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vz8

379 karma · joined March 6, 2019

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vz8··on Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education [video]
A couple studies indicating benefits from Khan Academy, just from a cursory search:

16% lift in overall test scores: https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/sprojec...

11% lift in math test scores: https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

And Khan Academy's impact page: https://www.khanacademy.org/about/impact has links to additional studies.

vz8··on Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features
Cue the "You wouldn't download a car" memes.
vz8··on Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
One of them knows how but plays along. Cicada 3301 here we come.
vz8··on Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
We changed DNS for all devices to use OpenDNS familyshield [0] for starters. It's a passive way to throttle some of the worst of the worst out there.

Of course setting some limits on how much / how often helps a bit, and frank discussions about what too much of an addictive thing does to you.

Our youngest is developmentally delayed and will absolutely ignore any guidelines and follow the path of least resistance / most enticement, so their bedroom connection runs through a proxy running Squid [1] where I've whitelisted school and certain entertainment (that took a bit of time running Telerik Fiddler[2] to gather the many domains necessary for the whitelist)

Spotify was a bit of a problem, again with our youngest who went straight for the podcasts with the most adult content, which Spotify gleefully recommended the first moment we turned the service on. Could never find a way to turn podcasts off - never wanted them.

We run our own Emby[3] server that everyone has access to with curated music tv and movies (and also have the usual streaming video services, but those are reserved for common areas).

Looked at other options like walled garden family services (e.g. Amazon Kindle Fires with subscription), but there seems to only be content ranging up to ~12 year old tastes.

[0] https://support.opendns.com/hc/en-us/articles/228006487-Fami... [1] http://www.squid-cache.org/ [2] https://www.telerik.com/fiddler [3] https://emby.media/

vz8··on Smithsonian Open Access
What a great post to start off a weekend - thanks. For anyone excited about this, you may want to check out the amazing collections at Rijksmuseum [0] as well.

[0] https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio

vz8··on Ask HN: What do you think when companies ask for gritty people?
I checked out the site and leadership out of curiosity. Mostly I'm thinking gritty => tenacious.
vz8··on Show HN: Browse HN Together in Three.js
This is remarkable stuff.

Suggestion: A hotkey (in or out of the virtual computer) that allows you to reset to the default orientation without having to reload the page. On a laptop with only a touchpad, I'm fighting with the controls a bit.

vz8··on The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool
Call me crazy, but I think it's only a matter of time before windows in our living spaces will be monitors with overlaid ads. The in-app purchase will be "allowing us" to remove the ads so we can look at the view in peace.

In the meantime, all my TVs never see the light of WiFi and have ROKU sticks.

vz8··on CSS Tips
I'd love to see a "Can-I-use" browser extension when looking at articles like this.

Occasionally a project requires IE 10/11 support (state government work) and it's such a shame to get excited about an impossible CSS approach.

vz8··on Closing web browser windows doesn't close connections
I wonder if this explains the occasional "Ghosts in the machine" behavior I've seen in Fiddler. Hoo boy.
vz8··on Launch HN: Kitemaker (YC W21) – Fast alternative to Jira, built for remote teams
It was Clubhouse, and it was down for a while yesterday (I stopped checking after an hour or so)
vz8··on Launch HN: Kitemaker (YC W21) – Fast alternative to Jira, built for remote teams
I tried clubhouse.io after seeing your note, and a few minutes into the demo (which was impressive) the site died (which was less impressive).

And now "Unable to log in. We were unable to parse the server response. This could be a networking issue, so please try again later."

Trying Kitemaker now and hoping the HN hug of death isn't approaching. First impressions: I appreciate the keyboard-shortcut-first UI.

vz8··on Audacity 3.0
I'm happy to hear about the new file format. The prior "piles of files" were a problem when saving to folders watched by Dropbox / OneDrive.

Thanks Audacity, for an excellent tool!

vz8··on The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions
On a longer timeframe, PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) / PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) models[0] are common, and I run into them frequently in non-profit social/community work. The "Do" part of the cycle is frequently misunderstood, it's more of a test.

I've found PDSA to be challenging with developers, with a tendency to want to short-circuit the process and leap intuitively to the "solution" at the end of the cycle. Talented, experienced, and ignorant all end up looking like P-A-P-A (or just AAAA with a spectacular thud at the end when things finally hit the fan).

The author "recommended a process of “deductive destruction”: paying attention to your own assumptions and biases, then finding fundamental mental models to replace them." -- going to borrow a few ideas from the article and try a different approach for a few of our Mavericks...

[0] https://asq.org/quality-resources/pdca-cycle

vz8··on What remote work does to engineering productivity
Maybe I'm the outlier here, but with the pandemic came a significant cultural shift, reducing office politics, and it's been something of a productivity renaissance for my organization.

Communication has downshifted to a few mandatory team and all-staff gatherings, one on ones with direct reports, and that's about it. We handle things through email and Teams for urgent matters. Overall, management has been light touch, trust but verify, and staff are given flexibility to set "project hours" to avoid interruptions.

Frank communication about what works, what doesn't, and setting realistic agendas (from the meeting level up to the epic projects) has been very helpful.

vz8··on I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service
I keep expecting this to tie back to a Borat sequel.
vz8··on Launch HN: Webiny (YC W21) – Open-source serverless framework with a drop-in CMS
Per the website FAQ [0]: Q: "Can I see a demo of Webiny in action?"

