nja

sometimes I wonder if things like this are actually dark patterns to _encourage_ accidentally clicking 'like' etc.

similar to how in Threads, the '...' icon (under which 'save' is hidden) is so small that half the time clicking on it just clicks the entire thread (opening it to view replies) -- sometimes I suspect they make the target extra small on purpose

or how on FB, some of the options in the menu are now under the AI generated content, which pops in just slowly enough to encourage misclicks as items shift under your finger

all to make some PM's numbers go up, of course...

Another reason I'm so incensed that Google bought Fitbit. Every Fitbit I had prior to the Google acquisition worked extremely well and had battery life in the 5-7-day range. My favorite was the Sense which was basically a full (but svelte) smartwatch + full fitness tracker.

Now: just overpriced crappy Google hardware that lasts 12 hours because of AI and who knows what else they shoved on there.

And nobody else makes anything close to what Fitbit made...

Claude Code 2.1.68 seems to have been the last version (before the "ctrl-o" debacle) which actually shows thinking inline. That + Opus 4.6 has been working great as a daily driver for me... all the new "safety" / "preventing misuse" pain points in the newer models and harnesses are so frustrating in comparison.

Unpleasantly close to when Cloudflare bought BastionZero... the promises quickly fell away, the tool decayed (I found three serious bugs in one single week...and they had stopped even bothering to publish changelogs), and Cloudflare eventually gave us a "hey, we're actually shutting this down in a month, good luck" email prompting a scramble to rewire all of our infrastructure.

(Fwiw SDM ended up being a better alternative anyways... not looking forward to their eventual acquisition and shutdown :/ )

What is the latest way to show thoughts in Claude Code? I had to pin 2.1.68 since that seemed to be the last one with thinking shown (even though there wasn't anything about it in the following changelog), but I keep hearing that people using newer versions are still able to see it with some flag(s)?

And even for their older cars, most parts have gone NLA (no longer available), sending prices through the roof if you can find them at all! At least Porsche and Mercedes have programs to manufacture new parts for their old cars...

(My E39 M5 was one of the last user-repairable BMWs, but it's getting very expensive. On the other hand, it's driving a significant market for regular people designing and building replacement parts, whether 3D-printed, CNC'd, or homemade)

I have been wanting a pocket-notebook-size tablet since the day I got my RM2. I've been considering the Move since it came out, but the stylus change was worrying me, and the price is pretty high -- I feel like I would have bought release day if they offered a lower priced monochrome one in the same form factor, especially if it used the RM2 stylus...

It's encouraging to hear you have had a good experience with it. Maybe I'll grab one if they ever go on sale!

Is there anything beyond your minor nits that you would caution someone like me about before buying?

Has anyone migrated off of LastPass recently? How was it? I've been a user for decades, and though my frustration with them has been mounting for a long time, I've felt locked in. Migrating seems like a pain, especially for elderly relatives on my plan who will have difficulty picking up a new manager (it was hard enough for them to learn to use a manager in the first place), but every time I use 1Pass for work it blows me away how much better it is. Meanwhile LastPass continually makes their apps worse and more painful to use (and has the audacity to put me into "tutorial mode" every so often, as if someone using the app for the majority of its existence doesn't understand how a vault works), not to mention how many times failed vault syncs result in the losses of new passwords, and of course the data breach :/

So I'm wondering just how bad the experience of switching is now?

As someone who hasn't sold on eBay in a looooong time but was thinking about it for some stuff I haven't been able to sell on Marketplace, their pages and pages of fee structuring were intimidating. What was the breakdown of that $45, if you don't mind sharing?

For some reason nobody makes 2K 24"s anymore -- that was my sweet spot. But now to get the pixel density you have to go way bigger :/ dreading the day the old monitors I have cease working. I like the 24" size but 1080 is just so annoying. I was using 2048x1156 20" monitors back in 2010 and they had better density!

This makes me think of QGIS. I've recently been learning it for a couple different projects. It's an incredibly powerful and configurable tool, but its learning curve is incredibly steep. A big reason for this is that the UI is almost entirely toolbar+button based -- but the meaning of all of the button icons are completely opaque to a new user. And, making things worse, there's no way to change the UI to show text next to buttons. So every time a user wants to do something, even if following instructions that say "click the add feature button", they have to hunt around for it.

