That sounds awesome! Are these things you're doing for work, or on your own (or both)? I'm not much of a gamer, and I don't know what the market looks like for Nintendo systems...what are the applications for custom ROMs on DSs and other handheld systems?
Some excellent free reverse engineering courses for Windows[0] and Linux[1] were posted in another HN thread recently, and a couple other HNers and I started a study group for the Linux course. We have a Discord group, and we're meeting for the first time on Thursday, in case you're interested. (It sounds from what you're doing as if you might already be past those resources, knowledge-wise.)
> what are the applications for custom ROMs on DSs and other handheld systems?
Having played around a bit with a jailbroken Switch, the primary reason is to be able to either run mods for games (e.g. there's a surprisingly viable set of tools for converting/bundling Skyrim mods for PC for use on the Switch version) or to run homebrew apps, the common ones being emulators. Previously, I had played around with GBA emulators on PSP/PS Vita, but the Switch form factor and screen size are a lot nicer to play on.
That being said, you could also go the route of putting a completely foreign OS instead of just modified Switch firmware. Android seems to run flawlessly on a Switch from my testing; even though Android doesn't seem to be able to access the joy cons directly when they're attached, you can still pair them with bluetooth and they work fine even when they're slotted in. Android even seems to have pretty good built-in support for that kind of input device; you can easily navigate through the icons on the home screen, hit "A" to select whatever's highlighted, etc.
Thank you for working to fix a problem that would materially improve people's lives. I have a lot of respect for that. Finding a way to have both a technological and social impact in a single project is one of my longterm goals.
Homelessness is a topic I know embarrassingly little about. What has the data led you to recommend to cities, policy-wise?
It seems like large-scale data collection should be (but isn't) used to inform many public policy decisions. Another area where I think data could have a huge impact is studying how the punishments that criminals are served in court affects their outcomes later in life, and requiring judges to factor that data into their verdicts.
That sounds really cool -- I'd be interested to hear more about some of the hurdles you've encountered integrating modern web tech and old enterprise software. Any particularly notable challenges you'd be willing to share?
It comes down to working on a project that’s been continuously changing over the span of three decades. Over the years my parents have customized their offerings to account for numerous clients (our focus is on wholesale distributors). Keeping track of inventory gets especially complicated when you start dealing with variants such as colors, sizes, perishables, and pre-packaged goods (our customers sell in pallets or individually).
Because of this the systems end up become getting fragmented over time to handle all these different cases and specific needs for customers. Before I joined, the developers have attempted to unify as much as they could, but the business need wasn’t quite there to justify it as much as it should.
Building out our initial SaaS offerings have helped a lot for us since there’s the concept of only having one set of code running on an instance. Because of that, we’re able to abstract away all of the different nuances of each system such that the cloud servers don’t end up in a fragmented state as well, but leaving the on-premise legacy system as it is for now. The plan is for the core ERP to eventually move in that direction, but so far we’re chipping away all the edge add-ons and functions first, such as API integrations with Shopify, Amazon, etc. and building e-commerce storefronts for our customers in React/Node.js.
This is mildly off-topic, but how does one end up working on problems that are complex enough for things like this to even be an issue? It sounds incredibly interesting to me, but most of the software I've worked on has been at least somewhat web-based.
I know there's so much more out there, and I'm just not sure how to find relevant problems to solve...it feels like a serious case of "I don't know what I don't know."
I guess I should probably just pick some non-web concept I find interesting and start making something.
I do this all the time! I definitely haven't had a 100% reply rate, but I often finish with something like "I know you're really busy -- no need to respond" when emailing someone I don't know. Maybe I should stop doing that.
Regardless, it makes me feel good to know that the people who've had an impact on me know that what they're doing makes a difference. I bet there are a lot of people out there who've done a ton of good, but have never had anyone thank them, and I want to make sure that happens as little as possible.
This doesn't answer your question about money, but with (mostly) human drivers on the road there isn't much incentive to keep the lines visible, because humans are excellent at inferring where the lines should be, even if they're not there.
A few posts up, melvinroest suggested starting a study group for the (Windows-based) course in the original post -- would anyone be interested in doing the same for this Linux-based course?
Ok, awesome! I'm pretty much an exclusively Linux guy, so that's the path I'm planning on going down -- my email's in my profile. I'd love to discuss further!
> In work published last year in the journal Joule, Sepulveda and his co-authors made a powerful case for using a mix of renewable and “firm” electricity sources, such as nuclear energy, as the least costly, and most likely, route to a low- or no-carbon grid.
> Recognizing that “absolutes exist in people’s minds, but not in reality,” Sepulveda sought to develop a tool that might yield an optimal solution to the decarbonization question.
The second part, I think, is very important to keep in mind when discussing whether or not to use nuclear to help solve the climate crisis. I'm not a big fan of nuclear, but if deploying huge amounts of it is what it takes to get us to zero carbon emissions by 2050, I'm for it. Yes, nuclear has its risks, and it's not renewable, but I think it would be worth pursuing as a stepping stone to get us to net-zero emissions sooner, while we figure out how to power the entire world via truly renewable energy. IMO, the potential risks of failing to address climate change rapidly enough are much larger than the risks of wide-spread nuclear power.
Uranium in seawater is available in much larger quantities. We would not consume the amount of uranium over the next billion years even if we used nuclear for all of humanity's energy demands [1]. It is renewable in all but the most literal sense.
Uranium in seawater is the same as the hydrogen in the sun: it's not renewable. The hydrogen in the sun will eventually be fused to such an extent that no further energy will be released. There is no such thing as a renewable energy source because the laws of thermodynamics dictate that there is a finite amount of usable energy in the universe.
While I agree with you that it's virtually impossible for humans to use up the uranium in sea water at our current energy consumption rate, I think it's worth thinking about that if we had "unlimited" energy, we might use orders of magnitude more of it than we currently do.
That being said, for that to be an issue, we'd have to increase our energy consumption at least 1000x, and if we get to the point of using that much energy, it seems likely we'll also have advanced technologically to such an extent that we'll figure out another solution. It's just an interesting exercise to consider how what seems impossible today, might be totally routine in 10/100/1000 years.
The typical slight of hand in such studies is to ignore long term storage, like hydrogen, and then conclude nuclear is needed instead of all-renewables.
A good argument against (long-term) storage could be that it does not exist yet. Not in commercial quantities at least. I think it would be accurate to state we can build nuclear in sufficient required TWh's right now, but we could not do the same for the storage we would need in a 100% renewable scenario.
More and more I think we just don't have the time for research anymore, and we should prioritize getting rid of carbon over going as green as possible. (Naturally I will agree that renewable is ultimately better than non-renewable nuclear.)
Ah, the old "nothing ever happens for the first time" argument. A terrible argument, actually.
Hydrogen storage underground is a proved technology, already in use. Hydrogen pipelines exist. I'd argument the step to using hydrogen for long term storage is much more plausible than that nuclear will suddenly get off the failure curve where it gets more expensive over time rather than cheaper.
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