philosopherNoob

I appreciate the tip. I’m trying to get a feel for a niche I normally avoid. I don’t think there are any bad vapes on the market anymore, but the old stories I’ve heard drives me to be extra cautious.

Anyone have any suggestions for low Nicotine vapes? (Is no-Nicotine a thing?) I’m not a smoker myself, but I know someone who’s talked about quitting and I wanna pitch weening off.

Yes, with the caveat that someone else with knowledge in the field has to recommend it to me. Partner up with someone who teaches statistics.

If I ever owned a self-playing piano, figuring out how I could play custom songs of my own creation would be my top priority. It’s awesome you’ve found some success. Jmpman, what your post is missing is motivation. Why are you doing this and what is your goal?

If you sell your decoder or encoder the company will, eventually, kick your butt. Getting money involved raises the stakes.

If you distribute a file that is sold by the company, even if it was transformed by a decoder, the company will, eventually, kick your butt. (A recording or sample of how it sounds post-transformation for demonstration purposes would be reasonable.)

If your software requires files that must be paid for in order to function, then it’s critical that you do not bundle those files with your decoder or encoder. That would be piracy.

How your software was made matters. Did you have access to non-public information about anything involved? It seems like the answer is no, so you might be fine. It sounds like you legally obtained a copy of the file, hardware that runs it, and figured out how they work.

What terms of service did you agree to? While not everything listed may hold up in court (which gets determined BY a court IN a court so don’t think that’s an easy win), the company is surely within their rights to ban you from their online service.

If you want some relevant legal advice, check out the GameCube Dolphin emulator and how the team stays legal. I love learning about how stuff works, so I’ve followed lots of console jailbreaking and reverse engineering news for years. There is a way to do this stuff legally. HN is focused more on finance than hacking. So talk to some hackers (who aren’t trying to break the law).

I saw you ask about contacting the company. If this was a blog, I’d love a followup about what they say and do, but alas I’ll probably never see it. (I guess the worst outcome is that they spend more money on making their proprietary stuff more locked down?) Regardless of what they say, their word is not the law. Know the law, know your rights, and know when it’s safe to stick your neck out and when it’s not. I am obviously not a lawyer.

Oh, and which US state you are in and what they are based in will be relevant.

Spitballing an idea. I don’t use e-ink stuff but had my hands on it back when personal readers were new to the market.

When scrolling arbitrary text on a computer via keyboard, I generally become mildly frustrated hitting Spacebar, PageUp, and/or PageDown because I lose continuity with what I’m reading. (Perhaps the momentary 60hz blur makes it worse?) I attribute that to having a hard time identifying where I last read.

If there’s a dedicated button to scrolling, consider having an adjustable distance. EX: 100% screen height down, 95% screen width down (keeps a sliver of the last page), or 80% screen width down (keeps a chunk of the last page).

If you’re working with a touch display, perhaps a hold-and-drag-to-scroll feature could work? Have no indicator when pressed and only refresh the screen when the user lifts their finger. (It’s certainly not ideal to provide no feedback that it’s being used. But it may be useful to a user aware of how it works. Would probably need a training demonstration in-device like what older operating systems had.)

Perhaps a dedicated scroll undo button? For when one makes a mis-input and wants it back where it was. I know I’ve seen my grandma get frustrated at that sort of thing on desktop/phone where it’s quick to fix.

Though it makes me mourn for life lost when I read it even now, I never cared much for “There Will Come Soft Rains”. It’s a story exploring how what we make could continue on without us (for a time). But “The Pedestrian” (1951) is included at the end. It’s the last two pages out of that six page PDF. I think that one’s more apt to modern life. I read that one ages ago and it unsettled me.

Are those posts available without logging in? This sounds like good stuff but I can’t access it.

Had to jump in here to say: Don’t show children gore videos if you can help it. They’ll remember the horror more than the lesson. All it’ll do is make them calloused (or scared).

If you want something with a gut punch related to car safety, check out British vehicle PSA advertisements. Holy moly are those grim! They’re memorable, focused, and unflinching.

Personally, I’d go with some mini-documentaries or after-the-fact breakdowns put out by local American TV stations. They take it slow, film on location, and try to have a takeaway lesson.