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davidb_

103 karma · joined July 1, 2012

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davidb_··on Mosh Mobile Shell
Great list that sparked my memory. The tmux scroll back issue was very frustrating for me, and ultimately what made me stop using it. What got me hooked on trying to use it - I do remember being amazed I could close my laptop, go home, and just reopen my laptop and immediately start typing away on my remote terminal without issue most of the time.

A few other issues I do remember running into (probably 10 years ago?):

1. Because it was udp, sometimes a captive portal, work, or hotel firewall blocked it.

2. It was also not installed by default anywhere, so sometimes sysadmins at work were unwilling to install it for me.

3. I sometimes ran into issues with color handling and utf8. I honestly don't remember if it was mosh or my terminal, though. It seemed to happen more often when I used mosh, but I could be misremembering.

davidb_··on Comma 3X: Initial Impressions
It is an advanced driving assistance system. It kind of drives your car for you (lane centering, basic obstacle avoidance, and adaptive cruise control all without you have to touch the wheel or the pedals) as long as you’re looking forward and paying attention to the road.

They have demonstrated full self driving capabilities with a car driving “itself” to Taco Bell. I have a comma3 and have never had much success with that feature. The car drove itself very slowly and seems to just weirdly creep through stop signs. I think the last time I tested that was over a year and a half ago, so it may have improved.

I use mine only on the highways. I noticed for long trips (6+ hours), I can drive longer distances in one go and not feel as fatigued when I reach my destination. As an example, a 10 hour trip to visit family (11-12 hours including stops) I can do by myself in one day with the comma device instead of stopping halfway, or splitting driving time with someone else. For shorter trips (3-6 hours), I arrive to my destination with more energy than when I drive without these features. I am also able to focus more on potential obstacles further down the road than without it.

I think my device has already paid for itself thanks to a couple year period where I had to do that 12 hour trip I mentioned a couple times per month. Plus it is a really nice dash cam.

davidb_··on Using the Strangler Fig with Mobile Apps
If you're considering a similar pattern with Flutter rather than ReactNative, they call it "add to app" and there's a couple good talks on how others have approached this [1], [2] from the recent FlutterConUSA, as well as a couple articles that include details and case studies [3], [4]

I haven't tried this myself with a large project (just small examples as proof-of-concepts), but the approach seems very sound. One thing I liked is once you have the legacy app shell figured out, it's not a crazy approach to mock out the bridge/native services and run the app in just flutter (or react native) for development/testing acceleration, then adding final integration testing/QA with the full legacy app shell. I've seen some odd behaviors from apps that have used this approach that I would have to imagine can be serious headaches to debug. That said, it does seem the approach pays off long-term.

There's not much published online about it, but I believe Headspace has used this approach for its mobile app. See [5]

[1] https://www.droidcon.com/2024/10/17/flutter-add-to-app-the-g...

[2] https://www.droidcon.com/2024/10/17/successful-flutter-re-pl...

[3] https://docs.flutter.dev/add-to-app

[4] https://leancode.co/blog/flutter-add-to-app-overview-and-cha...

[5] https://www.nearcoast.com/headspaces-leap-to-flutter-a-game-...

davidb_··on An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
Sideloading is still blocked in the US in their new releases. Only allowed where mandated (EU)
davidb_··on An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
I had the same question. He says TestFlight, but he's handwaving some of the headaches of that. TF builds expire every 90 days.

The other option would be an adhoc certificate, but then you have to collect everyone's apple id.

Apple makes this kind of app distribution process more painful than it needs to be.

davidb_··on Using LLaMA with M1 Mac and Python 3.11
Are you getting useful content out of the 7B model? It goes off the rails way too often for me to find it useful.
davidb_··on Launch HN: Second (YC W23) – AI bots that add features to web apps
Agreed with the comments on the demo video music. It was startling.

I'm pretty skeptical still as all your demo has shown is similar to what a boilerplate tool might do, but with more unknowns. You have to start somewhere, though, and I think you're on a decent path.

I've been experimenting with chatgpt to do similar workflows to what you're describing for your vision of Second. From my experiments, it seems your demo may be approaching close to the current limits of gpt models. Fine-tune training on my existing code base and requirements may help, but I still feel like we're a very long way away from your vision for Second. Maybe even far enough away that it won't ever be realized.