QGIS is free software, so it can be somewhat excused vs a billion dollar company. But they could really benefit from some UX expertise...

Other than phones and laptops (i.e. "real computers"), most devices only support 2.4, no? I can't recall the last time I set up a non-computer device that didn't say "make sure you're using a 2.4GHz network"...

(I imagine it's a much lower cost to only handle 2.4GHz?)

If only calling "representatives" still worked nowadays in the age of blatant corporate lobbying... it's really hard not to completely despair, because is there _anything_ we peons can do?

(I used to call my senators and house reps about things, but it never got more than a polite "thanks, but I don't care" and now they don't even bother to reply at all)

Have you posted any writeups or other information about how you built this? I'm eyeing a Mazda as a next car (I've never owned a car newer than a 2014, and outside of that one, any newer than 2006, but family safety needs may lead to getting a newer car soon), and telemetry seems like one of the few downsides to an otherwise good carmaker. Would be very interested to learn more!

It's amusing that changing the altitude scale doesn't reset the "trails" -- when I dragged it around quickly (on mobile) it left vertical streaks behind all the in-flight planes

The nice thing about the Java base here was that instead of trying to solve problems with a mess of configuration, we could just write our own code plugging directly into / replacing parts of Keycloak. Definitely don't disagree with you about the pain of XML, but that wasn't an issue for us here at all

I've used [Keycloak](https://www.keycloak.org/) in the past for "open-source Auth0" -- though I'm not sure it has ever described itself that way.

Keycloak ended up being quite extensible and powerful, but the UI and data model both sometimes made things more difficult than they had to be... this could be an interesting project to look at.

One bonus (for us) for Keycloak was that it was JVM-based, meaning it was easier to integrate our existing JVM libraries. Though its use of Hibernate was frustrating at times, heh

Chromecast Audio still works! They just don't sell them anymore. I use mine every day, and have been keeping an eye out for anyone selling theirs...

And the 2.0 source: https://invent.kde.org/desiotaku/cleardental

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it may fit the use case.

I've recently been replacing some of the wiring in my house as part of a renovation, and I discovered that Leviton sells outlets with PD USB-C built in now! Not talking about the useless 2A USB-A "built-in" chargers of yore, now they actually have proper PD up to 60W!

They do also sell non-PD, so it requires some careful checking of the model numbers. And the 60W one is pretty large (the in-wall part) so it might not quite fit in an existing wallbox if it is a small one. But briefly: - T5636: two USB-C PD, up to 60W total / 60W individual or 30W each if both in use - T5635: two USB-C PD, up to 30W total / 30W individual or 15W each for both - T5634: one USB-C PD and one USB-A. USB-A is 10W and USB-C is up to 50W (even if both are in use) They also make T8xx versions of these that have 20A receptacles (NEMA 5-20R) but those are harder to find.

They also make other T56xx/T58xx which have non-PD USB-C, good for places like bathrooms where shavers/etc work fine on 5V.

I've found that putting a few of these around has eliminated a lot of the Anker chargers I used to have sticking out everywhere. They're completely in-wall and they leave both outlets free. If I need 100W for my computer, I'll still use a separate charger, but otherwise these are fine.

The only point they don't hit on your list is the ports facing down, but because they're flush at the wall, that means they don't interfere with furniture (any more than having any plug plugged into the outlets at all would).

If you're in Europe/elsewhere, not sure if other manufacturers make similar devices. I know Legrand makes some 30W PD ones in the US market, and as they're French, maybe they make them for others as well.

Exactly, but that is my point: usually my data is not intended to reflect the time it is in New York. Being tied to a (semi-)arbitrary city changes the actual meaning of the zone slightly. If every city was represented and I could choose "Boston" then that would make sense (for data is intended to reflect the time it is in Boston) but of course that's not entirely practical.

(I'll note that I agree with the general wisdom to store data in UTC; here when I talk about zones I'm either talking about user local machine time or display)

I'm still not totally sure why these names were deprecated in the first place...

I mean, the folks who run the tz db definitely know what they're doing, it just never 100% clicked with my thinking.

