Hacker News: smilespray

New comment by smilespray in "Jelly UI: Soft-body physics for native HTML form controls"

smilespray — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 21:54:35 +0000

I always had this issue when working with Flash developers. A common mantra was "don't reimplement scrollbars unless you can implement all the features a scrollbar comes with." They always had to do more than five iterations and spent days on that scrollbar.

New comment by smilespray in "What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard"

smilespray — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:33:36 +0000

Yeah, I'm working on a hardware project and would like to know more about this.

New comment by smilespray in "A voxel Tokyo in real Japan time – ride the Yamanote line and study Japanese"

smilespray — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:01:23 +0000

It's all relative. Nobody expects a grown man post-voice change to speak with the pitch of a child.

New comment by smilespray in "A voxel Tokyo in real Japan time – ride the Yamanote line and study Japanese"

smilespray — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:51:04 +0000

I think it's called learning to speak.

New comment by smilespray in "A voxel Tokyo in real Japan time – ride the Yamanote line and study Japanese"

smilespray — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:47:26 +0000

One day you might be that person who requires medical assistance. Think about that for a bit, considering what you just said.

New comment by smilespray in "Raspberry Pi Pico W as USB Wi-Fi Adapter"

smilespray — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:43:39 +0000

New comment by smilespray in "Nintendo Wii U games running from a 1980's Bernoulli disk [video]"

smilespray — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:11:03 +0000

I used Zip disks extensively for audio and graphics work. Almost all the drives I encountered died after a while.

It was a design issue.

New comment by smilespray in "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy"

smilespray — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:13:17 +0000

It was compatible with the radio and crypto equipment aboard my coast guard ship!

New comment by smilespray in "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy"

smilespray — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 19:09:04 +0000

Full network stack and a web server on a 1.44MB floppy!

New comment by smilespray in "The AirPods Effect"

smilespray — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:25:08 +0000

Had a close call with a cyclist going the same direction as me. She veered over in my direction as I was overtaking and was rather startled to see me, as she was wearing Airpods.

New comment by smilespray in "Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring: Built together, designed for the future"

smilespray — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:30:19 +0000

Nice to hear back from you.

I'm sure modern PHP code does not prevent scalability, but old PHP code definitely does.

Also, and this is slightly beside the point, but last time I tried Nextcloud there were _usability_ "scalability" issues, such as being unable to upload large files in the web GUI due to classic PHP config issues such as client timeout and upload file size limits.

Failure to account for modern file size limits is a massive code base red flag.

Sure, it's a doddle to fix if you know basic PHP, but it's a sign that the developer doesn't understand the core requirements of the product they are developing.

New comment by smilespray in "Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself"

smilespray — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:45:42 +0000

And a sample size of one.

New comment by smilespray in "Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring: Built together, designed for the future"

smilespray — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:50:03 +0000

Nextcloud and Wordpress both suffer massively from technical debt.

New comment by smilespray in "Apple WWDC 2026"

smilespray — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:44:04 +0000

Keep in mind Apple would never admit mistakes on Liquid Glass. But: Looks to me they're fixing some of the worst aspects. I'm on the fence.

The iOS 7 flat redesign was a UX disaster. But they got back up to speed in subsequent releases.

There IS something to be said for design resets with follow-up refits to accomodate for actual human beings. Most companies just add crap on top of crap.

Not saying what everything Apple does is perfect, even as a user/fanboy since '86.

What I most enjoyed about todays's annoucement that they're doing a Snow Leopard performance/bug reset, because that was expected and needed. And they started out with it, so they know their WWDC audience.

So: Both a technical and UX debt effort, with some privacy-focused AI on top.

I can't complain.

New comment by smilespray in "Astronauts on ISS told to shelter as repairs under way to fix air leaks"

smilespray — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:33:43 +0000

Interesting thought. Isn't it possible to design around this?

Surely this was considered when building the first modules.

New comment by smilespray in "Tracing a powerful GNSS interference source over Europe"

smilespray — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:07:20 +0000

AKA Salami Tactics, famously referred to in the UK sitcom "Yes, Prime Minister"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing_tactics

New comment by smilespray in "A 10 year old Xeon is all you need"

smilespray — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:00:19 +0000

Isn't the whole five eyes argument moot because member states spy on citizens from the other countries and trade intel with each other?

New comment by smilespray in "Zero Lines Maze: What the 8-Bit Guy's One-Liner Can Still Teach Us"

smilespray — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:07:32 +0000

Yeah, I've seen some fixes that gave me the wrong kind of goosebumps.

I like his history videos, though, for instance the ones that talk about graphics modes for a given computer.

Also, your bio says you don't shave. Sure you're not one of those bearded, middle-aged men?

New comment by smilespray in "Zero Lines Maze: What the 8-Bit Guy's One-Liner Can Still Teach Us"

smilespray — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:57:50 +0000

Think about it the other way: It's an opportunity to talk about lookup tables, loop unrolling and tricks like that.

Also, now different people are pitching in with their own takes, so it turned into a bit of friendly competition.

New comment by smilespray in "Zero Lines Maze: What the 8-Bit Guy's One-Liner Can Still Teach Us"

smilespray — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:53:22 +0000

Maybe it's because he's a bit of a gun nut on the side? He did some computer videos casually carrying a rifle of some kind slung over his shoulder.

I still enjoy his videos.