Still, you've already built a much better workflow than my experiments have yielded so far, and I think it is a very exciting proposition.

Feel free to disregard, but I think I'd approach the business differently than you have - raise your prices drastically and instead of a dev-facing tool to start, make your offering more like an agency. Hire devs and designers to build the client work and sales people to find more deals. Have devs and designers use your tool, providing feedback. Restrict modes of communication to AI-parseable docs between the client and devs/designers. Collect data as you iterate through as many projects as you can find and staff to deliver. Then train/fine-tune LLMs on that whole dataset. Iterate on your tool throughout this whole process. Even better if you could embed yourself/your tool into existing agencies and dev shop firms, but that seems like it could be difficult to navigate.

davidb_··on 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
I was educated in the US and took AP US History in high school. I don't recall a specific reference to Zersetzung within that curriculum, but the idea that life in East Germany was difficult due to Stasi oppression was covered. I don't recall specific examples like the story I asked about though (besides my own extracurricular references from movies/books).
davidb_··on 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
Any chance you have a source for the bicycle tire story? I'm keen to read more about it (and similar stories).
davidb_··on Dennis Ritchie Home Page (2006)
> IBM, Bell Labs, GE; who else should be on that list?

Intel felt quite a bit like IBM during my time there circa 2010.

I wasn't familiar with this quote, but wow was that my experience at large tech orgs. I wish I would have known this about 15 years ago, as perhaps I would have done a better job picking orgs to work at early in my career instead of being so frustrated.

davidb_··on Gitlab Handbook's HN Page
Not directly relevant, but I've had all sorts of issues, similar in nature, with other companies that use Zendesk and integrations with Zendesk. It seems surprisingly bad given its popularity.
davidb_··on DIY Acoustic Camera
Combining this with Motion Amplification/Video Magnification [1] could result in some very interesting visuals and applications for factory equipment.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEoc0YoALt0 Explainer Youtube video about Motion Amplification

davidb_··on DIY Acoustic Camera
I think with some filtering it definitely could be.
davidb_··on No Flutter on Linux desktop
> Flutter is still unusable on iOS

Flutter is actively working on the bug you're referring to, and I think you're valid in bringing this critique of the jankyness of animations on first run, but the large number of Flutter apps currently deployed clearly proves it is very usable on iOS. You have to workaround that jank, which is extremely frustrating, but I wouldn't write off the entire platform for it. It will be fixed.

davidb_··on Get Started with Tmux
But if you want that remote session to persist, tmux (or screen) are still super useful.
davidb_··on Get Started with Tmux
I think so, and my evidence for that is I've been using tmux a lot less as I've done more of my development work locally.

BUT - it still has plenty of utility when working on remote machines. So, I still use it every day. I'm just not constantly working in it.

davidb_··on Supabase (YC S20) – An open source Firebase alternative
FWIW, the cold start issue (which was hitting me with regular 10-30+ second delays for even the simplest of functions) has recently been "fixed" (at least, I'm down to <1-2 second cold starts).

The specific issue I was running into: https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-node/issues/2942

davidb_··on Hackers Were Inside Citrix for Five Months
> Business is not about doing things right, it's about being profitable

I find this line particularly insightful. It was the biggest lesson I learned in my transition from academia to industry. No one cared that my work was correct and on time, they cared that the vendor we used caused us to miss the deadline and because I was in charge of the overall system, it was still my fault. A tough lesson, but a good one.

davidb_··on Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?
Have you tried laying aluminum foil loosely on the counter? I've heard that one works.

I likely won't make much progress on it this summer, but in the winter when I pick it back up and make some progress, I'll reach out.

davidb_··on Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?
I've got 5. I only actively use 3 of them.

1. Media player connected to projector running RasPlex - this software is outdated enough and buffers on some high bitrate content that I should buy a replacement device, but it still works well enough. I tried upgrading to a newer raspi and wasted an hour trying to get it to run, then gave up. So, I still use my old one. It still gets used daily and works well enough (only issue is the buffering on occasion).

2. RetroPie - I rarely game, but it's cool to be able to turn this on and have a library of all the games I played (and those I never had) from childhood.

