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algas

88 karma · joined June 12, 2023

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algas··on Show HN: I automated half of my typing
Strangely, if you use an alt keyboard layout, dropping most of the vowels actually makes it a little less comfortable to type. Coleman and (particularly) Dvorak both put a lot of effort into making common words either alternate hands or roll off your fingers, as well as making the most common letters and vowels very accessible to your fingers. Since this method of typing makes those convenient letters less common, it seems to actually make tpng lk ths a ltl + uncmftbl.
algas··on Launch HN: HyLight (YC S23) – Hydrogen airships to inspect energy infrastructure
"Gimballed" might be a better term for it. The airship would work by thrust vector control: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_vectoring
algas··on Most of my Instagram ads are for drugs, stolen credit cards, hacked accounts
Fully 90 percent of my Instagram explore page is variations of one meme, which I don't remember ever clicking on. It's the blue guy from avatar with captions like "Selfish? How much does it cost?" I just opened my explore page and got *11* of them above the fold. All by different accounts, and I don't follow any of them. [0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

It's really confusing.

[0] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv0LV1-MPTt/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv2a4cns0qC/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtHShr_IkQ8/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [3] https://www.instagram.com/p/CsBQlWLIPCM/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [4] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtL_QzkoU2P/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [5] https://www.instagram.com/p/CwKq_MhtAVw/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [6] https://www.instagram.com/p/CvsROVsx5G9/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [7] https://www.instagram.com/p/CscgmD_oKiG/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [8] https://www.instagram.com/p/CrJNsS3Kmn5/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [9] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvu3U1dPfi7/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2... [10] https://www.instagram.com/p/CthAVOQOL3h/?igshid=NjIwNzIyMDk2...

algas··on StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
I love my X1 tablet gen 1, but I need to repair the screen on it. Not sure if it's still true for the gen 3, but the gen 1 had a lot of modular parts you could add, like an extra battery that also gives you an HDMI port. Plus, I had this ridiculously nice solid carrying case.
algas··on An Introduction to Graph Theory
That was quite fun and a very satisfying experience on mobile! It would definitely be a good base to expand on for further demos.
algas··on Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption
Which is a good reason to avoid giving your data to either one in the first place. If I don't have a choice though, I'll take the company over the government any day.
algas··on Show HN: Peeng – like Pingdom, but the other way around and simpler
Or "Gneep" maybe
algas··on The Perfect Laptop
I love my P50! Although I'm still a little salty that I couldn't find any decent P51 models on eBay when I was buying, because I have a P51 mustang sticker on the back and the joke doesn't quite... land.
algas··on What AT&T and Verizon knew about toxic lead cables for decades
Leaded gasoline is an issue because it's a very bioavailable form of lead. It contains tetraeythyl lead, which is extremely volatile and likes to absorb into your cells.

Solid lead, on the other hand, is much more inert. The main danger of working with elemental lead is breathing in dust if you're grinding it.

algas··on Grav is a modern open-source flat-file CMS
I've been building a website in Grav and I've found it a really nice introduction to the world of dynamic content. I was pleasantly surprised by how familiar PHP felt coming from Python, and all the frontend skills of static website building transfer really nicely. Plus the documentation is great.
algas··on Matrices and Graph
The textbook for this course is probably one of the finest Strang ever wrote. It's also worth looking at the original edition of the textbook, which was called "Introduction to Applied Mathematics" and has a much more thorough treatment of the parallels between matrices, graphs, and differential operators, and their use in optimization problems. CSE is much more practical for solving actual scientific computing problems, though, even if I find the layout somewhat less beautiful.
algas··on Excellence is a habit, but so is failure
So perhaps this is convergent evolution? "Character" can also mean symbol, like a key on a typewriter. That would make more sense as a descendant from "engraving".
algas··on Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?
This looks fantastic. It would be really great to have some proper competition to McMaster in terms of making part information accessible. I'll keep this in mind for future products, good luck bringing it fully to market!
algas··on Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?
That's super cool! I worked last year on an algae bioreactor. I was growing chlorella in plastic bottles in my room, just for the heck of it. That year I also met some people working for a University of Edinburgh startup using algae to consume the tails from whiskey production. Honestly, I really hope that algaes see a wider adoption in consumer and business processes, because they're really fun and fascinating organisms.

Out of curiosity, are you looking for interns? I can work in the UK and the US. If you have contact information of some kind, I can send you my resume!

algas··on New York Times Election Day Crossword (2009)
That's insane. I breezed through this puzzle and did not notice. Indeed legendary
algas··on The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries
Every part of your first sentence is inaccurate.

Submarines are glued tight; all the body panels are welded together. They do this because making waterproof riveted joints is hard [0]. Riveted joints would flex and open up, requiring constant maintenance and caulking, and early riveted subs would leak trails of fuel behind them (and significantly into the sub itself!)

Second, submarines aren't even waterproof. There's lots of things that are hard to seal, like the spinning propeller shaft. Submarines have a natural advantage over your phone in this regard: all the water that leaks in can be pumped out.

Under the new regulations, phones can't be glued or welded shut, and there's not much room for a bilge pump in the average modern smartphone.

[0]: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1518898

algas··on The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries
Yeah, the waterproofing concerns me. Neither of the examples they brought up in the article had ip67 water resistance, which I consider a bare minimum after water damaging too many cheap phones. The best phones are more water resistant than that. As a meche, you'll always get a better water seal with glue than with screws or snaps. I can see this being a real issue.
algas··on Ask HN:Your Favorite RSS feed reader on mobile?
Seconded! I got really annoyed with Feedly because I would accidentally swipe between articles and it wouldnt save my spot, among other mobile issues. Inoreader has no such problems and 100% gets out of the way. I love it
algas··on Ask HN: Best search engine alternatives to Google?
I really liked marginalia when I first used it (when it was released) but it seems to have a little more cruft now. Not sure if that's other peoples experience too?
algas··on Toward a more useful keyboard
Hey, another extend user! I literally can't imagine using a computer for a long time if it didn't have extend and colemak-dh. The friction with trying to make extend work on Linux is the main reason I'm stuck on Windows.
algas··on JupyterLab 4.0
Check out the remote SSH (https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh) extension. It makes everything really painless. I'm currently developing a website that resides in a docker container in a digitalocean server, and editing the code in VSCode feels literally no different at all to running it locally. If you have the SSH keys set up it's completely painless.

The other nice thing about VSCode is that you can extend it with VSCode Neovim (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetlia...), which runs a headless version of Neovim and allows you to do all the wonderful things that that entails, including stuff like VSCode's native multiple cursor implementation (and Lua config files!). All in all it's a great workflow, it's pretty light, and if you're paying for (or self-hosting) a beefy server it can turn any laptop into a powerhouse.

algas··on Fark redesign is now live (2007)
Ads and websites in general have been expanding to fill available space for years, so it's hard to notice how large that space has gotten. Browsing without ads is like unclipping a ball and chain.
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