Hacker News: ramg

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: What are some self-hosted photo organizing/sharing programs?"

ramg — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:02:57 +0000

Does the Monument device have the option to share albums/folders across the Internet? Do I need to open a hole in my firewall for this?

Edit: I've reached out to the Monument team as well.

New comment by ramg in "How Lee Valley built a cult-like following"

ramg — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 04:51:05 +0000

Did I read that right? You have no other woodworking tools?

edit: and if I did read it right, share some of your woodworking projects!

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?"

ramg — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 21:33:15 +0000

Your rock climbing post was not fun to read and scared the crap out of me :-( I'm sorry that it happened to you. I enjoy your writing style!

New comment by ramg in "Hexyl: A command-line hex viewer with colorized output"

ramg — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 05:55:53 +0000

> I don't want to help those people. I want them gone.

I'm sorry you have this attitude towards people. I wish you the best.

New comment by ramg in "Hexyl: A command-line hex viewer with colorized output"

ramg — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 02:31:07 +0000

This is not helpful.

Why not suggest a more appropriate workflow without the chastising or denigration? C'mon, you can be supportive.

New comment by ramg in "Show HN: Scribbler – Podcast Summaries Using GPT"

ramg — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 16:33:33 +0000

I like this idea! Thanks for sharing.

Will I be able to point it at any podcast? The ones I saw look interesting but are not what I normally listen to.

I assume you can take any audio sample (say, a monologue) and generate a summary of it. I wonder if students would do this with their lectures.

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?"

ramg — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 06:22:06 +0000

What is the camera mounted on? Do you have a picture of the setup?

New comment by ramg in "Why take a compiler course? (2010)"

ramg — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 20:59:42 +0000

We use gcc/javac/etc almost daily and having some understanding of what your toolchain is likely to be very beneficial. Here are a few things I've done with my compiler knowledge:

1. Wrote a simulator of sorts for a 68xx CPU. User passed in assembly files and I simulated the execution and spat out cycle counts. The real-time application had a fixed time window it could not exceed. I did this in my first year out of college with compilers fresh on my mind.

2. Wrote an automated test tool for a proprietary protocol. The protocol had the usual opcodes but they could only be played in a certain order (cannot send B before C or can send B any number of times and have it be idempotent). The QA engineers were doing this by hand. I asked them if they could automated the test case generation and they looked at me as though I was an idiot. I developed a tool with its own simplified grammar that they could use to build test cases which exercised all combinations/permutations of the opcodes. Saved us a ton of time and made the developers more productive.

3. My hackiest project was an SGML parser that was used to generate hypertext documents. Tech writer wrote docs in FrameMaker. My hacky parser found the places where the TOC and the Index could be linked and inserted hypertext links. Net result is we had a document that could be printed and viewed online. Think 1993/1994.

I've sat with a number of engineers who thought the compiler was wrong and sat down and looked at the assembly with them and mapped it back to C only for them to realize the bug was in their code.

Compilers are fun. You should take a compiler course just for that!

New comment by ramg in "Spelunking Apple’s Open Source"

ramg — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 21:50:40 +0000

I like to know how much incremental disk space I'm using so I have a series of scripts that tell me the files which have been deleted/added and outputs to get the sum (yes, I know there are better ways). The impetus for checking disk usage is a tale in IT stupidity which I don't talk about! But now I use the script for other purposes as well such as verifying that my mirror has the same deltas without doing a full compare. I hope I haven't disappointed you with my usage :-)

I really should rewrite this but it was written many years ago and grew into something more than I originally intended. Plus, it works.

New comment by ramg in "Spelunking Apple’s Open Source"

ramg — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 17:50:48 +0000

This is really cool. I use 'bc' in a small script that I run almost daily.

New comment by ramg in "Living the writing life means living with failure"

ramg — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:57:15 +0000

Ok. You convinced me to update my profile. I'm mostly a lurker on HN and now I feel like I should contribute more.

New comment by ramg in "Living the writing life means living with failure"

ramg — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 23:53:04 +0000

I wrote a novel (action / psychological thriller). Second book is again a thriller but with time-travel, but it isn't sci-fi.

I haven't tried writing science fiction but enjoy reading the genre - currently reading Dust by Hugh Howey. Thus, I tend to stick to the current world as I understand it better.

Your books sound interesting! I'm impressed!

New comment by ramg in "Living the writing life means living with failure"

ramg — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 23:05:15 +0000

Can you talk about your two books? Fiction, non-fiction? Genre. I'm always curious to know more about successful writers and what they did - even if I'm not wired to do the same.

I self-published one book and am working on a second. I have done zero marketing as I wrote the book primarily for myself. Those who have read it really enjoyed including people who are extremely blunt about their opinions.

New comment by ramg in "Living the writing life means living with failure"

ramg — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 05:51:44 +0000

I've now self-published one book and have started a second. I haven't made enough money to even pay for the cover art! But I'm doing this for myself and if it results in a back catalog that generates income, cool. If not, then also cool.

New comment by ramg in "Living the writing life means living with failure"

ramg — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 05:48:54 +0000

I wonder if you and I read the same series.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Gentle-Book-One-Discovery-ebook/d...

Mark's writing style really pulled me in and I'm bummed he didn't finish the series. I still have hope that he'll get back to it one day.

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: What are you working on this year?"

ramg — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 07:16:15 +0000

I self-published my first (and only so far) novel last year. It's an amazing feeling when you see your printed book. I still sometimes wonder to myself, "did I really do that?"

I wish you the best with your novel.

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: Products/Services you swear by – Dec. 2022"

ramg — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 06:37:05 +0000

John, thanks for the detailed write-up. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, they are out of stock now. I have the tab pinned and will refresh it daily until it's available. Did you order the last 5? :-)

I have a Hakko 888 as well and while I like it, there's a bit of a set up as I'm limited on space. So when you said it's as good as your Hakko, you sold me on it.

New comment by ramg in "Ask HN: Products/Services you swear by – Dec. 2022"

ramg — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 22:00:13 +0000

Pinecil: Would you recommend this if the soldering job were more than just a few wires (e.g. circuit assembly)? I've had a couple of cordless soldering irons in the past and they were a bust - took too long to heat up, didn't hold their temp very well.

New comment by ramg in "A curated directory of 700 Mac menu bar apps"

ramg — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 04:45:13 +0000

Take a look here: https://github.com/yujitach/MenuMeters/releases

I'm using this on my M1 Mac.

New comment by ramg in "Interview with Keith Blount, Creator of Scrivener"

ramg — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 01:00:35 +0000

I published my book via Scrivener - both print and ebook. I'll admit it wasn't straightforward but once I "learned" it, I saved that away as a template for my next book. There's a fair bit of customization and not very obvious how it works. I relied on the forums for hints/tips and even then it took some trial/error attempts. I'd say in total, I spent a full weekend figuring it out. I wonder how much of that memory is now lost and will need to be relearned when I publish my second book (template and all).