I'm sure there is some, but it's standard practice to keep at database of all your hands.
I've sanity checked the winning regs (at my stakes) and they all make mistakes.
I think it helps that in the US all the sites are geography based. It makes it harder and less financially viable to run a bot ring.
My windows stay maximized and I’m not about to faff about, resizing them. When I come across an Ultra Panavision website I usually just open the dev tools with a single F-key to squish it.
This one has a lead acid battery in it (I’m guessing a sealed one), which I don’t expect to enhance its lap-friendliness.
What somewhat puzzles me about these early portables (also including e.g. the Macintosh Portable, sold 1989–1991, in a similar form factor) is the manufacturers’ insistence on putting a (heavy) mains transformer inside the chassis. That could not have helped the weight, so I have to guess they didn’t see it as a problem?..
There was a concern about folks losing the separate transformer, and a perception that a single device was better.
One interesting solution to this space was GRiD making their battery and power supply the same size and form-factor --- when one was working at a desk, to save space the battery could be removed and placed in a separate charger, while the cord from the power supply to the computer was removed, and it was then placed in the battery compartment and connected to the wall, powering the device.
What somewhat puzzles me about these early portables (also including e.g. the Macintosh Portable, sold 1989–1991, in a similar form factor) is the manufacturers’ insistence on putting a (heavy) mains transformer inside the chassis.
The transformer was outboard on this machine, like a modern computer. It had its own Velcro compartment in the carrying bag.
It came slightly after the IBM Portable PC (5155) which was released in 1984. That was a real luggable very similar to the Compaq. So I'd say the 5140 (which I've seen but never owned, I did think I was getting one once from a contest) was thought of as a luggable, but an improvement over what came before it.
Originally, there were portables (sometimes referred to as "luggable"), like the Osborne or Compaq Portable series. The early models were the size of a small suitcase or large briefcase and contained a CRT screen, usually with a detachable full-size keyboard.
Later, portables ditched the CRT in favour of (very readable) gas plasma displays, allowing for greatly reduced depth. The final models were roughly the size of two shoeboxes stacked on top of each other, and were sometimes referred to as a "lunchbox".
Laptops took the opposite approach, reducing height rather than depth. This IBM 5140 was a good early example, but I think the first might actually have been the Data General DG-1 in 1984.
They had a flat screen (usually passive matrix) with a hinge directly behind the keyboard. About a third of the case stuck out behind the hinge, and typically housed the battery (usually lead acid), floppy disk, and HDD.
Unlike the previous luggables, they could just about be used on a lap for short periods. They often weighed around 5-6kg, though, so most of them will have been used on a desk or table almost all of the time.
Notebooks came a few years later (1989-ish), with the NEC Ultralite, Toshiba Dynabook, and Compaq LTE leading the way, and were distinguished by being smaller still - the size of a ream of A4 paper - and having the hinge right at the back of the machine.
They tended to be lower-powered (8086 CPUs rather than 286 or 386), and initially only had a FDD as they were too small to fit a full-height 3.5" hard drive. They weighed around 2-3kg, so actually could be used on a lap.
The limitations of the smaller models evaporated quickly, and notebooks had almost completely taken over by the mid 90s. The last lunchbox portable was probably the Compaq 486 in 1992. There were still a few rugged or workstation laptops being produced right up to the end of the decade, but they were pretty rare by that point.
None of the equipment in this article does that. It takes power from the grid the way any appliance does; it optionally charges by solar; and it provides power the same way a UPS does, using ordinary female power sockets.
But there are devices out there that do feed power over the exposed prongs of a male plug. They're called "suicide cords" for good reason.
Ah. I saw a whole thing about solar panels for balconies that did exactly this. I skimmed the article and thought I saw the same idea. I missed that it’s just charging a battery.
Why? It's just a battery charger. They are basic-ass components and there are a zillion UL-listed lithium chargers that are perfectly safe and in common use.
There a many problems with this article, but the fact that it includes a battery charger is not one of them.
I wish more engineers I worked with had a stronger personal belief that design and planning is a favour they do for themselves. Defining clear requirements and resolving unknowns (or at least identifying them) is the foundation that if you don’t build, you’ll be building your project many times.
