HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

sprucely

1,107 karma · joined July 3, 2013

timberdig.com

spruce at timberdig dot com

submissionscomments
sprucely··on America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok
The web app appears to be deliberately hobbled. It doesn't even give you access to the bookmarks you saved in the mobile app.
sprucely··on A Spanish teen’s genome may hold the secret to lupus
They may not have a bottom line, but they certainly put up barriers to accessing specialty care that I never experienced when using the Sutter/Blue Shield combo. Also this wasn't a North Kaiser vs South Kaiser thing. More like Solano vs Yolo/Sacramento counties.
sprucely··on A Spanish teen’s genome may hold the secret to lupus
I wish I had your experience with Kaiser. I've hit that conflict of interest multiple times. Most recently, after going through triage and waiting six weeks for an appointment, and after half way through it with [specialist], I learn that they're actually not the specialist I thought I was getting and just performing triage. This person lacked even basic knowledge on the topic, and none of the classes or groups she can find actually address the issue in question. When our time is almost up she finally decides to lookup a specialist. There's only one available with only one date available in another couple months. But she's only looking in one geographical region because she doesn't have access to data for the other region that can also serve us. If I book this appointment, she informs me I won't be able to find another specialist in the other region because a patient can be assigned to only one specialist. So it seems data actually is integrated across Kaiser's "regions", but only so far as to support their bottom line.
sprucely··on The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)
Yep, my XPS does too. I believe it's called "coil whine" and is caused by surface-mount inductors whose windings aren't fully encased in resin or whatever material they use.
sprucely··on Russia Sanctions Add Shock Internet Censorship Twist for UK ISPs
Who is we? YMMV, but any sort of emphasis on critical thinking wasn't my experience in an Arizona school district in the late eighties/early nineties. If such curriculum was available, the kids who took it were likely outliers in having influences to push them in that direction.
sprucely··on Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December
Contracts or momentum? Haven't looked at actual dates, but my guess is that this project was established long before SpaceX was a viable option.
sprucely··on Laser for control of mosquitos, weeds and pests
Where I live, we used to have tons of frogs. The city actually built a freeway bypass to prevent too many flat frogs. Didn't work. Anyway, the frogs quickly vanished around the same time we started spraying to reduce the spread of West Nile. Don't know if it was the food source or if the spray killed the tadpoles, but unintended consequences are a thing. A knock-on to that is we now have a growing roach problem.
sprucely··on The Linux Distributions of 1992
Does anyone remember Win4Lin? It would run Windows 98 as a process and translate system calls to their Linux equivalent. It was very convient for testing my websites in IE. And I swear it was faster and more stable than running Windows on bare hardware. And when it did blue screen, I could have it back up in a matter of seconds.
sprucely··on Indian state proposes two-child policy, stringent measures for violators
I believe the problem in any society is that the older generation relies on the younger to care and/or subsidize costs of said care for the older as their health declines. That breaks down when population starts declining.
sprucely··on Does NMN improve metabolic health in humans?
A little late to this conversation, but I want to point out that it appears dopamine does have functions other than neurological.[1] Of course one might take the view that immune function is regulated by the nervous system and thus it may not be a direct pathway.

[1] https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jir/2016/3160486/

sprucely··on Oura Ring 2 Teardown
Sorry for the late reply. For me it was Fructose and Sulfites. See my above comment for more details.
sprucely··on Oura Ring 2 Teardown
Sorry for such a late reply. For me the two biggest culprits are sulfites (increased sleep disturbances) and fructose (reduced deep sleep and more chaotic cycles).

What's weird about the fructose is I don't have the symptoms associated with such an intolerance; namely gas. Good news is that there is an enzyme (Fructaid) that helps mitigate it for me, so I don't have to completely cut it from my diet.

In the US, sulfites can be sneaky. Labels are required to list them if directly added to a product, but not for sulfite-containing ingredients sourced from a third-party. So the raisins in that trail mix very likely contain sulfites.

sprucely··on Oura Ring 2 Teardown
It allowed me to identify food intolerances that had a significant impact on my sleep.
sprucely··on Cryptocurrencies Are Detrimental to Society
A bad law tends not to change until there are enough people breaking the law.
sprucely··on Espanso: Cross-Platform Text Expander Written in Rust
Right. Now that I think about it, I've seen some crates that perform interesting codegen tasks at compile time; things like ffi bindings that automatically stay up-to-date. The only part I found difficult about working with generated code was that RLS was not up to the task of parsing the generated code, so no intellisense. But that was several months ago, so perhaps it's already been addressed.

