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dpeck

7,079 karma · joined December 21, 2010

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dpeck··on Ask HN: What are cool open source hardware projects you know?
https://gaggiuino.github.io is neat, and I’ve loosely followed it as a lover of good espresso for the last couple of years.

But it looks like they’ve change their stance to have the source code be closed since I last looked at it.

dpeck··on Notcurses: Blingful character graphics/TUI library
That’s my bad! Will expand those out and remove going forward. I shouldn’t be surprised that Amazon app does by default now.
dpeck··on Notcurses: Blingful character graphics/TUI library
No affiliate link there (at least not intentionally) that’s the link that Amazon app brings up with share/copy link functionality. Mods feel free to alter/delete as needed.
dpeck··on Notcurses: Blingful character graphics/TUI library
The same primary author just recently published a novel as well. If you enjoy the writing style of the readme/faq you may enjoy it too. Feels like it might be a good vacation read.

midnight's simulacra https://a.co/d/8tcx82V

dpeck··on Rethinking Diabetes – interview with Gary Taubes
For anyone new to it, the words you’re looking for are “continuous glucose monitor” (GCM), and “flash glucose monitor”.

Popular brands of it in the US are Freestyle Libre and Dexcom.

Their final cost to you will vary hugely by your insurance provider. Some with little to no cost, and others several dollars per day.

If you like data and are analytical by nature, and since you’re on HN that’s fairly likely, I’d highly recommend using them for a little while if you can afford it. They’re great for newly diagnosed people to understand in near real time without repeated finger pricking. But those are no terrible either and much better than not managing and monitoring! Slightly annoying at first but it is something that most people can get used to fairly easily.

dpeck··on Why you should probably be using SQLite
It likely has more to do with the “data” team being different than the “application” team at a lot of big companies. It leads to many handoffs and inefficiencies and so people do a lot of things to route around it.

Not a knock against SQLite at all, I use it in production for my own projects and some professionally as well.

dpeck··on Why you shouldn't join Y Combinator
By most measures https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11 seems to be doing alright. But given the trajectory I’m not sure the anecdote holds.
dpeck··on An Opinionated Yubikey Set-Up Guide
| Webauthn with fido/u2f is supported on most websites and oidc providers.

I wish that was true. I’ve found that webauthn is becoming more common in the last year, but is still relatively rare. Many “important” sites and services make use of them. https://www.yubico.com/works-with-yubikey/catalog/ is a great place to see them, but they’re still quite rare as a whole.

dpeck··on Ask HN: What are the biggest hurdles you face when onboarding new engineers?
Two things stand out to me:

1) the ability to create content, and have that content consumed, that lets new folks come up to speed. Reading and comprehending is a lot harder for a lot of people than we like to admit.

2) Letting people know that failure and experimentation as part of learning is ok and expected. It’s generally easier for new folks to sit and do nothing than to try, fail, and ask for clarification and help. Paving the path for the latter both culturally and technologically is extremely difficult at scale.

dpeck··on Study finds influence of smaller jersey numbers on perception
A lot of LBs in the 40s and 50s. I’d qualify those more as medium sized (but meaner) uglies :)
dpeck··on Jimmy Buffett has died
He’ll be missed. I’m a (relatively) young fan of his and been to several shows over the last 20 years. He’s of course best known for Margaritaville and Come Monday. But theres a wealth of great storytelling and sing-along type songs in his catalog.

A few of my favorites if you’re interested in exploring:

A Pirate Looks at Forty

Son of a Son of a Sailor

Havana Daydreaming

The Captain and the Kid

Barefoot Children

Treat Her Like a Lady

He Went to Paris

dpeck··on Jimmy Buffet has passed away
He’ll be missed. I’m a (relatively) young fan of his and been to several shows over the last 20 years.

He’s of course best known for Margaritaville and Come Monday. But theres a wealth of great storytelling and sing-along type songs in his catalog.

A few of my favorites if you’re interested in exploring:

A Pirate Looks at Forty Son of a Son of a Sailor Havana Daydreaming The Captain and the Kid Barefoot Children Treat Her Like a Lady He Went to Paris

dpeck··on Former VP Claims Salesforce Lied About Software Capabilities: 'It Was All a Lie'
The same could be said for nearly every sales call that I’ve been on the receiving end of.

