Hacker News: pikewood

New comment by pikewood in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

pikewood — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:02:38 +0000

Any pointers to resources or groups around 3D printed musical instruments? Sounds really interesting!

New comment by pikewood in "Affinity Studio now free"

pikewood — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 18:25:51 +0000

This already happened with Affinity Photo v1 on iOS; a lot of functionality did not work after an iOS update. It feels like Apple changed something in their libraries, so it doesn't even matter how robust your software is if the underlying OS doesn't honor compatibility.

New comment by pikewood in "Affinity Studio now free"

pikewood — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 18:21:17 +0000

There's already precedence for app deterioration in their iOS apps. Affinity Photo V1 for iPad lost a lot of functionality in brushes and other features with later versions of iOS (e.g.: https://www.reddit.com/r/AffinityPhoto/comments/1725daf/what...)

It was never updated.

New comment by pikewood in "Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise at time of crash: NTSB"

pikewood — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 01:14:00 +0000

I'd imagine it would be similar to this scene from the movie Disturbia: https://youtu.be/b9qMqGTi1uc?si=s-QoxZ4hRv9Oyjhn&t=28

New comment by pikewood in "Science needs more research software engineers"

pikewood — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:59:37 +0000

I'm one who started with only a BS, and I'm at a top-20 public university in the US. It depends on your PIs, but I've definitely been appreciated on many of the projects I've worked on (e.g., listed with 2nd most ownership percentage on invention disclosures, which also won a campus-wide yearly award).

Admittedly, my path was convoluted; I started as a engineer to help with non-research software at a large lab, and got pulled on to projects via reputation. But I was replacing a Master's student who was essentially at the same academic level as me anyway. It does pay less, but I made the tradeoff for the quality of projects, which was worth more to me at this point in my career. It's still much more than I need, just not at industry levels.

New comment by pikewood in "Making 3D printing truly 3D"

pikewood — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 19:35:53 +0000

Non-planar slicing? https://all3dp.com/2/non-planar-3d-printing-simply-explained...

New comment by pikewood in "Ask HN: Tips for improving mental word retrieval?"

pikewood — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 04:52:06 +0000

I explained my problem in a confusing way. The main problem is solely that I can't find the word I want to say. Normally, I'd just freeze up and just keep racking my brain for the right word, but my coping mechanism has been finding a related word or phrase to keep the communication going.

But, you mention practicing. What do you think is the activity to practice? Are there tests/games/exercises that strengthen that part of thinking you know of?

New comment by pikewood in "Ask HN: Tips for improving mental word retrieval?"

pikewood — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 17:32:21 +0000

Some things I have thought about looking into:

* Reading aloud text in a very quick speed. Maybe I need more practice in just brain-to-mouth coordination?

* Flash card style training, from just words to even actor headshots (because that feeling of "I know that person but I can't remember their name" is a similar feeling).

* Just speaking more, maybe getting into VR Chat or something similar.

Ask HN: Tips for improving mental word retrieval?

pikewood — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 17:26:46 +0000

I suffer from words being at the "tip-of-my-tongue" often. I know the basic definition of what I'm trying to say, but I just can't bring up the word I want to say fast enough. I sometimes talk in a staccato rhythm as I'm seeking for the right word to say. I may use a wordy sentence around the point, or a complex GRE-level vocabulary word, instead of the succinct word that I could've used.

Have any of you had this and improved your word retrieval? Are there mind exercises I can use to improve this? "Aphasia" seems to be the closest term, but I feel that is lot more severe and against a simpler vocabulary. And regardless, are there ways to strengthen word retrieval to be a more fluent or clearer speaker?

I don't know if I've addled my brain by being so reliant on auto-correct, if the majority of my communication being written (email/chat) has softened my speaking ability, or if this is just aging. Or perhaps I shouldn't have eaten ground beef in the UK 20 years ago.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23750231

Points: 6

# Comments: 5

New comment by pikewood in "UpNext – an ePaper digital calendar for your desk"

pikewood — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 15:53:48 +0000

Could you send some links to the community you found who were hacking away on the partial refresh drivers? I have a 7.5" that I started with and would love to work off of whatever has already been accomplished.

New comment by pikewood in "UpNext – an ePaper digital calendar for your desk"

pikewood — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 14:03:08 +0000

Waveshare is probably the easiest way to play with eInk today. If you're willing to look at different sizes, they offer displays with partial refresh already built in.

The 2.7 inch models are nice for people beginning with hardware because it's already built as a Raspberry Pi HAT, literally plug and play, no soldering or wires required. https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/2.7inch-e...

The bottom of that page lists the other models; look for the ones supporting partial refresh to get around that flashing distraction.

New comment by pikewood in "Please Don't Say Just Hello In Chat (2013)"

pikewood — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 21:29:47 +0000

I start chats with a separate "Hey" message solely just for the chance that the recipient is sharing their screen in a meeting. That way others in the meeting will only see the "Hey" popup and not any details of the rest of my message.

New comment by pikewood in "Is Amazon getting too big?"

pikewood — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 04:37:25 +0000

>amazon had a rule that you can't sell your product on amazon and sell it for less on your own site.

Why not create an Amazon exclusive SKU, the same way manufacturers do for Costco and the like?

New comment by pikewood in "More awful IoT stuff"

pikewood — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 21:09:25 +0000

Anyone have recommendations for a relay that could handle 20A but would work with the ESP8266's 3.3V?

New comment by pikewood in "Company creates bicycle airbag to replace helmets (2014)"

pikewood — Fri, 15 May 2015 16:20:51 +0000

Is it reusable, or is it a one time deploy?

New comment by pikewood in "What part of “No, Totally” don't you understand?"

pikewood — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 18:20:36 +0000

Are we sure we're spelling it right? Is it an abbreviated version of "I know, totally"?

New comment by pikewood in "‘Goodbye Photoshop’ and ‘Hello Krita’ at University Paris 8"

pikewood — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:33:00 +0000

To me, the biggest feature that Photoshop has that others don't is their type support, especially with kerning. I can accomplish most of what I want with other tools until I need to tweak the kerning of a word. Most tools require you to select pixels and move it over and don't support in-place editing.

New comment by pikewood in "How Memorizing “$19.05” Can Help You Outsmart the MTA"

pikewood — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 19:07:58 +0000

The original SmarTrip cards came from a company that went out of business, but used proprietary technology. WMATA eventually found another company to create the cards, and I believe this came about the time when new SmarTrip cards reduced in price from $5 to $2. So perhaps not a change in the design, but definitely a change in the manufacturing.

http://wamu.org/news/10/10/15/metro_board_replacing_smartrip...

New comment by pikewood in "Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov"

pikewood — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:13:16 +0000

"...government regulations did not allow them, even though they offered, to be volunteers if they worked for any sustained period. So they were put on the payroll of contractor QSSI as hourly workers, making what Dickerson says was "a fraction" of his Google pay"

This information troubles me, because QSSI was just hired to fix Maryland's broken Health Exchange site. It sounds like the company is cashing in on the donation of brandonb and others experts' time?

brandonb, is your team involved with the Maryland efforts, or is that a completely separate team?

New comment by pikewood in "2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor"

pikewood — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 22:53:57 +0000

I appreciated the fractal poetry in including the story of Sadi Seyni's village well (an example of the need for spreading accurate information to our fellow villagers), which is itself wrapped in a letter which calls on the reader to spread accurate information on the myths being presented.