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dingleberry

81 karma · joined March 8, 2015

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dingleberry··on The myopia boom (2015)
light intensity does that

try this: take a picture, same object, no flash, ... one under normal bright sun and another in a room under normal bright lighting. which one is sharper?

set phone brightness to lowest, another on highest. try to read something and measure your arm's length. adjust brightness so you can still focus at farthest arm's length as comfort dictates. don't save on power juice. your eyes are more important.

drive outside and then go to underground parking lot. you'll notice it's harder to look.

use your normal glasses in a normal lighting room. go outside and swith to lower power (say your previous glasses). notice the difference.

the problem was i used the same power glasses all the time, out of habit. the very same glasses for reading far (chalkboards) and for reading books. it's somewhat not practical to switch glasses every time you copy something from board and write to your notes. using lower powered glasses and move my seat to the front mitigate this problem.

tldr; try to get maximum amount of light to your eyes as comfort dictates. if you really have to use glasses, choose the one with lower power that's sufficient for your need. practice to never use glasses for most tasks (adjust brightness on smartphone). you'll be surprised on what ur eyes can do without glasses.

dingleberry··on Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
I do not recommend lenovo yoga (thin flippable)

the keyboard is ok; however, i often get double press on random key press -> get 'dd' if i press 'd', 'xx' if 'x', 'zz' if 'z', etc

enough to frustrate me and throw me out of flow every time. not worth it.

os is arch linux if that matters.

dingleberry··on OpenBSD 6.3 released
6.3 Song: Maybe...
dingleberry··on Japan's older hikikomori live in isolation, shunning society for years
Ikeida lives mainly on social benefits but also makes a little money by writing online articles from his room.
dingleberry··on Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)
no mention of plus lens therapy
dingleberry··on Does wearing glasses weaken your eyesight? (2014)
insufficient light intensity does that
dingleberry··on Why I left Google to join Grab
afaik, riders' time wasted on resto's queue are not paid

also, riders don't get compensation for parking fee

so most riders avoid crowded resto and [tall] buildings (have to park and take elevator -- more unpaid time)

also, money spent on internet and phone calls are not compensated so u get random whatsapp messages from grab/gojek riders ... and sometimes sms (still costs little money tho), but rarely a phone call

dingleberry··on Why treating diabetes keeps getting more expensive
i reread the china study. chapter 8 is diabetes. it claims animal protein, not carbs, causes diabetes.
dingleberry··on Building a Home Aquaponics System: The Basics
rain water is somehow pure and should contain no mineral elements
dingleberry··on People who eat 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day
Yudkin mentioned about dental hygiene in his book Pure, White and Deadly: The Problem of Sugar (1972)

it's the form of sugar that matters.

the sticky (think twinkie) sugar does more damage because it sticks to cavities, fueling bacteria producing acid.

the stickiest, the sweetest fruit i can think of is fried dates. banana comes close.

but fruits don't even compare to twinkie, so don't worry too much about it. chewing fibrous non-sweet veg should be enough to 'brush' teeth naturally. of course brushing your teeth won't hurt

dingleberry··on Why taxing robots is not a good idea
the gov should tax algorithms instead.

think how many librarians (or other occupations) are made obsolete by google.

dingleberry··on Chinese Factory Replaces 90% of Humans with Robots Sees 250% Production Increase
actually, oldWorkers = 650 and now Workers = 60 Robots = 590

the 60 workers do not produce, only watching the robots.

the robots do produce.

oldProduction = 650 * 8000 * .75 = 3900000

newProduction = 590 * 21000 * .95 = 11770500

increase = (11770500 - 3900000) / 3900000 = 201.807%

i believe tfa should write 8000 per worker vs 21000 per robot since it's written that 60 workers do not produce, naturally that only means 0 per worker

dingleberry··on Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
i used samsung galaxy for a couple of weeks. and no, mi does not copy samsung certainly.

samsung is loaded with utter crap default apps. asus follows this path with so many uninstallable default crapps.

i never rooted my mis and always update community roms. the default crapps are minimal.

mi phones (and miui) are ways up from others. it takes effort not to notice. buy one, play with it a couple weeks, and u never want to use other android phones.