[edit] And I'm interested in further exploring macros to create a DSL for doing some magic in the spirit of, but not quite replicating, dotnet's Linq Expressions.

sprucely··on Espanso: Cross-Platform Text Expander Written in Rust
I agree, but I'm wondering if there is anything inherent in its design that facilitates this. Or is it mostly attributable to the fact that it makes use of LLVM?
sprucely··on For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)
I dropped one on automata after an exercise in the first exam required making use of an undisclosed algorithm that wasn't central to the topic and not covered in any of the required reading. When asking the lecturer about it, he directed me to chapters n through n+5 in some other book. I guess I didn't want it enough.
sprucely··on Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200
Kaiser is great for critical care and general practitioner stuff. But they do most of their cost-cutting in specialty care; the stuff that is rare or tends to not be easily diagnosed while having a major impact on patients' quality of life. Just lookup lawsuits and Kaiser mental health.
sprucely··on A short soft skills course
I also didn't care for the book. But my problem was that it seemed disingenuous. It claimed to be about influencing others, when in fact it was about being genuinely interested in others. Halfway through i put it down because it gave no indication that it would actually get around to explaining HOW to develop an interest in others.
sprucely··on All the balls are the same color: brown
You may want to look into whether it's a learned phenomenon and also consider getting them tested for color blindness.
sprucely··on Atheists and Agnostics Also Frequently Believe in the Supernatural, Study Shows
I'm not sure either, but I kind of agree. I think it's the whole us vs them thing. Most people like to feel like they're on the right (correct, superior) side of whatever issue they decide divides them from the others.
sprucely··on Momentum is building to explore Venus
I'll buy that book when you write it.
sprucely··on Mars Colony Power Simulator
Completely off-topic, but your assertion about the weight of charged batteries caught my attention. It would seem that E=mc^2 comes into play here. I believe charged batteries actually do weigh more than uncharged, though probably not by any measurable amount.
sprucely··on A Solution for Loneliness: Get out and volunteer, research suggests
I have a feeling that OP hit on a sensitive issue for you. I'm not asserting that OP unequivocally and obviously did so. But I did present a perfectly plausible/tangential perspective which, given the up votes, some others might share. That said, this thread does not hold enough interest to motivate me to do the work of piecing together a thesis.
sprucely··on A Solution for Loneliness: Get out and volunteer, research suggests
Many churches, if not most, have regular outreach and/or community service activities. It's easy to make an assumption that everyone is aware of this. But I can see how it might come off as a non sequitur.
sprucely··on Who’s at risk for obsessive healthy eating? Toronto research sheds light
I'm in the process of identifying various foods that have negative effects on my health. It's frustrating, because there is absolutely no research or literature out there that validates or corroborates my findings. Send me an email (listed in my profile) if you want to compare notes.
sprucely··on Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills
A Hollywood caricature of martial arts might be useless. But my understanding of some martial arts is that they emphasize keeping a cool head, awareness of surroundings, deescalation and evasion over violent confrontation. Being even somewhat competent in those skills could prove valuable in an active shooter situation.
sprucely··on Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new encryption laws
But the million ways to go wrong IS the problem. I may be appealing to authority here, but is it disingenuous when an overwhelming majority of encryption and security experts agree?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cyb...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/05/ray_ozzies_en...

https://www.justsecurity.org/53316/criminalize-security-crim...

sprucely··on Ask HN: Can you recommend a modern, accessible P2P framework/library?
Several have been mentioned already, but I'll add one more rust library to the mix: https://github.com/maidsafe/crust
sprucely··on Lavender’s Soothing Scent Could Be More Than Just Folk Medicine
Soothing? I have a disgust of all things lavender, and I don't appreciate being subjected to the aroma when colleagues use lavender products. I wonder if there's a connection between my visceral reaction and my general lack of ability to relax.
Page 1 of 3Next →