HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ jeroenhd

That's a very creative way of spicing up a boring old glass eye! I imagine such "wearable" tech could also be the ultimate version of those snapchat glasses.

Putting a battery inside your eye socket seems incredibly risky to me, though. Especially one that can power a bright light like this for a while...

⬐ GistNoesis

Maybe you don't need a battery and can go with wireless power transmission.

A scaled-up version of this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ3K0suY1Dc

To provide more power to the led you probably need a bigger coil inside the eye, it should work if you hide the induction transmission loop inside a hat.

⬐ perth

Imagine getting an MRI with your induction powered eye and the LED just explodes from the massive amount of conducted power

⬐ spookthesunset

Honestly while a lithium battery might worry me I’d be more worried about heat dissapation. Of course the dude says it isn’t an issue, but still.

I guess it might not matter much because the battery is so small that you’d be lucky to get more than a handful of minutes running that LED at max power.

This is all speculation based on a 30 second video though.

⬐ cwkoss

Meat sink

⬐ Sohcahtoa82

> Honestly while a lithium battery might worry me I’d be more worried about heat dissapation.

I mean...isn't it effectively water cooled?

⬐ spookthesunset

You got plenty of water mass up in your cranium too!

All I know is my headlamp gets mighty hot when it is running at peak intensity. Like hard to touch levels of hotness.

⬐ nigerianbrince

> Putting a battery inside your eye socket seems incredibly risky to me, though

We already do this with pacemakers

⬐ worldsayshi

Not sure why putting a battery in your pocket at all time or one strapped to your wrist is that much safer.

⬐ shepherdjerred

One is inside your body, the others are outside.

Would you rather have a battery in your eye socket catch fire and explode, or one in your pants pocket/on your wrist?

⬐ xypage

The one in your pocket is dry, plus if it did somehow start conducting through you it'd zap your leg/wrist and hurt, maybe cause you to spasm and kick something, but that's it. If one on your heart/in your eye socket does it, it wouldn't take much for that to give you a heart attack or shock your optical nerves which is a very short wire into your brain, and as such I can only imagine it would be very very bad for you.

⬐ cogman10

Not the same thing and we don't really do that.

Pacemakers are typically lithium iodide which do not have the same risk of uncontrolled burning (that's the nickel variety).

But also, the pacemaker sits outside the body with probes going inside. You'd not want another surgery just to change a battery.

⬐ AlmostAnyone

But that's not true... A pacemaker goes inside your body. It's replaced during a surgery every 15-20 years and has enough battery lifetime to last that long.

There used to be nuclear-powered pacemakers that could last many lifetimes but nowadays the doctors say it's better to replace the whole thing every once in a while, so the nuclear option is overkill.

⬐ eesmith

One of the exceptions, nuclear pacemakers using Pu-238 or Pm-147.

"The History of Nuclear Powered Pacemakers" - http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/degraw2/

> Despite the often longer life-expectancies, nuclear pacemakers quickly became a part of the past when lithium batteries were developed. Not only did the technology improve, allowing for lighter, smaller, and programmable pacemakers, but doctors began to realize that this excessive longevity of nuclear pacemakers was excessive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device says betavoltaic "devices include a 100 μW tritium-powered device weighing 20 grams".

That's about 5x the weight of a glass eye - https://www.muellersoehne.com/907.html .

Assuming linear scaling, an energy budget of 2μW isn't going to provide much light.

⬐ robert_tweed

A glass eye filled with tritium would probably give enough light to read with, continuously, with a half-life of 10 years.

It might get a bit annoying when you want to go to sleep though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_radioluminescence

⬐ eesmith

Assuming I did the math right:

2 cd/m2 * (7mm * 7mm * pi) = 0.00030787608 candelas = 307 µ candela.

Doesn't seem like much light.

⬐ kragen

Good points. But a low-duty-cycle laser pointer eyeball could be more useful than a low-duty-cycle pacemaker.

You could use the 2μW to charge up a capacitor for 24 hours and then have a minute and a half of 2mW, which is enough for a visible laser pointer reaching a few meters. 2mW light output is quite a bit brighter than that but requires more like 20mW power input.

