If I ever become filthy rich, I would like to start companies around nonsensical products. Just to see how long you can make it last until potential customers and applicants are like "but this doesn't make any sense". This project is a perfect fit! Other ideas I had were things like wifi for servers.
I urge you to reconsider. Potential customers and applicants will immediately go all in and the "but this doesn't make any sense" step will never happen. We'll be reading blog posts like "I'm hooked on PCP (the Post-Cabling Paradigm)" from Google SRE's with comments praising the downfall of "Big Ethernet" while the emissions from datacenters vaporize flocks of migrating birds.
Cannot tell you how many uncomfortable conversations I have had trying to explain that you still need to run cables for power to wireless cameras (the outdoor cams work off of solar quite well, though).
But - hear me out - if all of your servers did have wifi - and it was usually disabled - but you could enable it, move the server, then disable it - that might be something?
I know having a redundant server is better - but there's something to it.
Also, this reminds me of a post I read a while ago about them moving a server from one building to another without unplugging it or something.
Why just Wifi? With ARM chips you can also have LTE in your servers! (Better check with the NSA first - maybe all the existing Intel and AMD SoCs already have some form of wireless comm built-into it?).
thank you for digging up the link, it was everything I hoped it would be. that one's going in my bookmarks.
obviously a second server and a reverse proxy or something would be less jank, but your idea definitely has merit. it's kind of like using two points of contact while climbing something.
It would take some downtime (or at least a really long extension cord and redundant power supplies for swapping one-by-one) because you'd still need to connect it to power.
The solution is obvious: Qi inductive wireless charge coils on the outside of the server cases.
You swap it over to a desktop UPS that can come along with the server during the physical move. No downtime as long as you have redundant PSUs and you can walk fast enough to beat the battery draining.
VW makes an excellent 2.0L TDI that would be a good fit. It would take up about half a rack. You could integrate a fuel cell (say 5 gallons) so that it can function when it is detached from the fuel delivery fans.
If you don't want to worry about piping diesel around your server farm, we could go with compressed air and use air turbines with generators on them. Clean and efficient energy transmission without wires!
The idea of having a miniscule diesel generator in the server chassis is almost worth doing it right now. Still have fond memories of our miniature steam engine, but I figure that would be a bit impractical.
If you could make it as fast and reliable as ethernet you will be even richer. Cabling and getting those right at the scale of big cloud providers is a costly matter. Not to talk about technician errors losing these providers a lot of money which you will be able to solve.
It automatically resizes so even though I have a tall screen, I didn't think to scroll down because it looked like a basic landing page and had links at the top.
> The IDE may seem like a joke, but the research and development gone into it is most definitely not.
> MS Paint IDE uses a custom OCR that can be trained by nearly any font in any size, reading code from images in just miliseconds. The IDE's compiler and program output are in .png's, and automatically underlines any errors present and provides syntax highlighting with Java, Go, Python, and JavaScript currently being supported.
> The IDE also allows for arbitrarily editing any text file through Paint via a context menu option, with native-looking button overlays onto MS Paint to perform IDE actions.
On HN, I think a better question is exactly the opposite: why not?!
I’ve built bizarre things that no one will use purely to learn about things.
Many projects are about the process itself and less about the outcome. Every one of those “useless” projects has informed my productive work throughout my career.
But also just think of all the useful software that hasn't been written by people sitting around thinking about all the useful software that could be written.
I'd love to see a project on github that mines HN posts for a decent sized list of this.
I'll start-- off the top of my head I remember a post from Mike Hearn about starting the web from scratch using a format that announces the size of the incoming message rather than making the recipient check for terminator(s).
There must be a dozen dozen such thoughts-without-software of "the web, but good" on here.
If we have a list then you could plug it in to a script and have a spit out a random set, and then you could focus specifically on those.
Anyway, I'm thinking it should be stored and maintained as a quine...
As of recent, I have had this pet theory that there's a brilliance / stupidity spectrum, but if you go too far in one direction it loops back on itself. Some things are just so stupid that they're brilliant. I really like this!
Also, I should clarify that "brilliance" and "stupidity" in this theory are not raw intelligence, but the application of said intelligence.
I can see utility in something like this where someone sent you a screenshot of code and you wish to compile/execute the code in the screenshot. Anything else is a bonus. I dig the project, keep it up!
Nice, although I was disappointed that you program by typing into MS Paint. I would have thought trying to draw the letters using your touchpad would be more intuitive.
Every bank seems to accept the weird single line that gets drawn when I try and scrawl my signature using my trackpad, so there must be quite a bit of interesting magic going on there.
The secret is that no one is checking that scrawl for authenticity. Not unless there's actual fraud, that's when the forensic experts are brought out to analyze and pontificate.
