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sirbranedamuj

142 karma · joined May 28, 2016

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sirbranedamuj··on Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated
Glad to hear! My Klein bottle is still proudly displayed on my shelf after nearly a decade :)
sirbranedamuj··on Show HN: Clocksimulator.com – A minimalist, distraction-free analog clock
Wow thanks! This is great
sirbranedamuj··on Show HN: Clocksimulator.com – A minimalist, distraction-free analog clock
I appreciate the straightforwardness of this. If I could make one request, it would be to support more of a "tick" mode instead of the continuous second hand motion. It doesn't even have to actually make noises, I just like the visuals of the clock hand starting and stopping every second. I don't know if there's a more formal name for this in Clock World
sirbranedamuj··on Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads
This is the buried lede in this announcement for me - I had no idea they were already going to such lengths. It's really impressive!
sirbranedamuj··on Garfield Minus Garfield
Welp wish I had read that before clicking on it.
sirbranedamuj··on The Free Movie: Frame-by-frame, handrawn reproduction of "The Bee Movie" (2023)
also featuring a great reimagining of I'm A Believer by Hot Dad :)
sirbranedamuj··on Braid: Anniversary Edition "sold like dog s***", says creator Jonathan Blow
I literally had no idea this came out.
sirbranedamuj··on Active learning is more effective, but students don't think so (2019)
I bet for some of these students, the goal of those classes is not to learn, it's to get enough information to pass tests so the students can check a box off on a prerequisites list so they can get their piece of paper. A student can review a recording of a lecture a month later to cram for a test. I imagine an "active learning" session is more difficult to record and review down the road. I think you have to reckon with the disparity in motivation between the teacher and the student in this situation. I imagine many of the students there don't really care about physics. They want to receive their information in as passive a way as possible so they can zone out during lectures. I think the article touches on that but reaches the wrong conclusion, relating it to an incorrect perception of the efficacy of the lesson instead of relating it to the students simply not wanting to put in the effort for something they probably don't care about.

That's my take on it as a former college student, anyway.

sirbranedamuj··on Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
Anecdata: I am 33 and have 0 kids. I make good money but, due to poor financial literacy at a young age, I am shackled with a hefty amount of student loan debt well into my 30s. My 20s were financially precarious and it would've been irresponsible to bring a child into the mix. Would've been nice, but it just wasn't going to happen.

I don't think that my specific situation applies to everyone, but I also don't expect I'm alone on this one.

sirbranedamuj··on Farscape and Henson’s Lasting Legacy (2011)
I didn't notice before being exposed to that information (I'm one of those "imdb in my hand at all times" kind of watchers). It's way more noticeable in the movie because I guess they lost the voice modification toolset they were using and had to try to make it up again from scratch.

but yeah he does a great job!

sirbranedamuj··on Farscape and Henson’s Lasting Legacy (2011)
Decided to watch Farscape on a whim after watching Ben Browder and Claudia Black in Stargate. What a great show! It starts off on an awkward foot, like most sci-fi shows do. But it eventually comes around to a really amazing show with great performances both by human actors and by puppets. Scorpius is such a great villain for John Crichton. Pilot is one of my favorite characters ever, and sometimes he feels more human than the humans do (yes, I know only John is technically human but I mean the human actors that play some of the aliens).
sirbranedamuj··on Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake
I loved my windows phones so much. lumia 900 and 920. I totally bought in to the microsoft ecosystem because I wanted to keep using that phone OS and those phones. but the ecosystem sucked ass. none of microsoft's google/apple equivalents were up to par. one night when xbox music said I didn't have license to play any of my music on a long car ride home was the last straw. I bought a galaxy note 3 that evening when I got home.

windows phone come back :(

sirbranedamuj··on Screen Apnea
Yeah I find it hard to take articles like this seriously. "Be cautious of intensely focusing on something for long, uninterrupted periods. Reduce distractions from notifications where possible. Stand up and take a walk every once in a while."

like this is just generic health advice with a catchy name and trendy, vague connotations with tech overuse.

sirbranedamuj··on Luck be a Landlord is now banned in 13 countries on the Google Play Store
It's a slot machine in aesthetics only. A klondike solitaire game is as much of a slot machine as this game - you shuffle the deck and hope that the order of the cards is just right that you're able to complete all of the foundations. You make occasional decisions along the way but it's ultimately just luck of the draw.

I would argue that this game has more agency and skill involved than your average klondike game, actually. Banning shit purely based on the aesthetics is really dumb, particularly when other games get away with having similar aesthetics in their games _including the one that is a direct rip-off of this one!_

sirbranedamuj··on Luck be a Landlord is now banned in 13 countries on the Google Play Store
As someone with several dozen hours in it, I think of it as the purest distillation of the "deck builder" game genre. In a deck builder, you often shuffle your deck and the order in which you draw the cards influences the stuff you're able to do on each of your turns. This works the same way. You slowly build up a set of symbols which can appear in some random order. The first 20 of them show up on the slot board and their adjacency to other symbols causes various effects to happen. You're trying to make the 20 symbols that appear on each spin be as profitable as possible so you can keep up with the escalating rent payments.