A 220 μF cap at 48 volts would hold 35 hours of 2μW, and there are ceramic caps that big that would easily fit into your eyeball.

⬐ eesmith

"A 220 μF cap at 48 volts"

How much does that weigh? How big is it? What's the leakage current?

If it takes enough space away from the betavoltaic device, and thus reduces the power generation, then the cap will never fully charge.

Not knowing what you're thinking of, I picked https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/427/134d-1763800.pdf mostly arbitrarily. Note that I'm a programmer, not a hardware person.

The lightest weights 2.6 g, which is 1/2 the weight of the eyeball, so cuts the power generation to 1μW.

I think it's telling me there's a 10μA leakage current, which I think means the cap will power up to 0.1V before the leakage rate matches the power rate.

Now that you know my level of ignorance, what's your take?

⬐ kragen

Yeah, that's a wet tantalum cap, those have higher leakage currents. An X7R MLCC like https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/united-chemi-con/... will probably have lower leakage, though the datasheet doesn't specify. Digi-Key says it costs US$45, it's 20 mm × 28.5 mm × 10 mm which is 5.7 cc, and probably close to 15 grams.

Leakage current usually increases superlinearly with voltage, though. If the tantalum's DC leakage is 10 μA at 50 volts, it's probably closer to 0.1 μA at 5 volts.

In capacitors with a given dielectric, the maximum energy is proportional to the volume of the dielectric, so although a 47 μF cap charged to 108 volts stores the same energy as a 220 μF cap charged to 50 volts, it also needs the same volume.

(I'm not an EE either; I only play one on HN.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye says an adult human eyeball is about 23.7 mm × 24.2 mm × 23.4 mm, and a spheroid like that is π/6 of the corresponding cuboid, so you only have about 7.03 cc to work with.

So probably you'd have to settle for under 1 cc of capacitor, which (in the case of X7R anyway) means storing more like 15 seconds of 2 mW.

⬐ spookthesunset

> But also, the pacemaker sits outside the body with probes going inside.

This introduces an opening into the body that will almost certainly result in infection.

Probably much less risky to periodically change the battery than get the portal infected

⬐ Cthulhu_

But then this one could be lithium iodide too. A replacement eye can also be replaced more easily.

Anyway, your statement about the pacemaker sitting outside the body with probes going inside is not correct; maybe it once was, but that was decades ago.

⬐ mauvehaus

Pacemakers and implanted defibrillators are both, uh, implanted inside your body. Typically they stick them in the front side of your left shoulder. They run the leads into a vein (or artery) and anchor them into the wall of the heart.

They can implant basically under the fat layer or under the pectoral muscle. Beneath the fat layer is easier both from a surgery and recovery standpoint, but less secure.

The downside of that is that it's possible for the device to flip over. They usually try to avoid securing the device to anything because that can lead to discomfort or pain if the device wants to move around, but they can if they have to.

And yes, they do have to repeat surgery to replace the device when the battery gets low. The leads AIUI are usually a lifetime part (hopefully for all the right reasons). For defibrillators, battery life will be maximized if the device doesn't have to deliver shocks and can stick to just pacing. It turns out if they implant a defibrillator, you get a pacemaker for free.

⬐ spookthesunset

How many amp hours is the battery and what is the voltage? I’d assume 3.7v if it’s lithium ion…

⬐ mauvehaus

Search me :-) My experience is adjacent to an end-user, not as a doctor or engineer.

⬐ alasdair_

Screw batteries, just implant a nuclear generator inside the body instead. Perfectly safe :)

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-heart-pacemaker-dc-id...

⬐ hutzlibu

And it is risky, but it beats the alternative.

Whether it is worth it for a cool gadget, is another question.

⬐ ehnto

He does mention that "safety is paramount" and that the light is at low power for now. I'm glad he's not just winging it.

⬐ spuz

Maybe not winging it but definitely eyeballing it.

⬐ mckirk

I wonder what power laserpointer you could fit in there without going overboard with the battery... Imagine being able to light matches by looking at them for a bit.

On the other hand, every mirror would be a great chance to lose your other eye as well, so maybe disregard my ideas.

