Hacker News: cellularmitosis

New comment by cellularmitosis in "IRIX 3dfx Voodoo driver and glide2x IRIX port"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 06:07:17 +0000

Klipsch was famous for making speakers using acoustic horns, which was somewhat esoteric. When they finally made a speaker which used a conventional woofer, they named it “the heresy”.

A 3dfx card running in an O2 surely deserves a similar moniker :)

New comment by cellularmitosis in "What’s on HTTP?"

cellularmitosis — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:16:09 +0000

Any fans of retrocomputing will certainly agree. Much of the plain-HTTP internet that's left is there by them and for them.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet"

cellularmitosis — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:50:55 +0000

Can you elaborate on “no way back”?

New comment by cellularmitosis in "A set of Idiomatic prod-grade katas for experienced devs transitioning to Go"

cellularmitosis — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:38:50 +0000

I would guess that most folks would consider a bunch of problem prompts with no reference solutions to be not so useful. How would you check your understanding? How would you know if you were writing go code which would be frowned upon by industry veterans?

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time"

cellularmitosis — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:37:52 +0000

I think it has more to do with the fact that when you offer zero salary for moderators, you have to take what you can get, and it ain't good. I don't really see a connection to the voting mechanic.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Cassette tapes are making a comeback?"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 23:22:12 +0000

My bad. This Wikipedia article has a table of SNR values for 13 different kinds of tape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette_tape_types_an...

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Cassette tapes are making a comeback?"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:52:50 +0000

Did you actually try any searches? Or is this just an excuse to broadcast your feelings about AI?

The author of the Ogg format claims a bit more pessimistic range of bit depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

Here are some measurements of type I, II and IV:

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/Tape_Recording/Measurements/HD3_v...

Here are the specifications of a typical dbx unit: https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/dbx/222.shtml

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Cassette tapes are making a comeback?"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:06:56 +0000

Wow! And Type I are about $2.80 on amazon. That's quite the span!

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Cassette tapes are making a comeback?"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 08:54:10 +0000

> but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette

It is unfortunate that cassettes are the lowest fidelity consumer medium (of modern times). But there is some room to optimize within that space. If you are curious:

The cassettes available today are Type I, Type II ("high bias") and Type IV ("metal"), each being higher fidelity than the last, but not all portable players supported these types of tape.

Dolby B/C noise reduction could improve the dynamic range of tapes a bit, but again not all portable players supported this.

The ultimate was "dbx", which dramatically improved noise reduction and dynamic range ("tape hiss" was essentially inaudible), but now you're in the territory of needing dedicated rack-mount equipment to record and play your tapes.

My dad was a bit of an audio buff, so I got to experience these things as a kid.

Edit: according to gemini AI:

* Type I had a dynamic range of about 50bB (roughly 8 bits)

* High quality tape with Dolby B, C and dbx yielded roughly 65, 75, and 85dB SNR (about 11, 12.5, and 14 bits)

So you could get pretty close to CD quality, but not quite.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Do not download the app, use the website"

cellularmitosis — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 21:34:33 +0000

Based on how universally horrible their video playback performance is (even in the iOS app), I can only assume incompetence.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Do not download the app, use the website"

cellularmitosis — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 21:15:01 +0000

This is a satisfying narrative but I feel like you are overestimating the technical competency and/or malice of these companies. The more likely explanation is that they have simply bitten off more complexity than they can chew.

Of the tech companies I've worked for, I can't even imagine how the web team would react if they were instructed to intentionally nerf their website.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "N-Back – A Minimal, Adaptive Dual N-Back Game for Brain Training"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 23:36:57 +0000

Sorry, I meant I want to be able to do it faster. I don't want to be held up by an automatic progression.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "N-Back – A Minimal, Adaptive Dual N-Back Game for Brain Training"

cellularmitosis — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 22:24:03 +0000

Yes, I would also remove the automatic progression entirely. This should be driven by user input only.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Don’t use “click here” as link text (2001)"

cellularmitosis — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 22:22:35 +0000

This sort of pedantic need for correctness at the cost of clarity seems to also crop up as businesses become increasingly corporate and expand their offerings.

“The best tires” becomes “the best vehicular solutions”

New comment by cellularmitosis in "John Carmack (Keen Technologies): Research Directions Upper Bound 2025 [video]"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 02:38:09 +0000

Starting with an Atari 2600 is charming :)

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Writing toy software is a joy"

cellularmitosis — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:13:54 +0000

> Orbital Mechanics Sim

Here's a little toy I made. Try to keep the comet on-screen by clicking to spawn a planet: https://ssl.pepas.com/gravity/gravity.html

Written in C / SDL 1.2: https://ssl.pepas.com/gravity/

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Writing toy software is a joy"

cellularmitosis — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:07:37 +0000

A one-sentence description would be a great addition to these projects. "SOV|APP|VIDEO|SOURCE" doesn't really invite a click.

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Writing toy software is a joy"

cellularmitosis — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 18:55:27 +0000

Took a minute to track that down (Oran is spelled Oram?) https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/beautiful-code/97805965...

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Show HN: Tikt.com – Remove the "OK" from TikTok URL's to Download as MP3 or MP4"

cellularmitosis — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 22:34:56 +0000

Is it possible for an mp3 or mp4 to contain malware?

New comment by cellularmitosis in "Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java"

cellularmitosis — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 23:17:57 +0000

If it were such an easy problem to fix, don’t you think they would have done so rather than rewriting in Swift?