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errantspark

3,115 karma · joined January 24, 2012

[[my_hn_username]]@gmail.com

Madlad JS dev who also like C, Verilog and painting. Ask me about bikes. :3

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errantspark··on Dark Horse Discord
Ugh. Why would Discord, a tool for making private communities be on the hook for moderation and parental controls? Let's stop it with this tired "but think of the children" argument. It's not Discord's job to parent people's kids.
errantspark··on Dark Horse Discord
Huh, I don't know if I've ever had server issues with Discord outside of the whole thing going down once or twice in the past couple years. I've heard people complain about it and it's baffling to me. Maybe it's a regional thing, which would be unfortunate, but the USW server work great as far as I can tell and I voice chat on disc almost every night for multiple hours.

I also have everything I want hotkeyed, so I still think that "far behind" is a huge stretch at best.

errantspark··on Dark Horse Discord
Define far behind? Discord solves the low latency communication problem for me like 99.99% of the time without any sort of issue. I don't really see how you're claiming it falls far behind if the difference between it and Teamspeak/Mumble/Vent or whatever is so razor thin. I've barely noticed any issues in the past 3 years of Discord, and it was the same with the previous 4 years of Mumble and however many years of Vent and Xfire before that.
errantspark··on New 10.3″ Waveshare E Ink Monitor
The website doesn't load for me but the monitor is available here https://www.waveshare.com/product/oleds-lcds/e-paper/eink-di...

Unfortunately vendors are somehow constitutionally incapable of providing useful technical information for eInk displays. It's so frustrating that there's a huge graphic extolling it's FPGA based refresh technology but actual technical information is almost completely absent. Why can't I just get a datasheet?

I'll summarize here so other people don't have to grep through this mess.

    HDMI input
    1872×1404
    5V/3A
    ~5Hz refresh in mode A2
There are 3 modes, GC16, A2 and A2+, no technical information is provided but there are some tiny (simulated?) screenshots. It appears that mode A2, the "high refresh rate" one is purely black and white with no gray.
errantspark··on Maybe You Don't Need Kubernetes (2019)
I feel like a lot of the problems K8s solves are fake problems that we have because all our software links/imports so many libraries/packages it's impossible to tell what's going on. It feels like have built an entire infrastructure around hopefully capturing that one time we got it working and being able to reboot to that state when things go wrong.
errantspark··on We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers
Well it can't, but it doesn't matter in the way your colleagues thought it would.

Excel is a much better product than Google Sheets, but having the better product doesn't mean having the winning product.

errantspark··on 13.3" full color ePaper display
It wouldn't need an e-ink display. The backlight is separate from the display, remember the GameBoy Color? You just need a reflective layer that polarizes the light.
errantspark··on 13.3" full color ePaper display
Neither do most of the other common display technologies available to us!

EDIT: Can't reply to TeMPOraL, but I think that's not true, they need polarized light. I'm not an expert on this but my intuition is there are unrealized advances to be made in the field of reflective LCD-based displays. I just don't think there's much demand to research these applications and connect the dots. I would be surprised if you couldn't make a pretty decent, high refresh rate reflective display using an LCD based approach.

errantspark··on 13.3" full color ePaper display
I don't know if anyone is really working on this, the "killer feature" of eInk is that the display only draws power when it's refreshing. You can drive them much faster, iirc there have been several proof of concepts using extant consumer screens going at 60Hz, so it's totally possible. I just don't think there's much market for it and I bet it stresses the tech in weird ways to run it that fast. Definitely possible though.
errantspark··on 13.3" full color ePaper display
Looks like fun! Perhaps another thing to add to my box of barely used devkits. I've clicked through their site but I'm not seeing a real data sheet or any information about the gamut etc. Did I just miss it?
errantspark··on Laptop OEMs – make a proper high-end AMD laptop
It's not rocket science. I've run a 30% overclock on a machine with 80% daily uptime on air and saw it BSOD like twice over 4 years. Also as some other people in this thread have mentioned, modern CPUs will overclock themselves, and if you undervolt you can get quite a lot of headroom, especially if you get lucky with binning. With that headroom and some hackery (Throttlestop is often all you need) you can get modern chips to hold all core turbos indefinitely. YMMV but I've managed to hold a stable 35% increase in sustained processing power without running too close to the thermal limits.
errantspark··on Laptop OEMs – make a proper high-end AMD laptop
This is how I'm rolling these days (HP Spectre 13" + 1080Ti inside an Akitio Node) and it's not without it's issues, but overall I'm very bullish on this type of thing. I would love for a similar AMD powered laptop, especially if they would let me mess with the fan curves etc. With some hackery my Spectre can be configured to a 20W up-TDP state over it's normal 15W, and when connected to the node I can have it in tent-mode, which improves the cooling a fair bit, as long as the fans stay on full blast (which unfortunately can only be achieved by pushing it to the thermal limit briefly) it stays at a nice ~80C at 25C ambient under all core loads. I manage 240FPS in Overwatch, it's fantastic.