⬐ TeMPOraL

> On the other hand, every mirror would be a great chance to lose your other eye as well, so maybe disregard my ideas.

At those power levels? Probably every surface in general. A beam powerful enough to light a match or burn through a balloon is powerful enough for the diffuse reflection off a table or wall to blind you.

⬐ LanceKagar

And certainly burn the inside wall of the eyelid when closed and/or blinking.

⬐ anamexis

You could just wear laser safety glasses.

Wait..

⬐ Izkata

This is why Cyclops from the X-Men wears red sunglasses all the time, even when out of uniform.

⬐ spookthesunset

Safety contacts?

⬐ thomastjeffery

Safety monocle.

⬐ reflectiv

I think we're making a supervillain recipe here guys...chill

⬐ 867-5309

Homelander enters the chat

⬐ vijayr02

Username checks out on multiple levels!

⬐ MisterTea

"Do not look at mirror with remaining eye"

⬐ RajT88

Imagine cooking your face from the inside!

I have some laser pointers capable of lighting matches. They get hot.

⬐ dylan604

>On the other hand, every mirror would be a great chance to lose your other eye as well, so maybe disregard my ideas.

With great powers comes great responsibility.

⬐ ilyt

Not much, laser diodes peak at 60-70% efficiency, which means 30% of that goes into heating the device. Altho short bursts, maybe ?

The other problem is that this small battery won't have that much current capacity

⬐ wingspar

Wouldn’t it burn your eyelid too, from the inside?

⬐ spookthesunset

It would have a blink sensor that turns it off when a blink is detected or it points at your nose or something, right?

⬐ sonusario

Try not to blink challenge?

⬐ dylan604

If you're eyelids are closed, you can't be looking at what your aiming. Your chances of hitting the target increase infinitely if you keep your eyes open.

⬐ LanceKagar

Cool concept. I suppose there'd need to be a way to protect the inside wall of the eyelid, however.

⬐ CabSauce

Or a sweet predator targeting system.

⬐ bitwize

Optic blast!

⬐ LeifCarrotson

A low-power laser pointer would still be very interesting and perfectly safe. Star Trek/X-men/Superman/Star Wars dreams of stunning enemies with a beam of light from your eyes, there's no to have power levels that can light matches, pop balloons, or otherwise cause destruction.

One cool use, IMO, would be a time of flight distance-measuring laser: With only a single working eye, OP lacks binocular vision for distance measuring. With the equivalent to a Bushnell rangefinder, they could stare at an object, blink twice, and hear a tiny voice literally in their head say "37.84 meters".

⬐ dylan604

It would need to be an IR laser, or the jig is up for being a useful bar trick.

Heck, the old skool 1st/2nd ACs in the camera department would kill for this. No need to "pull tape" any more.

⬐ melony

The issue with high power lasers is heat dissipation.

⬐ aperrien

Perhaps you could add a temperature sensor as well? Heck it might be neat to go full tricorder-in-eye...

⬐ spookthesunset

Might not even need a voice. I wonder if you could “tap into” the remaining bits of the optic nerve and send a signal that way. The signal would vary based on distance. Maybe simulate intensity of light or something.

Would probably require some kind of crazy training for it to work. Plus I have no clue what I’m talking about!

⬐ xeromal

Wow, you have me excited. That would be so neat.

⬐ jstimpfle

Immediate "flashback". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkr1oUH1SV8 . This is a German version while Astérix is a french comic (and perhaps not widely known outside Europe?).

⬐ sschueller

oh wow, I haven't seen this in many years. Thank you :)

⬐ qikInNdOutReply

So, i hope this is lightweight, cause heave "glass" eyes deform the skull over time, leading to eyesocket drop. One of the many reasons that becoming a cyborg aint easy.

But if it was a lightweight memory device with wireless connection to all devices of mine nearby. This would be neat

⬐ hyperific

Anyone remember Eyeborg?

https://petapixel.com/2016/01/25/eyeborg-the-man-who-replace...

⬐ A4ET8a8uTh0

I talked with my social circle just the other day how our timeline is really a Cyberpunk timeline with only technology and body augments seemingly lagging behind.

