Hacker News: charliewallace

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

charliewallace — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 06:15:41 +0000

I see you have a weather feature that predicts temperatures for the day. How about showing that info on the clock itself, maybe as color coding? Some ideas for other useful info that you can hang on your clock: (1) tide info indicated by a ring of varying width could be cool looking, (2) a second time zone so you can coordinate with a distant person. I did add this second time zone to my www.dayspiral.com clock, it even shows a green line where both people will be awake. (3) appointments?

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

charliewallace — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 03:40:56 +0000

Nice work! Getting the moon info is a challenge, isn't it? My first sun clock was written in C++ in the 1990s. I decided to stick with a 12-hour clockface mainly because people are so much more familiar with them. The concept for my Steampunk clock comes from the early 2000s. It's amazing what you can do in 3d these days in javascript!

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

charliewallace — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:13:24 +0000

Tip, you can rotate and zoom the steampunk clock - try zooming in on the gears! Click the "Show interface" at lower left to see all the options or switch clocks.

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

charliewallace — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:08:57 +0000

Do you love weird clocks like I do? Check out my https://steampunkclock.com! That's weird for you - based on the spirograph concept. There are actually three clocks in there; you can get to the others directly at https://mobiusclock.com and the most useful one, https://dayspiral.com that shows your local time of sunrise and sunset, all with a 12-hour clock face. How did I cram 24 hours of info into a 12 hour clockface, you ask? I used a 2-turn spiral!

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"

charliewallace — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:38:24 +0000

Check out https://www.steampunkclock.com - a concept inspired by a drawing toy called a spirograph. I originally coded it in c# over 10 years ago, but was able to port to the web via mostly vibe coding, and even go 3D! Brass, copper, rusty steel, gears and more gears! Really Quite Prodigious my dear chap! Drag to rotate, with zoom etc. I used google antigravity mainly for this recent work. Hope you like it. from Charlie Wallace of Carlsbad CA.

New comment by charliewallace in "Google Antigravity"

charliewallace — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 06:11:15 +0000

I downloaded Antigravity this morning and was able get this Mobius Clock debugged in a few minutes - then for the heck of it added a whole list of features! I'm blown away by how fast you can work. Yes, there were a series of problems, as expected whenever you attempt hard stuff, but at the end of the day, do check out the improved mobius clock!!! https://www.mobiusclock.com

New comment by charliewallace in "AI World Clocks"

charliewallace — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 02:55:13 +0000

Very cool! I also love clocks, especially weird ones, and recently put up this 3D Moebius Strip clock, hope you like it: https://www.mobiusclock.com

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

charliewallace — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 06:22:13 +0000

If you happen to have an old or spare iPad or tablet, you can open my mobius clock page in a browser and set it on a shelf (plugged in of course). Kind of like a weird wall clock...

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

charliewallace — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:30:14 +0000

Just added a new feature: a 'Fast Mode' button to temporarily speed up the hands, which helps visualize how the slow-moving parts work, how the hour indicator moves along the edge. Would love feedback on the implementation.

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

charliewallace — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:01:26 +0000

Check out my project at https://www.MobiusClock.com: A 3D WebGL Clock on a Möbius Strip that shows 24hr time on a 12hr face. The hour indicator follows the edge of the strip, thus must make 2 turns to return to its starting point, giving you a 24 hour clock. The minute and second indicators move along the middle of the strip and thus return to their starting points in only one turn. Has the ability to rotate!

New comment by charliewallace in "Mister Macintosh (2004)"

charliewallace — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 19:31:03 +0000

I think Mr. Macintosh should have vaguely resembled Jef Raskin...

