HackerNews Summary (2023-06-12 04PM)

Source: Miniature Macintosh with Raspberry Pi

Summary
The Tiny Mac III is a 3D-printed retro-style computer that uses a Raspberry Pi 4 and a 3.5″ Waveshare display. The device is powerful enough to perform various functions such as ad-blocking, displaying pictures, and even weather checking.

Fact

💻 The Tiny Mac III uses a Raspberry Pi 4 to provide the device with computing power.

🖨️ The Tiny Mac III features a 3.5″ Waveshare display as its monitor.

📷 The device can run xscreensaver to serve as an electronic photo frame.

🌦️ The Tiny Mac III can run gnome-weather to display weather information.

🦾 The Pi’s activity LED is visible via a fiber optic cable that routes light to the outside of the case.

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Source: Don’t use custom CSS scrollbars

Summary
Browsers are once again supporting the ability to style the scrollbar, but custom CSS mouse cursors and scrollbars can introduce ambiguity and confusion. The scrollbar is part of the browser’s UI and helps create consistency across devices. Customization should only be done after considering accessibility, branding, extra data, and color contrast.

Facts

💻 Customizing scrollbars can introduce ambiguity and confusion, making it harder to know what the UI is and how to interact with it.

📈 Customization of scrollbars should only be done after considering accessibility, branding, extra data, and color contrast.

🚫 People should not be forced to download unnecessary data due to customization of scrollbars. Better to prioritize styling information for the website or web app’s actual surface area.

🎨 Custom scrollbar colors need to pass color contrast standards to ensure that everyone can see and take action on them.

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Source: In praise of blowing up your life

Summary
Blowing up your life can be a good thing, as the human default is sleepwalking. Even if you didn’t initiate the disruption, it can have positive outcomes. Making major changes based on the toss of a coin has been found to make people much happier, six months on.

Fact

💥 Blowing up your life can help to overcome the pervasive status quo bias that keeps many people from changing their circumstances.

🧳 Disruptions, whether you initiate them or not, can have positive outcomes and lead to a better equilibrium.

🎲 Participants in a survey who made major life changes based on the result of a coin toss were much happier six months later.

🤔 Making a major life change can be scary and feel like a mistake at first, but this feeling of disequilibrium can motivate you to find a better equilibrium.

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Source: Projects

Summary
AI-powered tools for video/audio editing, web development, and creative content are featured in this list of projects from the latest to the earliest.

Fact

🎞️ Klap – AI tool that converts YouTube videos to short viral clips

🔎 ClipBase – Full-text search engine for audio & video clips

👨‍💻 GitHunt – Tool to get any developer’s email address

🖼️ AutoPortrait – AI tool to create unique portraits of yourself

💻 Zero – An AI assistant accessible in your terminal

🪄 Dynamite – Tool to make your website editable magically

🚀 Chunk – Tool to create a live web service from an idea in seconds

📷 Snaplink – Tool to generate social preview images dynamically from code

💰 Zink – Micro-donation platform for online creators (Acquired)

🗺️ Zigg – Geosocial network mobile app based on a map

🤣 Memegine.com – Search engine for internet meme images

📑 Typeful – Service to generate legal documents for startups

🧬 genetic-playground – Webapp to experiment with evolutionary computation principles

🏠 Frank – Home assistant built with custom hardware

📂 my-FTP – Light, fast, and RFC 959 compliant FTP server written in C

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Source: Quanta Magazine

Summary
Physicists have discovered a problem with the strong nuclear force theory, which led to the discovery that helium-4 nuclei ballooned bigger than expected. The world of quarks and gluons was connected to the the study of nuclei in 1990 by Steven Weinberg, and despite the discoveries of recent experiments, some complex features of the strong force remain an untamed area of research.

Fact

🧐 Helium-4 nuclei swelled more than anticipated in recent nuclear force testing experiments.

🧬 The unusual qualities of the swelling in a helium nucleus magnify deficiencies in theoretical calculations.

🌟 Chiral effective field theory, the current framework for understanding nuclear interactions, has fallen short in explaining the results.

💪 The strong force is much stronger at further distances and has made it harder to do the calculations necessary to investigate how nucleons stick together.

🕵️‍♀️ Our understanding of the stickiness of protons and neutrons was first not explained through the theory of strong force.

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