I am both excited and horrified, because that universe is pretty dark. I suppose I should be thanking our lucky stars we are not moving towards 40k universe.

⬐ dmd

I mean - 40k is set in the year 40k, roughly, right? We've got a lot of time.

⬐ pnt12

I don't!

⬐ debacle

It seems like the greatest thing lagging behind is society. What the reddit poster did was possible 20 years ago, but likely would have caused wistful maidens to faint, etc.

⬐ madamelic

Yep.

I have 2 RFID implants and I don't mention it to most people because I have genuinely gotten bad reactions from even other software engineers.

It's a pretty minor 'modification' but people get really weirded out about non-medical implanted tech.

⬐ debacle

I am a body purist, but I understand why people are curious about these things. More functional than navel piercings, at least.

⬐ youainti

I point out to people that we've got lots of cyborgs. Just look at everyone with an artificial pancreas in the form of a glucose pump.

⬐ Der_Einzige

This is correct. I tell all my friends to watch blade runner and related cyberpunk if they want an idea for what the future of AI is going to look like.

I really doubted for awhile that it would be so damn cyberpunk and so damn predictable. Than I saw stable diffusion and realized the "enhance" scene from blade runner was simply prophetic...

⬐ Semaphor

I’ve recently met an acquaintance with a bionic leg again. It detects if he’s walking forward or backward, climbing stairs, walking, or running. It only needs to be charged once or twice a week and works even on unstable, muddy ground.

Now granted, it’s a 6 figure device, but still, I’m really impressed whenever SotA body replacement parts come up.

⬐ bombolo

It's extra fun when they detect wrong and drop you on the ground.

(got one)

⬐ Semaphor

Sounds super fun :D How often does that happen?

But then, the first time I met him, was at Wacken 2007. The legs could do nothing but walking at a measured pace (though I thought that was still pretty impressive), and had to be recharged every evening.

⬐ wnoise

I was so disappointed when I learned what laser eye surgery really did.

⬐ exikyut

What do you mean?

⬐ wnoise

It should clearly be surgery to give you laser eyes, rather than eye surgery done with lasers.

⬐ sudhirj

Where does the heat go? That seems like a couple watts at least.

⬐ Maursault

> That seems like a couple watts at least.

Unlikely. Light appeared to be around 5 lumens maybe requiring about 0.05A. If directly driven with 3.7V, then it's 0.185W. If he gets 20 hours of light, cell capacity @50mA is 1Ah, which seems close enough for the battery size, though maybe a little high, so LED draw is probably a bit less than 50mA and 0.1W, no where near 2W.

⬐ flak48

> Does it get warm?

> Brian S (Creator): Nope not at all. LED's do not emit much heat and the Titanium body of the eye offers great heat shielding from any heat emitted.

[https://www.tiktok.com/@bsmachinist/video/713267837541158430...]

⬐ reflectiv

Unfortunately he didn't include specifics, just brushing off concerns. And hey, maybe there is not much concern for a watt or two...but LED's will emit some amount of heat...and that heat still has to go somewhere, odds are it's going into his skull.

Like I said, maybe no big deal? Idk...

⬐ dymk

LEDs of a couple of watts do emit a noticeable amount of heat.

Being titanium doesn’t mean anything - here the heat has to go somewhere eventually. Either out of the front of the eye where it’s “uninsulated” or it’ll get hot enough internally that the body will get warm.

⬐ hamburglar

Being titanium means it acts as a heat spreader and a buffer that can absorb and dissipate the small bursts of heat you might expect from brief flashlight use. Rather than the LED touching one spot in your eye socket (which would probably be a noticeable amount of heat even if not uncomfortable), the heat is spread over the entire titanium body.

⬐ spookthesunset

Given the size of the battery I’d assume you could only pump out “max power” for a short time anyway. If that titanium does act as a buffer, things might be good.

Honestly the heat thing was the first I thought of too. It would nice if the dude goes into more detail about it because I’m sure it is one of the top questions asked.

⬐ xeromal

> Being titanium doesn’t mean anything

This is a pretty confident answer, but I think you miss the point of the titanium. It can act as a heat battery and slowly let it dissipate all around vs a focused point of heat.

