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jstsch

884 karma · joined August 5, 2011

Look at jstsch.com :)
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jstsch··on hdiutil is deprecated in macOS 27 Golden Gate
Was the error visible somewhere through Console.app? This is a major annoyance for me with Cocoa/AppKit apps that basically have terminal usage secondary.
jstsch··on Agent Plugins
I think this is a step in the right direction. However, I would've loved if they'd make API keys in MCP a first class citizen versus oauth. It adds so much friction having to implement that in an app, just to get Codex to connect. Sure, for a full blown SaaS, it's OK, just a bunch of libraries to include and a new table to add to your user database, but just a drag if you just want to connect something quick, fast and quite secure.
jstsch··on SwiftUI After 7 Years
This! I remember reading 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' by Aaron Hillegass and being fascinated by it. Coming from Java, C, doing some DSP code, web work, Objective C and Cocoa at first seemed just utterly alien and a bit wrong.

Message passing, these loosely coupled 'delegates', a mixture of hardcore C, needing to do memory management but also just passing objects around in the runtime... messy, weird... but in the end the right solution to make flexible but performant software. I learned a lot from it. I should dive into the history of NeXT one day.

jstsch··on SwiftUI After 7 Years
Good points. It's just that responsive layouts have not been fixed anywhere. Also on the web, it is way too hard. How often don't you see a box floating over some background photo and then covering the focal point, e.g. the face? Sure, it can be done, but the permutations of testing are simply too large for mere mortals.

Multiple 'artboards' for screen sizes/ratios are the solution, which basically just means swapping out a .nib in Interface Builder. Better to just make it explicit.

jstsch··on SwiftUI After 7 Years
I remember this video, from way back. Then, it was impressive, but it also felt logical that machines of that era were able to do it. So it wasn't magic. Just good engineering. Now everything is jank & stutter and my 64GB 25 times more powerful machine just refused to play back a YouTube video in my Safari tab since I have too many windows open.
jstsch··on Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera
Two Toyotas. The steering you apply, even with almost no torque, always overrides lane keeping. Super dangerous. No beeps when that happens. Whereas with my Tesla you’d have to force it out of autopilot. Or fight a bit back if the car corrects you for safety.
jstsch··on Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera
The regulations are great, in theory. In practice, I've noticed that implementation of the technologies are lacking. So on paper, lane keeping will keep you on the road when distracted. In practice, it does not. You'll be beeped at a million times, though.
jstsch··on Solar panels at Lidl? Plug-in versions set to appear in shops
I dislike ‘energy religion’. Nuclear is necessary for Europe. We simply can’t heat our homes and power our industry with renewables in winter. At the same time wind and pv can be built up faster and is simply cheap. Hydro where topography and local bio conditions allow it. We need all those technologies, so we can move away from fossil (climate, resilience and depletion).
jstsch··on Solar panels at Lidl? Plug-in versions set to appear in shops
Set it up myself, mostly. Some specific tasks like bringing three-phase power to the garage and hooking up the breaker box I did with an electrician. But installing an additional circuit inside the breaker box, or putting new conduit up, is easy to do safely yourself. Pre-wired breaker boxes can be configured online and are cheap.

The battery is 16kWh. Effectively around 14kWh, since you never fully discharge. LiFePo4, so no chance of spontaneous combustion like other battery chemistries.

I'd say the months Nov→Feb are tricky, although since I have quite a bit of excess solar capacity there are even in December plenty of days where the battery pulls me through the night.

Charging/discharging from/to the grid is possible, since I have a retrofit inverter (AC to battery), but not doing it yet, have to do a bit more research (dynamic pricing, tax is >50% of the kWh price in NL, etc).

jstsch··on Solar panels at Lidl? Plug-in versions set to appear in shops
Every installed PV-panel is a dozen barrels of oil (eq.) less CO2 in the atmosphere. Plus, so much fun to generate your own power! Can highly recommend it, even starting small.

It's addictive though. Living in the center of the city (The Hague, NL), with a home battery, I'm now 100% self-sufficient electrically for 10 months of the year.

jstsch··on HD Audio Driver for Windows 98SE / Me
Same! Set up a DIY home battery system and needed something to communicate with the inverter and battery over RS232, RS485 and bluetooth. Had an old Raspberry Pi-B with 512MB RAM lying around.

Running 3 python scripts as daemons would become a tad heavy and was a bit worried about serial timing. So used Codex to rewrite them in Go. Cross-compiled them, deployed the binaries and they're now running very comfortably on the pi. A few MB of ram per daemon. Making good use of an almost 15 year old device.

jstsch··on What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025
> especially not to spec torque on terminal connections and botched crimps leading to hot spots

This was indeed my greatest concern. However the battery came with pre-crimped very solid DC wires, and nice push connectors for the battery itself. The battery also has an integrated DC breaker (great!).

The system runs 3KW max, so I just added an additional breaker (with RCD integrated) in the conduit box. In NL this is something a DIY-home owner easily can do themselves :) (just use the right solid/flex stranded cabling for the connectors, etc...)

jstsch··on What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025
I will do a write-up in a couple of days. It's all relatively simple, you just have to expect terrible documentation and do a bit of reverse engineering and serial sniffing. I expected the battery to be complicated, but it turned out that the inverter was.