OCR predates modern AI including deep learning and LLMs. It worked based on heuristics that were hard-coded. These techniques are faster and require less CPU power but are more error-prone while AI-assisted combined heuristics for written and typed content recognition can deal with more variability. Even still, the USPS employs people (or at least it did) to correct addresses manually that its automated pre-modern AI address scanning software cannot determine with enough confidence. Perhaps modern AI (deep learning) could replace most of those jobs but perhaps not all as some could be read by humans that algorithms might not be able to decide with enough confidence and other labels are truly undecipherable even with all the AI techniques in the world and need to be returned to sender (RTS).
People who have web pages for graphical tools of any kind, where screenshots of the tool are not front & center on the website, I have a question for you: WHY?!
If I ever become filthy rich, I would like to start companies around nonsensical products. Just to see how long you can make it last until potential customers and applicants are like "but this doesn't make any sense". This project is a perfect fit! Other ideas I had were things like wifi for servers.
> wifi for servers
I urge you to reconsider. Potential customers and applicants will immediately go all in and the "but this doesn't make any sense" step will never happen. We'll be reading blog posts like "I'm hooked on PCP (the Post-Cabling Paradigm)" from Google SRE's with comments praising the downfall of "Big Ethernet" while the emissions from datacenters vaporize flocks of migrating birds.
Yes! The servers will look lit without those ugly cables. Zero-downtime cross-rack migrations will become possible.
Cannot tell you how many uncomfortable conversations I have had trying to explain that you still need to run cables for power to wireless cameras (the outdoor cams work off of solar quite well, though).
They're wireless, not wirefree.
None of the wireless cameras at my house have power cables. They run for months on a charge.
Our bullet cams pull a steady 30W ad they record 24/7 (factory floor). Our newer 4k and PTZ cams are coming in pulling nearly 60W.
Same with game cameras.
But resolution + recording time matter.
But - hear me out - if all of your servers did have wifi - and it was usually disabled - but you could enable it, move the server, then disable it - that might be something?
I know having a redundant server is better - but there's something to it.
Also, this reminds me of a post I read a while ago about them moving a server from one building to another without unplugging it or something.
[Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059243]
We should apply to the next YC batch as cofounders.
Why just Wifi? With ARM chips you can also have LTE in your servers! (Better check with the NSA first - maybe all the existing Intel and AMD SoCs already have some form of wireless comm built-into it?).
thank you for digging up the link, it was everything I hoped it would be. that one's going in my bookmarks.
obviously a second server and a reverse proxy or something would be less jank, but your idea definitely has merit. it's kind of like using two points of contact while climbing something.
The technician changing the rack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Z6QAzlkSs&t=370s
It would take some downtime (or at least a really long extension cord and redundant power supplies for swapping one-by-one) because you'd still need to connect it to power.
The solution is obvious: Qi inductive wireless charge coils on the outside of the server cases.
You swap it over to a desktop UPS that can come along with the server during the physical move. No downtime as long as you have redundant PSUs and you can walk fast enough to beat the battery draining.
Or integrated miniature diesel generators.
VW makes an excellent 2.0L TDI that would be a good fit. It would take up about half a rack. You could integrate a fuel cell (say 5 gallons) so that it can function when it is detached from the fuel delivery fans.
If you don't want to worry about piping diesel around your server farm, we could go with compressed air and use air turbines with generators on them. Clean and efficient energy transmission without wires!
Does it automatically detects when you are running a benchmark and switches to a special benchmark mode?
That’s what the gearbox is for! It will automatically kick into high gear
The idea of having a miniscule diesel generator in the server chassis is almost worth doing it right now. Still have fond memories of our miniature steam engine, but I figure that would be a bit impractical.
Or nuclear reactor
what I wouldn't give for a 1U RTG...
Wireless fiber is the way of the future
Put a micro UPS in the server and just haul it around campus still online
I'm down but I'm going to need Power Over Wifi for all my security cameras too.
I've been prototyping this but my neighbors are starting to complain about their canned foods coming out warm from the cupboard.
One man's bug is another man's feature
power over fiber is also a thing (it has very narrow use cases)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-over-fiber
mschf is pretty close to what you're describing
Wow, what a gem, thanks for recommending this! https://mschfhotels.com/products/flipped-flop
Those high heeled slides are kinda cool.
If you could make it as fast and reliable as ethernet you will be even richer. Cabling and getting those right at the scale of big cloud providers is a costly matter. Not to talk about technician errors losing these providers a lot of money which you will be able to solve.
SkiFree as a Service
Enterprise tier adds the ability to disable users being devoured by the yeti?
Just the SSO login, sorry.
Being devoured could be considered not safe for work.
Monetization opportunities include: pay-per-jump and Abominable Snow Monster rescue fee.
You can apply to Urbit.
It has a point though. Anything using clichees to communicate ,using something everyone knows, can spread like wildfire.
This is why some of user facing programable stuff pre node gives the users a interface like excel.
That was very funny. You should start a blog. If you already do, give out the link.
"Wifi for servers" has been a big part of the 5G pitch deck from the beginning.
