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dont__panic

2,554 karma · joined January 10, 2020

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dont__panic··on Pele – Mermaid diagrams as themeable SVG
Very nice, bookmarked. I built something similar as an Astro plugin using svgdom: https://better-static-sites.github.io/build-tools/mermaid/

It still boggles my mind that mermaid's devs think you need an entire freakin' browser to render an SVG. Sometimes I think people need to be reminded of the fundamentals.

dont__panic··on News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development
Perhaps I was a shade too facetious. But honestly, you thought the Pi 3+ was so significantly different from the 3 that you imagined it might finally make your use case worth it?

I used a Pi 4 as a home server for literal years. For a lot of light work, the Pi works great, consumes very little power, and (before the 5) required no active cooling. I understand that if you're running machine learning pipelines at home, you might want a mini PC. But it feels like most developers severely overestimate how much CPU power you need to run most services.

dont__panic··on iPhone 17e
Still loving mine as well. I held out with the 2016 SE for 8 years. Sadly it's looking like I might have to do that again with the 13 mini! It boggles my mind that Apple thinks it's worthwhile to sell the 16, 17, 17 Pro, and 17e all in basically the exact same form factor. And then the Air and Max in very similar form factors. Vary it up! I don't need a new mini every year, but something in the 5.4" form factor every 3-4 years would obviously have an audience. I don't care if it's a Pro or an SE/e model, I just need something that'll keep me on the latest iOS for security updates.

Sigh. Maybe the Clicks Communicator (at 13cm tall) will get my money.

dont__panic··on Block the “Upgrade to Tahoe” alerts
Much easier: switch to the Sequoia public beta channel!
dont__panic··on We rolled our own documentation site
I love the linux philosophy at work here. Pandoc is an incredible tool that every documentarian knows. Markdown is a great tool that covers 80%+ of docs requirements (admonitions and tabs are not well-defined in vanilla markdown, for instance, but you don't strictly _need_ those).

I've worked on docs at quite a few companies at this point. Almost every company I've ever seen has built a Rube Goldberg machine and totally overengineered their docs for reasons I simply can't understand. It's funniest when the overengineering doesn't even solve problems better than the vanilla solutions out there like AsciiDoctor and Sphinx. So many useless checks. So much unmaintainable javascript and styling. So many botched search and AI chat implementations. And don't even get me started on Vale, which generally just annoys the hell out of contributors instead of helping them.

Great work on the site, Tangled. Your docs site contains useful instructions and a sidebar that clearly communicates an organization structure. It doesn't peg my CPU or RAM. It's amazing how that makes your site better than 90% of docs sites out there.

One tip: could you add a favicon? Bonus points if it's slightly distinct from your main site's favicon so I can distinguish docs tabs at a glance.

dont__panic··on The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe
It's even sadder. Apple has some of the best-performing CPUs on the market. And even with that kind of power under the hood, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 26 chug and choke and drop frames. What the hell hardware did they target?
dont__panic··on The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe
Unfortunately for Apple, Linux has not rotted the same way that macOS has. Will Linux win the desktop wars through attrition because it won't suffer the same enshittification as for-profit software?

If it wasn't for Apple Silicon and its stellar impact on battery life, I'd be gone. iOS 26 might make it happen anyway!

dont__panic··on AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering
Have you considered that there is a difference between:

- food, a thing that literally every human needs every 24 hours (really 6-12) to continue to live

- GenAI, a new product with dubious value that contributes significantly to the systemic enshittification of the US and global economy?

FYI whataboutism is a well known (and honestly quite lazy) fallacy and propaganda strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

dont__panic··on The macOS Quarantine Bit Error Message Is Bad
Agreed wholeheartedly about the error message. Death by a thousand cuts to indie devs.

I'm not sure it's such a terrible idea to disable quarantining if you know what you're doing -- I think of it as more of a safety net for the truly clueless. If it annoys you a lot, disabling it is totally fine. But of course users should be aware that it's better to leave it enabled!

I'm glad OP shared a way to permanently disable it for homebrew casks, though. I didn't know that env var existed, and this is a pretty common issue for smaller casks. Take a look at the GitHub issues for any small project and you'll see just how much this comes up.

dont__panic··on Install the Pebble App Persistently on iOS
Quite the difference in installation procedure between iOS and Android :-)
dont__panic··on Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
There's been a lot of activity on Reddit and Android tech news websites. /r/Pixel4a has been absolutely busy with activity lately, lots of people asking for help.