This being said I opted for the 1080p screen (wish it was 1200p) and I personally see little reason to get a UHD screen in a laptop this size, it would be nice if it was a 10 bit HDR OLED screen with 400nits, but I can definitely live without the extra resolution, it's pretty meaningless on a screen this small, and most of the time when I'm at home I'm using a 144Hz gaming panel anyway.

errantspark··on Using nudes to get donations worth $100k+ for the Australia fires (NSFW)
I'm going to have to hard disagree. I think the fact that sex has value should be respected and it's problematic to pretend otherwise. I honestly think that stuff like this, and the proliferation of camgirl/insta culture in general is a trend in a really good direction.
errantspark··on A Desperate Plea for a Free Software Alternative to Aspera (2018)
You're not wrong, but the opening statement "Zip is now effectively obsolete." is sort of true but not really in a lot of contexts. It isn't something I'd say with conviction.

From your point of view was the implied statement something akin to: "In the context of a high-throughput network transfer program choosing DEFLATE over an algorithm more well optimized for computational weight wouldn't be a good idea." ?

errantspark··on Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?
I haven't really done any serious 3D work in a few years but my impression was that there are already a few popular UV auto-unwrappers and techniques like Ptex that avoid UVs entirely. I was looking at the maps produced in the demos on your page and they're definitely not like anything I'd produce or want to paint by hand. I assume that's not the point, but rather to use tools like Substance Painter or Mari right?

I guess I'm just surprised that this niche is worth 7 figures. That's awesome.

errantspark··on Linux doesn't have Photoshop
I haven't seriously taken a look at gimp in ages if I'm honest, but iirc it still doesn't have adjustment layers or support for more than 8bpp or color spaces other than RGB. The UI being awful is a major point against too, as is the poor performance. I'm sure there are use-cases where gimp is equivalent to Photoshop. I primarily use Photoshop in 16bit Lab color, so just off that it's a no-go.
errantspark··on Linux doesn't have Photoshop
Honestly because this person is incorrect in their supposition that Krita competes with Photoshop. Gimp competes with Photoshop (extremely poorly), Krita is OSS Corel Painter and it's great at that. They're all image editing tools sure, but the focus is different.
errantspark··on StackExchange offers 'possible reinstatement' to moderator removed over pronouns
Can you cite that first sentence? I have never seen that PoV from Monica. IIRC the issue was that she preferred to use a gender-less style of writing even when someone preferred a specific pronoun. More to the point she didn't refuse to do anything, she was asking clarification questions in a private chat room.
errantspark··on StackExchange offers 'possible reinstatement' to moderator removed over pronouns
It wasn't the company, it was an individual of high visibility employed at the company. SO chose to circle the wagons and stick to their guns. The actions of the SO representative were hasty, frankly in my view pattern match much more closely to knee jerk emotional defense of a protected class than anything else.

I'm all for LGBTQ+ rights and I get that in the real world this sometimes means being uncompromising. Fighting for equality is complex.

Here's what went down.

The mod made statements that vaguely pattern match as onerous hair splitting in order to undermine LGBTQ+ rights. They did this in a private setting and there was absolutely no history that would imply they were trying to push an ulterior motive.

The SO representative identifies strongly as a defender of LGBTQ+ rights and viewed this as "definitely this person doesn't think LGPTQ+ people should have rights" and de-modded them.

SO made the initial choice to circle the wagons and back up one of their own and then got stuck hard on that path for months even when it became clear they'd made a mistake. It's a problem with management and it's not going to be solved without changes in management. A sorry would have sufficed if it had come many months ago. The SO rep just needed to admit to being human and making a bad call.

(P.S. this whole row was over the style in which I've written this post, the new code of conduct would have me use gender specific pronouns if the preferred pronouns of the subjects are known and using a genderless style of writing would be against it)

errantspark··on Cheating in Programming
I'm not sure I'd agree. Sometimes it really pays to play to your strengths. I've had jobs that were odd-work and putting out fires for a few years now and I've never been happier. I'm good at that

Programming-wise it isn't as hard to find as you might think. Maybe not working FAAMG or similar, but it's quite doable. If you don't compromise on the desire to work only on interesting* stuff when a big paycheck comes along, you'll eventually end up in a position where you only work on interesting stuff. The gamut of work is wide.

