I recently gave up on a native JavaScript only PTY. You absolutely needs third party binaries to make use of OS APIs, namely open_pty and fork_pty from pty.h in posix and some C# functions for ConPTY on Windows. Xterm.js already does this. The only pure JavaScript solution would be for Xterm.js to become a core Node.js API module.
Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
111–120 of 281 posts
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#112Manufacturing. I have no idea where one would start with learning it that doesn't begin with having at least $100,000 in machinery and industry knowledge.
Something like pcbway allows you to prototype a lot of stuffs, cnc and sheetmetal forming iirc
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
For this, what takes a while is to just tinker and fry components several times. Get a breadboard, get several sensors, try to design something and iterate on your design. Plan to fry sensors and IC's. Also helps to read some basic electrical theory and know what the role of different components are. The way I got proficient is with hobbyist PCB design. What helped me is starting with schematics and datasheets and pl…
This just reinforces the fact that it's inaccessible. There's no way I'm literally throwing $200 a month in the trash on a hobby.
$200 is for assembled boards. I learned electronics and spent about $200 on it in two years, that includes cheapest soldering iron. Don't order assembled boards when you are starting. Order cheapest bluepill (STM32F103C8T6) or non-original arduino clone and start on breadboard with that. Make pcb's only when you're ready to learn more. Expect that your first one will not work or will require some "rewiring", but second one may already work. You might start with some cheap through-hole components, they are a little easier to re-wire or re-solder, it's a good idea to put your first microcontroller in socket.
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#114There is a tiny airport near my house for small personal planes. I see them through my office window above the tree line. I'd love to build a dashboard/screen on my desk to easily identify each aircraft. Ideally something more complicated than querying an existing api. Radar?
If the airplanes have ADSB transponder you can buy a cheap RTLSDR dongle and get data from there.
Another way, can be to record ATC conversations, translate them with an LLM and then track the airplane properly. This is harder and can be problematic from a legal standpoint (listening ATC is illegal in some countries)
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#115Playing music. I love playing, but my sense of rhythm is not quite there and I make mistakes too easily, plus a few years ago I had some nerve issues that makes it that much more difficult to move my fingers in the exact way I need to play music.
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#116* Kernel development and eBPF: I tried many time to go deep on those topics, but never became proficient
* Bayesian statistics: I know the basics and the theory, but I am not able to understand how to use it in a real world problem
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just reinforces the fact that it's inaccessible. There's no way I'm literally throwing $200 a month in the trash on a hobby.
$200 is for assembled boards. I learned electronics and spent about $200 on it in two years, that includes cheapest soldering iron. Don't order assembled boards when you are starting. Order cheapest bluepill (STM32F103C8T6) or non-original arduino clone and start on breadboard with that. Make pcb's only when you're ready to learn more. Expect that your first one will not work or will require some "rewiring", but seco…
Ah alright that makes more sense, I missed that part, my bad.
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generative AI is helping people express themselves, the ones that were never going to hire the fiverr worker or graphics team to begin with
But then you risk harassment from the anti-AI crowd.
Generative AI has gotten really good, unless people are told to discern it from being AI generated or human generated, they won’t notice
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#119Manufacturing. I have no idea where one would start with learning it that doesn't begin with having at least $100,000 in machinery and industry knowledge.
3d printers start around 250 USD. Filament's at 15 USD/kg.
You can get familiar with gcode, with CAD software, making parameterized models, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?
#120Messing with EEG headsets, like the ones by OpenBCI. Being able to perform some operations by just thinking about them sounds so incredibly cool - I've been thinking about this for several years, but it looks like quite an expensive hobby.