Hacker News: cheerlessbog

New comment by cheerlessbog in "The “menu engineers” who optimize restaurant revenue"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 18:13:34 +0000

I assume that budget restaurants with large menus make heavy use of freezer and microwave. So a short menu is usually a good sign.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Using the Linux kernel's Case-insensitive feature in Ext4"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 16:00:29 +0000

I understand that NTFS has its own case folding table which is written once when the volume is formatted. This does seem to have stood the test of time and enormous usage so maybe it is not such a poor idea.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "First complete dinosaur skeleton ever found has finally been studied in detail"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 04:53:34 +0000

That paper is a beautiful thing: 86 pages full of hand stippled line drawings.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Expert overclockers successfully push DOOM Eternal past 1k frames per second"

cheerlessbog — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 22:07:10 +0000

How does even N2 not crack and warp the packages and boards? If I plunged my TV into liquid nitrogen I would expect it to not work - in a violent way.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "A mysterious radio burst that keeps repeating"

cheerlessbog — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:50:35 +0000

Someone who only eats when the telescope is observing FRB121102

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim"

cheerlessbog — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:46:40 +0000

That's true but most people would pay that once or twice, which puts potentially small beans if it increases your productivity. Plus it's fun

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim"

cheerlessbog — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 23:17:39 +0000

That game is a labor of love by someone - I spent weeks playing it. So much fun solving puzzles and learning at the same time. If I had a criticism is that I'm not sure much has stuck with me. I still use the same 10-15 commands and all the obscure tricks it taught me are gone. Its worth the money just for the fun alone. Great to mess with on a laptop when you're on a plane.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Bloom's 2 Sigma Problem"

cheerlessbog — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 15:20:30 +0000

It doesn't say whther the intervention was assigned randomly (and those assigned all stuck with it). Home environment and parental support has a huge influence and also those who get tuition (or stick with assignment to the tuition group) probably have strong parental support.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Cities sue Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, claim they owe cable “franchise fees”"

cheerlessbog — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 06:54:35 +0000

It's unclear they even exist..or work..our could even theoretically work now we have digital. Their true enforcement strategy is to harass the small minority who don't pay the license fee.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 16:41:30 +0000

This is part of the reason we still use plurality voting.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "How the 8086 processor handles power and clock internally"

cheerlessbog — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 18:45:14 +0000

Is it conceivable that the clock signal could supply the power in a CPU?

New comment by cheerlessbog in "People work longer and different hours under lockdown"

cheerlessbog — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 15:08:47 +0000

Doing stuff outdoors or by other means staying apart

New comment by cheerlessbog in "People work longer and different hours under lockdown"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 21:43:00 +0000

What if your employer did the same as Twitter etc and declared working from home was allowed forever. Could you imagine moving somewhere you’d love to be - with excellent internet - finding new friends there and being happier than other situation?

New comment by cheerlessbog in "People work longer and different hours under lockdown"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 21:41:29 +0000

I have a couple single friends in your position who were getting dangerously lonely. They got a cat in one case dog in the other and it hasn’t fixed anything but it’s given them a reason to get outside and a bit more of something alive in their life

New comment by cheerlessbog in "People work longer and different hours under lockdown"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 21:39:17 +0000

That’s an over simplification. My job is owning part of an open source stack. There’s countless fun projects in that which aren’t a necessary part of my job but are fun to do out of hours and and still happen to contribute to my employer’s larger goals. Eg, refactor some subsystem to make it faster. Everyone wins, and because the source is open any future employers can see it also. Plus I enjoy working with my coworkers and learn a great deal from doing so: it’sa good environment for such projects.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 18:17:33 +0000

There’s an ad when you return to the app. Since you’re expecting a full screen video to auto play, they often aren’t out of place. You can skip them immediately as well.

Besides ads, one would think there’s endless ways to monetize a strong fun brand.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "People work longer and different hours under lockdown"

cheerlessbog — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 17:59:28 +0000

With all the energy drained from job +commute it can be hard to have much left to care about the planet and our community. It’s easier to be angry and isolated and fall back on tribal stereotypes and assume someone else will fix climate change and other global problems. With more time and energy, it’s easier to participate.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "C.I.A. Lacing (2014)"

cheerlessbog — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:50:43 +0000

Barely related, but if you haven’t learned how to tie shoelaces instantly, you should:

https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

I’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever"

cheerlessbog — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 01:22:13 +0000

What makes it truly hard (speaking from US location) is having a team in both directions. If you’re an Eastward team, or Westward team, but not attempting both, there is enough overlap that with some flexibility you can have meetings when everyone is awake.

New comment by cheerlessbog in "Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever"

cheerlessbog — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 01:19:34 +0000

It’s worked better for me in teams that work on open source. Such projects tend to be intrinsically asynchronous and conducted via email, chat etc which is what you need to make a distributed team work well.