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vanadium

847 karma · joined June 28, 2011

Architecture and Morality.
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vanadium··on WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator
This is impressive.
vanadium··on WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator
So many people loved it, The Weather Channel actually put out CDs. One such example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/127083056970
vanadium··on The Reddits
After they killed Apollo, my usage after 15 years went from hours a day and tanked to a few minutes a month at present. They showed their hand, and I showed myself the door for the most part.

When the email dropped that I was one of the early users offered entrance into the IPO, I pretty much ignored it.

vanadium··on Original Prusa MK4
Not to mention that to a large extent, you can spend the difference between stock unit prices making an Ender-3 v2 nearly as capable as a $799-$1,000 printer. Does it make sense? Overkill? Depends what you want to get out of the hobby. Can’t scoff at those who want to learn the fundamentals of 3D printing through the experience of modding and tuning ad nauseum because it’s _just not quite there yet_. I’m one of those Ender-3 V2 folks who can’t stop tweaking and modding and it’s been a frustratingly awesome and educational ride for the last year and some change. No regrets. I’ve gotten great prints along the way. But now, if I add a printer in the future that promises to “just work” and it doesn’t, I can diagnose/fix pretty quickly. Which I might just do.
vanadium··on Rotating Sandwiches – That's It
Need more old-school absurdity like this on the web these days.
vanadium··on On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class
Let’s de-escalate it to relative car value to income then, in which case I’d say Warren Buffett is a good candidate. While you might not consider it ratty, it’s still pretty grounded and emblematic of frugality, all things considered.
vanadium··on Remote workers, how do you stop thinking about work?
Similarly, I have my desk lamp outfitted with Hue lights controlled via HomeKit, which always turn on 15 minutes before work and turn off at the usual time I clock out plus 15 minutes, and for the days I close up in time, I make it an absolute habit to turn them off before heading back upstairs to be with family.

It takes commitment to consistency, but it’s extremely effective for me to associate the light switch to my work day.

vanadium··on Guest WiFi using a QR code
I 3D printed a QR code puck for my house wi-fi. It's an easy demonstration of at-home fabrication that elicits some conversation, without having to hand over a password.
vanadium··on Small actions make great leaders
This is a brilliant way of framing it; I couldn’t agree more.
vanadium··on On Twitter, briefly
Some days, you have to wonder where we’d be if Pownce actually won out against Twitter back in the day. That Twitter won out ended up being more consequential than anyone could have expected.
vanadium··on Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
AS&S is, in a relatively literal sense, next door to me. Fun bunch of folks whenever I stop by.

But as a late 70s Gen Xer, I would never trade living through that transition period from pre-Internet to Internet. You can't pay to have had that experience or perspective, and what transpired through those years from BBSes to pre-Web to Web adoption, from technological and sociological standpoints, was _insane_.

vanadium··on Atari asks for help finding developer of 2600 game Aquaventure
Not only that: "Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer."

Growing up, that was the lens I always saw them through (and I had minor addictions to Laser Blast and River Raid, among others), so to see what they've become, well, you know. Not the same in any way from the David Crane days, just as it is with Atari from the Bushnell days through Warner, then Tramiel, then JTS, Hasbro, etc through present day.

Days long, long gone. The memories are nice.

vanadium··on Universe BIOS for NeoGeo
If you have a Neo Geo AES (home), MVS (arcade)or, more recently, Neo Geo CD, this is a table-stakes modification that unlocks quite a few features, including bypassing region restrictions which were prevalent when it came to removing the censorship prevalent in U.S. versions of their games (e.g., blood, et al).

I felt it worthwhile to make sure I ordered it straight from the source for my AES, which enables ongoing support.

vanadium··on Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
That would be Palm webOS.
vanadium··on Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
The nostalgia I have for 2009-2011's webOS, as a former app dev for the platform and its embrace of the Web Platform, is still very much real to the point that I keep my Palm Pre 2 dev unit behind me in my home office. Still charges and boots just like it did back in 2010. I'd love to see something with the computing power of the present try it again (and I'm aware React Native exists), but my expectations of it ever coming to fruition are rather low.

