The site's description says: "I was feeling nostalgic for the Windows Bubbles Screensaver, so I made my own, much more relaxing version."

Click the bubbles and they pop! Very satisfying :)

The shell script starts with the following comment:

    # All the code is wrapped in a main function that gets called at the
    # bottom of the file, so that a truncated partial download doesn't end
    # up executing half a script.

Most of these scripts have been doing that for years.

I'm sure of it. And yet based on this rapidly getting to the front page, it seems like many of us are part of today's lucky ten thousand: https://xkcd.com/1053/

Might be more than ten thousand, even, based on the reactions :)

I had to do stuff like this over com ports using systems made before PC's.

Oh wow, what a read! Great story, thanks for sharing :)

(Author here) The image is AI generated. I did not use any AI to write the post itself.

That's just my style of writing, you can check my pre-GPT posts and compare if you'd like.

Wow! Are you maybe able to find a demo video of this? I'd love to see it!

(I'm the author of the post btw)

I think this one showed some of it (I saw it elsewhere, this is just what I could dig up) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRB3TWIAXE

(Author here) For our Wi-Fi bridge, the devices on both ends were set to max power.

I don't recall them being able to change data rates very much (if at all) because the ones at the beginning of the story were 802.11g devices, and 802.11g didn't have channel bonding capability or similar tricks up its sleeve. Newer equipment definitely has more options like this.

(Author here) Across several city blocks, in fact, and longer than the max range of Ethernet on normal (Cat 5/5e/6) cables.

Past ~300ft/100m, you need a repeater even for Ethernet. We would have needed at least one repeater somewhere along the line, which adds even more cost and complexity on top of needing to get permits from the city and approvals from all the neighbors in between. Anyone that says "just go get a permit from the city" has never tried doing it.

As for cable, you'd use fiber optic. There is really no need to go with copper in such a case.

Other than that I'd agree about your solution being optimal back then, and now. Btw how did you check the power brick, peak to peak voltage measurements? Bad capacitors is likely the single most common failure.

What happens when the tree grows taller? Would the new wifi still go through leaves and branches?

Edit: it probably did as the story is 10 years old.

You omitted to answer the question why the equipment wasnt simply put higher.

(Author here) Worse: to the balcony of our apartment building. Imagine asking your HOA how they'd feel about you mounting your antenna "higher" AKA on someone else's balcony or on the roof above someone else's apartment.

"Just" move it higher vs replace ~10yr old (at the time) equipment with newer, faster equipment that doesn't have the problem? Easy answer if you ask me, and I'd make the same choice again with ~10yrs of retrospect -- the same 802.11n antennas are still there today!

(Author here) Yeah, my dad's company does this stuff for a living, so I learned to distinguish all the terminology very early on :)

Even if you are looking at the turbines "edge-on," there's probably going to be a noticeable Doppler return as well.

Plastic drones with plastic propellers are still visible on radar because the tiny propellers spin super fast, so they light up like a Christmas tree on Doppler radar because the approaching vs receding velocities of the blades are so different.

Any chance you can explain to this idiot (me) the flaw in my thinking? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903084

Seems like another user with way more experience than me did an excellent job explaining the situation -- I enjoyed reading their answer!