Hacker News: sssparkkk

Ask HN: Pro option missing from Gemini model selector?

sssparkkk — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 19:59:37 +0000

For almost a week now the 'pro' model has been missing from the Gemini model selector; only 'fast' and 'thinking' remain. This is with an active AI pro subscription, and seems to be the case for a sizeable group of people (it's being mentioned on reddit).

Maybe an upvoted (if this affects you as well) hacker news post about this helps to put this on the radar at Google, or maybe one of you even knows of steps to somehow fix this. Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46965941

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by sssparkkk in "Goodbye IFTTT"

sssparkkk — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 19:39:47 +0000

Maybe this has been mentioned already, but they seem to have some special integration with the Google Assistant. As far as I know there are currently no alternatives that allow you to e.g. perform a web request for any arbitrary voice command. And you can use arguments in voice commands. You can even override the (ever growing) reserved assistant commands by prepending 'please', I think.

Valve Updated SteamVR Tracking Because 'Beat Saber' Players Were Too Fast

sssparkkk — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 15:42:30 +0000

Article URL: https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-updated-steamvr-tracking-because-beat-saber-players-were-too-fast/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19128181

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by sssparkkk in "Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro"

sssparkkk — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 10:07:17 +0000

Apparently it's pretty difficult to make a keyboard that works correctly, because in case you're wondering whether to go for a Dell instead: they have similar key repeating issues on various (high end) laptop models.

New comment by sssparkkk in "What happened, Gmail?"

sssparkkk — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 09:47:35 +0000

The party host is not using bcc because he/she wants everyone to be aware of who has been invited to the party.

I guess it boils down to your default usage of email; I've never had an email client before Inbox that does 'reply all' by default.

New comment by sssparkkk in "What happened, Gmail?"

sssparkkk — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 21:02:40 +0000

Been thinking of switching back from Inbox to Gmail for one single annoying and IMO stupid design decision: if there are multiple recepients for the email the main reply button will by default perform a reply all. Had me look like a dork a few times, replying to everyone that I can't make it to a party or something.

Anyone else been bitten by this?

New comment by sssparkkk in "Why Snapchat Spectacles failed"

sssparkkk — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 22:31:31 +0000

So how about this: the influencers on Snapchat are all recording themselves most of the time. These glasses did nothing to help with that particular and most popular use case.

I feel really weird for being the first to bring this up, it seems pretty obvious to me the main reason these glasses weren't going to catch on.

New comment by sssparkkk in "Facebook, You Needy Sonofabitch"

sssparkkk — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 07:55:22 +0000

I don't think groups was that successful, was it?

New comment by sssparkkk in "Sony and LG stop making 3D TV sets"

sssparkkk — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 16:12:04 +0000

"Purchase process research showed it's not a top buying consideration, and anecdotal information indicated that actual usage was not high."

Anyone else surprised they're making this decision partly based on 'anecdotal information'? Or would it be explicitly phrased this way to prevent people from suspecting spyware in their TV sets?

New comment by sssparkkk in "The science of Westworld"

sssparkkk — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 12:39:29 +0000

"Lily is a swan. Lily is white. Bernhard is green. Greg is a swan." -> "What color is Greg? Answer: white"

At the risk of sounding somewhat stupid, but shouldn't this contain "Swans are white" for it to be a correct answer?

New comment by sssparkkk in "New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada"

sssparkkk — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 19:28:26 +0000

With regard to the debounce issue, if you're running Ubuntu you can use dconf to set the slow keys timeout to a few ms (set slow keys to true as well) which will prevent basically all spurious extra keypresses. The theory being that your finger pressing a key sends a 'longer' signal than the bounce that sometimes occurs.

A side affect on my machine is that controlling brightness using the keyboard no longer works (other fn combinations still work) and pressing the power button no longer brings up the logout/suspend/etc menu. Somehow these keys always fire a really short press signal :|

So there's that.

New comment by sssparkkk in "New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada"

sssparkkk — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 16:50:42 +0000

I have the skylake precision 5510; it also has the keyboard debounce issue, and it hasn't been fixed. Contacted Dell, had the keyboard replaced but that hasn't helped. I don't have faith in their ability to fix this - it's been an issue going back all the way to 2009 and affects multiple models (latitude, inspiron, xps, precision)

Used an external keyboard for the first few months, so money back is not an option anymore. Terrible experience!

New comment by sssparkkk in "New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada"

sssparkkk — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 16:20:23 +0000

A word of warning for those interested in this machine or the 15 inch version: there are issues with the keyboard resulting in double characters when typing fast [1]. I have the precision 5510 (basically an XPS 15) and have the same issue, it's driving me nuts and Dell won't (can't?) do anything about it.

Also, I'm currently on an old (1.2.0 instead of 1.2.14) bios firmware because they managed to introduce display flicker on on all but the highest brightness setting.

In short: there are real problems with quality assurance at Dell - be ready for this if you decide to buy one of their laptops.

[1] http://www.dell.com/support/Article/nl/nl/nlbsdt1/SLN297563/... - here they suggest to adjust the key repeat/delay settings as a last resort (doesn't help on my 5510)

New comment by sssparkkk in "Warn HN: serious keyboard issues with all sorts of Dell laptops"

sssparkkk — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 09:25:48 +0000

Addressed it? How?

New comment by sssparkkk in "Warn HN: serious keyboard issues with all sorts of Dell laptops"

sssparkkk — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:21:49 +0000

Recently bought a Dell Precision M5510 that comes with Ubuntu preinstalled. Aside from the various linux-specific issues I noticed characters sometimes appearing twice when typing on the keyboard (external keyboard works just fine). A quick search tells me this is an issue with a whole range of Dell laptops; they've been having these problems since at least 2009. The popular XPS 13/15 models are also affected. My keyboard has been replaced, to no avail. Now they want me to send it in, but reports on their forums indicate that doesn't get it fixed either.

This is a warning to all coders/fast typists here: stay away from Dell's laptops!

Warn HN: serious keyboard issues with all sorts of Dell laptops

sssparkkk — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:13:21 +0000

Article URL: https://www.google.com/?#q=double+letters+site:en.community.dell.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12966055

Points: 1

# Comments: 3

New comment by sssparkkk in "Snapchat Seeks to Raise as Much as $4B in IPO"

sssparkkk — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:01:21 +0000

I see talk of Spectacles being Snapchat's next big thing. However, 90% of the time the popular Snapchat users are filming themselves. Not what they're seeing. So what good would Spectacles be for them?

New comment by sssparkkk in "Canada-EU trade talks with Wallonia collapse as Freeland heads home"

sssparkkk — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:16:38 +0000

If I understand it correctly, CETA would have resulted in too much power for (big) Canadian corporations. So it's a good thing the trade agreement hasn't been ratified, correct?

New comment by sssparkkk in "Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]"

sssparkkk — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:26:38 +0000

I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that Elon's presentation ends with requests to throw comics onto the stage and ask him to allow receiving a good luck kiss from a girl in the audience.

To be honest I think it's a really bad fit to have these kind of questions during such an event; but hey, because of them I'm pretty sure this is all really honest and not at all orchestrated... Which is good, I suppose.

New comment by sssparkkk in "Getting Press for Your Startup"

sssparkkk — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 18:26:57 +0000

Any advice on how to get some traction when entering a foreign market?

In my experience the media mostly write about startups that already have significant traction, or about new products released by the big boys (Facebook, Google etc).

Acquiring users through Facebook/Twitter advertising might be an option for some, but could also easily mean you'll be spending tens of dollars per active user.

So what's left? I think it basically boils down to Hacker news & Product Hunt to get the ball rolling.