New comment by charliewallace in "Rapamycin: One Drug, Many Effects (2014)"

charliewallace — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 05:19:44 +0000

This article is out of date; lots of progress has been made since then. The NIH-sponsored Intervention Testing Program showed conclusively and multiple times that rapamycin is able to extend the lifespan of mice about 10%; and more recently the lifespan of macaques was also shown to be extended. It works by fooling your cells into thinking there's no nutrition available, by inhibiting the "MTOR" receptor. It's well known that "dietary restriction" extends lifespan in most life forms. The doses needed are lower than the usual FDA-approved use of rapa for preventing rejection of transplanted kidneys, and bio-hackers have not encountered lots of side effects. Probably the best hope for increasing health-span, which matters more than life span. Since it's in the public domain, there's not much hope for getting large studies done to prove efficacy, but the "Pearl" study recently showed a good safety profile. Also, the Dog Aging project is in progress, enroll to increase the lifespan of your dog (or not, it's double-blind).

See https://www.rapamycin.news/

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)"

charliewallace — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 04:44:36 +0000

I created a Weird Clock that shows the local sunrise and sunset within a conventional 12-hour clock face. This normally would only work on a 24-hour clock face, which is kind of unfamiliar to most people, so I developed a way to show a 24-hour day within a 12-hour clock face; essentially it shows a 2-turn spiral so both night and day will fit. This needs to know your location in order to compute your local sunrise and sunset, so don't freak out when the browser asks for location permission! Includes option to enter lat/long and other goodies. Works on phones but better on a large screen. https:\\www.coolweird.net

New comment by charliewallace in "Transferring energy from nitrogen to argon enables 2-way cascaded lasing in air"

charliewallace — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 04:57:17 +0000

at 261nm, this is far ultraviolet light

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?"

charliewallace — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 06:05:13 +0000

Here's a link to a Google Photos album with some scenic photos I took using Ultra HDR, mostly in Yosemite last week. For this to work you will need to view it in Chrome on a device such as a fairly recent phone - I believe android or iPhone should work. Even better is a laptop that supports HDR display. Be sure to enable the HDR. Note that the album thumbnail view doesn't show the extra-bright highlights, you need to open a photo. If your device doesn't support HDR display, you'll still see the photos, just not with super bright highlights. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tizNFDFgbC5mzGCU9

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?"

charliewallace — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 05:56:30 +0000

There's also an Apple variant, where the hdr mask is embedded in an HEIF file...

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?"

charliewallace — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 03:33:42 +0000

Ultra HDR - I predict it will cause a revolution in photography. This isn't the old HDR that was all about capturing a wider range of brightness; it refers to display of a wider range of brightness. It's built into Android 14 and you can now capture Ultra HDR images with the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Ultra HDR is really just jpg, uses the standard jpg extension and works the same as a regular jpg, unless your display software knows about the "HDR mask" that's embedded in the metadata, AND your display supports extra brightness. Chrome supports the format, and you can view images that look SO REALISTIC on most recent phones and desktops/laptops that support HDR display, both macs and PCs. The look just like reality. BUT - now I need a way to convert my big camera's HDR images into the Ultra HDR format, and I haven't found a way. Really just need to create and embed a brightness mask. Looks like Adobe is adding support to lightroom...

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: I want to be an expert in many things but my lifetime won't be enough"

charliewallace — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 17:28:54 +0000

Focusing on doing something is like having a goal, which is known to be good for mental health. It's OK if the goal changes from time to time. There's a really great book about how having a goal helped people survive the concentration camps in WW2, called "Man's search for meaning", highly recommended reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

New comment by charliewallace in "Ask HN: I want to be an expert in many things but my lifetime won't be enough"

charliewallace — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 17:19:07 +0000

Immortality isn't happening, but you can significantly increase your health-span, to give you more time to keep learning cool fascinating stuff. There are steps you can take now to delay aging, based on well-run clinical trials, including supplementation with metformin (the TAME trial). Other measures are looking hopeful but are still being researched, including use of rapamycin (PEARL trial). Here's a good resource: a podcast by Dr. Peter Attia, also good for nerding out on lots of interesting topics. https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/

New comment by charliewallace in "Shitbowl: The algorithmically powered in-home physical caching platform"

charliewallace — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 23:14:20 +0000

True story - I just used this principle to re-org my closet, a perfect pandemic thing to do. All the most recently used, still-clean-enough garments are placed at the end easiest to reach, the level one cache. Rarely used items are at the other end, the long-term storage, while in between is the L2 cache. On laundry day the L1 cache gets flushed...