Hacker News: Daub

New comment by Daub in "John Ternus to become Apple CEO"

Daub — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:25:35 +0000

in Japan apple maps is commonly used.

New comment by Daub in "A Brief History of Fish Sauce"

Daub — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:20:52 +0000

I live in Vietnam, and it is jokingly said that the smell of fish sauce is used by some Vietnamese to get rid of unwanted foreigners, to be used when the smell of durian doesn’t work.

New comment by Daub in "Generating a color spectrum for an image"

Daub — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 07:20:52 +0000

This is a very interesting project. As a design teacher, I recommend to my students that they do not employ color swatches for anything other than flat color designs. Certainly for an animation, a photo or a movie such simplified visualizations have little value as they do not convey the kind of ranges information this project is addressing.

That being said, I am certain that there is no 2D method of visualizing such fundamentally 3D information as color.

New comment by Daub in "Picasso’s Guernica (Gigapixel)"

Daub — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:00:11 +0000

One of the things that made seeing this painting a valuable experience for me was the plentiful background material it was shown next to… drawings, paintings, sketches etc. it showed the depth of creative process that Picasso employed.

One thing I have not seen discussed here is the fact that this painting was commissioned by the (Spanish) Republican government. Effectively, there is a degree of propaganda to the painting. No shade on the guy… my other favorite war crime painting is the executions of the third of may by Goya, and it was also a political commission.

New comment by Daub in "DaVinci Resolve – Photo"

Daub — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:37:04 +0000

> it's rare for photographers to use scopes for color

True, but that is there loss. A scope is a visualization of the color properties of a photo and any problem-solving individual should value visualization highly. I am certain that Rembrandt would have murdered to get his hands of a histogram.

New comment by Daub in "Picasso’s Guernica (Gigapixel)"

Daub — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:54:07 +0000

In Madrid’s military museum there is a little known painting done as a right wing responce to Guernica - The Paracuellos Massacres" (Las matanzas de Paracuellos) by José Gutiérrez Solana. The subject is the massacre of Spanish civilians by the Republican forces. It is almost as large as Guernica and done in a realistic style. As an obscure counterpoint to Guernica it has a curiosity value. It borrows heavily from the magnificent Executions of the Fifth May by Goya. Btw… All three paintings were commissioned as political statements. I remember seeing all three in one day when I was a young art student. A decidedly odd experience.

New comment by Daub in "DaVinci Resolve – Photo"

Daub — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:20:44 +0000

I teach design and art and routinely supervise photo projects. The low level of expectation that even the best students have of color editing amazes me. Few can think further than brightness/contrast adjustments. Lightroom is seen as the pinnacle yet its hue tools are beyond dreadful. The hue curves in DaVinci are pretty much the only act in town for sophisticated hue adjustments.

New comment by Daub in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

Daub — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 04:55:54 +0000

> I'm looking for something novel and interesting, that isn't absolutely crowded that I could meaningfully contribute to.

I would say that a hobby is a bit like a fetish in that it is derived from our interior psychology. My father’s hobby was repairing old scientific instruments, which was perfectly suited to his disposition for quantifying everything in his life, including his family (bless you dad).

New comment by Daub in "LoGeR – 3D reconstruction from extremely long videos (DeepMind, UC Berkeley)"

Daub — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:34:50 +0000

The most available lidar is found on your iPhone, but the results are orders of magnitude less detailed than that derived from photogrammetry. How ever an advantage is that lidar is not confused by reflections.

New comment by Daub in "Palm OS User Interface Guidelines (2003) [pdf]"

Daub — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 03:33:42 +0000

I wrote some teaching material on the rise and fall off Palm for which I produced a graphic showing how the palm split and merged over the years. Quite honestly it's one of the most complex and insane graphics i have ever made.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7hh5uzoaj2x7zq60yv9vz/palm_ti...

New comment by Daub in "First Website (1992)"

Daub — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 02:34:22 +0000

Thanks for reminding me of this. Used it once or twice to prank co workers.

New comment by Daub in "First Website (1992)"

Daub — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:59:35 +0000

I belive that an early beowser, possibly Mosaic, had an edit button. Think of that and the fundamental change of internet philosophy it implies!

New comment by Daub in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"

Daub — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 05:53:25 +0000

OK, maybe my use of that phrase was a bit ill-judged. However, aside from supporting artists, what did the initiative achieve? Keeping artists off the dole should not be, IMHO, a goal in itself. The reputation of Dutch culture at the time was not brilliant, though neither was it bad. A strategic attitude would have been more effective... maybe target one or two artists and promote them.

The Young British Artists (YBA) boom of the 80s was a product of the innovative teaching environment of Goldsmiths' college plus the drive of people like Damien Hirst, who organized the ground-breaking Freeze exhibition. The British Council did their best to capitalize on this.

New comment by Daub in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"

Daub — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:49:42 +0000

Oddly enough I have just finished making the same observation and used the word 'crap' to describe the result, without even seeing your comment.

New comment by Daub in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"

Daub — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:47:21 +0000

Artist speaking. A similar scheme was employed by Holland for many years. The state committed to buy at least one artwork from each artist per year and predictably their warehouses became filled with crap art that no one wanted.

That being said, wise governments recognize the value of some kind of support of the arts. One reason for the incredible esteem that Korean culture is held in within Asia is the Korean government's active support of its filmmaking, TV and music industry. This was also true in Renaissance Italy (courtesy of the Medici family) and in 17th Century France (courtesy of Louis XIV). It was even true of the CIA's active support of abstract expressionism. The payoff of such support is soft power, which is a very real force.

New comment by Daub in "The Markets of Old London (2024)"

Daub — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 02:27:03 +0000

To a degree you have a point. Indeed, this is exactly one of the points of attraction that Asia holds for me. Anecdote: my Japanese girl friend showed me a bunch of Japanese coins. I thought they were cool and asked if I could have one. She agreed and I selected the oldest, to which her response was 'that so British'.

However.... the point I was making was somewhat different. The buildings of Borough market are still there. What has changed is the community, which has been replaced outright. Moreover, it has been replaced with a 'pseudo community' akin to what you might find in an airport - transient office workers looking for somewhere a short distance from city center. It is the commodification of community - sold to the highest bidder.

New comment by Daub in "The Markets of Old London (2024)"

Daub — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:01:31 +0000

I used to live next to Borough market and saw it devolve from a genuine working class market to a chi-chi hive. The old pie and mash shop was replaced by offices and high-end trinket shops, as were all the other old-school business. It was like watching someone you love being embalmed whilst still alive. I now live in Asia where the market tradition are still vivid and alive.

New comment by Daub in "How watercolor brushes are made (2015)"

Daub — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 13:28:56 +0000

For those who are not familiar with Bruce MacEvoy’s Handprint website, this guy knows more about color theory than almost anyone who has ever lived. Not the world’s best organized site…. Start here: https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html

New comment by Daub in "Why The Jetsons still matters (2012)"

Daub — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:15:19 +0000

The Jetsons was honored by the Power Puff girls with a number of Easter egg appearances. Just search ‘power puff firms and jetsons’ for examples.

New comment by Daub in "Golden Ratio using an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle"

Daub — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 10:55:59 +0000

Certainly some art critics and artists over-apply and over-think so-called 'golden' geometry. What I think is happening is very simple... that artists avoid regularity (e.g. two lights of the same color and intensity, exact center placement, exact placement at thirds, corner placement, two regions at the same angle, two hue spreads of equal sides on opposite sides of the RYB hue wheel etc etc). These loose 'rules' of avoidance can be confused with 'rules' of prescription such as color harmony, golden section etc.