A: "We don't host a public demo at this time. You're welcome to install it yourself, or book a call with us and we'll prepare a demo for you."

Investing the time to install it ourselves or book a demo just to see the framework in action adds a lot of friction.

You might want to considering moving the 7 minute Webiny overview to a more prominent place - I didn't see the thumbnail under your navigation's Product menu until after hunting through numerous other pages, poking through getting started tutorials, and even ending up on your documentation page.

[0] https://www.webiny.com/pricing

vz8··on Guide: Full Wayland Setup for Linux
I suppose trying this on VirtualBox (Win10 system) could be an exercise in frustration, but I'm tempted...
vz8··on Show HN: I wrote a book about using data science to solve “everyday” problems
Congrats on completing a book, on an interesting topic, and with a reduced line spacing option.
vz8··on How to lower the price of plant-based meat
Fresh fruit and veg prices have practically quadrupled in the last 10 years here (Florida). Beef is significantly up.

On the other hand, chicken is ridiculously inexpensive. For under $7, a tray of 8 oversized chicken thighs. Following a Keto regimen for a bit over a year now, I'm very keen on trying a different approach to high-protein, low-carb intake.

The novel proteins the article discusses (mung beans, potatoes, fava beans, chickpeas, lentils, oats, lupine, and faba) give me a wider array to try, but I can see how difficult plant-based meat pricing will be when the crops are so much more expensive than the corn/wheat/soy tri-fecta.

What keeps the novel crops pricing so high? (looks like 15 to 160 times higher than corn/wheat/soy at the extremes)

Labor?

vz8··on The first commercial astronaut mission to orbit Earth aboard Dragon
"The Inspiration4 crew will receive commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing. They will go through emergency preparedness training, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial and full mission simulations"

I would give my

looks at limbs, then looks around

... PS5 ...

to be one of the chosen astronauts.

vz8··on Food Grammar: Unspoken rules of cuisine
Hunched over a bitter + savory hotpot in Nanning, China was both dizzying and delicious. A tour-de-force of sinus-clearing, palate-disorienting goodness.

Boiling roiling fungus and grasses (lemon, bamboo, some things entirely new)

A wordless meal, punctuated by satisfied sighs and appreciative noises

Plates of piled high greens. Mystery broth, mystery guests.

The live entertainment: torchlit, rhythmic caterwauling over a PA

vz8··on Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (2019)
On our devices with Windows, we use the built-in tools, 7-zip and WinRAR (on a single workstation).

Mentioning WinRAR was a bit of a joke.

vz8··on Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (2019)
We do, and thanks for mentioning it, it's worth bringing up.

We donate to various projects: on Github, FSF, EFF, direct to a developers, and even Patreon in one case.

Autodesk had our money for a while, then we moved to use and support Blender and never looked back.

... we even bought a license to WinRAR, I kid you not.

vz8··on Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (2019)
Following up: 50 minutes in chat and 5 rounds of back and forth like a used car dealership before they would agree to cancel.

Adobe: "Have 3 months free!"

Me: "We are no longer using these licenses."

Adobe: "But you are on the hook for a year. We have reset all of your licenses to have the same annual renewal date, regardless of when you purchased them."

Me: "We are no longer using these licenses. Free months are just a tactic in hopes that we miss the cancellation window and are forced to pay for another year."

Adobe: "We highly recommend that you accept our generous 3 months free offer."

Me: "That sounds a little ominous. Please cancel the licenses, effective immediately."

This is paraphrased, but follows the essential conversation. Adobe, you disappoint me.

vz8··on Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (2019)
As I write this, I am attempting to reduce the number of licenses allocated in the Adobe admin portal.

After hunting through the site, it appears easy to add, but impossible to remove licenses without going through sales support (instant response with a human), who then transfer you to the "Cancellation Team" which are remarkably hard to find online and have not replied to previous attempts at cancellation.

This is my third try, and the wait has been ridiculous. After finally being connected to a member of their cancellation team, they are "reviewing my request" and 1-2 minutes (please stand by) has turned into 15+

This experience has been so bad (on top of many others), that I'm strongly considering moving our entire org to open source tools (aside from InDesign for the publications group, which our partners require).

vz8··on DeLorean considering all-electric reboot
I misread another title. "DeLorean considering all-electric robot."

Either way, I'm in.

vz8··on Ask HN: Anyone know any funny programming jokes?
git pull: open source skeet shooting
vz8··on Show HN: I built an online interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
An Ode to Quitting Vim:

ESC

Ctrl-C

ESC

Ctrl-Q

ESC

Ctrl-Z

* dangit, suspended *

fg

ESC

:q

E37: No write since last change (add ! to override)

!

E37: No write since last change (add ! to override)

!:q

E37: No write since last change (add ! to override)

@!&^#!&!!:q

E477: No ! allowed

Reboots Server

vz8··on Show HN: I built an online interactive course that helps you learn Vim faster
Show HN: I built an online interactive course that helps you learn vim* faster

*You have a small typo in your title: should be spelled "emacs" ;)

Kidding aside, the course is fun, nice work.

Per other comments in the thread, if you want to integrate vim muscle memory and browsers, check out the Vimium extension for Chrome (granted, I've overwritten the defaults with emacs, but the idea has still been helpful and minimized mouse use).

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