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gia_ferrari

88 karma · joined December 18, 2023

Find me at https://giferrari.net/

I work at Govstream.ai. Slow permitting blocks progress - from housing to business. Agree? We are looking for any civic impact minded individual with technical aptitude.

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gia_ferrari··on A Koi Pond Mosaic Made from 10 Pounds of 3D Printer Waste
For most people, waste -> filament recycling is a red herring (cost and time). Happy to see people thinking more laterally. I use an old toaster oven ($5 used) to fabricate round stock (fill old aluminum drink cans with waste, melt it down) and sheet stock (crush the melt between flat surfaces). I then use this material for all sorts of things (it makes beautiful marbled vases on the lathe, for example). There's almost zero net waste in this process (I recycle the cans).

More uses I have in mind:

- PLA drift sleeves for go karts (they're typically ABS, which, if you care about plastic in the environment, is a laughably bad choice for something which is intended to be ground to a fine powder in use)

- Stool (melt plastic into shallow cylindrical mold, push legs into melt)

- Decorative trim/picture frames (need a profiled router bit)

etc etc

Check Brothers Make on YT, they are the source of my inspiration.

gia_ferrari··on The state of modern AI text to speech systems for screen reader users
Audio synthesis speed is one thing, but is the output _intelligible to a human_ at 1,000wpm? That's the sort of thing Eloquence is being used for, according to the article.
gia_ferrari··on A shift in developer culture is impacting innovation and creativity
There are current efforts along these lines! For example, permitting is a huge bottleneck - software could be part of the solution (carefully and thoughtfully integrated, of course).

Disclosure: I work at govstream.ai - we work in this space [we're hiring!]

gia_ferrari··on Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility
I recently bought a really cheap Android Auto screen for my car. It had a USB-C power input. Suspicious, I opened up the supplied cigarette power adapter. The USB power pins were hooked straight to the car battery rail. On most vehicles that's connected straight back to the alternator. Hilarious. I wonder how many people fried their phones because they thought "oh, I forgot my charging cable, but I can borrow my nav screen's for a bit"...
gia_ferrari··on Ask HN: Do custom ROMs exist for electric cars, for example Teslas?
For full open source, there's Speeduino and FOME (newer). I've used both for my cars. https://speeduino.com/home/ https://wiki.fome.tech/
gia_ferrari··on Ask HN: How can I recover and run my old mobile game from the 2010s?
+1. My basic structure is a big share/ directory that is mounted on all my machines (over sshfs + tailscale if need be). There's some basic top-level organization (Projects, Financial Documents, Photos) but other than that, the key thing for me was a Projects/Active/, Projects/Ice/, Projects/Done folder that I move things between. If I don't know where to file a thing, I just make a new folder under Projects/Active/, keep an eye on your workflow, and reorganize if you see an issue. Stick to the process, not the plan[1].

The absolute worst approach I tried was to curate things. Nothing got filed. Embracing the chaos allowed the pattern to evolve around my revealed workflows, and now after a couple years I pretty much know where to instantly find or file things.

[1] https://youtu.be/7D8sXR0ozeE?feature=shared&t=4474

gia_ferrari··on Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team
Not op, but in my bubble:

- DRM. - Owner-unfriendly device locks (such as manufacturer-controlled secure boot or locked-down OSes). - Inability to audit network traffic from one's own devices, i.e. an IoT device. - Remote attestation, when in opposition to open computing.

I could also see folks seeing the use of cryptography as "having something to hide" - I don't personally agree.

gia_ferrari··on Windows XP Professional
On a whim a few years ago I wrote an engineering proposal on my Pentium MMX using Word 2003. It opened within 2 seconds via the aging hard disk. Today even LibreOffice feels a bit overwrought. I've found AbiWord delightful recently - it's the WordPad analog of LibreOffice.
gia_ferrari··on Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
Super, I'll check it out. I'm on Firefox in Linux (Kubuntu) using a plain old mouse - pretty sure I tried a right click pan. I tried again and it still didn't work. Also- clicking around on the canvas I get: Uncaught ReferenceError: TouchEvent is not defined Ks https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302 Ia https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302
gia_ferrari··on Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
Thanks for the reply! If this information were available on the landing page, I'd have felt a lot more comfortable investing the time to try the tool out. I do appreciate how far you can explore even without an account.

Couple more ideas for the landing page:

- Provide links to examples of generated exports in the formats you support, so folks can get a feel for how it might integrate into their workflow.

- The elements under "Everything You Need for Cable Design" animate as though they're interactive, but clicking them does nothing. Confused me for a bit.

- Page is very hard to read on mobile.

Other thoughts:

- I wasn't able to figure out how to pan the editor view around.

- Adding some sort of json/yaml/xml import/export would open up a lot more workflow possibilities. For example, I want to associate a harness version with a git tag, without needing to manually make a copy of a harness version in the app. Git (and/or github) integration would be great. Honestly, even an opaque blob export would be tolerable.

gia_ferrari··on Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
Separately from the software itself, I'm left with questions about the context in which this tool is provided.

