Hacker News: florbo

New comment by florbo in "Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file"

florbo — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:41:27 +0000

Game is fun, sure the mechanics aren't like real transfers but this appears to be a quick reflex challenge, not a lesson in astrophysics. The only gripe I have is all the flashes and distractions if I go to fast. I don't want ANY extra visuals when I'm concentrating on rapid shots.

New comment by florbo in "The unlikely story of Teardown Multiplayer"

florbo — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:17:19 +0000

fme, it's only kind of inconvenient. By the time the scene gets to the point where join-in-progress is disabled it's complete chaos anyway. Might as well restart the scene.

That said I haven't played any of the more intricate mods out there, but I can how it would become more of an issue.

New comment by florbo in "Windows 11 25H2 October Update Bug Renders Recovery Environment Unusable"

florbo — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 22:13:56 +0000

fwiw Windows 11 Explorer does have tabs.

New comment by florbo in "Celestia – Real-time 3D visualization of space"

florbo — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 14:31:23 +0000

If you want to fly around galaxies and feel insignificant, Space Engine is pretty good for that. It's not a true simulation, as most things are procedurally generated unless an addon is installed, but it certainly captures the scale of things.

New comment by florbo in "Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and XAI Granted Up to $200M from Defense Department"

florbo — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:49:22 +0000

At the very least it's preventing funds from going to other competitors.

New comment by florbo in "Using Home Assistant, adguard home and an $8 smart outlet to avoid brain rot"

florbo — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:17:41 +0000

I'm guessing they already had the plug (I myself have a small stockpile of extra Z-wave/wifi/Zigbee devices for when I inevitably need/want to hook something up), so there wasn't a need to buy something else.

New comment by florbo in "Pluto Flyover from New Horizons"

florbo — Sun, 18 May 2025 17:10:50 +0000

Just guessing here, but I think the vertical scaling might be for translating some of the top-down images they have. If you take a look at the photo below, Pluto appears to have pretty rough terrain. I didn't find anything about post-processing for this particular image, sorry in advance if I missed it.

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19947

New comment by florbo in "Converting a Git repo from tabs to spaces (2016)"

florbo — Sat, 03 May 2025 17:55:23 +0000

Whitespace is important for a myriad of reasons, so the implementation makes sense to me. However, I would love to see git have configuration surrounding syntax awareness. That's a huge undertaking, though, but one can dream.

New comment by florbo in "15,000 lines of verified cryptography now in Python"

florbo — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 16:41:04 +0000

I think emojis are easily overused, but I certainly don't mind when they're used to convey simple, universally understood meaning (such as reacting with a "me too" in a bug report).

Stuff like gitmoji, though, drive me nuts. Talk about ambiguous and easily misused. Faster for everyone if you just say what you mean.

New comment by florbo in "PHP Core Security Audit Results"

florbo — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:09:07 +0000

My take: no. He just has a cult following.

New comment by florbo in "Architecture Patterns with Python"

florbo — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 02:29:53 +0000

I've made it through about 75% of the book and have never gotten the sense that they think everything discussed in the book is something you should always do. Each pattern discussed has a summary of pros and cons. While they may be a bit lacking, they clearly articulate the fact that you should be thinking whether or not the pattern matches the application's needs.

I don't think there's many applications that will require everything in the book but there are certaintly many applications that could apply one or more patterns discussed.

New comment by florbo in "Backyard Cyanide"

florbo — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 16:29:22 +0000

The concentration of tartaric acid in each individual grape is unpredictable, along with each individual dog's tolerance level to tartaric acid. The only thing that's certain is that anything with tartaric acid is potentially toxic to canines due the development kidney damage after ingestion.

New comment by florbo in "Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C"

florbo — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 16:14:04 +0000

Heavier than you think, probably. I tried looking up laser altimeters suitable for moon landings and was met with a much higher than anticipated amount of complexity. One thing was clear: the higher the altimeter needs to work, the heavier.

New comment by florbo in "Backyard Cyanide"

florbo — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 03:19:39 +0000

iirc it's the concentration of tartaric acid that's toxic to dogs. You got lucky your dog didn't like grapes! A lot of dogs will just eat them, btw, so don't think they all will instinctively avoid grapes.

New comment by florbo in "Pee If You Want to Go Deeper (2021)"

florbo — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 19:24:20 +0000

Ah, yes, normal bodily functions and ways to deal with them in technical settings is "disgusting". Very thoughtful insight, "thank you".

New comment by florbo in "I found a backdoor into my bed"

florbo — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:52:32 +0000

I'm sure they do use a prefab thermoelectric assembly model that they designed their case around. It's usually cheaper.

New comment by florbo in "12 years of Backblaze data center storage drives, visualized"

florbo — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:47:58 +0000

I'm assuming it's the acquisition and removal of drives over time.

New comment by florbo in "Dell ends hybrid work policy, demands RTO despite remote work pledge"

florbo — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 19:05:27 +0000

I think lack of in-person collab is the biggest drawback to remote work, but only because a lot of people still haven't adapted to or accepted the tools available.

> If you're an engineer with <5 years experience you probably don't see it

In my experience, the younger people tend to adapt faster and more readily use the tools. It's easier to form a good working relationship with them as a result.

New comment by florbo in "CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins"

florbo — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 03:30:27 +0000

> I just think it is interesting how hard it is to not have an opinion about something beyond "I don't know."

I hadn't thought of this before. I wonder if we naturally formulate an opinion or hypothesis when we're curious about something. Which I did again just now.. huh.

New comment by florbo in "CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins"

florbo — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 23:41:56 +0000

Sorry, it was a given. We don't know. I don't know. I do enjoy postulating for this particular incident, though.