Hacker News: closetohome

New comment by closetohome in "Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract"

closetohome — Tue, 12 May 2026 16:43:06 +0000

So am I understanding correctly that all of this "unauthorized traffic" was their customers...using their product?

New comment by closetohome in "I love my dumb watches"

closetohome — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 23:21:18 +0000

Every time I read one of these articles it sounds like the author was forced to adopt a smartwatch at gunpoint.

New comment by closetohome in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

closetohome — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:40:45 +0000

Similarly, the article also glosses over the issue of disability. Perhaps because the US tends to treat its bus system as welfare, it is adapted heavily to people with disabilities and limited mobility. I'm sure there are solutions to this, but at the moment removing bus stops tends to disenfranchise people who can't walk longer distances.

New comment by closetohome in "Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview"

closetohome — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 21:44:30 +0000

I really want to like Halide, and I've had it save a number of photos that the native app couldn't handle. But as a lifelong photographer, technologist, and occasional developer, I still somehow get really lost in the inscrutable icons and self-hiding what-have-you of the UI. I think I want it to be about 50% uglier.

New comment by closetohome in "Being poor vs. being broke"

closetohome — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 18:39:41 +0000

It's less an issue of access than affordability. The term is "energy insecurity" - https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/publications/energy-in...

New comment by closetohome in "Palisades Fire suspect's ChatGPT history to be used as evidence"

closetohome — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:18:35 +0000

The difference is that in this case OpenAI was able to produce the requested information without compromising security for their other customers.

New comment by closetohome in "Bird photographer of the year gives a lesson in planning and patience"

closetohome — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 22:47:35 +0000

Interesting. Apparently the photo from the article is "Voice of the ash forest" (https://www.maximelegarevezina.com/en/tirage-voix-de-la-for%...) and the one linked above is "Keeper of the Ashes."

New comment by closetohome in "Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26"

closetohome — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 22:25:41 +0000

That picture just feels like a case study in why Apple drug their feet on features like that for so long. If you let people set a background and change the font, you're going to have unreadable purple comic sans over kittens within minutes.

New comment by closetohome in "The collapse of the econ PhD job market"

closetohome — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 23:54:50 +0000

The "people think they're guaranteed a job" narrative is because the author is a right-wing journalist who "exposes" academics.

New comment by closetohome in "My First Year Without an iPhone"

closetohome — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 18:31:35 +0000

If you want to go minimal on the backcountry device as well, PLBs are nice as a barebones alternative that only require a battery change every few years and don't need a subscription.

New comment by closetohome in "Two new PebbleOS watches"

closetohome — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:46:15 +0000

Heart rate sensors have a number of uses aside from fitness tracking.

I'm guessing comfort wasn't considered because it isn't a common complaint.

New comment by closetohome in "Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones"

closetohome — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:39:41 +0000

I can't help but feel echoes of the 2015-era Pebble trying to compete with the Apple Watch, and the lessons learned from that. I have an Apple Watch, I've been wearing one for ten years at this point. All I use it for is notifications, time, weather, and music control. I'm more than happy to buy a tinker-friendly smartwatch that does just that, and I don't think I'm alone. I hope these guys don't kill themselves trying to feature-match, and just lean into the inherent advantages of their platform.

New comment by closetohome in "Video Ads Are Coming to All Your Uber Apps"

closetohome — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:19:54 +0000

It strikes me as desperate and tacky. Definitely not a great look for a company that already produces pretty bad apps.

New comment by closetohome in "Taking over a Dead IoT Company"

closetohome — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 18:50:26 +0000

I agree completely about the difficulty of a hardware startup, but being "good" means knowing in advance what kind of challenges you'll face, or at least knowing who to consult about it, and when to listen to their advice. I guarantee that at several points in the development of their product, someone pointed out the high BOM cost and the math required to become profitable. At this point Kickstarter has been around for long enough that even people without direct experience in hardware development should have enough case studies to know what they're wading into.

New comment by closetohome in "Older iPhones bricked for being too outdated, locking users from data [video]"

closetohome — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 19:35:06 +0000

I mean...back it up to iCloud, wipe it, update it, restore from iCloud.

It's inconvenient but it's not like you lose any data.

New comment by closetohome in "Getting a Psion 5 palmtop from 1997 online via PPP (and a Raspberry Pi)"

closetohome — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 20:14:53 +0000

I mean come on, "Psidecar"

New comment by closetohome in "Oru Kayak’s reckless and irresponsible advertising"

closetohome — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 20:11:55 +0000

I'm sure I could find videos of people falling off of snowboards and bikes too, so I don't find accident compilations particularly compelling. Especially since I can tell you in pretty much every instance exactly what they did wrong.

Generally speaking if you don't have a background in boardsports it's probably safest to avoid powered boards altogether, no matter how many wheels they have.

New comment by closetohome in "Oru Kayak’s reckless and irresponsible advertising"

closetohome — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:26:40 +0000

It's crazy how people only noticed that Onewheels are dangerous after a bunch of out of shape tech bros started buying them and treating them like toys.

They don't randomly stop, they're just inherently dangerous unless operated correctly.

New comment by closetohome in "Oru Kayak’s reckless and irresponsible advertising"

closetohome — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:19:45 +0000

I have an Oru Inlet and I'd say 8 minutes is generous. The actual unfolding and assembly of the kayak is more like 3-5 minutes once you have the process down. Though I understand the larger/more elaborate models can take a little longer.

New comment by closetohome in "CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards"

closetohome — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 17:37:06 +0000

It's amazing how hard it is for people to take responsibility for the accidents they cause. Their first instinct is always to blame the board.