Hacker News: ebrewste

New comment by ebrewste in "Filing the corners off my MacBooks"

ebrewste — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 02:30:56 +0000

Love that he took it so far. I filed mine a while back - it’s so much more comfortable to use. When I drop it and a corner get mashed, I file that back flat. It reminds me of kintsugi where it shines from the fine filing.

I filed my work dell laptop too. Very different feel, but it is nice not living in feel of your own stuff.

New comment by ebrewste in "YKK: Japan’s Zipper King [video]"

ebrewste — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 15:40:49 +0000

Great to see Asianometry here. Jon has such a huge number of interesting videos from semiconductor industry based to water supply to failed business models.

New comment by ebrewste in "The iPhone Keyboard – Make It or Break It (2022)"

ebrewste — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 17:08:16 +0000

And the iPhone typing gets worse - I thought that I was getting worse at typing until helping a relative with their older iPhone (I have an XR). Typing on theirs was a breath of fresh air. I remember it being like that on my previous phones. My wife's iPhone pro max types just like mine. They are actually making it worse...

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022"

ebrewste — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 15:37:20 +0000

Putting my glasses on my laptop trackpad does the trick, too. I guess the metal confuses the trackpad sensor.

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?"

ebrewste — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 04:45:02 +0000

Think about the breadth of your experience with perspective of where you want to land. You sound like a person that likes learning and applying SW tech. That is great for a generalist role or a maybe a CTO of a varied SW tech stack. Is that trajectory where you want to land? If you want to be in a role where you need to be responsible for multi-disciplinary stacks, you don't sound like a generalist. For SW, you do. I hope your experiences line you up for the role you want.

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: How do you get better at debugging/finding a solution?"

ebrewste — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 15:32:30 +0000

Talking to others about the problem, but more critically, take to heart and learn their debugging techniques, not just getting others to problem solve for me. I learned to use a debugger, profiler, check compiler output, rubber ducky, five whys, etc. by seeing others apply the methods. I already understood those methods existed, but they came alive and I understood them at a deeper lever by seeing others apply them.

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: How do you get better at debugging/finding a solution?"

ebrewste — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 15:26:17 +0000

Agreed. When I am really stuck, I print out code that I think has a problem, bring a pencil and nothing else and go somewhere else. Coffee shop, break room, park, it doesn’t matter. Just a change of scenery. It’s amazing how well it works for focused debugging. I just need to do it more often and sooner.

New comment by ebrewste in "The case for unique email addresses (2020)"

ebrewste — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 21:10:56 +0000

If you are committed to using the leaker, change your email for them from company@myserver.com to company2@myserver.com and block company@myserver.com. It gets the benefit of spam blocking and leaker traceability in one easy step.

New comment by ebrewste in "Using a catch-all domain is a mistake"

ebrewste — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 04:12:48 +0000

I’ve been using a catchall, same as in the article for ~20 years. I’ve had some support people confused. All I have to say is “I have a system that helps sort my emails”. People get it after that. I’ve caught 10’s of email leakers. I don’t fear signing up for a sales led webcast (or other unsavory types) that I know will sell my info. Interesting how the author didn’t have a similar experience. I must say that modern spam filter have made the utility of this less critical. I’d never go back to the old way.

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: How do you deal with rude interviewers?"

ebrewste — Wed, 11 May 2022 19:26:27 +0000

"Any technology they list on their resume is 'fair game' - they had better know it, and if you have direct experience in a niche technology that they list, grill them to see if they are being 'honest'"

Such a strange stance for MS to take (IMHO). I've got 20+ years experience in lots of different languages and different technologies. I've been looking for a new job and have been brushing up on skills for interviewing. I just don't think it's possible for me to be ready to be grilled by a current expert on 15+ languages that I've shipped high quality, production code. The flip side is to only list the three I can take a grilling on today on my resume? It seems like a pretty short sighted approach. Maybe they have moved on in this stance?

New comment by ebrewste in "IBM's Asshole Test"

ebrewste — Wed, 04 May 2022 22:50:45 +0000

We used to have a very basic C whiteboard test for junior devs. Super simple "find the bugs" test. The best technical performance I ever saw was a guy that walked up to the board, swiped with the marker to mark the bugs like he was swatting flies (found every bug correctly). He finished the test in maybe 10 seconds, where typical was five minutes or more. He sat down in a huff. I didn't know we had an asshole test until that moment. I thanked him for coming in and showed him out. I'm so glad I never had to work with him.

New comment by ebrewste in "Detailed Assemblies for an Airtight Small Home"

ebrewste — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 02:53:15 +0000

You want to control your ventilation. Making a loose house just means you get ventilation, but not on your terms. HRV/ervs in a tight house allows you to ventilate your house, how you want, where you want. A loose house might be ventilating your house through insulation filled with dust and rat poop. You will never know.

New comment by ebrewste in "Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?"

ebrewste — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 17:24:26 +0000

I think it can be confusing even for Americans. My wife goes nuts when my mom refers to our kids in the third person. Ex:”This child is so clever”, said in the presence of said kid, wife and me. Trying to pick apart American speech norms, education level, parents cultural differences can be very frustrating when trying to figure out what is really happening, that the individuals can’t explain. My mom grew is 1st generation American from El Salvadoran and Greek parents. My wife is first generation American from Taiwanese parents. Summary: it’s complicated, even for Americans.

New comment by ebrewste in "Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls"

ebrewste — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 06:00:23 +0000

Not the person you were asking, but I had next to no conversations about work aside from video calls, even before Covid. Between national and international distributed teams (and people working weird hours to avoid sf bay commute hours), and packed meeting schedules, it basically didn’t happen. It’s making me sad to write this and it’s making me think.

New comment by ebrewste in "Home Depot Finds DIY Success with Vector Search"

ebrewste — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 19:04:36 +0000

I agree that their website is great. For the olds like me, we had just as big a love affair with their printed catalog before the website. Their shipping was on a different plane also, long before e-commerce changed the shipping game. They have always taken UX seriously. I had an engineering internship where the president had a saying: "If you can't design a machine from the McMaster-Carr catalog, you aren't an engineer."

New comment by ebrewste in "US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent"

ebrewste — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 22:33:27 +0000

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-bill-tha...

New comment by ebrewste in "Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well"

ebrewste — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 03:49:38 +0000

There are no vaccines for those under five years old. It appears it’s too much effort for everyone wear a mask until we get a vaccine for all. I used to think that this was how most people thought and behaved, but now it is confirmed clearly for me.

New comment by ebrewste in "Nuitka: a Python compiler written in Python"

ebrewste — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 17:23:43 +0000

I have a project that pyinstaller can make into a 12 MB single file. Docker turns that same project into a ~400 MB container. This is not considering the Docker install footprint.

New comment by ebrewste in "Flowrite: Turn short lists of facts into well-written emails"

ebrewste — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:07:06 +0000

Sounds like a way to make a text based GAN :)

New comment by ebrewste in "Split keyboards and how to build them"

ebrewste — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 03:55:08 +0000

Agreed on the rarity of integrated trackballs. I’ve got my numbers and f keys on layers. I don’t miss lots of dedicated keys for things that layers do well. Ymmv, but layers are why f keys are often omitted.