cbsks

3,462 karma · joined February 6, 2019

cbsks··on McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

Imagine an alternate universe where Amazon has a similar interface. It would be the most amazing tool.

cbsks··on NTSB report: Decryption of images from the Titan submersible camera [pdf] (2024)

Wow. SubC’s software engineering needs some work. They thought the camera’s file system was unencrypted, when it was encrypted. They didn’t know where the keys were to decrypt it. It turned out the key was written unencrypted to a UFS storage device. There was a file written to /mnt/nas/Stills, which indicates that the camera was to writing to a remote file system that wasn’t mounted.

cbsks··on AirPods libreated from Apple's ecosystem

That is such a typical bug report to a large company. A user who spent a lot of time debugging and finding the root cause of an issue, and a few faceless peons at the large company spending a few minutes on it, realizing it’s not a priority, and abandoning it.

cbsks··on Our LLM-controlled office robot can't pass butter

As Asimov predicted, robopsychology is becoming an important skill.

cbsks··on Dumb to managed switch conversion (2010)

The killer application for me is that my wired Ethernet security cameras are on a VLAN that I firewall from the internet.

cbsks··on Largest piece of Mars on Earth fetches $5.3M at auction

It’d be funny if he bought it then returned it to Mars.

cbsks··on Musks xAI pressed employees to install surveillance software on personal laptops

I’m surprised that a “tech company” provides a Chromebook instead of a laptop.

cbsks··on Top DNS domains seen on the Quad9 recursive resolver array each day

What’s up with wvdbozpfc.com?

There’s a bunch of random looking domain names: cmidphnvq.com, rpqihexdb.com, facebook.com. I’d guess they for advertising?

cbsks··on A new pyramid-like shape always lands the same side up

The keyword is "mono-monostatic", and the Gömböc is an example of a non-polyhedra one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6mb%C3%B6c

Here's a 21 sided mono-monostatic polyhedra: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.13727v2

cbsks··on U.S. has bombed Fordo nuclear plant in attack on Iran

> Weapons expert Ted Postol of MIT claims Israel's missile defense is only intercepting around 5%

Do you have a link to this? I’m curious to read more.

cbsks··on Ask HN: How to Deal with a Bad Manager?

If you can transfer to another team internally, do it. Otherwise start looking for another job. I’ve done both to escape bad managers. In my experience there is no way to “fix” a bad manager. The only solution is to leave.

cbsks··on Elizabeth Holmes's partner raises millions for blood-testing startup

I’m terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Fyre Festival 2 has been cancelled https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/new...

cbsks··on No! Repent! From! Harlan! (1998)

"REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN

Nebula Award, Best Short Story 1965

https://files.libcom.org/files/Repent,%20Harlequin%20said%20...

cbsks··on A single line of code cost $8000

> Why not require two or three reviews if they are so helpful at finding mistakes?

For secure software, e.g. ASIL-D, you will absolutely have a minimum 2 reviewers. And that’s just for the development branch. Merging to a release branch requires additional sign offs from the release manager, safety manager, and QA.

By design the process slows down “velocity”, but it definitely increases code quality and reduces bugs.

cbsks··on Oka.wiki

https://oka.wiki/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/OKA-2024-Annual-...

Those are the 3 most viewed articles created by OKA editors in 2024

cbsks··on The Internet Slum: is abandoning the Internet the next big thing? (2004)

My deepest apologies.

cbsks··on The Intenet Slum: is abandoning the Internet the next big thing? (2004)

Why not start now, Mr. INTPenis?

cbsks··on The Day Hobie Made Nixon a Surfboard

Skateboarding?

cbsks··on Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?

Have you talked to your manager about it? I’m at a large tech company and I know people who have requested to stay at their current level.

cbsks··on Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?

I interviewed at NUWC Keyport when I was in college. Seemed like an interesting place to work but they didn’t have any real programming roles at the time. My interviewer asked if I had experience with UML and talked about how he wanted someone to document and optimize their assembly line procedures. I’m not sure he knew exactly what he wanted.

cbsks··on The Surprising Trick for Cooking Rice That Works for Any Grain

You can also do the inverse and cook pasta like rice. Put pasta in a saucepan and just cover with water then bring to a boil until all the water has been absorbed, stirring occasionally. That has the advantage of keeping all the starch so you can get really creamy sauces. It’s great for mac and cheese.

cbsks··on My Life in Weeks

Not a team player, I see. This will be reflected in your next performance review.

cbsks··on U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

It’s a reference to 1984 by George Orwell. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography_of_Ninet...

cbsks··on U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

Because the UK is “on our side”. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

There’s even an emulator that is super helpful when designing new complications https://www.sensorwatch.net/docs/firmware/simulate/focus/

The firmware code quality is good as well. Well documented and easy to extend. It’s clearly a labor of love.

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

NOAA publishes the harmonic coefficients for each tide station, so if you hard code those constants into your program you should be able to generate accurate tide predictions. I looked into it a bunch before it started to feel less fun and more like “real work”.

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/about_harmonic_constituent...

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

Not yet. I’ll clean it up someday. But not today.

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

I’m excited for the replacement LCD. The stock display has a bunch of restrictions on which segments can be active at once https://www.sensorwatch.net/docs/wig/display/

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

There’s an algorithm you can use to calculate future tides but it’s complex and I wasn’t sure it would even run fast enough on the watch. I gave up after a few hours and ended up generating an array of high/low tide levels and times for the next few years. NOAA has all the tide data you could possibly want, and an api to grab it.

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.html

https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/

cbsks··on Taking a $15 Casio F91W 5km underwater

For watch hackers, there is an alternate PCB with programmable microcontroller available for the F91W https://www.sensorwatch.net/

I got one for Christmas and it has been super fun to hack on. I programmed a new face for mine that displays the current tide level, and next high and low tides.

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