HN user
If you have a hobby no one cares about, hold it dear and close to your chest, and be happy that no one cares about it.
Yes and yes. I've often likened [unpopular] hobbies these days to how Joel tries to hide Clementine deeper and deeper into the recesses of his mind to try and avoid his memories of her from being erased in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". He fails, but somehow, they find each other and start again.
Maybe this is just a fantasy, but drink producers were previously responsible for their "waste". Bottlers would pick-up and recycle glass bottles, but the onus shifted completely to the consumer - first with a glass bottle deposit, then with the advent of disposable plastic containers. Glass bottles largely didn't require a straw, unlike the latest frappuccino, which generally comes with a plastic container, lid, and soggy paper straw.
Instead of banning plastic bottles or unrecyclable plastic-lined paper cups (or, as you mention, apple blister packs...what?) where the vast majority of plastic resides, we now have paper straws to deride. Each time you peel your lips off a dry paper tube, you're reminded of your personal culpability in the global waste shell game.
The only viable solution seems to be to stop consuming (see 'fantasy' in the opening line). I'm guilty as charged, BTW, but will politely decline paper straws (I have my own stash of plastic straw contraband).
People might not remember, but Word, Excel, and PowerPoint were all released for the Macintosh before Windows. Back then, the Macintosh versions were 1st-class citizens and (and you mention), Windows versions were a buggy mess.
Having used versions on both for years, I'd say there was a "dark" time around 2011 when the macOS versions were lagging badly feature-wise, but they're pretty much on-par today.
My biggest complaint is that you can't turn off the ridiculous animations in macOS versions (e.g. moving between cells in Excel). That makes the entire suite "feel" slower when in reality, the macOS version could easily be just as responsive as the Windows suite.
About a decade or so ago, I started to see people I used to work with working at Home Depot and Costco. It struck me as odd seeing these brilliant developers stocking shelves and providing advice on sanded vs. unsanded grout.
The more I spoke with, the more I realized that they were there entirely by choice. Most were given packages to "retire", but they were still in their 50s and their spouses hadn't retired yet, hence the job. All of them loved the physical work, interaction, and especially leaving work at work at the end of the day. They seemed relaxed and genuinely happy.
If you end up at Home Depot, chances are you'll really enjoy the work, plus I think they were still using an AS/400 the last time I peeked at their displays!
I didn't think it was that much, but I checked my receipt from 2017, and sure enough it was!
I have in my hand (I guess I like using that phase today), my father's original receipt for the HP-45 (it's with the box and manual). $299.00 in 1975, which is $1,850 today(!!!).
Relatively speaking, electronics are very, very cheap today compared to what they used to be. Still appreciate that my $30 CASIO does 90% of that the NumWorks can do, but I'm happy to support upstarts such as NumWorks.
Very impressive, and obviously a labour of love! As a calculator and SystemVerilog enthusiast, it's wonderful to see a project such as this come to fruition - congratulations!
I'm holding in my hand a 4-bit Von Neumann Mostek MK50310N that my father and I used to use to build calculators long ago. Although Mostek made chips for HP (such as the HP-35), they weren't commercially available, but the 50310 was. We could only dream of a project such as yours. I was happy when the "open source" NumWorks was released, but this project aligns more with my interests.
Will definitely install the Qt simulator - would be even better to build one IRL!
Indeed - Chicago is considered "midwest" even though it is geographically in the eastern US. Maybe that's New York City-centrism from long ago?
Edmonton is as far west from the geographical centre of Canada as Toronto is east. I think it's a a bit of a stretch to call the GTA "geographically central". Economically and demographically, definitely.
The Weather Network, which really should consider geographic markers only, calls the GTA "central Canada". I think there would be an outcry if they started saying "eastern Canada".
central Canada
This is part of the issue; the GTA is solidly in the east (the centre of Canada is in Manitoba), but when someone says, "eastern Canada", one automatically thinks "Nova Scotia", but Toronto is a relatively short drive from New York City. That being said, I understand that in most cases, "central" is referring to population, industry, finance (not fashion - that's Montrėal).