I adore this game and I tell everyone I can about it.

sirbranedamuj··on Super Mario 64 – Watch for Rolling Rocks – 0.5x a Presses [video]
Through this pursuit, he has learned and honed problem solving, computer science, mathematics, and communication skills.

I think you could argue that the "underlying goal" for most people's hobbies are pointless.

sirbranedamuj··on America Is Trying to Electrify. There Aren’t Enough Electricians
well the post as a whole is a US perspective: "America Is Trying to Electrify..."
sirbranedamuj··on Ericsson to lay off 8,500 employees
yeah I was a windows phone head. The Nokia Lumia 920 to this day is my favorite phone I've ever owned. But they just could not get any traction.
sirbranedamuj··on How true is 'Speed Enforced by Aircraft' Sign? (2016)
> a high standard deviation among speed of individual cars on the road

so in a world without speed limits, people can individually decide what speed a road "feels like". in a world with speed limits, people can still do that but there's a sign stating a preferred speed for the road and an (admittedly flawed) enforcement mechanism.

I really can't fathom how the former leads to less "deviation" than the latter.

sirbranedamuj··on Ask HN: What weird technical scene are you fond/part of?
I run a website (https://mustad.io) that keeps track of the stats for matches on Final Fantasy Tactics Battleground (https://twitch.tv/fftbattleground). We have a channel on the stream's discord dedicated to development of various other tools for viewers. I am not super active now but I have been paying to keep my website afloat for a couple years now. I don't know exactly how many users I have but people tell me if it goes down so I know it's at least a few.
sirbranedamuj··on When I tell the Windows Terminal team something is simple, I am "misguided"
try looking for the word "apology"

edit:

> We know we have so much more to learn, but we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes.

If someone said that to me, I would say "oh ok, no problem dude" and move on with my life. Not even defending the microsoft guy, I have zero skin in the game and couldn't care less. but people being weirdly pedantic about which words do and do not constitute an apology just because the source is Evil Microsoft Guy.

sirbranedamuj··on Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment
The only worthwhile advice here is to turn off notifications.
sirbranedamuj··on Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment
I don't think that was an argument, I think it was an answer to the command in the title.
sirbranedamuj··on How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? (2015)
The last part of the quiz literally tells people this.
sirbranedamuj··on Split Keyboard for Professionals
I've been using mine for about a year now. I love it. I'm not really an orthodox touch-typist so there were a few keystrokes that took some time for me to get the hang of. I'm pulling 100 WPM though so I must be doing something sort of right :)

The customization of both the RGB and the keys themselves as well as the ergonomics have been well worth it. I use a USB switch and use the keyboard for both Windows gaming and development on Mac.

One quirk of my typing style is that I use my right index finger for the space bar, so my left space bar effectively went unused when typing. I rebound the left space bar to the Command Key on my Mac profile so I can use my thumb for it like I would on a Mac keyboard.

I use it for gaming too. Sometimes I move the right side completely out of the way so I'm just using the left and my mouse.

I'm not saying these are all features exclusive to this particular keyboard. But a split keyboard was a great investment that I'd recommend.

sirbranedamuj··on Update to L.A.'s stay-at-home orders
Ok sure, and I bet a lot of the _people_ want to help.

But another limiting factor is the facilities with which they work. When I say "not every doctor" I don't just refer to the warm body that went to medical school, I'm talking about the doctor and the facilities they use to perform their duties. A podiatrist's office can't just turn into a COVID ICU overnight, however willing or able that podiatrist may be to lend a helping hand.

sirbranedamuj··on Update to L.A.'s stay-at-home orders
Not every doctor exists to respond to an acute respiratory viral infection.

Also, I don't think you can accurately determine the workload of a nurse based on a 30 second tiktok video. You know, I saw some truckers sleeping for a few hours at a truck stop on the highway. Why aren't they driving to deliver their packages? Clearly they have plenty of time.

An overloaded _system_ does not necessarily result in overloaded _workers_. In fact, it should minimize the number of overloaded workers as much as possible to avoid preventable mistakes. Taking some time to film a fun video with your coworkers should be viewed as workers taking necessary time to unwind, not as workers taking unnecessary time to goof off.

sirbranedamuj··on Update to L.A.'s stay-at-home orders
The entire hospital staff doesn't just sit around waiting for a pandemic. Most elective procedures have been postponed during this. Large portions of the healthcare system are idle _because_ everyone is at home. The parts of the hospital that can handle the symptoms of the virus are what we're trying to reduce the burden on.
sirbranedamuj··on Time.gov was upgraded today
I emailed about this but since it seems there may be a NIST employee reading: the "your device clock" does not respect the 24 hour clock display option.
sirbranedamuj··on SurfingAttack: attack on voice assistants using ultrasonic guided wave
The default _used to be_ to have the sound chime. Then the default changed and it stopped doing it one day. I turned it back on and I'm glad I did - it has so many phantom activations that it's made me even more wary about having them in my house to begin with.
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