To be honest such work isn't even that rare. Most people would rather make $200k and complain about how boring their job is than have an interesting one. I think for many people "interesting work" is often the same as "stressful work" and so the interesting positions are not as easily filled.

[*] Interesting as defined by me, and probably the parent poster as well. Obviously this is subjective.

errantspark··on French executives convicted in the suicides of 35 of their workers
Anyone else feel like they're on crazy pills? How is engineering a culture so toxic it causes dozens of people to kill themselves specifically to circumvent worker protections worth only what amounts to the punishment of a speeding ticket or other minor transgression for a poor person (proportionally)?

Like I get it, I should be glad an executive was held to account for anything. But this is a tiny step and we got a looong way to go before we get to liberté, égalité, fraternité.

It seems that with great power comes great wealth and an almost complete lack of accountability.

I would like to live in a world where the link between power and responsibility was much more aggressively enforced. I've worked in places where corners were cut constantly, endangering workers in pursuit of the bottom line, I'm sure it's more or less the norm. The executives shouldn't be able to sleep at night for fear of the complete destruction of their lives for their transgressions. It should be life in prison with no possibility of parole, not a fine.

Even something like buying an SUV should map to greater punishments. It's well known that you're much more likely to kill a pedestrian with a car that has a high grille. The law should enforce a greater level of responsibility on the people who chose to inflict greater risk on the lives of others.

errantspark··on JavaScript Cryptography Considered Harmful (2011)
My intuition is that if you wanted to (you probably shouldn't) you could implement reasonably secure client side crypto with WASM. Also correct me if I'm wrong but even in 2011 you could "securely erase" data in the browser by operating on typed arrays.

WebCrypto helps by providing a cryptographically secure RNG, that's not nothing.

FWIW I'm not trying to say the gist of the article isn't spot on, but I think the tools are more or less there these days to do the thing, even if it is absurdly easy to mess it up and there's no real good reason to try.

errantspark··on So Where’s My Low Voltage DC Wall Socket?
I have to deal with this problem constantly and I haven't figured out a good solution yet. I'm not sure this is particularly meaningful in a normal mains-connected environment but as someone who's base power source is a finite amount of 24v DC, I hate eating the inversion losses when I could save ~7-16% using switching supplies off the main bus.

Currently everything I have is connected up with a hodgepodge of those green pluggable terminal blocks. It's not an elegant solution but it's hard to standardize on something, especially when I have devices that run off 5, 9, 12, 24 and 48 volts. I still run an inverter most of the time (I have two, pure and modified depending on the load).

I think it's possible to devise a decent solution here, I like the XLR based designs but I'm afraid of plugging things into the wrong voltage. I think maybe the good solution is to make a color-mapping for the common voltages up to 48v (past that you require an electrician to do wiring in the US iirc) and then make cables that are XLR on one end, and whatever-plug on the other end with an LED that lights up corresponding to the voltage. That way you know if your barrel jack is 12 or 5. It doesn't have to be foolproof, or even customer friendly really. People setting up DC buses to run all their electronics should be able to accept the responsibility of frying something if they give it too much juice.

errantspark··on Terence Tao Proves Result on the Collatz Conjecture
it really is fantastic how simple it is to express, i sketched in the console as i was reading the article

    n=>n-1?n%2?c(n/2):c(n*3+1):1
errantspark··on How Is NordVPN Unblocking Disney+?
> Just set up your own.

This entire thread is about using a VPN to watch Disney+ outside of geo restrictions. Many many people use VPNs for this purpose and no other. You can't trivially do this on your own at all. You're making it seems simple, getting an VPS with an IP that won't automatically be banned by all sorts of services looking to protect themselves against botnets and the exact sort of geofence hopping that people want to do is extremely difficult.

errantspark··on Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors
I'm just commenting to save what might be the saltiest comment I've ever seen on HN. I bet you're very fun at parties.
errantspark··on The ghosts of technology in today’s language (2018)
Ahahah, came here to mention this. You beat me to it! Also called "balls to the wall".
errantspark··on An update on YC China
I was hoping for a denouncement of China's actions in Hong Kong. One can dream.
errantspark··on SpaceX's Starship Mk1 just blew off its bulkhead in a pressurization accident
I'm guessing something in the 3:2 range on payload to structure ratio.
errantspark··on SpaceX's Starship Mk1 just blew off its bulkhead in a pressurization accident
You're actually spot on. For example the Space Shuttle main tank had a 96:4 contents:structure ratio[0]. A soda can is 94:6.

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/exped...

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