Hacker News: cluoma

New comment by cluoma in "Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame"

cluoma — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:02:30 +0000

Same here. Some of the worst seasonal allergies I've ever had was while living in Germany. I'm not sure what exactly was responsible; my guess at the time was some sort of grass but I don't know for sure.

New comment by cluoma in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

cluoma — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:51:35 +0000

I live in the Yukon so will now be in sync with BC time again after this change. The concerns about commuting to school in the dark seem almost comical, given the experiences of everybody here with the winter darkness.

For other reasons, I also wish we were closer to solar noon though. High noon is actually closer to 2pm here and seems to push the whole day back in the summer. The best (warmest) parts of the day get pushed too late into the afternoon.

New comment by cluoma in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2026)"

cluoma — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:48:14 +0000

Location: Canada

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes, Canada/US/Germany

Technologies: C, R, Python, Multiple flavours of SQL

Resume/CV: Link in bio

Email: colin.luoma (at) gmail.com

I have several years experience as a data analyst, mostly in the video games industry and, more recently, in public service. A large part of this has been data engineering work which I've always found I tend to enjoy more than the analysis side. I've also always maintained a personal interest in programming working on side projects, and so, I am looking to transition into a development/data engineering role.

Lately, I have been spending my time in the embedded space working on retro game console accessories which has been very rewarding. I would love carry some of this experience into a professional role.

New comment by cluoma in "LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger"

cluoma — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 19:36:18 +0000

I used to get this same feeling during lectures in uni. Often the information was presented well and, along with some clear examples, everything seemed to make perfect sense.

It wasn't until working through practice problems later, on my own, did it become clear how much detail I was missing.

New comment by cluoma in "My Truck Desk"

cluoma — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 18:34:44 +0000

That's been exactly my experience as well. Sometimes doing a little research on a lunch break gives enough direction on how to spend available time later on my project.

Accepting that progress will be slow has been the most difficult adjustment, and applies to more than just side-projects. Choosing books or games also becomes a more strategic decision when what used to be a weekend sprint, turns into a several week marathon.

New comment by cluoma in "Apple Debuts iPhone 17"

cluoma — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 21:10:12 +0000

I think I'm throwing in the towel on my 7 Plus this year. I'd love to keep it around for a bit longer but too many apps and websites are no longer functional. It's starting to become a usability issue.

New comment by cluoma in "A Typology of Canadianisms"

cluoma — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:06:48 +0000

I grew up in BC as well and never heard it. My parents were from Ontario and always called it the flipper. Because it flips channels I guess. Felt like every household had a different name for it though.

New comment by cluoma in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)"

cluoma — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 18:38:56 +0000

https://github.com/cluoma/Pico2Maple-fw

Currently working on a USB/Bluetooth to Sega Dreamcast controller adapter.

It's based on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2/W board and originally started as a fun project to play around with the PIO features of the RP chips and get my Steam Controller working on the Dreamcast. It has since expanded to support more controllers, keyboards, mice, and acts as VMU - the Dreamcast's memory card - while plugged in. Building the dongle itself has also been a fun exercise in 3d printing, cad and pcb design.

I'd really like to expand the amount of supported USB devices as I only have access to a limited amount of hardware that I can test myself. I've started looking into if I can use the SDL Game Controller DB (https://github.com/mdqinc/SDL_GameControllerDB) to kind of crowd source support for a bunch of controllers. I'm definitely open to other ideas though. I feel like I'm slowly learning that USB controllers are minefield of one-offs and edge cases.

New comment by cluoma in "Raspberry Pi RP2350 Now Available for Purchase, Stacked Memory Variant Coming"

cluoma — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:40:59 +0000

The PIO functionality, I think, is a killer feature for interfacing with retro consoles. I've been working on a Sega Dreamcast controller adapter and the PIO made it pretty easy to start interfacing with the console's custom protocol, even for somebody with near-zero experience in this kind of thing.

New comment by cluoma in "Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?"

cluoma — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:45:05 +0000

What would you look for to see if somebody is 'staying relevant'? Side projects? Personally, I would like to explore new technologies, and am still excited to learn, but feel limited by what is actually needed/required in my day-to-day which is unlikely to change.

New comment by cluoma in "Steam drops Windows 7 and 8 support with the latest client"

cluoma — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 23:13:56 +0000

I feel you, extremely frustrating when the phone is otherwise in good working order. I've started to get update prompts from apps, on my aging iPhone, even though no new versions exist for my OS.

New comment by cluoma in "I learned Vulkan and wrote a small game engine with it"

cluoma — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 15:40:41 +0000

There is the Zink project[1]. It is an OGL to Vulkan translation layer.

[1]https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/zink.html

New comment by cluoma in "Error Handling in Baby Toys"

cluoma — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 22:12:59 +0000

I had my son's lying around and it definitely happens consistently with the konami code in both the 'learning' and 'playing' modes.

New comment by cluoma in "Safety benefits of roundabouts"

cluoma — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 20:21:28 +0000

This is certainly an issue. There is a roundabout on my morning commute that regularly has pedestrians crossing inside the roundabout (alongside cars on the outside) because that's the most direct route.

New comment by cluoma in "I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took"

cluoma — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 20:24:37 +0000

I also don't think 2.5 minutes is unreasonably long or much of a barrier. After spending an hour looking for relevant postings at companies I'm interested in, another few minutes to actually apply is not a big deal.

What is truly annoying though is creating new accounts for each company's application portal.

New comment by cluoma in "Met Office says Northern Lights will be visible in England tonight and tomorrow"

cluoma — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 01:41:28 +0000

I live pretty far north in Canada and have been making nightly timelapses trying to catch the northern lights. What surprised me the most is how common they are here. Most nights, they will be visible for a few minutes or more, weather permitting.

So far today it’s clear skies so looking forward to tonight.

New comment by cluoma in "Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480"

cluoma — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 20:17:35 +0000

I was in the same situation with a Macbook Air 2011. At about 9 years old I needed to replace the battery, but got turned away from the Apple Store because it was 'too old'.

I tried buying a replacement battery online but it only worked for a short time before it stopped charging all-together.

Left a really sour taste in my mouth because the battery was the only thing stopping me from using an otherwise perfectly fine piece of hardware.

New comment by cluoma in "Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs"

cluoma — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 20:07:40 +0000

At the Whitehorse dam we also had one of the lowest counts of Chinook on record this year. Not looking good for northern sea life at the moment.

New comment by cluoma in "Analysis of Apple Watch running data"

cluoma — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 23:12:47 +0000

If you already have an Apple Watch, I recommend trying WorkOutDoors before looking for another device. It’s a huge step up from the default workout app that I’m still using my Series 3 for everything up to marathons.

New comment by cluoma in "Rogers network outage across Canada hits banks, businesses and consumers"

cluoma — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 20:48:03 +0000

Not a good week for internet infrastructure in Canada. Yukon Territory had essentially no internet for most of this Wednesday after the only fibre was broken.