dingleberry··on VR
would vr worsen myopia?
dingleberry··on Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
it could be that mi phones are so good that people like me and my wife do not want to buy a new replacement.

i dropped my mi 1S on hard ground one year ago. the screen glass was torn, but not detached; however, the touch is not affected at all. the face camera still works but the pic is blurry due to torn glasses covering the face camera.

last week my 4yo son threw my wife's mi 2. screen torn (much worse than mine, but the scars do not cross important areas like front camera), touch ok, camera ok.

i asked her if she wants a new phone? she flatly said no. it still works great.

i had a chinese no name brand tablet. dropped wooden toy on it, screen torn, touch broke, 'mouse' jitters. luckily pointers still functions with normal mouse (use utb-otg) after detaching the touch sensor ribbon cable.

so yeah, xiao mi phones are robust and ours are 24/7 abused. they (mi 1s and mi 2s) still get great build even when the prices are just around $100. the second thing less abused in my house is my lenovo yoga (ultra-slim laptop). oh wait, probably the most abused is my cisco router.

we do have more high end phones like motorolla and asus; however, they are not used as much as the mis. not because they are more expensive so we care more. it's just painful to use say asus. it's power hungry, and data hungry, often betrayed us on critical moments. we just don't use it. the asus z5 is now used by my 4yo son to watch youtube.

on last note, we like that our mis do not have a brand printed facing us, unlike the ASUS or SAMSUNG. i never like printed brand on my personal stuffs just to show off. printed brands on inside, not to show off, are ok.

dingleberry··on Michigan has banned the banning of plastic bags
depends on who u ask

some will say that a drop of oil can polute acres of sea

or a drop of semen can fertilize a country.

but those don't actually happen in real life.

so the answer to your question can be little to very polluting (a bag requires more than a drop of oil), depend on what you believe.

dingleberry··on Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?
i use arch as main os it bit me often over the years (fubar after arch-specific significant update) so i got spare laptops so i can do recovery (download the newest iso, burn to usb, install on fubared laptop, wipe all partitions but /home, read the newest changes and what caused fubar)

it's not everyday event (it gets better, last year i got 1); however, it's a good idea to clone a working virtual disk.

also consider about having openbsd as your main os. it's stable and simpler than arch. i use openbsd on my remote server and have a desktop version on my spare laptop. zzz sleeps, ZZZ hybernates, wifi automatically reconnects after sleep, etc. all made simple by the sane default. no need to fudge around systemd, power management, etc (oh yeah, i got weird mouse freeze under arch, click and it unfreezes. but freeze again after 2 sec of no movement. turns out linux power management tries to save every juice from battery, putting the mouse in 'sleep' mode after moment of inactivity. really smart, right? until the mouse frustrate u). there's workaround (i forgot atm), but not after you waste hours of testing every mouse brands you have, test said mouses on other os, etc.

linux is like that, a lot of gotchas. it seems linux devs just code but no empathy to user (things get more complex every year). openbsd feels like its devs love using their stuff so it's smoother. it's hard not to notice.

NB: i know i know, i should read archlinux.org latest news before updating; but, what if i'm clueless about the changes?

dingleberry··on One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people
mass produced chinese glasses beat it first

i bought a dozen negative glasses for $15 five years ago at chinatown in Jakarta, Indonesia; should be cheaper in china.

same model, same power, but can't choose color.

the retail is available so i can choose model, power, color, etc for $2 per glasses

I also bought a +4 glasses for less than $1, metal frame. positive glasses are cheaper maybe because there's less demand.

their quality depend solely on material, not price. my more stylish glasses (no-frame-around-glass, flexible handle) lasts about 3-6 months on heavy use. sturdier styles (harry-potter-styele, thicker plastic frame) lasted more than a year till my-then-baby-boy tore it forcefully from my face. my <$1 positive metal frame glasses seem to last forever.

nb: i wear positive lens everyday for my eye training and choose to no longer wear negative lens; therefore, i haven't bought any lenses for about three years; however, the prices are still about the same last time i checked at jakarta's chinatown.

dingleberry··on Many LASIK patients may wind up with glare, halos or other visual symptoms
i know it's off topic; however, i'd like to share my eyes improvements.

