Hacker News: ielillo

New comment by ielillo in "Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone (2014)"

ielillo — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 21:29:07 +0000

Iphones don't have fm radios so add 13.88 to the bill

New comment by ielillo in "Ask HN: Should there be new RPN calculators to replace the TI-84?"

ielillo — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:51:31 +0000

That's another point, during college some tests were and multiple choice questions. They were manually graded and for each answer you needed to prove how did you get the answer. I don't remember any kind of automated grading system. Everything was done by hand, whether by the teacher or TA's

New comment by ielillo in "Ask HN: Should there be new RPN calculators to replace the TI-84?"

ielillo — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:10:05 +0000

From my college experience I never needed a Ti or Hp calculator. Most of the questions did not require anything more complex than logarithms, exponential, root and trigonometric functions. A good question should be about concepts, not results. I remember a linear algebra test in where you had to solve a problem by inverting a matrix to get a result, the problem was that the matrix was so large that it could have taken the entire test time to get the result if done by hand. However if you were clever, and knew the matrix properties being tested, the matrix could be simplified and the result gotten in 3 steps. If you had a Ti or HP you could have entered the matrix and get the result, but the question would have lost its meaning

New comment by ielillo in "Ask HN: How much employee resume verification is done in practice?"

ielillo — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 03:12:16 +0000

I’ve known people who has dropped out of college after receiving job offers during their internships. The problem is that some companies cap your your maximum pay and promotions unless you finish college even though you had excellent performance reviews. So you either stay on college and lose the job opportunity, or stay knowingly that at some point you’ll have to come back to college to finish your degree.

New comment by ielillo in "NetBSD on a JavaStation"

ielillo — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 13:57:37 +0000

IIRC correctly the original Java VM was a stack based machine. That made sense when it was first created since a stack based machine is the simplest system you can create that run code and since it only need three registers, one for the instruction, one for the first data and one for the top of the stack for the other data. The problem is that you need to push and pop a lot from the stack during runtime which means more memory accesses and more time spent on gathering the data than on doing actual operations. That also underutilizes the processor registers since on a normal processor you would be using two data registers at most. This was one of the early issues with java running slowly on android and the reason of the creation of the Dalvik VM which was a register one.

New comment by ielillo in "Nvidia emulation journey, part 1: RIVA 128/NV3 architecture history and overview"

ielillo — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 03:43:20 +0000

From memory unreal tournament and other fps that used the same engine had support for opengl, glide, d3d , s3tc and software rendering. It was one of the most compatible render engine

New comment by ielillo in "When Not to Obey Orders (2019)"

ielillo — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 15:19:25 +0000

Not sure if you read Generation Kill or watched the miniseries, but that is one of the main points. In there, there were two platoon commanders, Lieutenant Fick and Captain America(The book never reveals its name, and I think the series does, but I don't recall at this moment). While Lieutenant Fick was a competent officer that tried to kept the welfare of his troops, he often butted heads with its direct superiors since the order given to him could endanger the lives of his subordinates while not accomplishing nothing of value. In contrast Captain America, was an incompetent officer who gave reckless orders, was ignored by his troops and could have been possibly be charged with war crimes. At the end of the series, when the journalist is interviewing the battalion commander about why Captain America was never disciplined for his actions, the battalion commander answers that the same leeway that he gave to Lieutenant Fick was given to Captain America. In other words if he were to punish Captain America, he should also be punishing Lieutenant Fick. In retrospective is understandable, but when you read or watch it, you wonder why no action is being taken to discipline Captain America and why no one listens to Lieutenant Fick

New comment by ielillo in "Nvidia's RTX 5090 power connectors are melting"

ielillo — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:15:04 +0000

The USA has 240 volt plugs. They are only used for high power appliances such as AC or ovens. If you want, you could add a plug for your high powered space heater AKA gaming PC.

New comment by ielillo in "I tasted Honda's spicy rodent-repelling tape and I will do it again (2021)"

ielillo — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:05:32 +0000

I remember reading that rodents chewed car cables since the insulation was made using the same compound as soy and that attracted them, but in reality it was just they liked chewing on stuff. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a21933466/does-your-car-ha...

New comment by ielillo in "Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?"

ielillo — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:01:51 +0000

I think the better word is tradeoff since there are no perfect data structures for each job. The hasmap has the advantage of O(1) access time but the drawback of memory usage, an unsorted nature and the depends on a good hashing function to minimize collisions. A vector is also O(1), but it has an upfront memory cost that cannot be avoided. A map has a O(Log(n)) access cost, but has less memory usage, is sorted by nature and the comparison function is easier to implement. Three similar data structures, but each with its own tradeoffs.

New comment by ielillo in "Microsoft won't support Office apps on Windows 10 after October 14th"

ielillo — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 17:39:01 +0000

Well it had happened in the past when they phased out lead from gasoline. Older would run poorly because they were tuned for that particular gasoline type

New comment by ielillo in "Building Ultra Long Range Toslink"

ielillo — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 21:51:48 +0000

Ground loops comes from the ground mismatch between two electrically connected devices. When you use an optical link, you isolate those two devices since there is no common ground and the hum goes away. Same if connect a battery device to a grounded device.

New comment by ielillo in "Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team"

ielillo — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 19:29:22 +0000

More like going to the local library with a bunch of old books. It might be worth keeping them, but someone has to sort them out.

New comment by ielillo in "Why is Chile so long?"

ielillo — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:52:05 +0000

Actually you can cross the entirety of Chile by car if you don't mind taking a ferry that starts in Puerto Montt and arrives in Puerto Natales. It is 4 day trip, but the scenery is gorgeous. Regarding the rail system, Chile had a great rail system that went from Arica to Puerto Montt with lots of spurs going into inner towns. However it was slowly dismantled and now most of the rails are in disuse, or used for the transport of goods. There is still a main rail for passenger transport, but most people prefers taking the bus or driving because of convenience.

New comment by ielillo in "Why is Chile so long?"

ielillo — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:43:31 +0000

Actually it is because you need car insurance for accidents against third parties. This must be bought before going over the border. Usually there are shops in border towns that can help you with the paperwork.

New comment by ielillo in "X debut 40 years ago (1984)"

ielillo — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:37:31 +0000

When I was an undergrad, the Linux and Mac computer labs were always empty since no one knew how to use them. It was great during end of semester, since all the Windows labs were crammed with desperate students trying to finish their papers, you knew that there was always computers available in those labs.

New comment by ielillo in "Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop"

ielillo — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:58:21 +0000

I think the main lesson is that if you are going to send something for warranty, better to send it as original as possible, otherwise they are going to claim that your modification was the cause of the issue.

New comment by ielillo in "Intel's anti-upgrade tricks defeated with Kapton tape"

ielillo — Fri, 31 May 2024 15:21:41 +0000

Actually it was the Ati Radeon 9500 non pro that could be modded into a Radeon 9700. Regarding the ATI Radeon 9600, there was a variant called Radeon 9550 that could be overclocked from 250 mhz to 400 mhz.

New comment by ielillo in "A Lost Hiker’s SOS Signal Sparked a Wildfire. Now He Must Pay $300k"

ielillo — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 14:15:01 +0000

Actually a gun is a great signalling tool. By convention you fire 3 shoots each hour with one minute interval.