Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 443 posts

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#41

Post by ajxs »

I was writing an article on reverse-engineering vintage synthesisers[0], and I ended up getting majorly sidetracked trying to find out exactly what year the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller was first manufactured, or try and find any background information on it. The earliest reference to it I can find online is a 'preliminary' user's manual[1], dated March 1981. I know it's a bit of a weird rabbit hole to go down, but I figured I'd get to the bottom of this mystery. It's a shame that there's so little background information available about one of the best-known ICs in history.

0: https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vin...

1: https://archive.org/details/Hitachi-DotMarixLiquidCrystalDis...

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#42

Post by SimianLogic »

I couldn't find any containers for paper filters for the AeroPress XL that didn't look like cheap 3d-printed garbage, so I've been going down a rabbit hole of how to build bronze articulated joints.

I'm building a paperweight inspired by vintage brass table lamps to hold the papers in place on a wooden platform.

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#43

Post by emestifs »

jl6 wrote: post #35

So, I decided to install Linux on my formerly-Windows-only laptop, and thought it was cool enough to go full time and ditch Windows completely. The downside was the lack of access to top tier games. No problem though, my plan was to take a break from gaming, figuring that by the time Linux had caught up with compatibility, computers would also be much more powerful and I'd be able to resume gaming at some point in th…

Is a router a decent box? https://kittenlabs.de/real-gaming-router/

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#44

Post by hurtuvac78 »

friggeri wrote: post #26

Two very very deep rabbit holes in the last 6 months: - Designed/built a small USB controlled pan/tilt camera head to control the mirrorless I use as a webcam (couple of servos, gears, belts), and then designed/built a custom ortholinear keyboard with a joystick to control the camera (custom PCB, CNC'd aluminum case, etc) - I'm a pretty big runner, built my own web based calendar UI that integrates with Google Calend…

Very interested in your first rabbit hole. Which servos did you use? Which gears? For me, it would be to use with an action camera. How many hours did you spend on it before you were satisfied? I've seen some arduino-based projects to do that, but servos look quite bulky... and with the right gears, very little torque / power should be necessary. But i have not spent the time yet.

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#45

Post by cameron4 »

I take photos for fun in my spare time and recently started shooting on film again. This time around I've been interested in how film actually functions. SmarterEveryDay has a fantastic 3-part YouTube series of the Kodak manufacturing process as he tours through the facility. I'm now amazed that film is still even being manufactured today, and can't even imagine what the production line was like during the heyday of film.

I've developed my own film in the past but knowing so little about chemistry myself, it's still pretty much magic to me even after digesting all of the info from the series.

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#46

Post by gxs »

How to break substitution ciphers.

Somehow and unintentionally as the search began from some random article I’d read, this seemingly unrelated subject ended up uncovering some insights into a problem with deduping database rows I’d been working on for another project.

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#47

Post by naiv »

ak_111 wrote: post #37

MH370. There was no intermediate step as I saw somewhere it was the 10th anniversary of its disappearance and decide to get a quick update on the current status of all the evidence and theories. Ended up spending the entire day reading about radars, pings and aviation controls.

What did you find is the most reasonable explanation?

Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

#48

Post by doctor_eval »

I spent the last week evaluating drag and drop form designers and came to the reluctant conclusion that I’d be better off building my own. Long story. So now I’m building a drag and drop form designer, quite the deviation from the road I need to travel down.

Its almost certainly a rabbit hole but at least I’ve forewarned myself.

Post reply on HN