⬐ dymk

Well sure it's a confident answer - that's just how physics works. You generate heat in an enclosed area, it's going to leak out. The hotter it gets inside, the faster it's going to dissipate through the material containing it.

The question is how hot will it get for some amount of LED on-time.

⬐ xeromal

But it kind of misses the point. The titanium does do something. It slows down the heat dissipation to an unnoticeable level according to the creator.

The comment was confident and correct, but not accounting for the whole picture. Couple that with a level of snarkiness, and it's a classic internet comment that makes the internet worse IMHO.

I'm always reminded of that comment on hackernews that shits on dropbox when it was launched. It was correct and of course dropbox was "trivial" to copy using a couple of commands, but it misses the point.

⬐ kragen

Titanium has much less thermal mass than the same volume of water. Water is 4.2 J/g/K and 1 g/cc, thus 4.2 J/cc/K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium is 25.060 J/mol/K, 4.506 g/cc, and 47.867 g/mol, so 0.5235 J/g/K and 2.359 J/cc/K.

I think water is also a better thermal insulator if you can keep it from convecting, and a better heat spreader (to eliminate "a focused point of heat", which I agree is a problem) if you do let it convect. But that's the opposite of titanium being a good heat shield.

⬐ xeromal

Thanks for commenting. I'm a layman here so providing hard numbers helps me wrap my head around the comparison. I think you're saying that water is roughly double a better thermal insulator? I wonder if the man could devise a water layer around what generates the heat in order to reduce the chance for burning his body?

He probably has to weigh the chance for water to mix with the components vs a simple titanium hunk of metal. I guess that's what materials engineers are for?

⬐ kragen

I'm a layman too.

No, I didn't provide numbers on thermal conductivity, just specific heat, though it is now unfashionable to call it that.

Yes, putting some water inside the titanium would increase the thermal mass of the overall assemblage, and I don't know of anything that would work better than water for this. This would reduce the temperature to which the eye-socket tissue is heated by intermittent but high-intensity LED usage, reducing the risk of burns, because it smooths it out over time. If the LED is not at the top of the eye, or if the eye rotates, liquid water would also help to smooth it out over space.

However, to minimize the temperature to which the eye-socket tissue is heated, it would also be beneficial to interpose thermal insulation between the tissue and the heat source, such as a thick layer of teflon around the outside of the eyeball (or saline-solution-soaked teflon foam). This will slow heat transfer from the hot eyeball to the eye-socket tissue, giving blood flow more time to convect away the waste heat and thus producing a lower temperature in the sensitive tissue.

I think the more important issue here is that he's using low enough power with a low enough duty cycle that it isn't much of a problem.

⬐ hamburglar

> I think the more important issue here is that he's using low enough power with a low enough duty cycle that it isn't much of a problem.

Yeah, I think debating whether water or titanium is a more effective heat battery ignores the fact that titanium is obviously good enough, and there are plenty of reasons he might have preferred to construct the thing out of titanium, such as the fact that it looks cool.

⬐ kragen

Because titanium is opaque, solid titanium looks the same as a thin shell of titanium on top of another material. Because water is liquid at body temperature, it isn't a suitable material to replace titanium for the outer shell; it would just splurt out of your eye socket.

⬐ hamburglar

> Because titanium is opaque, solid titanium looks the same as a thin shell of titanium on top of another material.

I obviously haven’t done the math and don’t have access to the data that would allow me to, but I suspect that for this application, you’d have to have an extremely compelling reason to complicate design and manufacturing with such an approach.

⬐ kragen

Most people would consider not burning their eye socket and possibly brain an extremely compelling reason. Heating an entire 7-cc titanium ball from 37° to the 44° necessary to start causing burn damage would take about 30 joules: 500 mW for a minute, for example. If the heat source is close to the surface of the eyeball (on the inside) you would need less energy because only a part of the eyeball is reaching burning temperatures, maybe as little as a joule. If the ball is almost entirely full of water and properly insulated, you could probably handle hundreds of joules before it started to burn you through the teflon or whatever. A hundred joules is a 3.7 volt Li-ion battery with 7.5 milliamp hours of capacity, so this is a practical amount of energy to put inside your eye socket.

