HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

cawlin

61 karma · joined February 3, 2011

submissionscomments
cawlin··on DJI Mini 4 Pro
I'm not in favour of speakers but it would be effective while a bear bell certainly won't.
cawlin··on Young Canadians go to school longer for jobs that pay less
Only if the house is less than 500k
cawlin··on Opening up our code and logic for algorithmic decision-making
Oh yes they do excellent work in form type workflows - sharing their patterns as well which I love

Ex: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design/form-structure

cawlin··on How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?
As the rebrand was outsourced (like most rebrands) the "why" is absolutely not so designers can justify their salaries.

Design as a department is very often under resourced and I'd take a strong wager that the designers who actually work for Tropicana were dreading all the unnecessary work this rebrand was surely going to generate for them.

cawlin··on BlackHole Audio Driver
You can probably figure out a way to do this with Blackhole but Audio Hijack will for sure if you just want to pay for an easy to set up app.

https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/

cawlin··on Show HN: Pins – A modern Pinboard app for iOS/macOS
So far this looks great. The share interface seems nice which is about the only thing I use these apps for to be honest. Anything that makes that faster to fill out is a win in my books.
cawlin··on London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing
Just casually let ~150 million people die. Cool.
cawlin··on No One Wants Used Clothes Anymore (2018)
> who gives away used clothes that are still in good conditions

In North America I think most people do. Charity/Thrift shops are packed to the brim with used clothing not to mention organizations that very specifically bring used clothing items to those in need.

I believe most people do not keep all their clothing items until they are entirely worn out. Changes in taste, body changes, getting rid of unused items, moving to a location with a different climate etc.

In most cases people are donating the clothes not reselling them. You put it in a bag and drop it off.

cawlin··on Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App
Meh. I can't open any of our old sketch files at work because I don't have a valid license for a version that works on the newest OS. All the same as being locked out of a server in the moment.
cawlin··on Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App
Is Sketch doing anything for print? I haven't used it for a few years now and back then it was digital only.
cawlin··on Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App
Correct, but as a feature it is exclusive to "apps other than Sketch"
cawlin··on Org Mode's new site
> I’m sure it would look good on a designers portfolio if they did the design/branding for a project like org mode.

I can't think of a more challenging "client" to take on than a decentralized group of engineers. Classic ways to build your design portfolio usually centre around small businesses, community groups, events and non-profits because they have clear needs that are easily served by design.

Another place where designers play is with open source/license fonts, icons, design systems etc. which makes sense because they are designing things for their peers.

cawlin··on Show HN: Polar 2.0 – Integrated reading environment for EPUBs, PDFs, & web pages
I've been testing this out with a 600 page research paper before the launch of 2.0 and now continuing after. Love the annotations, works very well for my purposes.

Really enjoying the updates so far. The dark mode inverting the actual PDF to dark is a nice touch for reading (and I can toggle it off for visualization heavy portions).

cawlin··on Annoying website features I face as a blind person
Webaim has lots of good base level info: https://webaim.org/intro/

In the article most of the annoyances boil down to crappy html markup and unclear navigation. These are things that are easy to fix without any special accessibility knowledge and go a long way in improving usability for everyone.

cawlin··on Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS
> Are you fine that Alfred can read the clipboard?

Yes, the data is not sent anywhere.

cawlin··on Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS
My most used Alfred things beyond launching apps/files:

* Clipboard history (screenshots on clipboard in the history is extra useful)

* Snippets using the date placeholders {datetime:short} for various file naming and email workflows

* Snippet shortcuts for things I always forget like the shortcut for → and ™ or my zoom meeting link that I paste into meeting invites

* Launching simple shell scripts by keyword

* Workflow for opening Jira tickets in my browser quickly

* Search notes workflow for quick access to everything in the Notes app

* Soulver workflow for using the Soulver engine in Alfred for doing quick calculations

I was a Quicksilver user that never quite got into Spotlight. I'm betting these days some of these workflows can be accomplished with Spotlight and other apps but Alfred has worked very nicely for me.

cawlin··on Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS
You might try the Audio MIDI Setup utility. This allows you to add/remove devices which might work to remove the microphone as an output device.

If you're looking for a fix and more advanced customization you could try Soundsource: https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/

cawlin··on Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
Shit + Option gives you the extra debug option that option + click does not.
cawlin··on Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
I recently discovered the Bluetooth device debugging menu.

Hold Shift + Option and click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.

cawlin··on Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods
I'd guess for auto supplies. You can bike "everywhere" and still own a vehicle for visiting places outside a city proper.
cawlin··on Why Figma Wins
"design online" is the key but not so much that the software runs in the browser, more that it allows for a different workflow.

Multiple people can be working on the same thing at the same time and anyone can view the in progress work. This changes the traditional file based workflow where designers pass a file back and forth if they want to keep the work together - often working in a separate file then "merging" the work into a master file one at a time.

Because all the files are online it's possible to see who is working on what including at the very moment. Its really easy for me to get a sense of what other designers are working on and whats been updated recently.

A huge bonus beyond designer collaboration is the way Figma breaks the previous separation of working file and final export. Non-designers can check in on an in-progress file at any time without needing a designer to export some static version of it. This allows designers to work on related things in the same file but each "thing" can be in at various stages of completion without having a negative impact on delivering final work. This is also great for transparency.

cawlin··on I Replaced My MacBook Pro with a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB for a Day
I doubt up to date GIMP has many more features than Photoshop CS2 which was a pay once license :)
cawlin··on Vice Media Lays Off 155 Employees with Deepest Cuts in Digital Group
I suspect many people are avoiding news plus video games act as escapism and for many a form of socializing.
cawlin··on France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
People seem motivated to keep their bikes maintained if they don't have to pay for it themselves from my experience.

In Canada I've volunteered at free bike tune up stations for many years, they are usually set up at popular summer events or at community centres.

We get a lot of people who aren't confident enough to do basic things like adjust brakes, gears or even change a flat tire. Most of the time they've simply rode their bike and dealt with poor performance or issues until it becomes a problem or they feel it is unsafe to ride.

For these folks getting someone to do extremely basic yearly maintenance would keep them happily riding for a long time.

cawlin··on Maybe we shouldn’t use Zoom after all
My experience with conference calls overwhelming confirms that dialing in and entering a code will waste ~10 mins of any meeting.
cawlin··on OBS Studio: Open-source software for video recording and live streaming
Blackhole is a nice Soundflower alternative that might be appealing for some folks in certain use cases as well: https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole
cawlin··on Mark Text: Simple and Elegant Markdown Editor Focused on Speed and Usability
They do have 15 open collective sponsors.
cawlin··on Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
If you are into typography you know what this thing looks like. This is super niche.
cawlin··on Meetup.com alternatives
Instead of hearing about it on facebook you can hear about it on meetup.
cawlin··on Real-Time Touch Controller for the Yamaha DX7 Synthesizer
I think CSOund's popularity with art projects and the elctoacoustic scene in general comes down to interface. CSound is great if you're supplying/inventing the interface or program to create the sounds/music.

Compare a CSound IDE to something like the Ableton Operator interface or even PureData as someone else mentioned. Very different (and both great for different approaches and people!). A lot of folks want flexibility in the sound by exploring an interface/instrument without having to come up with that interface/instrument themselves.

Page 1 of 2Next →