It doesn’t make it “right”, but (nearly?) everyone who is involved in these conversations on both the buyer and seller sides of it knows that at best it’s aspirational capabilities that are being pitched and purchased. Usually it’s pretty far from that.

dpeck··on Ask HN: Where have Reddit communities migrated to?
Here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36731320
dpeck··on Ask HN: Good Books on the History of Technology?
Medieval Technology and Social Change - Medieval Technology and Social Change https://a.co/d/8RuGXQM

Not a book, but the old Connections series is really wonderful for broad overviews along a narrow band. I wish there were more things that took a similar approach - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...

dpeck··on Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)
Im going to join the mini-appreciate session here and add that there’s still lines from Geeks in Space that give me a smile and chuckle when they pop into my mind well on 20 years later.

Cheers to you sir.

dpeck··on We spoke with 5 people who work with AI about what keeps them up at night
The never ending stream of articles of the form “Person with association to $topic has opinions on $topic” are exhausting and very seldom informative.

Zooming out any distance at all and it seems like most mainstream journalism is indistinguishable from mad libs.

dpeck··on Io uring
Quite a formidable trivia player as well.
dpeck··on How to beat lag when developing a multiplayer RTS game
A “classic” paper in the space that might give some historical context to anyone interested, https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-internet-sucks-or-w...
dpeck··on Walker’s Manly Exercises
Part of one of my merit badges back in my youthful boy scouting days was being able to demonstrate how to turn a pair of pants (jeans iirc) into a temporary life jacket.

Seems like a good mechanic to understand for worst case scenarios if a person is on/near water with any frequency https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/how-t...

dpeck··on Ask HN: What's on your Christmas wish list?
I’ll add to the Turing Tumble, it’s amazing, the creator of it has just started shipping their next thing: Spintronics, and I’m very much looking forward to going through it with my kiddo.
dpeck··on A Sun-like star orbiting a black hole
Nearly everyone who was a teenager in the 1990s had the same song lyric play in their head When reading this headline.
dpeck··on “Skimpflation” is hitting everything from food to hotels
Not sure if that’s the case. But maybe? I think I remember seeing some well known brands of plain vanilla go back and forth on the labeling over the years.
dpeck··on “Skimpflation” is hitting everything from food to hotels
Along with skimpflation in sizes, keep a look out for it in things like legally protected terms. For instance ice cream has to have a certain level of milk fat to be legally called “ice cream”, if they aren’t it’ll be called something like “frozen dairy dessert”.
dpeck··on Carousel of Happiness
It’s lovely, highly recommend.

Also it’s been a few years but the little coffee shop across the street had some of the best chocolate coconut macaroons that I’ve ever had.

Check out Frozen Dead Guy days as well, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Dead_Guy_Days. It’s an interesting little mountain town.

dpeck··on Jackson’s water crisis: latest updates
There seems to be a lot of misinformation going on with Jackson’s water situation. It’s disconcerting to see this level of “fog of war” happening in a state capital.

I’ve seen everything from completely irreparable forever to already fixed being reported within days of each other.

dpeck··on Wet/Dry Vacuum Buying Guide (2019)
words no longer mean things.

We’re living in a world where nearly everything is low quality. It’s the old Sam Vimes narrative about being poor being expensive, but it is currently challenging for people of any means to find a quality product without loads of research and expertise.

And even then, it’s subject to change as good brands get bought by someone larger or new management comes in and cuts quality to increase margins.

dpeck··on US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force
Only a task force? Not even a blue ribbon committee for the mess that public use comms has become?
dpeck··on Ask HN: What startsups made the best early-tech decisions?
WhatsApp. Rick Reed’s “That’s Billion with a B” presentation is a good glimpse into their own view of it https://youtu.be/c12cYAUTXXs
dpeck··on Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy
I agree. I’m a big fan of the DEATH story arc, but outside of Mort and Reaper Man, Amazing Maurice might be my favorite book in the series. So very well written and felt like Pratchett was at his best.
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