⬐ tediousdemise

An always-on camera would be my favorite cyborg eye use case.

Imagine being able to go back and relive memories from your perspective. ML could be used to automatically caption and bookmark significant events for searchability.

⬐ jalgos_eminator

That's part of the world in the dystopian movie "Anon" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5397194/

You can replay any moment in your life that your eyes saw or your ears heard... but so can the government.

⬐ xnx

This is definitely coming, and I'm pretty sure it won't even cost you an eye. The dropping miniaturization of cameras, logic boards, batteries, microphones makes this inevitable. Likely form factors are glasses or pendants.

⬐ aar9

The black mirror episode 'The Entire History of You' shows a world where everyone has this capability. You might be interested in watching it.

⬐ koshergweilo

I actually met this guy before, he's been making these custom eyes for as long as I can remember. He said it took him a while to get comfortable making something water-tight enough to stick it in his eye. Last I talked to him he was talking about scaling up, hope the popularity leads to good places.

⬐ ghoty

Amusingly specific comment on that post: "A one eyed plumber working in sink cabinets would like this."

⬐ garfieldnate

I had expected to see him moving the flashlight around the room by just moving his eye and not his head; it hadn't occurred to me before that glass eyes aren't connected to the muscles used to move the eye around. I wonder if doing such a thing is within the realm of possibility.

⬐ haolez

Just occurred to me that half blind chess players could be the ultimate over-the-board cheaters!

⬐ tevon

Does anyone know if the eye moves in congress with the other eye or if its stationary i.e. always faces forward?

⬐ 1970-01-01

Styropyro's "pretty cool, right" seems fitting.

⬐ herpderperator

How does it charge?

⬐ tgsovlerkhgsel

Presumably by removing it (fake eyes just pop out).

⬐ booleandilemma

Sounds like something Apple would design.

⬐ hbgl

*empty eye socket

⬐ INGSOCIALITE

with the amount of heat my tiny little pocket flashlight generates, this terrifies me

⬐ e-clinton

Put a projector in there and have it display your thoughts from a Neuralink

⬐ Gordonjcp

Needs a little "Zeiss Ikon" logo around the pupil.

⬐ munirusman

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

⬐ throwaway413

Flashlight is awesome. How about a camera…

⬐ artursapek

imagine this guy breaking in to your house in the middle of the night

⬐ sphars

For those that don't want to go to TikTok's page (for one reason or another) there is a proxy service you can use, like how Nitter is used for Twitter, called ProxiTok. Gets just the video, description and ability to download it.

The first video in the GP proxied: https://proxitok.pabloferreiro.es/@bsmachinist/video/7157587...

Proxy info: https://github.com/pablouser1/ProxiTok

(Not the creator of it but a user of it)

⬐ gxvwb

I hadn't heard of this either, thanks. I made a Firefox Add-On to redirect TikTok to use ProxiTok: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/proxitok/

⬐ f0e4c2f7

Never heard of this - thanks for sharing.

Nitter and Teddit have become near full replacements for twitter and reddit for me. I don't know if they can last but I love services like this without dark patterns.

⬐ mdtrooper

Somebody says Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead: https://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Crania...

⬐ icemelt8

The repulsion hackernews crowd will face while opening TikTok.

⬐ nimbius

nonsense. for those who dont care to run tiktok ive written an ephemeral microservice driven with an AWS lambda, rust enabled, react framwork that uses an intuitive haskell based dockerless rootless console interface for the API i created out of a go based esolang implementation of the Turing complete driver for TikTok included in the 7.7 Linux kernel I built a ruby on rails time machine to travel into the future and clone using my custom built git plugin for mercurial on AS400.

⬐ usgroup

That’s reads like it took a lot of effort to write.

⬐ cduzz

Wouldn't it be easier to use yottadb or some other MUMPS derivative instead zapping it onto an AS400 cloud?

⬐ return_to_monke

Nah. That would induce significant overhead because of the distributed Blockchain systems. I think using zig with latent diffusion or some variation of GAN would do better.

⬐ andrew_

how did you manage to mention rust without also mentioning "fast" and "secure"?

⬐ srfvtgb

As long as it doesn't have the robotic text-to-speech that seems to be on every TikTok video.

