Hacker News: drewzero1

New comment by drewzero1 in "Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads"

drewzero1 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 09:34:24 +0000

Try buying a decent toaster, I've found exactly the same. $20, $30, and $50 options all using the same internal mechanism with a different style of shell and minor changes to the control circuit, or $200-$1k models that are mostly marketed for commercial kitchens/hospitality use. Not a whole lot in between.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads"

drewzero1 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 09:24:27 +0000

I've also been saving up for a self birthday gift from AliExpress, parts to build a custom watch. Looks like I missed my chance on that one too. Though if this trade war continues escalating I have a feeling a watch will be the least of my worries.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)"

drewzero1 — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:47:27 +0000

This thought experiment reminds me of Mark Twain's novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", in which the main character is a 19th-century American man transported back to 6th-century Britain. He used his experience in firearms manufacture to introduce modern weapons and had bicycles constructed for the knights to ride around on. I always thought it was pretty farfetched that he'd be able to recreate such complex technology without the aid of modern tools, much less set up factories to manufacture it in pre-industrial times. But it is a bit fun to imagine someone using knowledge of modern technology to pose as a wizard. As Arthur C Clarke famously said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

New comment by drewzero1 in "HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'"

drewzero1 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:36:25 +0000

My DCP-7020 is going on 20 pretty soon here. Don't want to jinx it but it's been the reliable workhorse of the home office.

New comment by drewzero1 in "HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'"

drewzero1 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:24:28 +0000

The funny thing is that the laser printer is much better for people who print once a week or less, because toner doesn't dry up and clog the printer. But for the price/quality it's hard to justify buying a new one.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Where is London's most central sheep?"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:14:56 +0000

Not sure how it is in Ottawa but here in the US Midwest distances are frequently measured in units of time. I might say I'm an hour from Green Bay or two hours from Madison, though I don't remember the actual mileage. That said, it usually only applies to distances over 20 minutes (between 7 and 25 miles, depending on speed limits).

New comment by drewzero1 in "Insects rely on sounds made by distressed vegetation to guide reproduction"

drewzero1 — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 14:35:33 +0000

Some time in the mid-2000s my dad showed me a website he'd found called Screams of Wheat which purported to show a pitched-down video of ultrasonic wheat screaming while being harvested. I always thought it was just a joke to troll vegans, but maybe there's a grain of truth to it?

New comment by drewzero1 in "Tom Waits vs. Frito-Lay, Inc (2003)"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 16:35:40 +0000

> Can't help but see some parallels between this and current Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI debacle.

I think that's why this was posted... I saw it referenced in a comment on that thread.

New comment by drewzero1 in "What's the difference between a motor and an engine? (2013)"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 15:52:05 +0000

Interesting, in cars the terms "generator" and "alternator" are used to refer to a DC device (dynamo?) and an AC device, respectively. Cars used DC generators for their electricity until the 60s/early 70s (depending on make/model) when they started using an AC alternator with a rectifier to make a constant 14VDC.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 14:18:42 +0000

Right, I feel like between that and seeing it a lot over remote desktop I've never really appreciated the quality of the original. I always liked the wallpaper set from the windows 9x era because they were designed to look good in low quality 256-color modes.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Windows 10 wallpaper was physically built and photographed (2015)"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 13:38:05 +0000

For a moment I confused it with the one from W11 and wondered how they got all the folds so smooth and uniformly spaced.

New comment by drewzero1 in "A Michigan farmworker is diagnosed with bird flu in case tied to dairy cows"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 01:32:06 +0000

A large percentage of people in my area eat venison regularly for at least part of the year. We already have controls on place for CWD so I have to hope that would catch any similar cases before someone eats the meat.

New comment by drewzero1 in "A Michigan farmworker is diagnosed with bird flu in case tied to dairy cows"

drewzero1 — Thu, 23 May 2024 01:23:23 +0000

I took it to mean they're not worried about themselves catching it, but more about the implications if this disease were to spread more. How bad could it be if it started infecting more than just the eyes? How fast could it spread between people before we have a vaccine ready?

New comment by drewzero1 in "Katy – 68000 Linux on a Solderless Breadboard (2014)"

drewzero1 — Mon, 20 May 2024 00:33:49 +0000

I've seen it often on Hackaday over the years, and while they probably could do it all with a 555, I certainly couldn't... My specialties are software and mechanical stuff, for everything in-between I shove in an Arduino and hope it works!

New comment by drewzero1 in "Katy – 68000 Linux on a Solderless Breadboard (2014)"

drewzero1 — Sun, 19 May 2024 14:22:30 +0000

There's a bit of a meme among electronics hobbyists that for so many projects with an Arduino, somebody in the comments says "I could've done that with a 555”. It's a very common chip with a wide range of uses from arcade sound generation to the timer on a toaster to light/motion activated alarms.

New comment by drewzero1 in "Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S."

drewzero1 — Fri, 17 May 2024 02:21:30 +0000

Yes, and haven't had issues with it recently... Was there some bad news I missed?

New comment by drewzero1 in "Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S."

drewzero1 — Thu, 16 May 2024 18:19:33 +0000

What's wrong with Ting?

New comment by drewzero1 in "People who won't give up floppy disks"

drewzero1 — Sat, 11 May 2024 16:30:10 +0000

The only person I ever heard call them "hard disks" was as a joke in a cartoon[1]. Non-computer people I knew called them stuff like "little floppies" to distinguish them from the big 5 1/4" ones. Windows used "floppy" for both in the file manager.

1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wKnLBNS9jDw&t=1m8s

New comment by drewzero1 in "People who won't give up floppy disks"

drewzero1 — Sat, 11 May 2024 16:16:04 +0000

"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my disk?"

New comment by drewzero1 in "People who won't give up floppy disks"

drewzero1 — Sat, 11 May 2024 16:09:36 +0000

I found one of those in a folder at work a few months ago and was surprised how extra-floppy it was. I grew up with mostly 3 1/2” diskettes and some 5 1/4” disks, so the "floppy" name always seemed like a bit of a stretch. Seeing an 8" disk really made more sense why they called it that.

(Eight inches was a really clever size for storage in a paper-based office environment... It fits just right in a spot meant for a sheet of letter or A4!)