HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

workmandan

71 karma · joined June 5, 2017

submissionscomments
workmandan··on Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra
Same. It's a monster
workmandan··on Casio F-B100W-1A
I am 38 and British and use 24hr clocks exclusively. This is also very common on the continent - the French nearly always use 24hr time for everything
workmandan··on Every layer of review makes you 10x slower
If I'm deep in coding flow the last thing I'm going to do is immediately jump on to someone else's PR. Half a day to a day sounds about right from when the PR is submitted to actually getting the green light
workmandan··on MapLibre Tile: a modern and efficient vector tile format
Web Mercator is the standard projection used on the web, if you think the we should use a different projection on the web then that's a completely separate argument
workmandan··on Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"
Stephen Fry made the same remarks in a Q&A session some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao

As a Brit I can't agree more with both, I find American humour so hard to relate to but I guess it's just a culture thing

workmandan··on IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021
"The laminated book of dreams!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggOa9aSG-Ow
workmandan··on Peanut Butter Day: Going Nuts over NIST's Standard Reference Peanut Butter (2016)
Dharma Initiative Peanut Butter
workmandan··on How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
What a joy to parse!
workmandan··on I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
There are apps but you should not use them as they are dangerously inaccurate. Mushroom identification requires numerous different factors that a simple photograph would not be sufficient for a positive id.
workmandan··on I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
Edible does not mean "can physically be eaten" it means "is safe to eat". So no, poisonous mushrooms are not edible.
workmandan··on Inside the Apollo Guidance Computer's Core Memory
Great write-up. If you haven't seen it yet I'd highly recommend watching the entire YouTube series (part 6 is linked at the end). Some fantastic engineering!
workmandan··on Which American accent do you have? (2007)
I'm British and apparently that makes me Northeastern
workmandan··on Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament
As they rightly should! I voted remain and would do so again in a heartbeat but if you have an exclusive members only club what use is it if leaving has no consequences? The UK most certainly should be punished if it leaves the EU. Otherwise you undermine the entire organisation.
workmandan··on Ask HN: Which plants can be planted indoors and easily maintained?
I have a few "Mother of Thousands" [0] which started out as a single plant that I was gifted but it grew so rapidly that I now have about 6 pots of them. They produce tiny little baby plants on the edges of each leaf which then drop off. They are also nigh on impossible to kill (I rarely water them). I used to plant all the tiny 'seedlings' but now throw them away as there are just way too many. Be aware though that they are toxic so maybe not a good mix with pets.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryophyllum_daigremontianum

workmandan··on Declassified documents show why the US and the USSR came close to war in 1973
The mixing of sleeping pills and alcohol causing poor decision making reminds me somewhat of Elon Musk's recent outbreaks. I believe I read somewhere he is currently taking lots of Ambien.
workmandan··on Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
Also broken on my 24" monitor (Chrome on Windows)
workmandan··on High definition vinyl
Looks interesting but such a blaring spelling mistake in the tag line is pretty poor
workmandan··on Apple has admitted to purposely slowing down iPhones
I've used coconutBattery to check the health of the battery in my 6s and it reports the number of charge cycles and the maximum capacity. Is this data stored in the battery or the phone? Does replacing the battery reset the cycles counter?
workmandan··on Understanding Ethereum Smart Contracts
Ah that makes sense - if Bitcoin keeps going at its present rate could 8 units of precision simply not be enough? Would a hard-fork be the solution to this?
workmandan··on Understanding Ethereum Smart Contracts
Dang you got there 3 minutes before me!
workmandan··on Understanding Ethereum Smart Contracts
Interesting point on the lack of floating-point support. I've dealt with storing fiat in real world software and using floating point is a big no-no due to the fact it is only an approximation by its very design. We therefore always stored money as integer cents/pennies etc. How is this approached with digital "money" where there is no smallest divisible unit?
workmandan··on Ask HN: What are some geeky wrist watches?
An old school Casio is a great choice. I've had a F91W for ages and the battery last years. Cheap too.

https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Resin-Digital/dp...

It has an hourly beep and an alarm but no reminders.

workmandan··on Passive event listeners
Although a nice idea in principle I think you'll just end up with horribly convoluted and hacky if/else logic throughout your code - much like the era of nasty IE6 kludges.
workmandan··on SKYACTIV-X: first commercial gasoline engine to use compression ignition
Looks to me from image 3 at the bottom of the page that the whole unit unthreads: http://www.mahle-powertrain.com/en/experience/mahle-jet-igni...