I always prefer `US/Eastern` over `America/New_York` -- it seems more "canonical" to me. New York is _currently_ the anchor city for ET, but will it always be? The place I live (Boston) is currently on ET, but in the future it might be on Atlantic Time. If there was an `America/Boston`, I would use that to be safe, but since there isn't, it just seems better to be to be specific that I mean "Eastern Time" and not "whatever the time is in NYC"... At least then if Boston switches to a different tz, I could intentionally switch to "Atlantic Time" -- doesn't that make more sense? Versus I guess what I'd have to do, which is switch to `America/Puerto_Rico`? (I had to actually search that one, too bad there's no `US/Atlantic`...)

This looks great! My favorite projects posted on HN are the ones that come out of folks scratching their own personal itches.

Like you, I have a bunch of books on various bookshelves in the house. I also have a number of collapsing cardboard boxes in my basement filled with books from my parents'/grandparents' houses. At some point, I really need to sort through all of these and figure out a) what even is there b) what do I keep to put on shelves and c) is there anything worth selling to a shop or giving to the library vs tossing? Complicating this is that many of these books are ancient, and even newer ones aren't necessarily in pristine condition.

I have an old CueCat lying around I was going to use to scan barcodes on books new enough to have them... that'll be tedious enough, but going through the rest manually is going to be a giant project (which is part of why they're still there in my basement).

I don't see it on the site from a cursory review (apologies if I missed it): do you support importing from ISBNs (such as scanned by a CueCat)? I'd also be quite interested in the machine vision aspect others have mentioned here (though since they aren't on a bookshelf, it would likely be individual photos of each book as they are pulled out of the box)...

Tying into that, I'm curious what the workflow for inputting books will be like, both for my boxes-o-books case, and for the general bookcase import case. I could 100% see myself using this if it was a nice straightforward brainless process I could bang out in an afternoon while watching a show, but if it's more of a manually-search-and-input process, I'm definitely going to lose patience before I finish them all :)

Tacking onto what others have said about automated labeling, that would be extremely useful too---especially for the books in poor condition, but even for the nicer ones, just so that I could get a handle on them all. I have a Bluetooth label printer that could be fantastic here...

I'll follow this project with interest for sure!

Fascinating article!

The dynamic is found almost nowhere else, except maybe Boston

Definitely true, as someone who lived in the middle of Boston for over a decade. I once had to take a day's Zoom meetings from my double-parked car after an unavoidable morning appointment had me returning right when street sweeping was happening.

Living now in a more rural area, I need to use my car a lot more, but there's a lot _less_ stress from knowing I can just go at any time and return at any time and I'll be able to just move on with my life...

@ptorrone yup that about sums up what I experienced!

I recently got hit with $700 of tariffs on electronics, just as a consumer. It's definitely real and very annoying -- and as a consumer, visibility into it is extremely low, which makes it even worse.

Long story incoming (blog post candidate? Hmm...)

Pimoroni is a fantastic supplier of hobby electronics stuff -- they're like Adafruit, but in the UK. Adafruit actually sells a fair amount of their stuff, but not everything. So I occasionally order directly from them (often adding in some items that are frequently out of stock at Adafruit, such as Pi 5 chargers).

I placed a big order right after the first tariffs were announced but before they went into effect. Pimoroni was having a big sale at the time, so I loaded up, thinking it'd be the last pre-tariff order I made. I elected to pay extra (not much) for UPS, since I generally trust them the most out of the shipping carriers who deliver to me (in Southern NH, right by the freight hub of MHT).

After my package arrived from overseas, it was "stuck" in a warehouse in a port city for several days. The UPS website claimed "your package is being cleared, but we have all the info we need so just sit tight"... After a few days of this, I tried calling up. After fighting with the phone tree robot (one of the few for which swearing didn't seem to get me a human, strangely), the front-line support finally told me that it was actually held up in customs awaiting more information. The support rep just told me to send an invoice and hung up.

That was the first strange flag -- sellers always include invoices on their packages, so why do they need me to send one? I hunted around for a more effective phone number -- a difficult task -- and eventually found the UPS small business customs office line (had to involve ChatGPT to help find the number, Google being useless now). After calling up, I was redirected a few times and finally got ahold of someone who actually was able to investigate for me. He found out that it was being held because US customs had classified some items (incorrectly) as needing additional forms (more on that below), and that I also would have to pay serious tariffs but only after the additional forms were filed.