Regarding the site, the exhibit's producer, Zbigniew Stachniak, wrote an excellent book [0] on the world's first truly portable computer: the MCM/70 - which ran APL (yay!).
In the words of the late, great Hal Finney,
"The thing I always love is when there's an intellectual challenge that when you master it gives you practical abilities."
Tangential capabilities from mentally challenging tasks are your personal differentiator - regardless of what tools you use or what you're working on. Running 5 miles puts you way ahead of the person who rode their e-bike for 20. Performing the hard work pays off - not always monetarily, but like exercise, it's uplifting and healthy, and provides long-term advantages.
Corporations need differentiators as well - hopefully they rely on their creative and innovative employees to stand out, regardless of tooling.
Absolutely - factory repair guides/apps are the only source of truth for official specs, although 3rd-party manuals are very good as well. That being said, I've often turned 3-hour estimated repairs into 15-minute jobs through clever shortcuts. For example, rotating an alternator to replace the run clutch through the gap in in the intake manifold as opposed to removing the complete intake manifold. I think that's where using experienced (and resourceful) developers pays off.
Also, for sale: BMW E60/61 Bentley 2-volume set. Barely used.
Personal anecdote. When I started as a wide-eyed university co-op, I was surrounded by a team of aging mainframe developers who had been coding since the 1960s. Their backgrounds ranged from working their way up from the mailroom to astrophysics to masters degrees in computer science. What struck me was how the entire team treated coding as a form of art. Of course, it had to be functionally correct and maintainable, but you could glance at a snippet of hyper-efficient PL/1 and instantly tell that 'Larry' or 'Trudy' wrote that routine - each programmer had a unique style, along with just the right amount of comments to make you laugh and guide you through difficult bits.
Most of the team has since passed away, and their code has been long replaced by modern systems, but what stuck with me is that great code is a form of art - where your individual style, insights and personality can be reflected in code for the better. The systems were efficient, responsive, extensible, and a joy to work on, since the team took a great deal of pride in their work. It really is akin to being affected by a clever and insightful work of art. A decade later, and programming became something to "make money" at, which flooded the market with many people who never really had a deep love of programming, and I guess that's ok, but something has definitely been lost along the way.
To your point, it may not be such a bad thing if people started boycotting computer science and it again became more of a calling than purely an avenue to employment.
Edit: should have read: "sucralose-laden diet iced tea". Stevia-only drinks don't taste all that good to me, but they don't affect my blood glucose.
From personal experience (sorry, n=1), I can eat pure Aspartame powder and have zero reaction - no increase in glucose, no "anticipatory" response - nothing.
When I have other sweeteners such as taking a swig of a stevia-laden diet iced tea, I have a reaction. I used to be able to drink the exact same iced tea when they used Aspartame with no effect. I don't think your body is "fooled" by sweet tastes - it only reacts when there is actually something to process.
The fact sucralose is being added into all kinds of products has removed many choices for me, which is unfortunate as the selection was quite small to begin with.
Those are excellent choices; pure monk fruit drops are great, but they cost a small fortune compared to others, and the affordable version is usually mixed with erythitol, which increase blood glucose, so that's a non-starter. Amazon and local health food stores sell a "tub" of stevia for a decent price, and that's my main go-to, but the bitter aftertaste is off-putting, hence Aspartame.
Prepared food is pretty much a no-go; there's only a single energy bar I purchase that uses stevia only, but I make my bars from whey protein isolate, cocoa powder, and peanut butter powder, plus roasted flax, almond flour, almond milk, and sweeteners. I did skip sweeteners completely for some time, thinking that I'd "get used to it", but I really didn't - we're programmed for something sweet!
I'll impart my n=1 experience, since I've been using powdered Aspartame (in combination with Stevia) in drinks and baking for almost 20 years, and I've tried almost all available sugar substitutes over the years.