0. light is important. mouse in complete darkness develops nearsightedness (-20 diopters iirc). outdoor kids got better eyes. -> nowadays i turn all my screens on full brightness level.

1. vary sunglasses for different ranges. for example, i was at -4. i used -4 for driving car, used -2 for coding and used -1 for phones instead while still comfy.

2. under sun, wear less power. notice during the day, i was still comfy wearing -3 for driving car and naked eyes for phone. the reduction can go as far as -2.

3. if you can't do less near work, wear plus lens. plus lens therapy is a long term investment. it's slow; however, there's no side effect. i'm now at the point that i can drive motorcycle and coding with naked eyes. i started around new year, so it's almost a year. it's okay. it took me three decades to get to -4, a year is nothing.

NB: for 1 & 2, you can experiment using your old glasses. don't be afraid to use your old lenses. the worst that can happen to your life is that you get a slightly blurry vision for a minute. for 3: plus lens therapy. i prefer it to lasik, which has side effects and can degrade anyway. it's not instant, that's the feature -> if anything go bad, i can stop and things revert back gradually. with lasik, it's binary. you can't go back if shit happens. to be fair, lasik is not instant too, you need months for recovery.

dingleberry··on Frequent Password Changes Is a Bad Security Idea
how about $ echo "password" | md5sum 286755fad04869ca523320acce0dc6a4

$ echo "Password" | md5sum 29f33cab54c2a8858885b95d8fbb7ff1

$ echo "PAssword" | md5sum 20a68cafb28eb68e306be529a29a8a62

$ echo "PASsword" | md5sum 2ed0aec406faee855f7739bc94fa60d0

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
nothing wrong, when i was a kid, i often drink well water directly uncooked. i filter it because now i can and i have a son.

well water are already filtered by nature. the deeper the well, the cleaner the water is. think spring water, which is rain water filtered by hundred-meter rock hill.

water in apartment often smell funky and can't be trusted (management mix water from its own water-treatment with government water).

i know for sure how nasty the apartment water because i often pour pure-strength (not grocery-bought) HCl or NaOH (wait for a day so they don't cancel out) down the drain when it's clogged in hope they dissolve matters.

the pipe still sometimes gets clogged after harsh chemical treatments so lately i just use thick-liquid SLS (or use downy super in the USA, or any concentrated detergent) and pour hot water. it moves clog point down further the apartment pipe. slippery it is!

i used to have my sink flooded within 10 seconds. now it's after 60 seconds, leaving plenty of time to do quick washings.

that's history because now i live in a house.

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
to get water from ground, drill a hole about an inch diameter so long pipe can be inserted.

if you can get good water within 9 meters, that's great because standard pump can suck up to 9 meter down.

if you get salty, rusty, smelly colored water, drill deeper. 30m is pretty much max depth for home-use jet pump and normally you get clean water.

you can get deeper too and use bigger hole too; however, that's when you need permit. industry and hotel often do because they need a lot of water very fast.

water collected from pump can be stored in large tank above roof. then gravity plays it part delivering tank-water.

there's a switch on the tank that cuts electricity to the pump when a buoy inside the tank float up to a certain level. so, my switch is simpler water-level-based, not pressure-based.

from empty to full, my pump runs about 30 min. my pump is 1 horse power or about 750w. so for a month that would be 30 * 30/60 * 750w = 11.25 kwh.

for disposals, my house get two lines. one for washing, bathing, etc and that goes to city sewer. another is for human waste that goes to house ground sewage tank.

sewage tank is basically an unsealed empty space inside ground. bacteria decompose human waste and the water just get filtered by ground beneath. the tank gets full over time and sewer tank service can come and suck the sewage tank.

