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ssewell

137 karma · joined September 18, 2012

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ssewell··on A 13-year-old used my artificial nose to diagnose pneumonia
I, for one, am one of those people. However, after watching a few minutes of the linked video, I'm convinced (and pleasantly surprised) that Caleb has firm grasp on his design, and honestly sounds like he was the driving force behind his own particular implementation.
ssewell··on Toyota Camry cheaper to fuel than a Tesla Model 3?
Worth noting: Andy Slye did an in-depth real-world analysis of his Model 3 for the first 10k miles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0MjZOR89Fk

He got $0.0206 per mile. Much lower than the article's estimates.

ssewell··on Every Noise at Once
Wow! I'm having flashbacks to Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music.
ssewell··on Why Tesla's dashboard touch screens suck
Implementation is really nice, actually. The display automatically switches to a white on black mode and the brightness is automatically regulated.

You can override either display setting (day/night and brightness) manually, if desired.

Given that it's an LCD, the performance is quite surprising. The blacks are very black. Just take a look at the set of controls at the bottom, is near impossible to see where the controls end and black bezel begins.

ssewell··on Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet
Would have to mostly agree here, but it's trading time spent at one place for time spent at another. (Disclosure: I'm a Chevy Volt owner, so I have the option of both EV charging and gasoline, on rare occasion).

I recently saw someone make a valid point (IMHO) that I hadn't given much thought in the past: The time spent a DC chargers is somewhat offset by lack of stops at a gas station. Assuming you stop for gas once a week, and it takes 5 minutes to fill up and go... that's around 4.3 hours you spend at a gas station every year.

On the other hand, you may spend time at a DC charger during long road trips, but you don't have any obligation to stop at a location to recharge during normal commutes, since you simply charge overnight at home.

In other words, you have to stop for gas every X miles in an ICE vehicle, but you may have to stop for a recharge in an EV (usually for long road trips).

ssewell··on AT&T 1993 “You Will” Ads [video]
Good insight! Really rings true when the guy "faxes" from the beach. They had the foresight for ubiquitous remote access, but not for a modern messaging platform. :)
ssewell··on Tesla Model Y
Yep. Look at look at a side-by-side comparison a Model 3 from about a year ago (Premium Interior) vs. today (Partial Premium Interior). In the first few frames, there's a notable improvement in the body tolerances around the frunk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSIC6zvQy5Y
ssewell··on Talos – A modern Linux distribution for Kubernetes
Recently started using CoreOS for Docker Swarm, and it seems really promising. I wonder how this compares?
ssewell··on The Mathematics of the Rubik’s Cube (2009) [pdf]
Not sure if you're referring to cube theory or just the ability to solve... If it's the former, almost anyone can learn to solve a Rubik's cube in a few days (albeit in a non-optimal fashion). It's a matter of learning a handful of algorithms for each layer then executing. It can quite a fun way to keep the hands busy while thinking, like crocheting or knitting.
ssewell··on Why Is Uranus the Only Planet Without Interesting Features on It?
Betteridge's law of headlines!
ssewell··on Pink Trombone
Yes! Oculus makes an SDK for this. You can use it in Unity 3D, Unreal, or directly in a native app. https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/audiosdk/latest/c...
ssewell··on Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets
Thanks for this! It inspired me to see if Austin has one too. It does, and it appears to be using the same application to serve up the data: https://data.austintexas.gov
ssewell··on Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
Here's a video overview of the battle at Cynoscephalae, for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icdm7-df64k
ssewell··on An Interesting Pattern in the Prime Numbers: Parallax Compression
If the numbers of integers-per-dot was set to 1, the sequence would simply highlight prime numbers as they progress through the pyramid shape since “Parallax Compression” would no longer apply.
ssewell··on An Interesting Pattern in the Prime Numbers: Parallax Compression
I was initially thinking the same, but I don't think that's the case. This will help you find a small range of six potential primes (pick any element on the left edge of the triangle). But you're still required to calculate the factorizations on those six numbers to determine which of them are indeed prime.
ssewell··on An Interesting Pattern in the Prime Numbers: Parallax Compression
I was wondering this myself. I skimmed to the code but can't find any variable for this.
ssewell··on Modeling the Magic Leap One Experience
There is a pretty significant difference between the expectations of a GameBoy screen, in which your focusing your fovea on the screen, and a visual projection in AR. The biggest issue with narrow FOV in this case is AR strives to make items appear as if they are in the real world. The moment you slightly turn your head and item is clipped by the projected FOV, yet you can still see the real world where the AR item "was", breaks the immersive illusion.