You'll encounter stuff like: manual says use RS485 port on Battery for GroWatt inverter → need to use CAN port on Battery. Meter Port (RS485 [serial] over RJ45) wiring on GroWatt is unknown (A: white orange / B: white blue, cross them over). Dinky RS485 serial → USB converter needs a 120ohm resistor between pins for line termination. Growatt meter port expects a SDM630 meter, not a DTSU666 (hardcoded), so vibe code another emulator. DIP switches for RS232 connection need to be both on the ON position (undocumented). CH340 USB→serial converter for RS232 does not work, but one with a Prolific chip does. Etc. etc. etc :)

Oh, and the biggest one... I was expecting to be able to just send a command, 'charge at 500watts', now... 'discharge at 2000watts'. But no. You have to emulate a power meter and the inverter will try to bring the net power to 0. Fun! :)

jstsch··on What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025
Battery prices are getting really low, if you're willing to do some DIY. Just received a 15kWh battery from China. A 'Humsienk'. Combined it with a GroWatt SPA3000TL-BL inverter.

Total price, 1600 euros. So close to the magical 100 euros per kWh. Driving it with some interesting combinations of Raspberry PI's and serial interfaces and custom written Go code, but it works... :)

jstsch··on Accepting US car standards would risk European lives
Yes. Just take a look at this picture of the accident. You can instantly see where the proportions go wrong. Not survivable, even at low speeds.

https://cldnr.prod.webx.talpa.digital/talpa-network/image/fe...

jstsch··on Apple found in breach of EU competition rules
> iPhones can still come with Safari installed and used by default, no changes to anyones experience at all.

No, this is not allowed and currently also not the case. When you're setting up a new iPhone, one of the questions during setup is which browser do you want to use.

jstsch··on Apple found in breach of EU competition rules
> Anyway, OP can just inform their parents and fix this thing, if that was really the problem.

Yes, the little time we have in our lives, I really want to spend talking with my parents about topics like browser choices.

jstsch··on Apple found in breach of EU competition rules
No, of course, everyone should be free to have the choice to install whichever software they want on devices that they own. E.g. put the phone in developer/hobbyist mode by connecting it with a USB cable to a PC, show some big fat warnings, and then allow all forms of sideloading. But it needs to be like a safety switch.

Then the matter of an informed browser choice. This is simply not a thing most regular people make or care about. Remember the Internet Explorer era? In this case, simply the most recognisable picture gets chosen (e.g. the only company that advertised their browser).

jstsch··on Apple found in breach of EU competition rules
Downvotes for an alternate viewpoint, what is this, Reddit?
jstsch··on Apple found in breach of EU competition rules
As a EU-citizen, I'm not happy with this legislation and enforcement. I choose Apple versus Android, because I want the safe and user friendly ecosystem Apple offers. Otherwise, it makes much more sense to go with Android. Those phones are much cheaper and are very much the same quality-wise (performance, screen, form factor...).

The same goes with iOS on iPad. I'm very happy that my parents can use those devices versus a Windows machine (or even a MacBook) and know that they are pretty much safe from malware.

Even now, I noticed that with the mandatory browser selection screen both my parents independently have moved on from built-in Safari to Chrome (independently), since that was the only browser name they know. And now they are in a much worse position privacy-wise than before. Which is certainly not in the spirit of the GDPR and DMA.

jstsch··on Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
It's methane, so not a big deal (like hydrazine)
jstsch··on Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks
Agreed. In my case with a 15" MBP M1 Max and two LG UltraFine 5K's, which I always plug in the same ports, 99% of the time it remembers which display is which correctly. On my 2018 Intel, this was hit and miss. It's obviously not a trivial problem to solve...
jstsch··on Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks
This is indeed the main problem. If you have two screens of the same model, the OS is unable to see which is which. This also goes for many USB devices (such as webcams that randomly swap).
jstsch··on Thoughts on low latency trading if exchanges went full cloud
Nice article. Wondering though why trading is not done in discrete batches, e.g. 5 second intervals? Trades in the same interval get filled equally or stochastically? Info about trades with that same 5 second batch delay? Is there some (theoretical) market efficiency thing at play? All this HFT feels wasteful and bad for 'regular' human investors.
jstsch··on My battle with Tesla: I want to clear my name before I die
I really enjoy my second hand 2020 Model 3 LR. Amazing car, never had any issues. If I compare it to my father's 2022 Kia EV6, it's still leagues ahead.
jstsch··on Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agricultural products
No. They might even be imported from Holland.
jstsch··on Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agricultural products
Serious answer: it entirely depends on the variety of tomatoes being grown. There are some varieties that have been selected for taste. Typically, they will also have a very efficient supply chain with a super short duration between harvest to packaging to supermarket (packaging at the greenhouse, straight to distribution, to retail). They are typically about three times the price of the cheapest 'bulk' tomatoes (and also have a higher margin, in the end).

The main challenge with fruits, and especially tomatoes, is ripening versus shelf life. A tomato tastes best when it's as ripe as possible. Sweet, fragrant and full of flavor. However, at that very special time, it will burst on the vine or fall apart in your fruit basket within a day. Which is why you'll never find this quality in a supermarket. And why I grow tomatoes in my garden every summer :)

jstsch··on Harnessing heat from wastewater
When I renovated my house, I installed such a heat exchanging pipe. It reduces hot water usage (=fossil gas) by about 40% and with my usage payed itself back in about two years. It's not a drop-in replacement, since you should use it only for the shower drain.
jstsch··on Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit?
> Perhaps there should be a way to limit their speed from the user side at least. Maybe I don’t want my teen driving over 65 mph anywhere.

Standard Tesla feature.

jstsch··on Gas pumps freeze at Calgary gas stations [video]
Here in NL there are continuous upgrades. Yes, the grid is stretched, and there are spots where commercial (or even additional residential) capacity is not available. But at the same time, the grid is upgraded on all levels, from street to international connectivity. It takes time, but EV's are no issue. Excess solar around noon is.
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