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
i used to store hot water in thermos that the inside glass got stain from hard water (apartment water was hard, contains a lot of mineral)

after i got a son, we replaced hard water with ro water, including the thermos. well, baby is important, right?

over time (months), the stains are gone, the glass inside the thermos got cleaner.

so yeah, ro water being soft water probably cancels out the stains from hard water previously used.

on waste water for aquarium: it's because you misrepresent 'waste water'. water in an ro unit gets filtered four times (must go thru 4 different filters). the first is sediment, and the last is the ro membrane. can't remember the middles.

the sediment filter gets brown over time and need to be replaced (cheap, ~$1 per cylinder). so there's some impurities captured.

after last filter, the membrane, the water that fails to pass becomes 'waste water'. it's actually clear, tasteless, just didn't pass the ro membrane.

so ro waste water is actually cleaner than the input water. my fishes are okay with water from well. naturally, they should be okay too with water that's cleaner than well water.

on heavy metal, fishes are very sensitive to cu, not so much for pb. so if fishes are healthy and not jittery or die after a day, the water should be okay.

i also bought ro unit for my soft-water fishes: neon tetra. accidently, i found that human can drink ro water too ;)

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
just eat plenty of vegetables and fruits. they contain minerals and more palatable.
dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
i do have cavities on back of my lower jaws; however, it's not due to RO water. should RO water is causing this, the damage distribution should be uniform -> my other teeth should be equally damaged.

i still have other teeth intact, no holes, despite using ro water for 8 years or so.

i think there's the cause of my holes. i had wisdom teeth very late in age. my brushing pattern wasn't sufficient. moreover, i was addicted to oatmeal power drink and didn't brush after. those sugary flakes seem to linger on my back jaws.

yudkin book, "pure, white and deadly" discusses this. children who drink sugary vs eating candies. same sugar; however, those eating candies get more cavities simply because candies stick between teeth ... think twinkies

on interesting part of the book is about the slave in sugar plantations. they did eat raw sugar; however, the slaves didn't get the same disastrous level of disease as the masters, who eat refined sugar.

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
water from well is okay for home use; however, for hotel, you need permit.

i'm not overly concerned about contaminants because my water source is at the back of my house which has big trees, not some deserted mines.

likewise, i never really question the safety of spring water bought from store. my crude experiment say that it's purer than spring water. that's should be sufficient.

as far as i know, spring water is just that, water from spring, untreated.

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
i standardized so that distance is not important. just use dry cup, plus and minus probe on tip opposite each other, dip probes to the metal end.

it's not scientific, no replication, i did not even double blind myself and randomize. it's lazy, just for fun.

dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
yeah, costs and requirements will be higher for saline water.
dingleberry··on Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
I've used reverse osmosis unit for years. new unit is less than $100usd it paid itself in months. maintenance is cheap.

my RO has kinda low efficiency. 4 units of water in, i get 1 unit of clean drinkable water. 3 units are 'waste' (don't believe what socmed says, it's not dirty). the waste water is used for laundry, aquarium and gardening. my fishes and vegs are thriving.

to test purity, just plunge the ohm meter probes into a cup of ro water. if the resistence is in 1MOhm, it's pretty pure. mountain/mineral water bought from store is about 150kOhm. after drinking ro water for a while, store-bought water tastes slightly salty.

my house pumps water from ground (well-pump). for a family of 6, i need 1m3 of water. that's about half hour of 500W pump. an ro unit (40W) runs about 3 hours for 5gal bottle. so give or take, 1/2kWH or about 15KW per month. that's about $1 or $2 for my water need per month.

if i must buy raw water (such as living in an apartment), it's about $1 per m3, so about $30 per month; however, i get drinkable water too. ro units are portable. i saved $28/mo in water expense after moving from apartment.

flashing back from memory, i used to lug around 3 5gal water-cooler bottle from stores to my apartment every 3 days (i had 3 bottles). it was not pleasant and wasted time (go to store, queue, lug heavy bottles back)

ro unit has relay so you don't have to sit and wait for it to fill. it automatically cuts power to the pump when its internal clean-water-tank is full.

dingleberry··on Apple’s China Problem Is That Local Phones Are Good – And Cheap
xiaomi phone is capable to block mobile data (and wifi) on app level. Say, gmail can access data on wifi only, chrome on mobile only and whatsapp on both mobile and wifi. It's a finer control than disabling background data.

Before xiaomi, I used asus and it eats mobile data like crazy with no control other than airplane mode.

bonus is that xiami has finer permission control too on app level. I can disallow whatsapp to access my contact and camera, for example. whatsapp can still function; however, it shows phone numbers instead of names in chats.

so even though xiaomi is cheaper, it's more powerful to use. definitely great user experience, easily beats any, more expensive android devices i ever use: motorolla, asus, samsung, etc

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