We already know from glycemic index charts that almost all sugar substitutes impact blood glucose to a certain degree, and there are only a few that have no impact. When sucralose became widely available, I bought some to try to bake with, but the carrier was maltodextrin - a starch, which prevented me from using it. Undeterred, I purchased pure sucralose drops in a neutral liquid. The sickly-sweet mouth feel after consuming sucralose is a bit tough to take [0], but that wasn't the worst of it. It actually impacted my blood glucose, and when I read more of the research, sucralose actually did cause an insulin reaction in many people who consumed it ("Several studies have shown that sucralose is not physiologically innocuous").[1]
Then I read how sucralose is produced; literally thousands of pounds of sugar is used and converted to produce a few pounds of sucralose. It's being pushed hard by the industry, and I can only think of the 'vilification' of cheaper sweeteners such as Aspartame by industry, much in the same way that saccharin was vilified by flawed [2] studies in the 1970s - just as Aspartame was being developed as a commercial product.
Alcohol is a class 1 carcinogen, and sugar causes irreparable damage to millions of people around the world. I find it somewhat odd how people react to what appears to be a flawed and dubious Aspartame study, when there are much larger elephants in the room.
[0] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/after-sales-plummet-diet...
My original observation wasn't worded as well as it could have been. I meant in situations where hard braking could be required on a moment's notice for no particular reason (e.g. Chicago freeways where everyone is doing 70 mph bumper-to-bumper and decreases to 10 mph all of a sudden).
Indeed, when someone changes lanes in front of me, I gently let off the accelerator, but as someone else noticed, that can enrage drivers behind me (I don't take it personally), and I'm definitely traveling fast enough to remain in the middle lanes.
It used to be more of an issue when I was younger. Now that I'm older and more 'seasoned' (plus reflexes do slow down), I'm far more patient and have no issue maintaining a healthy following distance. I think the statistics reflect this in age vs. accident rate as well.
Unfortunately, sometimes over a 45 minute freeway commute, dropping back repeatedly means arriving 15 minutes or more later. Again, no big deal now, but it was somehow unacceptable when I was younger.
Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways where hard braking is often 'required'. Most people have likely found themselves in this situation: vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.
Incredibly frustrating, and I've driven all over North America - there's practically no major city where this doesn't happen. If you're not maintaining a safe following distance on city/residential streets, that's a different matter.
Interestingly (or possibly not), since my very first computers had ~4K of RAM, I became adept at optimizations of all kinds, which came in handy for my first job - coding 360 mainframe assembly. There, we wouldn't be able to implement our changes if our terminal applications (accessing DB2/IMS) responded in anything greater than 1s. Then, the entire system was replaced with a cloud solution where ~30s of delay was acceptable.
I think the Internet made 'waiting' for a response completely normalized for many applications. Before then, users flew through screens using muscle memory. Now, when I see how much mouse clicking goes on at service counters, I always think back to those ultra-fast response time standards. I still see a few AS/400 or mainframe terminal windows running 'in the wild' and wonder what new employees think about those systems.
The big mistake I see people make is not knowing when to quit.
This is sage advice. I spent the better part of a day trying to steer Gemini into correcting an inconsistency when I likely could have solved it in under an hour. I think persevering with Gemini was due to a number of factors, including novelty, stubbornness, and (unfortunately) not knowing in detail what Gemini had written up to that point.
I eventually studied the resulting code, which ended up having a number of nested 'hacks' and required refactoring - more time wasted, but still much faster overall.
"What an LLM is to me is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a e-bike for our minds"
Did not know this existed; thanks very much for posting that - even the comments are insightful. Added to my next order!
Your thoughtful question is definitely along the lines where the research could change health outcomes. Apple Health currently tracks trends over time and can alert if any disconcerting trends are identified. If Apple were able to capture a breathing signature at rest, say once a month, trends could be identified (via training data, as you mention) and data optionally provided to healthcare providers.