This reminds me of the classic StackOverflow question (maybe inspired by it?): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508110/why-is-this-prog...
I thought it was inspired by XKCD's photoshop as a patch tool:
https://xkcd.com/1685/
(XKCD might have been inspired by the same post since it came later)
I forgot about that one! Normally I'm the one chiming in with relevant xkcds
If anyone's confused, you can scroll down on the homepage.
I didn't realize that until I accidentally bumped my track pad.
Sometimes when things fit a little too neatly above the fold, it seems like there's nothing below it.
It automatically resizes so even though I have a tall screen, I didn't think to scroll down because it looked like a basic landing page and had links at the top.
Whhhhyyyyy?
> The IDE may seem like a joke, but the research and development gone into it is most definitely not.
> MS Paint IDE uses a custom OCR that can be trained by nearly any font in any size, reading code from images in just miliseconds. The IDE's compiler and program output are in .png's, and automatically underlines any errors present and provides syntax highlighting with Java, Go, Python, and JavaScript currently being supported.
> The IDE also allows for arbitrarily editing any text file through Paint via a context menu option, with native-looking button overlays onto MS Paint to perform IDE actions.
why?
On HN, I think a better question is exactly the opposite: why not?!
I’ve built bizarre things that no one will use purely to learn about things.
Many projects are about the process itself and less about the outcome. Every one of those “useless” projects has informed my productive work throughout my career.
Just in the past couple of weeks someone ported doom into typescripts type system. Even bigger why.
I'm gonna guess it started as a fun idea, and the fun continued by solving and implementing fun new features ...
But seems like a huge amount of time sunk into something that I can't imagine anyone would actually use for more than a couple of minutes.
Just think of all the useful software they could have written.
Just think of the shareholder value they could have created instead of having fun.
But also just think of all the useful software that hasn't been written by people sitting around thinking about all the useful software that could be written.
I'd love to see a project on github that mines HN posts for a decent sized list of this.
I'll start-- off the top of my head I remember a post from Mike Hearn about starting the web from scratch using a format that announces the size of the incoming message rather than making the recipient check for terminator(s).
There must be a dozen dozen such thoughts-without-software of "the web, but good" on here.
If we have a list then you could plug it in to a script and have a spit out a random set, and then you could focus specifically on those.
Anyway, I'm thinking it should be stored and maintained as a quine...
It made me laugh, and that's reason enough for me to code anything.
We need awards for absurdity, I love this. Lots of good ideas and innovation come from the pursuit of the absurd. Don't ask why, ask why not!
As of recent, I have had this pet theory that there's a brilliance / stupidity spectrum, but if you go too far in one direction it loops back on itself. Some things are just so stupid that they're brilliant. I really like this!
Also, I should clarify that "brilliance" and "stupidity" in this theory are not raw intelligence, but the application of said intelligence.
I can see utility in something like this where someone sent you a screenshot of code and you wish to compile/execute the code in the screenshot. Anything else is a bonus. I dig the project, keep it up!
Planned features: acquire JetBrains
(https://wiki.ms-paint-i.de/features)
Looks good to me. Solid product and a solid roadmap :-)
Nice, although I was disappointed that you program by typing into MS Paint. I would have thought trying to draw the letters using your touchpad would be more intuitive.
Every bank seems to accept the weird single line that gets drawn when I try and scrawl my signature using my trackpad, so there must be quite a bit of interesting magic going on there.
The secret is that no one is checking that scrawl for authenticity. Not unless there's actual fraud, that's when the forensic experts are brought out to analyze and pontificate.
Yeah, that was a joke. It's the same with the single line I draw across the screen after I swipe my credit card.
This is a true piece of art!
It doesn't have any AI features? Amazing. I might actually use it.
Next version of MS Recall/Copilot will watch the code you type in any IDE or editor and try to give compiler warning automatically.
Needs StableDiffusion as a copilot alternative!
Technically OCR itself is an AI feature though lol
OCR predates modern AI including deep learning and LLMs. It worked based on heuristics that were hard-coded. These techniques are faster and require less CPU power but are more error-prone while AI-assisted combined heuristics for written and typed content recognition can deal with more variability. Even still, the USPS employs people (or at least it did) to correct addresses manually that its automated pre-modern AI address scanning software cannot determine with enough confidence. Perhaps modern AI (deep learning) could replace most of those jobs but perhaps not all as some could be read by humans that algorithms might not be able to decide with enough confidence and other labels are truly undecipherable even with all the AI techniques in the world and need to be returned to sender (RTS).
People who have web pages for graphical tools of any kind, where screenshots of the tool are not front & center on the website, I have a question for you: WHY?!
Crestfallen as I kinda expected it to have a Morse code interface as an easter egg. ;o(
It is lovely. I would, if I created this... art... Relaunch it every 1st of april.
Wonder how it handles python
But... Why?!
Why not? AbsuRdiTy is cool.
AI will never replicate this
incredible
[dead]