Hacker News: ggcdn

New comment by ggcdn in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"

ggcdn — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:06:25 +0000

A boring solution for a boring problem - Working with PDFs.

I've been making a browser-based PDF editor that runs on-device via Webassembly / PDFium. Many of the hard parts were done by the open source embedpdf project, and I've been adding my own custom tools on top of it.

It does the usual annotation stuff — highlights, comments, stamps, etc. working on some more advanced stuff now - regex search/redact, measurements and takeoff tools for AEC industry.

https://www.Draftpdf.com

New comment by ggcdn in "Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?"

ggcdn — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:12:59 +0000

Every time I have to open Acrobat it makes me want to puke, and Bluebeam is quite expensive, so I'm working on a full-featured PDF editor you can run in the browser.

https://DraftPDF.com

New comment by ggcdn in "Tcl-Lang Showcase"

ggcdn — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:01:43 +0000

Many structural engineering graduate students still get exposed to TCL as its the input language of the OpenSees framework for structural and earthquake engineering.

https://opensees.ist.berkeley.edu/wiki/index.php?title=OpenS...

Luckily, there is also now a python interpreter.

New comment by ggcdn in "Shadcn: Components that you can copy-paste into your apps"

ggcdn — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 08:04:48 +0000

I’ve been using these and vercels v0 to piece together a next.js app, and it works pretty good, for someone with no real ui design experience.

New comment by ggcdn in "Is drinking sparkling water a healthy alternative?"

ggcdn — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 21:32:24 +0000

I can believe it, after all, I ingest most of my water in a mixture with roasted ground beans from the rainforest.

New comment by ggcdn in "Government should incentivize high performance home builders"

ggcdn — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 07:29:14 +0000

This exists and it’s not even that hard or costly when you consider the purchase price of a house. I had a home energy evaluation completed when I bought my house for about $400. A government could easily require it be provided as a condition of sale. It provides a rating [0] which is good for comparing houses, and also a prioritized list of recommended upgrades.

[0] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/energuide/energuid...

New comment by ggcdn in "Empty offices are becoming apartments in Texas’s big cities"

ggcdn — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 18:31:44 +0000

This isn’t correct. You probably saw a concrete residential building and a steel office building by chance. It does not follow that every single office building is built this way. There are concrete office buildings all over the place, usually with thicker slabs than a residential building, because the office building actually needs to be designed for much higher loads.

By the way, the thin steel deck you saw gets concrete poured on it too once installed.

New comment by ggcdn in "Excel never dies (2021)"

ggcdn — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 19:52:47 +0000

Excel is transformational. If you're reading this indoors, there's a good chance that significant portions of the building around you were engineered using excel.

New comment by ggcdn in "Ask HN: What is a purchase that made you happy?"

ggcdn — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 20:17:19 +0000

A hammock hung in a shady grove of trees. Perfect for lazy Sunday afternoons.

A bunch of tplink smart light switches for the well used lights around the house. Deep satisfaction every night to turn off an entire floor with a voice command. Next up will probably be automatic roller shades, though they are considerably more pricy.

New comment by ggcdn in "Kitsault, Canada’s $50M 1980s ghost town"

ggcdn — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 21:38:59 +0000

If you follow the inlet back to the ocean a short ways, you reach Gingolx (Kincolith) [1] which has < 400 people. It would be a fairly unremarkable place except they randomly started having a big festival called crabfest, which has brought bands such as Trooper, Tom Cochrane, and Nazareth to this tiny village.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ging%CC%B1olx

New comment by ggcdn in "What happens when a reservoir goes dry"

ggcdn — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 03:41:01 +0000

I suppose it was built without the back pressure (ie doesn’t rely on back pressure for stability) and the change in pressure over time is quite gradual (this drawdown has been occurring over years) so I don’t see a significant problem.

It also gets massively thick as you get deeper. Far more than you would think by looking at the exposed part. Check out old construction photos.

New comment by ggcdn in "Energy crunch concerns lead Japan’s government to call for reduced AC use"

ggcdn — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 15:53:50 +0000

Nice. What was the upfront cost and expected payoff time when compared to grid only?

New comment by ggcdn in "Tom Brown Is on a Mission to Restore Appalachia's Rare and Lost Apples (2021)"

ggcdn — Sat, 21 May 2022 17:23:46 +0000

A bit of UBC apple trivia which I thought was neat is that the trees in front of UBC Triumf facility are descendants of perhaps the most famous apple tree of all, the one Sir Isaac Newton sat under while composing his theory of gravity.

https://news.ubc.ca/2007/06/07/archive-ubcreports-2007-07jun...

New comment by ggcdn in "Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated"

ggcdn — Wed, 11 May 2022 19:23:14 +0000

its every bored daydreaming passenger's dream come true!

New comment by ggcdn in "Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?"

ggcdn — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 18:21:01 +0000

Well, I guess I should rethink my constant urge to leave structural engineering and become a software developer.

“The grass is greener…” fallacy seems to be prevalent in most people. It becomes most intense when encountering obstacles, frustrations, boredom, and stress in the current situation, which makes sense I suppose. And it’s so easy to gloss over all the privileges that come with the current situation. When I was broke and busting my ass in university, I couldn’t wait to start my coop jobs. Then half way through coop, I couldn’t wait to get back to class. Now I have the luxury of living a comfortable life and there are no abrupt changes unless I decide to implement them. Yet the dissatisfaction creeps in…

New comment by ggcdn in "Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?"

ggcdn — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 23:34:19 +0000

I made this website for various little calculations and references I need to look up all the time for the day job.

Its useful for me, and kind of relaxing to work on, so I'll keep hacking away at it, adding new tools over time. But I haven't really shared it with anyone yet.

https://calcs.app

Built with React, hosted on Netlify. Probably riddled with bad practices, but it seems to work for now.

My current task is trying to figure out Fabric.js integration with React so I can do some more dynamic graphics (like general frame and truss analysis)

New comment by ggcdn in "Building a modern home in the woods"

ggcdn — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 17:15:04 +0000

Interesting read, who hasn't dreamt of doing something like this (perhaps at different scales). I've started saving for a parcel of land in the Kootenays to build a.. ahem... much less grandiose dwelling for weekend getaways.

I would invest in a couple of these [0]

[0] http://www.onestopfire.com/sprinklers.htm

New comment by ggcdn in "Ask HN: Who wants to collaborate?"

ggcdn — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 16:15:37 +0000

fyi email isn't shown, you have to add it to your 'about' to appear

The Hidden Engineering Protecting Getty Art from Earthquakes

ggcdn — Sat, 29 Jan 2022 05:24:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.getty.edu/news/the-hidden-engineering-protecting-getty-art-from-earthquakes/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30124021

Points: 72

# Comments: 4

New comment by ggcdn in "Why skyscrapers are so short"

ggcdn — Sun, 23 Jan 2022 02:22:05 +0000

This was really well written and researched, and I say that as a structural engineer who predominantly designs tall buildings. I’m not at all libertarian with respect to things like building codes which protect life safety, but I do agree that we over scrutinize aesthetics and architectural aspects of buildings.

When I think of neat places I’ve been to, places that really filled my senses, awed, inspired, they were not the sterile developments approved by zoning and urban design panels. They were more organic. Some examples of the places That come to mind include Rhodes, water towns outside of Shanghai, and random plazas in Florence.

I believe we need to trust that people generally want to make the world beautiful, and let them do it in their own way. I certainly won’t have the same eye to beauty as everyone else, but that’s okay. It makes the world quirky and unique.