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devenson

232 karma · joined February 10, 2010

CTO of Pathway Systems
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devenson··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025)
Good observation. Yes, because the gable wall isn't load bearing so it doesn't have a load bearing header which needs jack studs.
devenson··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025)
https://buildfreely.com helping people build a shed or small struture.
devenson··on Magical systems thinking
> non-linear computationally irreducible systems cannot be predicted

How confident are you of your ability to identify such systems?

Many systems are not such and therefore easy to predict.

devenson··on Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of almost right AI code
mRNA could be said to be in the trough of disillusionment -- didn't prevent COVID as initially promised, and has problems like causing heart damage in rare cases.

This disillusionment is evidenced by lower proportion of people seeking to take such injections now.

devenson··on Checklists are hard, but still a good thing
Is the checklist complete? If not, it might lull you into a false sense of security. How do you know if it's complete or not?
devenson··on It's rude to show AI output to people
less than perfect writing is a signal that your human. At least for now.
devenson··on The Moving Assembly Line Turns 100 (2013)
It would seem the assembly line also prevents workers from slacking, as they are in constant competition to stay ahead of workers at other stations.

No need for managers to crack the whip. They do it to themselves.

devenson··on Fei-Fei Li: Spatial intelligence is the next frontier in AI [video]
Can't reset state after breakage.
devenson··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)
A category for politically incorrect ads would be cool.
devenson··on A new pyramid-like shape always lands the same side up
A reminder that simple inventions are still possible.
devenson··on Getting Past Procrastination
When stuck I do what I call "prepping". Don't try to do the task, just prep for it -- clean the room, the desk, close distracting websites, gather the materials.

It's lowering the activation energy so the reaction can happen more easily.

devenson··on My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
>There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.

You can't hold onto it regardless.

The best you can do is choose who gets it.

devenson··on People say they’ll pay more for “made in the USA” so we ran a test
If people would spend more for the US product, we wouldn't need the tariffs.
devenson··on UML diagram for the DDD example in Evans' book
Documenting existing system dependencies using the product which which I'm a founder:

https://schematix.com/video/depmap

Like UML deployment diagrams, but our models are interactive and can be queried.

We also have a large customer doing DDD modeling and then generating code directly from the models they build.

devenson··on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Is a Stone-Cold Masterpiece
I feel the same way about Farscape.
devenson··on Milk Kanban
Depends how far away her desk is.
devenson··on Ask HN: Do your eyes bug you even though your prescription is "correct"?
a brighter room with light screen (not dark mode) causes smaller pupils and thus better focus.
devenson··on How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
When I was younger, dark room, dark screen was fine. Gets harder to focus as you age. Bright screen and room cause smaller pupils and therefore easier focusing like a pinhole camera.
devenson··on So you want to build your own data center
Not OSS but I have developed a tool for modeling racks and much more.

https://schematix.com/video/racks

devenson··on The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?
Thinking is emulated -- therefore much slower.
devenson··on Show HN: I built a(nother) house optimized for LAN parties
Constant fans are sucking outside air into your house. Could be part of your Heat/AC efficiency problem mentioned in your post. A timer to run every 10th minute would be a simple improvement.
devenson··on Show HN: Draw.Audio – A musical sketchpad using the Web Audio API
Cool! -- using the Spectroid Android app, you can see the same image of your music in the waterfall of the spectrogram!

https://schematix.com/~devenson/spectroid.png

devenson··on The lost art of lacing cable (2018)
Or melt the sharp ends with a lighter to dull them.
devenson··on Low Energy Chest Fridge
Place a wick in the center of the puddle and run out out the drain hole and down a couple inches lower than the lowest part of the puddle.

The wick will act like a self-priming siphon, and carry (wick) the water out the hole and drip from the lowest point of the wick.

devenson··on Low Energy Chest Fridge
It depends how often it's opened.
devenson··on Low Energy Chest Fridge
His solution is missing a very small fan to even out the temperature stratifications inside.
devenson··on The road to realistic full-body deepfakes
Reminds me of the Michael Chrichton movie named "Looker" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/
devenson··on The mysterious balancing stones on frozen lakes
The umbrella shade explanation might still be valid. There is still infrared radiation emitted from the roof of the freezer to encourage sublimation. It's just not visible light.
devenson··on Ceiling Air Purifier
Even a motor without a fancy control system will consume more power under load. See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-electromotive_force

devenson··on Starlink for RVs
averages 48 to 74 watts for the rectangular antenna
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