark in the "why have ports" column.