Hacker News: DWakefield

New comment by DWakefield in "We can’t send mail farther than 500 miles (2002)"

DWakefield — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:49:10 +0000

I had a chance to meet Cliff Stoll a couple summers ago. He was giving a presentation to a quilt society and it was great. If you ever have a chance to see him in person, no matter the topic, you will be greatly rewarded! He is such an energetic and enthusiastic person and he finds the beauty in all sorts of everyday things. I was captivated by him the entire time on a topic I only had a passing interest in at the beginning.

New comment by DWakefield in "I became an anarchist while working for the Nevada state democratic party"

DWakefield — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 18:10:14 +0000

Is that more than or less than the level of incompetence that you'd expect from republicans? Not everything has to be partisan, does it?

New comment by DWakefield in "What's your favorite RSS feed reader?"

DWakefield — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:17:34 +0000

I second this - been using Netvibes since Google Reader went away. Clean interface and reasonably customizable. At the time, it was the closest to feature parity that I could find and I haven't felt the need to look for a replacement since.

New comment by DWakefield in "PySkyWiFi: Free stupid wi-fi on long-haul flights"

DWakefield — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 12:38:04 +0000

Sending stock quotes, scores, weather, etc. reminds me of a service that Google used to offer via text message. I used that a ton before I got my first smartphone: text W[ZIP code] to 46645 (GOOGL) and it would text back the weather. Same for stock:[symbol] and many other things I've since forgotten. Of course Google killed it, but it was neat while it lasted!

Mrs Perkins's Quilt (2017)

DWakefield — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:31:27 +0000

Article URL: http://www.squaring.net/quilts/mrs-perkins-quilts.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40728671

Points: 26

# Comments: 3

New comment by DWakefield in "CenturyLink left users with no service for two months, then billed them $239"

DWakefield — Wed, 01 May 2024 18:00:38 +0000

I second that thought. Years ago on a Nortel PBX, we had a line in the factory where I work that had a fault. It would intermittently dial my extension (411) and I figured that it was from pulse dialing. Eventually the fault in the line was fixed and, along with that, the 'phantom' calls I received from that extension. Interesting coincidence that in both cases the number dialed was 411. I guess I'm lucky our phone didn't dial 911!

New comment by DWakefield in "Thomas Edison's Concrete Houses"

DWakefield — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Does anyone know where there are pictures of the interiors of these homes? I'm very curious about the concrete bath fixtures, but can't seem to find anything online that definitively shows the inside of an Edison concrete home. It's also interesting to see this in light of all the news recently about 3D printed concrete and how there are many of the same challenges now that Edison must have had to deal with then. Plumbing, electrical, insulation, and so forth all have to be incorporated into the design or tacked on afterward.

New comment by DWakefield in "Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35"

DWakefield — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:33:21 +0000

It's the same connector as on the BBC Micro:bit, right?

New comment by DWakefield in "Microsoft broke a Chrome feature to promote Edge"

DWakefield — Tue, 02 May 2023 15:10:08 +0000

Breaking it for everything would be one thing, but in this case, the update only impacted the application when it was named Chrome.exe. Changing the name or doing the same thing with Firefox still worked the way it had with Chrome. This would point to a deliberate action on Microsoft's part to stifle one particular competitor.

New comment by DWakefield in "Swing Ratio"

DWakefield — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 21:43:14 +0000

That's interesting - 2.5 was the same number I landed on that sounded best to me.

New comment by DWakefield in "Smooth scrolling 60fps on MSDOS 286"

DWakefield — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 16:28:45 +0000

I had an 8086 (compatible) Epson Equity II+ w/ SVGA back in the day. Was a bit odd, but it worked!

New comment by DWakefield in "Show HN: ssh wordle.bdw.to"

DWakefield — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 18:56:06 +0000

I won the game and the stats were buggy for me as well. Still fun!

    Statistics

played..................0 win %...................-9223372036854775808 current streak..........0 max streak..............0 guess distribution....... 1...................0 2...................0 3...................0 4...................0 5...................0 6...................0

Next Wordle in 5 hours 6 mins Connection to wordle.bdw.to closed.

New comment by DWakefield in "A decade long Google account disabled with no warning or reason"

DWakefield — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 20:54:01 +0000

The collateral idea seems good, but it might encourage perverse incentives for Google. If they know they're going to get a few hundred bucks if they disable an account, I'd fear the rate of accounts being disabled may go up. Even if it doesn't, there would be the appearance that any account being disabled was for financial gain.

I wish I had a good answer for this, though.

New comment by DWakefield in "Soyuz spacecraft digital clock teardown"

DWakefield — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 18:16:11 +0000

Or maybe he's stating the thesis for his post and then backing it with technical detail before writing his conclusion. Have readers become so accustomed to instant gratification that they can't take the time for a thorough analysis with facts and technical detail to back up the author's claim?

New comment by DWakefield in "Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features"

DWakefield — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 22:25:35 +0000

Any projector setup worth having would have an HDMI cable ready for you.

A 5.25" floppy diskette won't fit an a CompactFlash slot.

What's your point? I can come up with silly excuses too.

New comment by DWakefield in "I wired a Christmas tree with 500 LED lights and calculated their 3D coordinates"

DWakefield — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 16:47:30 +0000

100% agree. I did a very similar project this year - at my wife's insistence. Guess who's done most of the programming now that I've got the techy hardware side done?

New comment by DWakefield in "Directus – Free and Open-Source SQL Database GUI"

DWakefield — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:50:44 +0000

This looks very interesting, but be warned that in this project's case SQL == MySQL and nothing more.