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pwenzel

951 karma · joined February 1, 2011

Web Developer in Minneapolis, MN USA.

Bio:

https://pwenzel.info

Side projects:

https://shittyrecording.studio

https://cookingtimes.info

submissionscomments
pwenzel··on Slate EV truck starts at $24,950
Speaking for Minnesotans and other winter folk, I would love to see heated seats as an option!
pwenzel··on How to defer US taxes
Up to now, I would have agreed with you. However, many residents of cities victimized by ICE see paying federal taxes as money that goes directly toward an enemy that is destroying their communities. I will happily pay my city and state taxes, but I no longer feel that my my federal tax dollars are helping much.

I live in Minneapolis, MN. The Federal government has cut public health grants, Medicaid, laid off a large portion of he Department of Health, cut Department of Human services, cut school funding, cut University of Minnesota funding, cut heating assistance, cut flood mitigation, cut USDA programs, and cut SNAP. This is just the things I can remember! Our city hosts Hennepin County Medical Center, which provides emergency care to the entire state, and it is risking closing due to federal cuts.

Minnesota has historically paid more in federal taxes than other states, and contributes more than it gets back. I think it's time for a change.

pwenzel··on YesNotice
His contributions to the Monome Norns ecosystem are impressive as well! Barcode (https://infinitedigits.co/docs/software/norns-scripts/barcod...) is a classic and I still rock it.
pwenzel··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
Doesn't help when Trump simply responded to Minnesota assassinations with:

"you know, I could be nice and call him [Governor Walz], but why waste time?"

https://www.startribune.com/trump-says-he-will-not-call-walz...

It was an attempt to quell the No Kings protests scheduled to happen the same day.

pwenzel··on AOL to discontinue dial-up internet
I also want to hear from the people who still maintain AOL in 2025!
pwenzel··on Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
I use and recommend Evermusic for offline listening on iOS. It can fetch music from your cloud storage accounts too.
pwenzel··on Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
Swinsian is 100% worth the $24.95. It's really nice to have a good system for offline music purchases.
pwenzel··on RSS Server Side Reader
Heck yeah! I use an RSS reader to consume news every day on both my phone and laptop. It's blissfully free of extras and distraction.
pwenzel··on The Offline Club
Go to church (I'm serious, even if you are an atheist)

> Go to a meditation center instead!

pwenzel··on Busy Bar
I bought a six-pack of sand timers. They are silent, require no apps, have no screens, and are beautiful. They will probably outlive solutions such as these.
pwenzel··on A love letter to the CSV format
I hate CSV too. If I have to use it, I'll live with TSV or some other special-charter delimited format.
pwenzel··on What Game Is Jeff Bezos Playing?
On top of that, when people are are attacked politically by Trump, they are also threatened physically by his followers.
pwenzel··on I still like Sublime Text
100%. I prefer having a separate client for various tasks.
pwenzel··on Dookie Demastered
As someone who listened to music from this album on a shitty clock radio growing up, this feels perfect.
pwenzel··on The Static Site Paradox
Plain old AM/FM radios are cheap and super efficient. Everyone should have one! I have a portable radio that I use regularly and its AA batteries often last a few years!
pwenzel··on Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?
TTOP via password manager
pwenzel··on Furnace – the biggest multi-system chiptune tracker ever made
Forget everything, we're doing 5 chips
pwenzel··on Pivotal Tracker will shut down
We have to use Jira at my current workplace and it's so complicated. Pivotal Tracker, which I used at previous workplace, was so simple and focused. Sad to hear it's shutting down!
pwenzel··on All text in Brooklyn
I'm amazed how many NYC addresses have "666" in them!
pwenzel··on Windows NT for Power Macintosh
Man, I loved Windows NT back in the day. It was light enough that I could run it on fairly low end late-90s hardware, and it was substantially more stable than Windows 95.
pwenzel··on Minimalistic Beat Maker
This is lovely and well implemented.

I would take advantage of a metronome if provided one, but I at the same time I can appreciate happy timing accidents.

Nice work.

pwenzel··on Microsoft Paint's new AI image generator builds on your brushstrokes
Yeah, I feel cynical saying this, but who wants to create art that looks and feels just like everything else?
pwenzel··on Show HN: A free site to explore and discover 6k plants
For outdoor plants, I would really want to know what plants are drought tolerant. Climate change is drastically altering summers in Minnesota (wildfire smoke, drought, high AQI, high temps, extreme downpours).

It would also be really great to search for pollinator friendly plants (https://bluethumb.org is an excellent reference)

pwenzel··on Show HN: A free site to explore and discover 6k plants
The first thing I looked for was hardiness zone. I live in Minnesota and our weather is...particular.
pwenzel··on Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
I remember standing not far from edge of that shortly after it happened (https://www.flickr.com/groups/35w-bridge-disaster/), and still get a little panicky when I'm in slow traffic on a bridge. This event will affect the city, the port, and its people for a long time.
pwenzel··on VitePress 1.0
How does VitePress compare to Jekyll in terms of developer-friendliness and page build times? I still use Jekyll for small projects because it is well-documented and just works.
pwenzel··on Tick-killing pill shows promising results in human trial
I have a local doctor in my area that specializes in Lyme care. Doxycycline, Minocycline, herbs, supplements, and sleep. I have also taken the path of acupuncture and medical cannabis for supplemental pain management. Overall I'm doing better now!
pwenzel··on Tick-killing pill shows promising results in human trial
Chronic lyme patient here, been bit twice. The first time a deer tick was attached to me for roughly 6-8 hours. I got really sick.

Here's a couple pictures next to a ruler and a penny to show how tiny the tick was:

https://imgur.com/7YpvzRb.jpg

https://imgur.com/b5sUUO3.jpg

pwenzel··on Meta outage
Might as well rename it from Meta Status to Metastasis.
pwenzel··on The floppy disk music scene
This year I picked up an Akai S20 sampler and have been using it to make beats. It uses 1.44MB floppies for storage, and this limitation really forces you to make decisions and stop wasting time.

Demo of the S20 floppy disk workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMDRT_0Nt0I

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