218 pointsby smusamashah4 days ago20 comments
  • jtwaleson4 days ago
    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.
    • passivegains4 days ago
      > 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.

      • jtwaleson4 days ago
        Yes! The servers will look lit without those ugly cables. Zero-downtime cross-rack migrations will become possible.
        • FuriouslyAdrift4 days ago
          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).
          • rtsil4 days ago
            They're wireless, not wirefree.
          • dmd4 days ago
            None of the wireless cameras at my house have power cables. They run for months on a charge.
            • FuriouslyAdrift4 days ago
              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.
            • paulddraper3 days ago
              Same with game cameras.

              But resolution + recording time matter.

        • hateful4 days ago
          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]

          • jtwaleson4 days ago
            We should apply to the next YC batch as cofounders.
          • thisislife23 days ago
            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?).
          • passivegains4 days ago
            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.

        • itishappy4 days ago
        • LeifCarrotson4 days ago
          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.

          • electroly4 days ago
            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.
          • jtwaleson4 days ago
            Or integrated miniature diesel generators.
            • all23 days ago
              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!

              • gpderetta3 days ago
                Does it automatically detects when you are running a benchmark and switches to a special benchmark mode?
                • TheTxT2 days ago
                  That’s what the gearbox is for! It will automatically kick into high gear
            • Aeolun4 days ago
              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.
            • j16sdiz4 days ago
              Or nuclear reactor
        • spydum4 days ago
          Wireless fiber is the way of the future
        • mystified50163 days ago
          Put a micro UPS in the server and just haul it around campus still online
    • jayd164 days ago
      I'm down but I'm going to need Power Over Wifi for all my security cameras too.
    • buryat4 days ago
      mschf is pretty close to what you're describing
    • duckilicious3 days ago
      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.
    • emchammer4 days ago
      SkiFree as a Service
      • navbaker4 days ago
        Enterprise tier adds the ability to disable users being devoured by the yeti?
        • rzzzt4 days ago
          Just the SSO login, sorry.
        • doubled1124 days ago
          Being devoured could be considered not safe for work.
      • xattt4 days ago
        Monetization opportunities include: pay-per-jump and Abominable Snow Monster rescue fee.
    • eddythompson804 days ago
      You can apply to Urbit.
    • ashoeafoot4 days ago
      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.

    • ironmanszombie3 days ago
      That was very funny. You should start a blog. If you already do, give out the link.
    • stonogo4 days ago
      "Wifi for servers" has been a big part of the 5G pitch deck from the beginning.
  • saghm4 days ago
    This reminds me of the classic StackOverflow question (maybe inspired by it?): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508110/why-is-this-prog...
    • 4 days ago
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    • omoikane4 days ago
      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)

      • saghm4 days ago
        I forgot about that one! Normally I'm the one chiming in with relevant xkcds
  • hombre_fatal4 days ago
    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.

    • timando3 days ago
      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.
    • 4 days ago
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  • nashashmi4 days ago
    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?

    • haswell4 days ago
      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.

    • ninetyninenine3 days ago
      Just in the past couple of weeks someone ported doom into typescripts type system. Even bigger why.
    • david4223 days ago
      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.

    • INTPenis4 days ago
      Just think of all the useful software they could have written.
      • treve4 days ago
        Just think of the shareholder value they could have created instead of having fun.
      • jancsika4 days ago
        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...

      • prophesi4 days ago
        It made me laugh, and that's reason enough for me to code anything.
  • notepad0x904 days ago
    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!
  • Lramseyer4 days ago
    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.

  • thumb4 days ago
    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!
  • grodriguez1003 days ago
    Planned features: acquire JetBrains

    (https://wiki.ms-paint-i.de/features)

    Looks good to me. Solid product and a solid roadmap :-)

  • SamBam4 days ago
    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.

    • glitchc4 days ago
      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.
      • SamBam3 days ago
        Yeah, that was a joke. It's the same with the single line I draw across the screen after I swipe my credit card.
  • omnibrain4 days ago
    This is a true piece of art!
  • adhamsalama4 days ago
    It doesn't have any AI features? Amazing. I might actually use it.
    • sakesun4 days ago
      Next version of MS Recall/Copilot will watch the code you type in any IDE or editor and try to give compiler warning automatically.
    • gpderetta3 days ago
      Needs StableDiffusion as a copilot alternative!
    • odo12424 days ago
      Technically OCR itself is an AI feature though lol
      • cantrecallmypwd3 days ago
        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).
  • naikrovek4 days ago
    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?!
  • cantrecallmypwd3 days ago
    Crestfallen as I kinda expected it to have a Morse code interface as an easter egg. ;o(
  • anonzzzies4 days ago
    It is lovely. I would, if I created this... art... Relaunch it every 1st of april.
  • 4 days ago
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  • larsiusprime3 days ago
    Wonder how it handles python
  • npodbielski4 days ago
    But... Why?!
  • code_runner4 days ago
    AI will never replicate this
  • artursapek4 days ago
    incredible
  • hackburg4 days ago
    [dead]