3. I use the third one as a networked LED marquee controller (HUB75 panels) with this software: https://github.com/hzeller/rpi-rgb-led-matrix

The other 2 I just have sitting on my desk and occasionally use for small dev projects or to test out some new project I read about on here, hackaday, etc.

An ongoing project that I haven't made much progress with is an automated turret that squirts squirrels with water. I made something similar in college (a "paintball gun" turret with openCV blob detection/tracking) that had decent performance. Now that openCV on rpi can outperform my old college laptop, I want to setup the pi to detect squirrels, track them, and keep them away from a bird feeder/plants in my backyard.

davidb_··on Zircon Fair Scheduler
Currently it's just rumors that it will replace Android based on Fushia and Flutter's target devices. You can see a summary on [the wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia).
davidb_··on Apple announces Apple Card credit card
SubscribeStar servicing assholes doesn't make that level of collateral damage acceptable, though I do agree it is not surprising.

https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg/status/107369726493205299...

> I am not alt right, I am not a nazi. I've been on @SubscribeStar since @Vice terminated my @Patreon account in May. I haven't even recovered from that hit to my income. I am tired of being acceptable collateral damage in your culture wars. You sacrifice your livelihood- not mine.

davidb_··on The Banality of Empathy
Fair point. I probably should have found a better quote from Pinker. I chose him as his books "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" and "Enlightenment Now" seem to put forward the ideas of art as a vehicle for empathy that the author of this article is discussing.
davidb_··on The Banality of Empathy
The quote was taken from: https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-rubenstein/steven-pinker...

I posted it to give context to the "debate" Pinker was engaged in. I don't have much of an opinion on whether or not it is "Serious Discourse."

davidb_··on The Banality of Empathy
This article feels like a direct response to the ideas of Stephen Pinker, summed up by this quote:

> one of the greatest epiphanies of the Enlightenment: that people are equipped with a capacity for sympathetic imagination, which allows them to appreciate the suffering of sentient beings unlike them

and, in the context of:

> Even the aspect of identity politics with a grain of justification—that a man cannot truly experience what it is like to be a woman, or a white person an African American—can subvert the cause of equality and harmony if it is taken too far, because it undermines one of the greatest epiphanies of the Enlightenment: that people are equipped with a capacity for sympathetic imagination, which allows them to appreciate the suffering of sentient beings unlike them. In this regard nothing could be more asinine than outrage against “cultural appropriation”—as if it’s a bad thing, rather than a good thing, for a white writer to try to convey the experiences of a black person, or vice versa. > > To be sure, empathy is not enough. But another Enlightenment principle is that people can appreciate principles of universal rights that can bridge even the gaps that empathy cannot span. Any hopes for human improvement are better served by encouraging a recognition of universal human interests than by pitting group against group in zero-sum competition.

davidb_··on Here's How You Can Learn to Build DIY Robots and LED Cubes
I got feedback on this idea initially from the arduino subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/397ewc/what_do_you...

After the Kickstarter launch, I posted an update: https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/40gxhu/update_what...

Direct link to imgur album used for that update: http://imgur.com/a/r4UAl

Our website: http://www.thimble.io (landing page) Our kickstarter: http://www.thimble.io/kickstarter

davidb_··on You Can Load a Die, but You Can’t Bias a Coin (2002) [pdf]
That's a neat trick. Based on the article and rewatching the video, he's not actually flipping the coin.

> In Section Three we prove that the angle ψ between M and the normal to the coin stays constant. If this angle is less than 45 ◦ , the coin never turns over. It wobbles around and always comes up the way it started. Magicians and gamblers can carry out such controlled flips which appear visually indistinguishable from normal flips.

davidb_··on Companies That Presented at Y Combinator Demo Day 1
The one thing that bumped me was their API for selling customer/prisoner data. I'd like to better understand what their plan is there.
davidb_··on OwnCloud Server 8.0
The only feature it has is file sharing, but I quite like Seafile: http://seafile.com/en/home/
davidb_··on CPU Backdoors
Wow, that's like the entire microelectronics class I took in undergrad compressed into an hour, just without any of the math and (obviously) light on theory. Impressive.
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