Decent summary post here: https://www.lambdalatitudinarians.org/techblog/2025/01/09/th...

dont__panic··on Tesla FSD data is getting worse, according to beta tester self-reports
I feel the same way about my Subaru's EyeSight system. It helps me stay in the lane, and annoys me if I get distracted and cross a line. It slows down the car automatically when it detects an obstacle ahead. It speeds up and slows down automatically to maintain a mostly-steady speed when I set cruise control.

Until autonomous vehicles reach "read a book or fall asleep" levels, this is all I'm interested in. No thank you to any dumb "autopilot" system that I can't actually trust, but tries to control my wheel.

dont__panic··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
I'm pretty impressed by the KVM feature -- it's a little weird that you need to use USB A for the second computer's USB hub connection, but I'm pretty happy with it in general.

FYI: even now, monitors aren't necessarily shipping with the latest firmware. They've improved response times significantly since the early firmware, so it's likely worth your while to update the firmware when you get the monitor. Sadly you need a Windows computer to update the firmware -- if you manage to run the updater via Wine, let me know!

dont__panic··on Spreading deadly pathogens under the disguise of popular music
> Moreover, we demonstrate our attack at a real-world NPR located in an anonymous bioresearch facility, which is FDA approved and follows CDC guidelines.

Wow indeed. A real-world life hack!

dont__panic··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
Well said. In their docs they actually call out this exact issue, and mention that they'd like to improve it in the future, but it would require significant work and that's not necessarily worth it for them.

It would be nice to see a lot of competing small-fry players innovating in the email space. In an ideal world, I could just shop around between mail providers with my domain and pick whichever option provides the best price:features ratio for my needs. I was pretty keen on Proton for a while but they're diving deep in the VPN space, and their approach to encryption makes it nearly impossible to use them with simple mail apps like K9 and Apple Mail.

Much like the browser space, it's not healthy for Google to run a near-monopoly of email. We need a healthy number of alternatives out there so they can't push consumer unfriendly standards and creep more and more advertising into their email product.

dont__panic··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
Adding to this: ~30% off Keychron keyboards (https://www.keychron.com/pages/bfcm-2022) for those who've been burned by Razer peripheral drivers before. I love my keychron, if you use a Mac I think it's the nicest mech keyboard out there since they offer versions with a proper mac CMD ctrl-opt-cmd layout.
dont__panic··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
I've gotten two great "deals" this week.

The first: I bought "unlimited" worldwide maps from Osmand, which I use a TON for offline maps when I bike. It's $9.99 for unlimited worldwide offline map downloads right now. Great deal if you'd like to move away from Google Maps for navigation (not so great for business search, but it's slowly getting there!)

The second: not actually a Black Friday deal, but I recently switched to https://purelymail.com/ for email. It's a one-man show, significantly cheaper than the competition because... it's not bootstrapping some massive startup or running off VC capital. If you just want IMAP for desktop/mobile for cheap, but can't self-host because Google will throw all of your emails into spam, this is a great option. $10/year or less estimated cost. And it's fully encrypted on their servers, not used for advertising, pretty much exactly what you want if you JUST want mail.

Oh, and the Gigabyte M28U 144hz 4k 28" monitor that I use is now down to an all-time-low cost of $450. If you're looking for a beautiful monitor for your home office, this is it.

dont__panic··on Adobe now requires you to purchase a subscription to rotate PDF pages
You can remove white/back backgrounds from images as well, with the "Magic Lasso" selection tool. Adjust the selection level until it covers the object you want, cmd+c to copy that object out of the image, then cmd+n to create a new image from that selection.
dont__panic··on Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
Woah, that's wild! I've lived in mostly wooden houses in the Northeast for most of my life, and it seems to happen to one or two people in every community per year.

It's mostly a problem where I come from during power outages -- if you don't have power for 2-3 days, you might not be able to run even a propane-based heating system. But maybe the prevalance of water baseboard heating systems contributes; I imagine they're the most vulnerable pipes in the house to freezing, since they by nature sit closest to cold exterior temperatures.

One more thing I assumed was a worldwide problem, that it turns out is just a result of shoddy American building quality. Sigh.

dont__panic··on Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
That might be typical for new builds, but it varies a lot by region. Much of the northern half of the country is still burning propane, pellets/wood, or fuel oil for heat.
dont__panic··on Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
For those of us who live in a place that reaches freezing temperatures for months on end, there's no choice. If I don't heat my house, my pipes will freeze and I'll be out thousands of dollars in repair work and damage.

I turn the heat down to 55 or so (the lowest the thermostat will go) when I'm away for a few days. But I've never heard of anyone not leaving their heat on some setting for this reason. Do you live somewhere that almost never drops below freezing?

dont__panic··on Mozilla revenue 2021 increases 20%
Curiously, I actually like their reasoning behind the blog post:

> With our lives so online, our digital space can get messy with inactive and unnecessary accounts — and forgetting about them can pose a security risk.