⬐ account42

Nah, that computer-generated voiceover is repulsing no matter where the videos are rehosted.

⬐ Semaphor

I just followed a link to TikTok for the first time. It’s far better than twitter, kinda like YouTube but cleaner.

⬐ lrvick

It is like Twitter except only videos so you do not have to read, and all your behavior data goes more directly to the CCP instead of having to pass through Twitter servers first.

⬐ pluc

It actually renders most of the information you'd expect with JavaScript and Cookies disabled. Cannot say the same for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Just can't play the vid, but I can see the thumbnail.

⬐ Semaphor

While I don’t have first-party JS and Cookies disabled, I have everything third party disabled and had the same experience. Now that you mention it, that is actually extraordinary.

⬐ dicknuckle

I just use Maki for Facebook.

⬐ js2

https://mbasic.facebook.com/ works without JavaScript. Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly broken as it seemingly bit rots away from the main site.

⬐ newswasboring

Why? I've been on HN forever and I'm a huge TikTok fan. I will never understand the outright rejection on TikTok, there are so many cool projects which produce TikTok devlogs. Not just that several niches which I don't see often enough on HN (like AI ethics, not just copy right stuff) have entire channels on TikTok.

⬐ wruza

Do most of the videos that you watch there have such (subjectively) awful arrangement? I have no tiktok account, and am no hater, but I wouldn’t follow content like this either. Cannot imagine myself receiving a notification, watching $subj and thinking “this was a good one”.

I mean it’s a cool idea and tech spirit, but the form… raised eyebrows

⬐ newswasboring

I am confused about what awful arrangement you are talking about, but an example of good learning videos is excel channels. They teach you nice tips and tricks and get to the point fast.

⬐ bovermyer

You're focusing solely on the content.

My abject hatred of TikTok stems from who controls it.

⬐ hnbad

"Abject hatred" seems a bit much, even for TikTok.

When it comes to negative impact on humanity, Meta seems far more hate-worthy. And it's not like this list is particularly short (e.g. nearly every venture a16z is involved in seems like it should get a spot).

Heck, even HN isn't without sin.

⬐ bovermyer

My hatred is not so much for TikTok itself, but for the controlling entity a few steps removed.

If I were to judge TikTok solely on its own merits as a service then I would just be sitting at a "smoldering disdain" with perhaps a dash of sadness for modern preoccupation with frequent dopamine hits.

⬐ newswasboring

Weird, Bytedance has not done anything, to my knowledge, worse (or even better) than other big companies in consumer software space. Do you also not use Instagram? What about google or YouTube? They have done some pretty shady stuff. Or oculus VR? PayPal/stripe? All these companies have done extremely shady stuff, it's impossible to be at the top of any of these markets without being shady.

⬐ UncleMeat

Bytedance's payout to creators is much lower than YouTube's and their content-moderation has been more harmful to people who are poor, queer, or not traditionally attractive than competing platforms.

These probably aren't the top of the complaint list for most social media and content distribution platforms so I'm not saying these are reasons to consider Bytedance in a different category than Google or Facebook but they are worth knowing about.

⬐ manu_te

It's about China... Everyone that can (US, China, etc.) tries to guzzle as much data from online users as possible. That said, there are checks and balances in the US, there is a certain level of accountability. China is an absolute black box setting up an Orwellian social credit system for its own citizens, and with no accountability whatsoever about the data they might collect from foreign citizens. So, even if everyone is playing a similar game, ultimately there are differences.

⬐ newswasboring

> That said, there are checks and balances in the US, there is a certain level of accountability.

I'm sorry but there is no accountability in US, there are price tags.

⬐ samsari

>abject hatred

Well, thank goodness we're all managing to retain some perspective and not just descending into performative melodrama.

⬐ boringg

Add more fuel to the fire --> https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2022-10-20/beh...

⬐ andrew_

I'd recommend the Joe Rogan clip where they read the ToS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtGwlQWqQWs

TikTok is the most public and effective social espionage campaign ever devised or put into practice.

⬐ prvit

Imagine being this easy to fool.

Tiktok isn’t special when it comes to collecting data.

