Hacker News: davidwitt415

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?"

davidwitt415 — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 22:07:37 +0000

RTFA:

Batteries and electricity storage follow learning curves too One of the downsides of renewable sources is their intermittent supply cycle. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. Technologies like batteries that store electric power are key to balance the changing supply from renewables with the inflexible demand for electricity.

Fortunately electricity storage technologies are also among the few technologies that are following steeply declining learning curves.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "“You Have Zero Privacy” Says Internal Royal Canadian Mounted Police Presentation"

davidwitt415 — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 17:07:06 +0000

I'm in favor of the Black Mirror approach for politicians; Give the people full transparency into politicians' activities. This shouldn't be so controversial, given that they work for us, but of course, that is when you would see some real concern for privacy!

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Canadian military tested propaganda mission on Canadians that went off the rails"

davidwitt415 — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 16:26:31 +0000

Check out 'Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine' as a counter-example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Again...

Also worth noting is the October Surprise, where Reagan foiled negotiations with Iran to bring US hostages back, in order to help his election chances.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/1/ronald-reagan-october-surprise...

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Canadian military tested propaganda mission on Canadians that went off the rails"

davidwitt415 — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 16:20:21 +0000

'White propaganda is fine and even necessary at times' reads just like 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.'

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Powell’s says it won’t sell books on Amazon anymore"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 20:57:21 +0000

Fully agree. The bookstore/library browsing experience is intimately tied to adjacency/serendipity. I love browsing up and down the stacks and looking for whatever catches my eye. Typical genre or sorting lists don't even come close to the richness and density of the stack experience.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "On All That Fuckery"

davidwitt415 — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 17:48:03 +0000

Agree. Imo downvotes are actually a form of cancelling.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Modeling a Wealth Tax"

davidwitt415 — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 20:33:12 +0000

Indeed, the majority of posts here live up to the aphorism of Americans seeing themselves as 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires.'

New comment by davidwitt415 in "PDF: Still unfit for human consumption, 20 years later"

davidwitt415 — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 16:54:23 +0000

Great attention grabbing headline, but it ignores the typical user scenarios where PDFs are created. So how is your typical Office worker who is probably using Word going to create this awesome web page? It's simply not realistic to expect that office workers are going to use HTML, and it's been tried for years and years. Nielsen may as well go after Powerpoint next. Same criticisms and human limitations apply. Yes, better formats exist in the ideal, but ignoring the user's real context and limitations goes against the principles of User Centered Design.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Declining eyesight improved by looking at deep red light"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 20:49:23 +0000

I printed out an eye chart this week to do just that. I also purchased a device for testing and tracking my vision that I just started with: https://www.eyeque.com/visioncheck/ You can email me (davidwitt415 at gmail) if you want me to keep you updated on my progress.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Declining eyesight improved by looking at deep red light"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 16:40:25 +0000

One of my covid projects is improving my nearsightedness, I'm 20/200+. I've been spending 20 minutes a day doing techniques called Eqyptian Black Dot and Egyptian Letter Gazing plus other techniques I got from a book called The Art of Cosmic Vision by Mantak Chia, a well known Taiji master. I've been doing it now for 7 weeks and have noticed significant improvement in my vision. I'm not going to be driving without glasses any time soon, however, I am increasingly able to function without glasses, which was my main goal.

Your point about the outdoors is also made in the book. We are spending our time in near focus on screens and not using our far vision, as in nature. I now make sure to take time during the day to get outside and do distance gazing and expose my eyes to sunlight.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]"

davidwitt415 — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:00:12 +0000

A simpler explanation is profit motive; it doesn't 'pay' to promote free/low cost alternatives. Most of western medicine is geared this way, imo.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 22 May 2020 16:56:23 +0000

I've been using MURAL, Miro and Figma. MURAL and Miro are pretty close, and each has it's strengths, but I prefer MURAL. For a team that doesn't need the bells and whistles, Figma is a great choice.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 15 May 2020 19:25:04 +0000

Gifs may be fun to watch the first time, but I have to say it drives me crazy to have a bunch of looping animations running all over the screen when i'm trying to focus on something.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "On responses to “Bye, Amazon”"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 08 May 2020 18:54:33 +0000

To me, Brad Porter responded like an engineer, that is, his total focus was on technology and process (valuable, to be sure), but had no human focus. Tim, otoh, did, and that is what struck a chord.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Most complete guide on design sprints"

davidwitt415 — Fri, 08 May 2020 18:37:29 +0000

A decent overview of Knapp's original process, but not complete by any means. I'm participating right now in Global Virtual Design Sprint 4, being run by Robert Skrobe of Dallas Design Sprints. Originally, design sprints were onsite, but afaik, GVDS was the first to popularize Virtual Design Sprints, where global teams participate remotely, using tools such as Zoom, Mural, Miro and Figma. This started in 2019, so very timely to be ahead of COVID-19. Virtual presents some challenges but also great opportunities.

The Design Sprint is a useful tool for generating collaboration, shared process and fast prototyping results. As such, it is not a cure-all, just a very handy tool to use.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Why Conservatives and Liberals Are Not Experiencing the Same Pandemic"

davidwitt415 — Tue, 05 May 2020 19:26:40 +0000

It can be seen as a corrective to 'let the free market decide everything,' which is clearly showing its limitations in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "The Anti-Amazon Alliance"

davidwitt415 — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 22:24:28 +0000

It is the ideal for any business, but it definitely is not for the consumer or the economy, and this is why governments enact anti-trust legislation. The government is supposed to enforce against monopolies, but unfortunately in the US government this has been undermined. Matt Stoller has a great book and e-newsletter about monopolies past and present vs. government.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Some overwhelmed parents are abandoning at-home schooling"

davidwitt415 — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 22:00:07 +0000

My wife grew up in the French school system and is a mostly full time mommy, and she has been very active with both our boys (6 and 12) well before the lockdown. When the lockdown started, she immediately put a schedule together for them, while I went to the library and checked out a ton of books. When the online learning started, she has been combing over everything the school has sent out, spending most of her day on schoolwork and at night is busy keeping ahead of their schedule.

Bottom line, it is just barely manageable, with the considerable amount of time she puts in, and we both wonder how others that can't (or won't) do so will be able to keep up. I don't think it's an improvement, but at least I hope this sets a foundation for doing it better in the future, as I foresee this being a long-term trend.

New comment by davidwitt415 in "Coronavirus: Boris Johnson taken to intensive care"

davidwitt415 — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 21:41:07 +0000

A few weeks ago, Johnson suggested in public that the US 'take one on the chin' regarding Covid-19. How's that working out for you Boris?

I don't care if you think this is inappropriate, because I find it welcome that for once a politician has to personally face the ramifications of his fecklessness. If only more of our leaders would have to face up, we might have real leadership instead of political posturing.

Ask HN: Job retraining ideas after Covid-19?

davidwitt415 — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 19:35:00 +0000

I'm a Sr. UX + HMI Designer with some previous front end Dev experience, and was recently laid off. Given the effects of COVID-19, I'm thinking that senior UX jobs may be hard to come by, and am wondering about retraining and entering another field. What do you think might be good job options?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22620378

Points: 1

# Comments: 1