The helpful UPS guy (who, it turns out, doesn't even work in that department, but had been pulled in to help because the tariff changes were causing a lot of strife) was able to link me to a website with more information and a place to upload forms and track info. The forms needed were: a vehicle import form -- apparently the US government thinks any pump being imported must be a vehicle part, even a tiny fountain pump for plant watering -- and a pesticide import form -- apparently RGB LED matrices are considered pesticides, because they seem similar to UV lamps I guess... And there was no way to reclassify the items (not sure if that's because I'm just a lowly consumer or what).

I sent this stuff over to Pimoroni, and the folks there were equally confused. But they eventually figured out how to fill out the forms and sent them back, and I uploaded them. UPS sent them along and satisfied the government, and my package was released to UPS. But by this time, the tariffs were in effect. And even though I had ordered from the UK, most of the electronics had been manufactured in China, and some contained steel made in Mexico, so the tariffs apparently applied.

On top of the tariffs, UPS was going to charge me excessive warehousing fees for the package being held up! Fortunately, my helpful UPS contact was able to get approval to get those reversed, since I was never informed that the package needed more info.

However, the story doesn't end here! The package was finally sent on its way and my friendly UPS driver showed up at my door with it a few days later, along with the bill. Unfortunately, it was the full bill including the warehousing fees! I had to call up a different UPS line (invoicing) and have them make sure the warehousing fees were taken off, then specifically have them call the local UPS distribution center to have them update it. This happened, and the next day the driver showed up...with the same bill.

Turns out UPS systems are poorly set up. The driver called up the distribution center and verbally confirmed the updated price, but his device would NOT accept anything other than the full amount listed, with no overrides possible. We worked it out, though: I gave him a check for the correct amount, and he gave me the package but did not mark it delivered. He returned to the distribution center, and from there they must have figured out how to override it, because finally it was marked as paid and delivered and everything was solved.

So I got my electronics. But the cost was $700 in tariffs due to manufacturing country (not even final manufacturing country, nor shipper country) and including vehicle and pesticide taxes for items that were not vehicles or pesticides. On a $1900 order. Plus nearly a month of time and countless hours wasted on the phone.

Suffice to say the next time I went looking for a part and saw that it was shipping from outside the US, I didn't buy it. So, intended effect of the tariffs, I guess? Though I couldn't just order from the US instead, because it wasn't available, so I just didn't order anything. Hooray.

It was shocking to see just how little information pretty much everyone had in this process (myself included), the complete lack of ability to correct blatant errors, and the "delay and rack up more $" strategies that seemed to be occurring.

Wrt the post here: I'm sad to see Adafruit get hit by this bill, and I'm sure their prices are going to go up as a result, but I'm definitely going to continue purchasing from them, and I hope they continue to stock items from elsewhere (including Pimoroni). And I hope to one day feel comfortable ordering directly from Pimoroni again...

Missed opportunity to call it octarine...

Neat to see potential uses to help with colorblindness, but I wonder if this would ever also just become an attraction people could view just for the novelty. I'd love to try it out!

I'm wondering the same! I have an old Android tablet that just boot-loops and has a swollen battery. I'd like to get rid of it but not sure how to wipe it first!

I just built a library on jReleaser!

https://github.com/NJAldwin/maven-central-test

I wanted to release a jvm lib on Maven Central -- which no longer requires opening a jira ticket for a new package! Instead, simple DNS TXT verification is all that's needed. However, the caveat is that it's the new Maven Central service, which doesn't have as much support in build tools as the older sonatype one. jReleaser is one of the few tools which supports it.

So I hacked together a fully self-contained minimally reproducible example of a Gradle library, built and published in GitHub using jReleaser.

There were several things that had me scratching my head with jReleaser, and the docs are strangely organized IMO (it comes from supporting so many facets, I believe), but it ended up working well enough!

I ended up adding a doc build and some other stuff to the repo too. Now I have a full example that I can use to trivially publish new libraries (such as in-progress https://github.com/NJAldwin/ambient-consumer ).

(Why Maven Central? Since the demise of jFrog/jCenter/BinTray, there's not been an easy way to widely publish jvm libraries. At work I've used GH packages, but that requires a GitHub login even for public packages, which is a significant barrier IME. JitPack is one option, but it does on-demand builds linked closely to the origin repo, whereas I wanted the classic immutable build published on release.)

As well as presciently introducing the "almost letters" text that is now commonly seen in AI-generated image content...

One wonders what kind of excellent discworld books we would have gotten had Sir Terry still been around in the age of AI...