⬐ lrvick

I do not care how good the content is. Anyone that posts there is demanding people pay for access with behavioral data on how many microseconds they view each post, what apps they have installed, where they are located, what locations they frequent, everything they type or view in the built-in web browser, etc.

All this data goes to a centralized surveillance capitalism organization controlled by an authoritarian foreign power.

https://lr.riverside.rocks/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_...

If you -must- view Tiktok content, consider ProxiTok which is an open source frontend that removes most tracking.

⬐ thih9

> behavioral data on how many microseconds they view each post, what apps they have installed, where they are located, what locations they frequent, everything they type or view in the built-in web browser, etc.

I dislike user monitoring; then again, to me this set of features doesn’t seem that much different from Google Analytics.

⬐ None

None

⬐ WastingMyTime89

Short video is a terrible medium.

I am already on the fence regarding long videos. They are a rarely paying off time investment next to reading the equivalent article.

Short videos are an immediate no from me. It’s never worth the investment. Realistically if it could be written in a script fitting a TikTok video it’s not going to go deeply into anything.

⬐ ycombigator

Depends.

If you are trying to show a repeatable process, whether that's just DIY or microbiology, a video is dramatically better than an article.

⬐ newswasboring

I will have to completely disagree on this one. The amount of excel I've learnt from my TikTok fyp is genuinely unprecedented in my life. It feels like passive learning because they appear between my other interests like history or comedy. Specially stuff like archeology is specially condusive to this format.

⬐ UncleMeat

Short video is a different medium. Like it or not, TikTok is encouraging creation of new culture via its particular creation tools.

⬐ HeyLaughingBoy

And the reality is that different people learn best through different means. I can't stand video as a learning medium for software-related topics, but to each their own.

⬐ boringg

While damaging peoples ability to have an attention station.

⬐ dicknuckle

I never had one in the first place so none of it makes a difference to me.

⬐ None

None

⬐ lrvick

Install LibRedirect extension and it will convert most user hostile links like TikTok to their open source community proxy alternatives.

⬐ hombre_fatal

I doubt it. Most people here are doomscrollers like the rest of genpop.

⬐ aaron695

None

⬐ speed_spread

Real HNers have tiktok blacklisted up their pihole.

⬐ dang

Please don't post off-topic dross. This kind of stuff takes over threads like kudzu and it's just what we don't want here.

Especially not the meta kind, please. Meta is the crack of internet forums.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33316063.

⬐ estomagordo

I'm so happy my initial reading of the subject line was incorrect. Flashlight, with an 'a', he turned his eye into a flashlight.

⬐ devoutsalsa

The eye is removable, so there's still a chance.

⬐ chs20

I wasn't sure until I saw the picture.

⬐ hypertele-Xii

Can't believe I fell for that too. The mental image...

⬐ 09552655879

None

⬐ throwaway3415

Oh thank god for that, I misread that as flesh.

⬐ smegsicle

that i'd seen before, but a flashlight? that's new

⬐ reality_inspctr

what about shielding? cancer?

⬐ SV_BubbleTime

Are you concerned with light or heat caused cancer?

⬐ thih9

Original source: https://www.tiktok.com/@bsmachinist/video/715758729345106257... .

As mentioned in the video, there are other designs, e.g.: https://www.tiktok.com/@bsmachinist/video/710602314370956011... (terminator). Profile page with more videos: https://www.tiktok.com/@bsmachinist .

⬐ dang

Ok, we've changed to that from https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ybisa1/th.... Thanks!

⬐ lrvick

Why would you knowingly link directly to a source even more hostile to users?

⬐ dang

"Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ tgsovlerkhgsel

Presumably because it's the original source. On desktop, both are similarly bearable, on mobile, TikTok is a bit more hostile this time, but I've seen reddit put up hard app-walls before.

(Both assumes you have an adblocker of course)

⬐ geuis

The Reddit link provides a better viewing experience and better discussion.

⬐ dang

The Reddit link is still present for those who prefer it.

As bragr points out, the HN guidelines ask for the main link to be to the original source. Alternate links are welcome in the comments.

⬐ bragr

Neither of which conform to the guidelines.

>Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html