Aside: Seeing MagSafe chargers for iPhones these days makes me chuckle. Also a webOS innovation from back in...2009.

vanadium··on Groups never admit failure
I think what separates the two camps is a positive incentive to admit failure, which is where the rarity comes in, as highlighted by other posters. If the group's incentive is integrity and trust, or loyalty and retention, it makes sense as there's a capital (political, monetary, etc.) incentive in doing so.

That's where I think the insight cleanly falls apart and yet holds up pretty well for the vast majority of situations. Rarely are groups actually positively incentivized to admit failure, and therefore they do not, as a cohesive unit, actually admit failure as there's a greater incentive not to, barring force.

vanadium··on Intro to cassette recorder operation, maintenance, and repair
Pretty timely as I'm hunting down an old (practically bulletproof) Sony TC-D5M field recorder for my system here and want to know what I'm getting into since there are some known issues that crop up in due time. I already restore old videogame consoles and try to do my own stunts in repairing and maintaining what I've got, so this is really helpful.
vanadium··on Moderna Is About to Begin Trials for HIV Vaccine
It's worth posting Moderna's research pipeline to understand the breadth and depth of where they plan to take mRNA vaccines: https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline
vanadium··on Alcohol-free beer is fizzing
I’ve been seeing a fair groundswell of “all-day” lagers and IPAs between 3-4% as of late, so it feels like there’s a market for lower ABV brews getting tapped.
vanadium··on What's Accenture? (2020)
I can’t thing of a tech market segment more in need of “disruption” by now, quite honestly.
vanadium··on Flutter 2
Multiple countries around the world have legal standards around accessibility. Then you have the ethical, DE&I, and business reasons to enable disabled users equal access to the web platform and apps through screen readers and other assistive technologies, i.e., accessibility. It’s certainly not a uniquely American concern.
vanadium··on Dyson air purifier outperformed by cheap DIY box fan filter in Marketplace test
I've got two Blueair 121s (the larger sibling to the 211+) that were recently on sale at Costco.com for the price of the 211+. My family could sense the difference in air quality within a couple hours.

I can't say that about any of the prior purifiers we've tried.

vanadium··on Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus
And, importantly, I can resell the hardware and recoup a significant amount of my base costs when a new generation of hardware comes out.
vanadium··on Google to end the “top stories carousel” benefit to AMP next spring
They made a full-court press in the SEM environment as well, especially for lead-gen/landing pages. Otherwise, same song and dance.
vanadium··on Vanilla-todo: A case study on viable techniques for vanilla web development
IE11. IE11 remains the problem.
vanadium··on A warning about Glassdoor
Trends are already exposed on the Reviews page, behind a click.
vanadium··on Police are requesting data from smart speakers
I've taken a more cautious approach to assistants and only tend to use Alexa if it requires a physical keypress first, e.g., a Fire TV 4K rather than having bespoke Echo devices throughout the house. There's _some_ value on the home automation side of the offering until I can make everything closed-circuit around here.

The Google Mini that Spotify sent me, however, went straight into a pile.

vanadium··on Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?
I currently do this for major brands as a one-man crew in a 3,500 employee company, and I'll admit, the idea of going it alone as a consultant in this space is _extremely_ alluring. It's just a matter of the right angle to get clientele in order to go it alone, which is the main stumbling block in my case due to time.

The work's consistent and perfectly suited to remote, the engineering teams I'm working with are great and consistently in need of not only the what and why, but the _how_, and monitoring the progress is pretty fulfilling work, to be honest.

Some of the best work I've had in a very long career. I frankly love it.

vanadium··on Markets, Rent and WFH
Myself and half my team are looking at permanently relocating out of Chicago. The pattern holds across other teams where I work.

Others I know in the industry are just up and leaving for remote-first companies and then moving to where they’re most comfortable.

vanadium··on Rand Paul says no-knock warrants 'should be forbidden' in wake of shooting
He absolutely is; I had been doing work for Reason for some years inclusive of the Cory Maye work, and met him for a short time. Not only is he a great guy to have a beer with, it was probably the most satisfying work of my career helping to amplify the visibility of his efforts.
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