olfactory

11 ms·

61.
by olfactory 9y ago
> Hacker News is an ideal community to develop technology and policies that would make political discussion work ... is there any app that would have a bigger impact? Exactly. > the unfounded assertions Not sure how much contact you h
62.
by olfactory 9y ago
> Political discussion is supposed to be banned because it's mainstream, like celebrity gossip... This may be true of some political discussion, but one could equivalently say that most technological discussion is about big screen t
63.
by olfactory 9y ago
It will be interesting to see how we look back on the moderators' decision to stifle political discussion on HN. In my opinion it is a horrible abdication of responsibility among technologists to simply hide any content that pertains
64.
by olfactory 9y ago
> It's applied physics. A study of oscillators, mixers, filters, amplifiers, distributed elements, propagation and algorithms and how to optimize all of these in multiple dimensions. this
65.
by olfactory 9y ago
I think it's a choice between one of the newer kits and just buying something from eBay that will get you on the air. Any transceiver manufactured in the past 20-30 years will be just fine, and might result in more on the air fun (at l
66.
by olfactory 9y ago
I still get an envelope with QSL cards from all over the world every few months. It's still fun to see the pictures and to appreciate the tangible "foreignness" of the cards.
67.
by olfactory 9y ago
> I highly recommend reading the specification I agree. It's amazing how well it works. I've played with FT8 and WSPR and communicated with Australia using 500mw (from the midwest USA).
68.
by olfactory 9y ago
I can't recommend amateur radio enough to fellow HN readers. There are so many things to do -- my favorite is HF CW.
69.
by olfactory 9y ago
Facebook clings to dark patterns that surely appear to be "working" in the sense of generating engagement and ad spend. The problem is, younger users have a much better intuitive sense of those dark patterns because they must deve
70.
by olfactory 9y ago
This is one more bit of evidence that Google is on the way down. When basic product management is too boring to take seriously, the company is just coasting along on past glories and hype. Yahoo was in that situation for years before it imp
71.
by olfactory 9y ago
> The only ecosystems that seem to be sort of thriving are closed, but extensible ones (Alexa, Google Home) and their originators seem incentivized to keep them going. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but I think Amazon ha
72.
by olfactory 9y ago
Mozilla's open source home automation project is a very big silver lining to this kind of news. Google has not shown any interest in creating a truly open platform, or in creating lower cost hardware alternatives (no not everyone want
73.
by olfactory 9y ago
This is consistent with Alphabet's trajectory of becoming a defense contractor. One might ask why during peak oil on the precipice of a major decline in relevance of Saudi Arabia (partner to the US military and client state of the US G
74.
by olfactory 9y ago
These are good suggestions for anyone starting an online retailer. But when it comes to overall innovation I'd argue that Amazon is significantly out-innovating Facebook, Apple, and Google, each of which seem afraid to take any big ris
75.
by olfactory 9y ago
Is there a way to make one of these maps show RF pollution at different frequencies using similar models?
76.
by olfactory 9y ago
This is correct. Honesty would entail being honest with congress or with those who have been authorized to have appropriate clearance. So removing it as a core value reveals that the agency views its mission as having situations where it w
77.
by olfactory 9y ago
> IMO, what happened with Ethereum was not exactly the correct economic perspective. More like the ethereum devs went on to support the Ethereum and ditched the coin. Bitcoin Cash/Gold on the other hand seems fine. I agree with this
78.
by olfactory 9y ago
> I could argue that there are actually two kinds of hard forks, one where there is some change to the underlying protocol (Bitcoin Cash) or reallocation of funds (undoing the DAO hack) that, at least in the eyes of the authors, increase
79.
by olfactory 9y ago
I think the main difference between the two kinds of forks is that in one case existing holders of Bitcoin get to own both the original and the fork, and in the other case the fork must bootstrap itself from scratch without the added benefi
80.
by olfactory 9y ago
True, but much of the political importance of oil has to do with the threat of a sudden oil shortage. The first defense (for the US) is to create massive reserve tanks, the second is to befriend oil producing regimes, the third is to invest
81.
by olfactory 9y ago
Most of the “investments” in “stability” of the region have payoffs in the many decades.
82.
by olfactory 9y ago
Shouldn’t this change US Mideast policy immediately? My guess is that planners don’t believe this to be true.
83.
by olfactory 9y ago
It certainly would, though I think in this case the evidence was destroyed to protect officials from going to prison over surveillance excesses.
84.
by olfactory 9y ago
Some possible motives: - To allow authorities to listen for "chatter" from NK military deployed in Hawaii who might have been ready to carry out some action if an attack were launched, but who would not likely have been told when
85.
by olfactory 9y ago
> media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions Great question. I think there must be. Musk has had substantial hair regrowth/replacement work done: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-gro
86.
by olfactory 9y ago
It's nice to see some image reparation work going on for Jeff. I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating. Aside from his decision to buy the WaPo, I think he's shown himse
87.
by olfactory 9y ago
> They're protected from defaulting by law, because they can't be divested by bankruptcy. True. I think most people don't realize this. Government programs push young, naive people to borrow to pay for degrees that are unl
88.
by olfactory 9y ago
I agree with the ideal you describe, but I think it is naive to assume that billionaires buy news orgs simply because they enjoy picking up a good newspaper in the morning.
89.
by olfactory 9y ago
OK then I'll rephrase it to using one's massive wealth to significantly control the fate of a news organization
90.
by olfactory 9y ago
Are you equally concerned with other billionaires owning major news orgs (Bezos, Slim, etc.)?

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