With VR, even a narrow FOV doesn't have this problem: As you rotate your head and a virtual item moves out of the FOV, it's simply clipped into blackness... no visual dissonance as you have with AR item vs. real world it lives within.

Edit to address the article: I think the fixed IPD is the real deal-breaker here. People have greatly varied IPDs. Some VR HMDs, such as the Oculus Rift, have a physical IPD adjustent. I don't see why the ML headset couldn't have this feature in the consumer version as well, though.

ssewell··on HyperCard Zine
The original Myst game was written in Hypercard. With this knowledge, I wrote a Hunt the Wumpus 3D dungeon crawler in my high school CS class when everyone else was stuck with plain ol' text versions.
ssewell··on Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
Amazon Prime Now is already starting this (https://goo.gl/fSF4DR) in select markets. I used this last weekend and the delivery was perfect! You can opt to have an out-of-stock item either left off or replaced with a similar item. They will even send an SMS to request confirmation if they need to use a substitute product, giving you an opportunity to provide more feedback.
ssewell··on Hacker News equivalent for other fields
Panda (http://usepanda.com) is pretty good for the fields of design, development, and entrepreneurship. It pulls from many different sites, including Hacker News.
ssewell··on Real estate site Redfin files for IPO
I never understood the 3% myself. Why does someone get $60,000 for performing the relative same amount of work when a home sells for $2M?
ssewell··on Real estate site Redfin files for IPO
Isn't the main value of a realtor the ability to provide access to the home for sale, monitor the visitor, and provide insight in regards to the construction & quality of the home?

I don't think most people expect the realtor to recommend random homes based on the buyers preferences, as most people use services, such as RedFin, to narrow down the homes that match their best fit.

ssewell··on Oculus Rift is Shipping
I've used my DK2 for hours on end (perhaps to the tune of three hours or so? You lose track of time playing in VR.) will no noticeable neck fatigue. Some of the best times I've had is driving around Europe in Euro Truck Sim with my force feedback steering wheel.
ssewell··on Web Audio Arpeggiator
Audio Tool has some nice features: https://www.audiotool.com
ssewell··on Controlling vehicle features of Nissan LEAFs remotely via vulnerable APIs
This is unbelievable. Any decent API would have the client authenticate via user credentials over an encrypted channel to obtain a temporary token (that's only valid for a short time period), and all subsequent command requests would require the token to successfully proceed.
ssewell··on How I Built a Side Project
Not to mention DigitalOcean has excellent tutorials for beginners looking to set up quickly, like this one https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-inst...
ssewell··on Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order
Totally correct. As someone who has been using the Oculus DK2 since it's release, I can personally state that nausea can have many underlying sources, but the most frequent is the conflicting information your vestibular system is receiving: equilibrium vs. vision.

The Rift itself, in conjunction with good software, is excellent at tracking both rotation and translation motion and keeping the display in sync. More often than not, the nausea one experiences has to do with locomotion within the game. Spinning your character around with your mouse, for example, produces a spinning sensation with no corresponding input from your equilibrium, resulting in a sick feeling in some people.

The good news is: Many people are able to "get their VR legs" by starting with simple experiences and slowing introducing more complex ones.

ssewell··on Chemical flavorings found in e-cigarettes linked to lung disease
For those are interested in a source of e-juice that doesn't contain Diacetyl or 2,3-Pentanedione, Johnson Creek provides third-party lab test results for many their products. For example: https://d1fardvzz27152.cloudfront.net/skin/frontend/jcosj/be...
ssewell··on Docker Universal Control Plane
I can't help but feel like Docker is lacking focus and a proliferation of tools with overlapping roles are emerging. So we have Docker Machine to provision nodes from command line, Kitematic as a GUI version, Tutum, which is similar to both (albeit more powerful) but hosted by Docker, and now the Universal Control Plane.

I'm having trouble understanding exactly what the Universal Control Plane does. There doesn't seem to be much available in terms of documentation, just the beta signup page.

ssewell··on Square Roadshow Video
I noticed that as well. Pretty bad UX, imho. If you accidentally refresh your browser, you're forced to watch the whole thing over again until you get back to the original position prior to the refresh.
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