Some people who are alone (including my father) have no idea that they have sleep apnea or 'odd' breathing - for apnea, they're obviously asleep, and for other breathing factors, it's usually a slow and unnoticeable progression.
Kind of a silly personal anecdote, but growing up, my father had a unique "strained" nostril breathing pattern and bad sleep apnea + COPD. I became 'hyper aware' of people's breathing patterns - to the point where people at work had fun with it - standing behind me breathing normally. I could identify who it was > 90% of the time (they were not trying to breathe quietly or differently). I often thought of people's breathing signature as sort of factor to identify them by. I certainly didn't think I was the first person to note this.
More interestingly, I'm also able to pick out people who have early signs of "decreased health" based on their breathing pattern at rest - I don't think it's overly difficult.
This study appears to cover both aspects - creating a breathing fingerprint and estimating BMI. I certainly wasn't aware of breathing differences associated with cognitive state. Bravo to the researchers for formalizing all of this - hope some positive interventional techniques are driven by these findings.
Interestingly (or possibly not), I made this [0] comment here (on HN) some time ago and was quickly informed that my technique was used in the 1960s to identify moving celestial objects in successive astronomical photographs. [2] I kind of assumed is was a fairly well-known technique, but didn't realize it also had practical use!
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37981314 [1] https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/microscope-ast...
Here's something rather mundane, but definitely works for me: open Internet Archive's Audio section and choose "This Just In". Click on the first interesting thing you see and let it play. Most things I choose are pretty good to so-so, but sometimes I find a real gem (e.g., 3-hour-long John Peel radio captures transferred from cassette from the late 1970s).
It's all rather random but relies somewhat on your gut instinct. I find it more enjoyable than the top music streaming services. Case in point: someone uploaded an excellent field recording of a Bruce Hornsby concert from 2017 yesterday - listened to the whole thing a few times already (and I'm not really a big fan, but he's a great showman).
I should have a guide, but haven't created one yet - don't want to derail the thread, but here are a few pointers:
- The iFixit Apple Watch teardown is surprisingly effective - way more heat (and patience) is required then they indicate
- Using an X-Acto blade between the frame and glass really works well without damaging a single component (please be careful and alternate heat and prying)
- You may also need to replace the deep-press bezel - consider ordering one prior to your repair
- The battery glue is very, very persistent - lots of unnerving heat and prying
- Use a needle to separate the upper and lower battery connection on one side of the connector
- Three different replacement bezel glue rings all released over time - Permatex black gasket maker is the only thing that worked to reattach the display
Good luck, and I hope this helps save a few watches from being recycled prematurely
Now that I've finally mastered replacing Apple Watch batteries (and replacing one incredibly small battery connector I managed to lift off the board), I asked my son just this morning what we do with the three outdated models we have lying around (we "abandoned" the watches when the batteries wouldn't last even 1/2 a day).
This looks like a great solution to repurposing our old watches.
First off, congratulations on the sale - sounds like the right time and the right reasons for you, and you're 100% right on the seemingly 'backwards' nature of incentives and rewards when working for a large org. I was somewhat saddened when the logo changed (I suggested an alternate), but completely understand your rationale.
As a side project, I'm currently working with a hardware founder (I'm primarily software) who exited twice before having his "clock cleaned" by overseas competition steal and undercut his patented products on his third venture, which caused him to all but close shop and retire early. He's back I think due to boredom, but I'm seeing just how difficult hardware is. Why do you think hardware doesn't generally have the same level of 'respect' as software? From what I can see, it should be held in much higher regard with a correspondingly higher level of compensation. Is it literally just the current ability for hardware to be reverse-engineered and undercut?
Well said. I've likened technical hobbies to Joel trying to hide memories of Clementine deeper and deeper in the recesses of his mind - away from Lacuna's eraser. Somehow when what hobbyists love to do becomes "for the masses", it becomes less interesting, which means digging deeper for hobbies that are largely shielded from the public. I think that's partially where innovation comes from.