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doormatt

170 karma · joined November 27, 2012

I do stuff with computers.

Launched AWS Step Functions.

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doormatt··on Stuck in the Suez Canal – the short version (2021)
That was a fantastic read!
doormatt··on South Africa is at risk of becoming a mafia state
For the 2024 tax year SARS expects about 9.2 million individual returns in total.

https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2025taxstats/2025...

doormatt··on Anatomy of a Texture
Fantastic read! Not even a hint of LLMisms.
doormatt··on WangNet – 1.8 MB, zero-dependency Numberwang adjudication in 11 languages
And that's a bad miss...
doormatt··on An atlas of periodic solutions to the three-body problem
Klemperer rosette FTW.
doormatt··on I use Home Assistant to automate and monitor my aquariums
>This is the most dangerous automation. A heater stuck in the on position can kill the fish in hours, so I've really spent a lot of time and energy to ensure I've accounted for the failure modes and edge cases that could cause the automations to fail. So far so good.

This is why you use multiple heaters - each one small enough that it cannot raise the temperature to above the danger zone if stuck on.

(Admittedly, this is harder to do on very small tanks)

doormatt··on Fractal Paris
How is this a "fractal"?
doormatt··on Sinclair-O-Matic
I only can't find K, M, W, V and Z.
doormatt··on View of Life: A Letter to Richard Dawkins
That was a wonderful read!
doormatt··on Show HN: DoodleMate: Animate Your Child's Hand Drawings Without Generative AI
Gotcha! Appreciate the clarification!
doormatt··on Show HN: DoodleMate: Animate Your Child's Hand Drawings Without Generative AI
Why does your about page say this then?

>I want to build something with a low floor and a high ceiling; a tool that uses AI to smooth out the hardest parts of traditional animation, while letting creators keep full ownership of what they make.

And your terms of service says:

>We provide an online platform that allows users to upload images, drawings, and artwork and use our proprietary AI-powered technology to transform those images into animated videos. You may upload image files, customize certain settings related to the animation output, view and download the resulting videos, and manage their uploaded content and account. We reserve the right to establish limits on the file types, file sizes, and number of uploads permitted per user, and to modify those limits at any time. All video generation is performed automatically through a combination of AI and computer graphics technology.

doormatt··on NASA had to train Apollo 11's astronauts to not use profanity (2019)
>Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins cursed fewer than 15 times during their moon-landing mission, based on NASA transcripts. Most of that came from command-module pilot Collins. Aldrin cursed just once and Armstrong didn’t at all.

From what I've read about Armstrong, absolutely no surprise there.

doormatt··on A Homemade Robot Nag
Reminds me of https://habitica.com
doormatt··on What's wrong with bunny hands on dinosaurs? (2018)
What exactly is "bunny hands"? I'm having difficulty picturing it.
doormatt··on Kiki – Accountability monster for people who are easily distracted
>Is there any way to trick Kiki?

>Several users have tried. None have succeeded.

But then

>What browsers does Kiki support?

>KIKI supports Chrome and Safari. Other browsers can confuse it. Stick to those two.

doormatt··on Retiring GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini in ChatGPT
> I had a friend whose son was placed in French immersion (a language he doesn't speak at all).

In my entire french immersion Kindergarden class, there was a total of one child who already spoke French. I don't think the fact that he didn't speak the language is the concern.

doormatt··on Discontinuing the Teensy at Adafruit
Paul had moved all production to Sparkfun, as it was taking up too much of his time.
doormatt··on “Erdos problem #728 was solved more or less autonomously by AI”
And this is Aristotle - https://aristotle.harmonic.fun/

It's an LLM.

doormatt··on XPER on the Commodore 64
That was an absolutely fantastic read!
doormatt··on Panoramas of Star Trek Sets
I managed to go to the Star Trek Experience when it was in Vegas, and be transported in, walk through the corridors, and emerge onto the bridge.

It was utterly glorious, and a good day to die.

doormatt··on Copy-Item is slower than File Explorer
Works fine for me.
doormatt··on FCC sounds alarm after emergency tones turned into potty-mouthed radio takeover
Is it just me, or is that entire article AI written?

>For radio stations, the fix isn't fancy – just overdue.

This SCREAMS LLM.

doormatt··on Underrated reasons to be thankful V
What specifically disturbed you?
doormatt··on Show HN: Premortem, a coding-agent-powered airplane blackbox
I don't think you do. Your solution will also only start "firing alerts" once a threshold has been breached.
doormatt··on Show HN: Premortem, a coding-agent-powered airplane blackbox
>When running multiple intensive processes in parallel, pushing machines to their limits to maximize throughput, traditional monitoring only provides alerts when thresholds breach.

>Premortem continuously watches system vitals (CPU, memory, disk, processes) and spawns Claude agents to diagnose problems when thresholds are breached.

Surely you see the irony here...

doormatt··on Why do we need dithering?
I think you mean 24 bit. 8 bit would only be 256 colors total.
doormatt··on AI and Copyright: Expanding copyright hurts everyone
>the problem that people cannot think for themselves any longer (as seen by the downvoting in this submission).

Quite an interesting take to assume that everyone who disagrees with you cannot think for themselves.

doormatt··on The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'
>Wagner's office estimates he lost over $3,000 to downcoding in the first half of the year, but other doctors across the country have fared far worse.

That's...not a lot of money.

doormatt··on Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?
I did once - but it was on purpose.

After 4 years at AWS, and ~20 in the industry, I was utterly burnt out, and needed a break. So I took two years off.

doormatt··on The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
Hell, most people are in a different book.
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