This is a good message about web hygiene. It does feel a bit negative, though, you're right. I wish they'd focus on more balance between "big tech bad" and "try this cool open source alternative" because there are SO many cool projects out there to help you manage a music library, or personal streaming, etc.

dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Quick question: is that proper usage of "parsimoniously"? I've only seen it used as a synonym for "stingy," which is close, but not quite the same as the "succinctly" synonym usage here. But I'm aware that regions and time periods drift in word usage, so you aren't necessarily wrong.
dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
A good question to ask.

I think you're spot on about most tech companies. But I don't believe this kind of behavior will incentivize high performers to stick around. In fact, I would guess that the best employees have already left. With this kind of uncertainty and the threat of working long hours and then being fired on a whim if you disagree with Musk... ask yourself, who would stick around?

The only people I can imagine are the Musk cult worshippers and those with no other speedy alternative -- H1B holders and other similarly "stuck" people.

So basically Musk is trying to kick everyone out of the company except for his cultists (who will worship him no matter what) and the people who can't leave otherwise.

Open to alternative explanations... but even if I truly believed in a leader, I don't think I would stick around for this kind of abuse. Perhaps I'm just not "hardcore" enough to work at a social network, though.

dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Really taking that two-pizza team idea to the extreme!
dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Smart and idiot might not be mutually exclusive. I've known a lot of smart people who can act idiotic in certain circumstances. Elon could be very smart when it comes to engineering... but idiotic when it comes to running Twitter.
dont__panic··on [dead]
No remote work is a dealbreaker for me! I also refuse to work at a company with an overall negative impact on the world. As far as I can tell, Twitter's subscription walls (for essential government services) and "bubble" effect isn't making the world a better place. We can only guess about Elon's future direction for the company... but given the pay-for-verified-check snafu last week, I don't think he's trying to make the world a better place with Twitter. Maybe he's trying to make it better for Twitter power users like himself, but even that I'm not sure of.
dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Many (newly) former Twitter employees have raised concerns about essential services now left unattended.

Reports indicate the internal beta build Twitter instance has slowed down significantly this week -- a sign that services, code, or other essential infrastructure is being neglected.

Musk fired half the company and drove two-thirds of the remainder to quit. He's asking the remaining employees to print out their code contributions to prove their worth.

These things might not be explicit signs of trouble in the company, but I sure wouldn't read them as positive. A shakeup could be a good thing in the long term if the company has stagnated... but there's no guarantee.

I raised multiple explicit examples in my previous post; here's some more. I think Elon is a complete dunderhead, because it's hard not to think so based on his behavior. I still think Twitter is at a very high risk right now of collapsing. With him making such dramatic moves as CEO, isn't it impossible to separate his bad behavior from Twitter's future?

dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Well said. I think this is where the 4-day work week and WFH pushes in the software industry get their momentum: most of us don't need to work 40 hours in an office with a manager looking over our shoulder to provide that value.
dont__panic··on If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now
Elon has clearly read enough Hacker News to ask the question we've all been asking for the last... 5? 10? years. "What do all of those engineers do at [Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Netflix/Google]".

That's a fine question to ask -- it's clear that plenty of those engineers aren't contributing real value. They're working on passion projects, or side projects like React or Docusaurus, or pie-in-the-sky next-gen products, or reinventing the wheel in-house, or infrastructure, etc. Many are working on similar projects in separate silos of large companies, completely unaware that they have "twin" teams elsewhere in the org solving damn near the same problem, but not in a generalized way.

The big problem is that Elon has no idea what the fuck he is doing. I don't mean to disparage anyone, but jeez... the guy has fired thousands of people in the last few weeks and looks like he's on the cusp of running a company that's been around for over a decade into the ground in the next few weeks. Over the holidays. And who's going to deal with the issue? Oh yeah, the H1B visa holding employees who can't escape. He's officially a jerk, and that's not even counting the times when he called innocent people child molesters, or spouted lies about crypto, or tried to manipulate Tesla stock, etc. etc.

TL;DR: Elon is an idiot trying to use internet wisdom to run a company. This whole situation reminds me of when some rich person you know tries to run a small business, like a coffee shop or an ice cream shop, and they screw up just about every piece of it... because they don't get the fundamentals. Elon does NOT get the fundamentals, based on observations of him over the last few years. It's clear he's just a lucky rich kid with a big ego and lots of confidence who loves smoking weed and ruining other people's lives.

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