Hacker News: calmbonsai

New comment by calmbonsai in "YouTube users get option to set their Shorts time limit to zero minutes"

calmbonsai — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 02:18:48 +0000

Not related to many prior posts on HN, The Verge is not to be trusted with technical FAANG editorial content. They're either ignorant, stupid, or "playing stupid" due to prior "pay for play", under the table, and/or blatant advertiser-conflicting arrangements.

Also not related to prior YT posts. The secret to sanity with YT content is to never consume it on YT. FreeTube, yt-dlp, etc. are your friends.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Don't feel like exercising? Maybe it's the wrong time of day for you"

calmbonsai — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 06:28:48 +0000

Figure out what "works" for you and DO IT! Just an hour a day of focused physical exertion will change your life.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Don't feel like exercising? Maybe it's the wrong time of day for you"

calmbonsai — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 06:27:18 +0000

Truth. The gym (and consequentially) lifting, running, sweating, and generally using your body to accomplish goals (and setting new ones) becomes reflexive and habitual.

I used to hang-out at the bar between flights in an airport. Now, I walk the concourse and climb stairs.

New comment by calmbonsai in "I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program"

calmbonsai — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:19:46 +0000

Per my understanding of the law for these sorts of data collectors, at least in the U.S., you need to contact the local municipalities (Flock's customers) for this redaction and the jurisprudence is governed at the state and municipal level.

The best source of this information is https://deflock.org/ . FWIW, this is run by a neighbor in Boulder, CO which has been wrestling with the use of these cameras.

New comment by calmbonsai in "A soft robot has no problem moving with no motor and no gears"

calmbonsai — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:25:24 +0000

These phase transition motive architectures all suffer from the same issues of not enough precision with repeatable positioning, very low speed, and limited control over the shaping of force/torque curve.

The only practical example are wax motors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_motor

This entire article is simply bad university lab PR.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others"

calmbonsai — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:42:11 +0000

WJW. This sort of blanket policy change should be called-out in ALL CAPS, bold-faced, and underlined as it changes one of the implicit assumptions with the service's execution.

The technical and performance implications of backing-up cloud mount-points are real, but that's zero excuse for the way this change was communicated.

This is a royal screw-up in corporate communications and I would not be surprised if it makes a huge negative impact in their bottom line and results in a few terminations.

New comment by calmbonsai in "DIY Soft Drinks"

calmbonsai — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 03:49:31 +0000

Yes! Also his book "Fix the Pumps" https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 which has a bizarre title and cover art, but is right up there with "Liquid Intelligence" for traditional sodas.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Filing the corners off my MacBooks"

calmbonsai — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 18:50:38 +0000

Hey man, you keep doing you and let the haters wash off your shoulders. I'm left-handed and remove the pocket clip from all of my knives.

The power to personalize should not be underestimated--even at the cost of durability and overall functionality.

New comment by calmbonsai in "The FAA’s flight restriction for drones is an attempt to criminalize filming ICE"

calmbonsai — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:51:07 +0000

You don't, but legal precedent errs on the side of transparency and anyone who's flying a drone (legally) in an urban environment in the U.S. already has FAA permitting.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Apple says no one using Lockdown Mode has been hacked with spyware"

calmbonsai — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:29:24 +0000

Yep. It's business as usual for that rag.

New comment by calmbonsai in "From Zip to Nought: The Rise and Fall of Iomega"

calmbonsai — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:40:49 +0000

SAME! Somewhere in storage is a shoe-box that, essentially, captures my personal and professional life circa '95 as gigs of Zip disks.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Chest Fridge (2009)"

calmbonsai — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:39:16 +0000

This only makes practical sense if your energy costs are exorbitant compared to the western industrialized world and you don't care about cold-storage volume relative to room square footage and/or ready access to stored items.

Thus, vertical refrigerators and freezers absolutely dominate.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Chuck Norris has died"

calmbonsai — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:27:14 +0000

Somehow, I don't think he'll be remembered for Karate Kommandos ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK6hb602588

New comment by calmbonsai in "You deleted everything and AWS is still charging you?"

calmbonsai — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 03:29:55 +0000

Huh? These are links to tools and services that are de-facto standards to control AWS inventory/spend and directly address the concerns raised in the initial blog. How is any of this gibberish?

New comment by calmbonsai in "Digg is gone again"

calmbonsai — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:33:25 +0000

In Digg's non-defense, Kevin Rose has been a serial-rug-puller for his entire career. See also Pownce, Milk, and Moonbirds.

The only sustained business I'm aware of is Hodinkee.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Digg is gone again"

calmbonsai — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:09:56 +0000

Cutting staff does in no way mandate a un-notified and abrupt "hard-reset".

They could at least put it in read-only mode for a short time and allow downloading of extant community content prior to a scheduled "reset day".

This smacks of flailing leadership and zero respect for their target user demographic.

New comment by calmbonsai in "An old photo of a large BBS (2022)"

calmbonsai — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:46:44 +0000

For me it was BBSes hands-down.

I was user #12 on the Bloom County BBS and, eventually, got the coveted sysop perms.

It felt far more of an "adult" accomplishment than (much later) when I got my driver's license.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Let yourself fall down more"

calmbonsai — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:27:30 +0000

This really isn't useful advice since physically, economically, and reputationally, "falling down" when you're younger incurs exponentially less risk.

Virtually all legal systems make a clear distinction between "children" and "adults" precisely because of these sorts of external and embodied judgment factors.

New comment by calmbonsai in "Leaving Google has actively improved my life"

calmbonsai — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:46:20 +0000

I concur on Fastmail. I only keep a "legacy" Gmail account for parental tech support.

New comment by calmbonsai in "FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me"

calmbonsai — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:32:12 +0000

To your point, we already have testing jigs for these sorts of systems in the automotive world for steering and suspension.

I can't find the video clip atm, but there's a neat (likely leaked) Foxxconn video that shows a really neat testing jig for Apple trackpads.