- Is this a passion project? Commercial? Is it free? Will it always be free? What's the pricing model? - How do I get in contact? - Is there a company behind this? - If I start using this, can I hold on to/export the data in usable form?

gia_ferrari··on Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
They specify different things. The wire side of a bulkhead connector may be male or female. Some connectors (i.e. the Molex ones you used to see at Radio Shack) are even designed so you can make a custom arrangement of male/female contacts within one connector housing.
gia_ferrari··on Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
Or unplugging the internal antennas. Only on equipment you own, of course.
gia_ferrari··on Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
If you're on a cheaper lower speed subscription, you can often find compatible modems at thrift stores for a couple dollars. People upgrade to faster tiers and unload their old perfectly serviceable equipment good for a couple hundred megabits - fine for most needs.
gia_ferrari··on Show HN: I’ve built an IoT device to let my family know when I’m in a meeting
I just rigged up something similar: a DBUS listener for PulseAudio mic activity that publishes MQTT events to Home Assistant via discovery. No device config needed. I use hallway RGB lights to signal status ("purple = I'm in a meeting"). Quick and easy setup, I already had the RGB lights for mood lighting. Runs as a user systemd unit.
gia_ferrari··on YouTube DRM added on ALL videos with TV (TVHTML5) clients
I use it indirectly via Tube Archivist to get vastly better search. I've mirrored most technical stuff I've seen, and I can do fine-grained text search over video descriptions, audio transcripts, and even comments. This happens live, in milliseconds, and vastly outperforms Google's own search (which is optimized on vibes). Very helpful when I want to quickly and directly jump to a part that mentions a keyword.

I also use it to archive videos of personal significance.

Finally, I sometimes use resource-constrained computers (say, in my shop). The native video players are much more responsive than the official website.

gia_ferrari··on Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?
I trained a Markov chain on a rushed project's JIRA backlog and created a game for our team celebration. The game, playable on a Zipit Z2 handheld (think GameBoy SP with a keyboard, ran Debian), challenged players to distinguish real tickets from Markov-generated ones. Its popularity, even among executives, underscored my point: the tickets lacked utility.
gia_ferrari··on London–Calcutta Bus Service
There are photos in the article references! I didn't find one of the kitchen.

https://curlytales.com/this-was-the-worlds-longest-bus-route... https://www.techtraveleat.com/story-of-london-culcutta-bus-s...

gia_ferrari··on With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work
I run a local Tube Archivist mirror and having live, predictable full-text search of descriptions, transcripts, and user comments has been a breath of fresh air (it's backed by ElasticSearch, so you can go full-contact if needed). I appreciate YouTube's official search for its accessibility, speed, and spooky "it knew what I meant" ability, but it's a tragedy that this is the only supported way to search their library. I consider YouTube's archive a wonder of the world, and it's a shame that it is locked behind an engagement-polluted interface.
gia_ferrari··on Tiny Undervalued Hardware Companions
They're also a cheap and easy source of tape heads for projects/replacements.
gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
I've noticed that here as well, specifically with Proton. Some sort of cultural quirk I suppose. I'll keep using their service, until I see some more tangible criticism on their security. I've had positive experiences overall. Yes the extra security makes some things harder, like searching. That is a fair tradeoff for me.

Only real complaint I have is that Proton Drive is web-only. No supported API, either. We desperately need a Linux CLI and/or sync tool.

Edit: I meant a Linux tool. There are windows/mac/ios/android apps. Updated my post.

gia_ferrari··on Tiny quadrotor learns to fly in 18 seconds
I really don't follow. Define programming in your context? Is it distinct from encoding physical structures like wings? Is it meaningful to separate physical structures and structures invoking physical behavior?

A column of rock erodes, and a piece falls. The piece did not learn to fall. It just _did_, subject to the rules that governed the process of its creation (different meaning) and its environment.

gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
True. It still hurts though. I _want_ to care. I do my best work, with least effort, when I'm solving a real problem with people I care about.

I enjoy thinking back about stuff I made, knowing it's out there doing its job.

I can separate out my work (which, lest we forget, is the majority of my waking hours, because of the reality of working a full time job) but that's not particularly good for my mental health either. It's part of the reason I am looking to branch out my career into a different, perhaps more durable sphere.

All I'm saying is, if it's affecting you, changing aspects about your career is valid. Just getting used to it doesn't work for me, despite it being fine for others.

gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
Are you suggesting they had a data loss? Or is this a quip?
gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
Could also be that privacy-conscious users are not easy to make money from with a free service. Ten gigs of email is a lot of email. I wonder what the percentage of paying users was.
gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
Was it an aspect of Proton that made you switch? Seeing it get mentioned negatively all over this comment section is making me a little concerned.
gia_ferrari··on Privacy focused platform Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset
Sorry, what's the news on Proton?
gia_ferrari··on Can You Live Code a Church Organ? [video]
This kind of music speaks to me in ways beyond what I feel from most "mainstream" music. Not liking it is fine, but please don't denigrate my enjoyment of it. It kills curious discussion. What is your definition of "actual music"?
gia_ferrari··on Brave browser simplifies its fingerprinting protections
You're referring to the visualization in this article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
gia_ferrari··on iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail
My mom's iphone was dropped somewhere in the alps and found a year later by a hiker. Still worked after a charge, in fact the phone itself gave the hiker enough info to get it returned. My sister's phone fell out of a bike basket and was repeatedly run over by cars. We used the "find my" feature and found it in the gutter, screen pulverized, in the shape of a banana but still operational and communicative over USB. Tech can be surprisingly resilient if it doesn't suffer moisture incursion. Or it can die just sitting there like my old laptop's screen. Turned it off a month ago, put it on the shelf, tried to use it yesterday, only the hdmi port gives video.
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