HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

phibz

439 karma · joined July 25, 2015

submissionscomments
phibz··on California AB 2047 makes 3D printers off-limits to students, educators, business
Why is a 3d printer more dangerous than a CNC?
phibz··on What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
If someone said Sorry and just sat there expectantly in front of my bag, I would strongly have the urge to look and say "use your words..."
phibz··on EvanFlow – A TDD driven feedback loop for Claude Code
... thoughts arrive like butterflies Oh he don't know, so he chases them away Oh someday yet, he'll begin his life again Life again, life again
phibz··on I just want simple S3
Why do rust compile times matter for a production deployment?
phibz··on Buying the Kinesis Advantage 360 keyboard was a mistake
I got a keyboard.io when they first came out. On staggered layouts i was >85 wpm. But switching to ortholinear knocked me down to 25 wpm with excessive errors. It took several months before I got back up to about 60wpm. I stayed at that speed for a year or two before finally edging back up to 80wpm.

It did hurt my ability to use staggered but only at first. I was able to switch freely after about 3 months.

Those sound like huge trade offs. And they are. But for me carpal tunnel was quickly becoming a problem. Switching to ortholinear completely resolved my carpal tunnel pain. And that is priceless.

I still find the top row reach on my Model 100s a bit much, but I've gotten the hang of lifting my palms forward a little, especially for my pinkies.

Also the palm keys are amazing.

phibz··on Every GitHub object has two IDs
In database design typically it recommends giving out opaque natural keys, and keeping your monotonically increasing integer IDs secret and used internally.
phibz··on James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies
On cars without the arrow they often follow the convention where the gas filler handle is depicted on the same side of the gas icon as the filler door is in the car.
phibz··on Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder
Calling it the largest electric ship seems wrong or at least requires extra specificity compared to nuclear aircraft carriers.
phibz··on Thoughts on Go vs. Rust vs. Zig
I feel like this misses the biggest advantage of Result in rust. You must do something with it. Even if you want to ignore the error with unwrap() what you're really saying is "panic on errors".

But in go you can just _err and never touch it.

Also while not part of std::Result you can use things like anyhow or error_context to add context before returning if theres an error.

phibz··on Why don't people return their shopping carts?
Independent thought and personal accountability are sadly lacking in the US. "I see a bunch of unreturned carts. I must follow and fit it. See im justified in not returning it." :-(
phibz··on Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is about to change
Kdenlive isnt bad
phibz··on He Chunhui's Tiny386 Turns an ESP32-S3 into a Fully-Functional 386-Powered PC
Seems like a better fit for Win 3.11.
phibz··on Mr TIFF
I've seen Ken Shirriff do this. You mention him and suddenly he's there.
phibz··on Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages
Isn't senior leadership choosing languages or core technology, doing things wrong? Shouldn't senior leadership focus on outlining the business opportunities, value case, and requirements for their solution?
phibz··on Rust Contagious Borrow Issue
For this example id probably accumulate the score total in a local variable. Then once iterating over all the children i would call parent.add_score() with the accumulated total
phibz··on I almost got hacked by a 'job interview'
I wonder what their reaction was when he discovered the malware. Did you confront them or just ghost?
phibz··on Should I choose Ada, SPARK, or Rust over C/C++? (2024)
If its a personal project then try each and see what you like. Work project then follow your company development guidelines.
phibz··on NixOS on a Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 AMD Laptop
Excellent write up and great real world review. You mentioned wanting to become a generalist.

The missing applet for tuxedo-rs would be a great opportunity to "scratch an itch" and learn some new technology.

You have some options on the language you write the applet in if you're not ready to jump in to Rust or C.

Might be a great way to learn some stuff outside of web development.

Good luck.

phibz··on The X Window System didn't immediately have X terminals
Even today in my day job I still spend 90% of my time in a No Machine NX session to a remote linux desktop where I do my work.

We do it as an extreme form of access control. Our workstations cannot reach any of our systems. Thus if a laptop is stolen, nothing if real value is lost.

phibz··on If you are useful, it doesn't mean you are valued
I think a lot of this distinction comes down to individual vs group focus.

Being good at your own work makes you useful.

However being strategic, thinking about the bigger picture, AND being able to effectively communicate that while navigating the complex social interactions of your leadership team, that makes you valued and will lead to a path to leadership (managerial or technical).

So many of is have poor social skills. It pays to focus on them and not just the skills relevant to your tasks at hand.

phibz··on Librarians are dangerous
Simple: information is power. Why else would so many go so far to control it.