It's the equivalent of posting on social media that you just saw some ice agents at such and such an address. Completely protected speech... At least it is unless the Roberts court shadow dockets it.
But publishing location information of where authorities happen to be in public at a certain time... I don't think is actually illegal. The Apple app author also believes he is 100% legal and is seeking to go to court over this.
Another point I forgot to make (can't edit anymore)...
It could possibly be found that the government illegally pressured or "coerced" a company like Apple/Google to remove "speech" (an app) they didn't want.
there's a difference between not allowing very harmful hatespeech and saying something like "I saw a cop at this address"
yes, the web exists, and while it's not functionally preventing all possible phone access to the app, it's increasing the barrier to entry in a way that meaningfully massively reduces its use
the difference is there is an implicit call to violence there and it's private people, not representatives of the government.
the idea behind the ICE agent tracking is to avoid them. you don't need to avoid abortion providers, they're not sneaking up on people on the street and giving them abortions.
someone doesnt need ICE tracking apps to attack ICE agents, they're wearing vests with giant "ICE" text on them. that someone allegedly misused the app in this way is like saying we need to ban knives because someone used one to stab someone else
I have no problem saying that good things are good and bad things are bad. The idea that nobody is allowed to have content preferences is ridiculous and not actually a thing that anybody believes.
Most people also seemed to celebrate Parler and Gab being pulled/denied. It was perfectly obvious that the same logic could be used to do things like this, but many people seem to be totally surprised or oblivious.
We've had multiple leaks and reports that the government was directly involved in these censorship cases prior to January 20, 2025. So no, that's not the difference.
On this very forum, people (not you) argued it was perfectly acceptable because the government was only "asking", not requiring.
Unfortunately, the civil libertarians have been drowned out for years by people who believed that it was right to do whatever it took to shut down right-wingers/misinformation/disinformation/hate speech/Russian propaganda/conspiracy theorists/Hunter laptop posters/whatever. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they are shocked and outraged, even as they built the tools, institutions, mechanisms, and political support used to do this.
When it's removed due to the chilling effect of the government attacking our first amendment rights this gets murkier. Do you think they make this choice if the regime weren't going after their political enemies?
It is not legal for the government to induce a corporation to do that with threats of unrelated, bogus litigation, enforcement fishing expeditions, interference with the legally required government contracting process, or the like. Since the Trump administration has a consistent, well-established pattern of doing all those things, we can all assume that's what's going on.
The leap of faith necessary in LLMs to achieve the same feat is so large its very difficult to imagine it happening. Particularly due to the well known constraints on what the technology is capable of.
The whole investment thesis of LLMs is that it will be able to a) be intelligent b) produce new knowledge. If those two things that dont happen, what has been delivered is not commensurate to the risk in regards to the money invested.
Given they're referencing Icarus, they seem to agree with you.
Past bubbles leaving behind something of value is indeed no guarantee the current bubble will do so. For as many times as people post "but dotcom produced Amazon" to HN, people had posted that exact argument about the Blockchain, the NFT, or the "Metaverse" bubbles.
Many AI startups around LLMs are going to crash and burn.
This is because many people have mistaken LLMs for AI, when they’re just a small subset of the technology - and this has driven myopic focus in a lot of development, and has lead to naive investors placing bets on golden dog turds.
I disagree on AI as a whole, however - as unlike previous technologies this one can self-ratchet and bootstrap. ML designed chips, ML designed models, and around you go until god pops out the exit chute.
> commentators going on about the wax melting from their parents root cellar while Icarus was soaring.
Icarus drowned in the sea.
Even if you want to put the world into only two lumps of cellar dwellers and Icaruses it is still a group of living people on one side and a floating/semi-submerged pile of dead bodies that are literally only remembered for how stupid their deaths were on the other.
.NET as a brand name was obviously chosen because the Internet was hot, and also because Microsoft has no taste. The Internet is no longer so hot, and now they have a name that has no hot implication to it. So maybe rebrand, which after all is the general tactic of people who have no taste.
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