Also librarians are some of the most overeducated and underpaid people out there. Thank you for what you do.

phibz··on Pretty State Machine Patterns in Rust (2016)
I'm a bit surprised that they don't use the name "type state". Perhaps it wasn't in wide use when this post was originally written?

The important ideas here are that each state is moved in to the method that transitions to the next state. This way you're "giving away" your ownership of the data. This is great for preventing errors. You cannot retain access to stale state.

And by using the From trait to implement transitions, you ensure that improper transitions are impossible to represent.

It's a great pattern and has only grown in use since this was written.

phibz··on A port of Mbed-TLS for the Classic Macintosh OS 7/8/9
> That last bit -- addressing the path limitations -- is a big one. You know how you can write #include "mbedtls/aes.h", and the compiler will pull in code from the aes.h file that's in the mbedtls folder? You can't do that on a Mac! Or at least I couldn't figure out how Codewarrior defines paths.

I believe you use colon as a path separator. At least that's what I remember from working with CW back in the 90s.

I thought long long was 64bit on CW 4 on m68k. Was it not?

phibz··on Ask HN: Do your eyes bug you even though your prescription is "correct"?
A blue light filter on my lenses helped reduce eye strain. Certainly worth considering and works better/less noticeably than the screen adjusting it's blue and red balance.

I also have caterscts that have made screen time progressively less fun for long periods of time. It's time that I took care of them.

phibz··on An invalid 68030 instruction accidentally allowed the Mac Classic II to boot
That's great. Merely speak his name and he appears.

Love the work you do Ken. Thank you.

phibz··on The Origins of Wokeness
I first heard the term from my ex-wife when she was involved with black politics in Chicago in 2014. At that time their definition was firmly in the "awareness of racial and social injustice". It was seemingly later twisted to mean hypocrisy or hyper political correctness. Redefining it seems to have nerfed any effect it once had.
phibz··on I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
> Yeah, let me give some perspective here.

This is spot on and way more likely than my contrived example. The point holds this is political as all things are in University environments.

Another interesting observation I made from my time working at a University is that it was one of the most toxic and political work environments I've ever had the displeasure to work in.

phibz··on I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
Certainly jobs will say they require a college degree.

I have three and a half years of a five year degree in computer engineering. My current job as a VP of Engineering "requires" a degree. The language in the job description is very clear.

Guess what? That's always negotiable with enough experience.

If you can talk intelligently about your subject matter in depth and you can demonstrate a history of that, then you're fine.

A degree doesn't magically make you a gifted programmer. It merely shows you where to start. You still need a lifetime of self guided continual education to be really successful in your career.

I think where it hurt me most was early in my career where I likely earned less than I would have with a degree.

This will likely become harder to do with time as computer science and hardware slow their ever changing advancement and become more established.

By all means get the degree if you can. But you can still over come not having one with enough self study and being strategic about which jobs you take.

phibz··on I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
The problem is that their leadership may not care. Bureaucrats at higher education don't take the job because they're good at it. They take it because they're not and want a job with high job security. The poor pay and unrewarding tasks are acceptable to them as a means to coast. Couple that with a job that can be quite stressful at times, students can be very demanding, and you have a recipe for entrenched apathy. I base my assessment on my time working for a University for 8 years.

The registrar's office are the wrong people to appeal to. The deans office can fix this, but they may only move if it makes the University look bad. That's where the news and media can help, but this guy likely needs help to make that happen effectively.

phibz··on I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
Their response on face value doesn't make sense. But if I had to guess, you inadvertently made someone in the registrar's office look bad. They probably had to answer to "why didn't you think of this?" If that is the case then it makes a lot more sense and is retaliatory behavior. You can't undo their insecurity and loss of face. Therefore you should not expect a reasonable response.

Act accordingly.

Educate yourself on your options. This is why people are recommending a consultation with a lawyer.

Reach out to your friends and contacts in the University. Leverage existing ones to make new ones. Others may be in a stronger position to put pressure on the registrar's office.

Use the news and media to further ratchet up pressure.

Stay positive. Fon't stoop to their level, it won't help you.

And if you have to walk away it won't hurt you too much in the long term. After about 5 years in industry nearly all companies stop caring about credentials. Just get your foot in the door somewhere and shine, that's what I did and it worked out for me 26 years later.

Hang in there.

Page 1 of 8Next →