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mesofile

780 karma · joined July 29, 2012

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mesofile··on Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?
Why wouldn't you? The DC area economy, especially the tech economy hasn't been wholly oriented around government & defense in decades. A lot of early Internet services grew up around network backbones built in Northern Virginia (for defense purposes originally, yes) and though it's less visible than in the days when AOL was hot shit, there's still a world of tech jobs around here that aren't directly connected to gov/mil.

And, while I admit I'm biased as a resident of the area, on a lot of objective measures it's a pretty nice place to be if you can swing the cost of living. Lots of well-educated high earners, world-class museums with free admission, relatively easy access to green spaces, and a range of transit options instead of being confined to a car like most of the US. It most certainly has its problems but it's got lots of upsides as well.

mesofile··on Making Sandspiel
I love Noita, though I could only really enjoy it after installing a save mod. I don’t care about the roguelike ethos enough, don’t have the time to get gud enough to make that feel thrilling, and there’s too much wonder in the exploring the game world’s further reaches to miss out on for a casual like myself.
mesofile··on Astronautilia
Dinner For One [0] is a prominent example of a minor production in one language becoming unaccountably famous in another, to the point that certain lines became standard catchphrases in the adoptive culture — in this case, German.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One

mesofile··on Heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future
We also had a drainage problem after ours were installed. We were very fortunate that another, more experienced tech from the same company came by to follow up on a different issue and took it on themselves to inspect the drain line. It would have leaked into our wall for a long time before it became apparent something was wrong. These units (ours are also Daikin) are a dream to operate but you definitely need to triple-check the drainage on first run.
mesofile··on The “Wavefunction Collapse” generation algorithm explained clearly (2018)
Another great explanation (also in a game-development context) here [0], previously discussed here [1]

[0] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/blogs/how-townscaper-works-a-s... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31799818

mesofile··on At least 1,400 US-based ethnic Chinese scientists exited American institutions
Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/jqukI
mesofile··on SEC charges owners of New Jersey Deli with a $100M Valuation
Previous discussions:

– Single New Jersey deli boasts a $105M market cap, despite $14K in sales https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26836367

– Everyone Loves the $100M Deli https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26867465

mesofile··on Ron Turner Cover Collection
A gallery of sci fi pulp covers painted by british illustrator and comics artist Ron Turner for british pulp magazines in the 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Turner_(illustrator)

mesofile··on I wish I was a little bit taller
I like TallSlim Tees [0] – pricey for what they are, quality-wise, but for me it's worth it to get a good fit for once. I have a similar build to GP (191cm, ~77kg) and wear a size medium in these. Very nice not needing to clad myself in a billowing sail just so my shirt can reach past my belt

[0] https://tallslimtees.com/

mesofile··on Percy Crosby's Last Masterpiece: Kings Park Psychiatric Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
mesofile··on ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed
Direct link to ruling: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22077446-shotspotter...

Original Vice News story: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-sh...

Previous discussion of above story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959755

Previous related discussion: "A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28264686

mesofile··on As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick
I thought the way that South Park put it (in the voice of Randy Marsh) many years ago was just about perfect:

“Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and ...it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorists, but... Well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored and... It's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or... being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything.” [0]

To be clear, I don’t wholly agree, I know too many talented and hard-working stoners, but it does sum up the passive danger of cannabis rather nicely I think.

[0] https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/My_Future_Self_n%27_Me/Scr...

mesofile··on SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
> Howard Hughes was mentally ill

Not his entire career, his later decline became famous due to the scope of wealth and influence that allowed him to indulge in some truly eccentric behavior, but he didn't build said wealth & influence peeing in jars.

> never built anything important (although had a shitload of failures, like the wooden airplane)

Never built anything? How about Las Vegas? Or the several companies he founded and ran successfully across wildly divergent fields? The man designed, built and flew an aircraft that broke world speed records at the time.

> inherited a lot of his initial money and revenue streams

Seriously? Do you not know Musk's family background?

Actually the more I think about it the more I think mint2's comparison was apt, Musk really is a Hughes-like figure, quite brilliant in ways, but with a powerful thirst for publicity and corresponding need to control his image. I could see his paranoid tendencies tending to dominate in the years to come, especially if his halo fully disintegrates

mesofile··on The Washington Post's open-source design system
Also across devices, was my first thought; and across mediums – all media outlets have to publish to Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple News etc these days
mesofile··on The Curious Case of August Engelhardt, Leader of a Coconut-Obsessed Cult (2017)
Strangely enough, not the only instance of a spiritual movement centered around coconuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_Religion
mesofile··on Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine
Agreed, I think Chotiner was simply not being politely deferential, as has become the custom for interviews in many US media outlets. It reads to me much more like the modern custom in UK/EU media where interviewers are expected to challenge, at least to some extent, the interviewee's salient arguments. This can come across as somewhat rude, but I much prefer it to the alternative, which is that interviews become carte blanche opportunities for influential people to push unfounded assertions directly into the news stream.
mesofile··on A 10-Year-Old Nuclear-Blast Simulator Is Popular Again
I posted this interview partly because the recent bump in interest in his site and its attendant uptime problems has apparently spurred him to update its provisioning. As he points out, this is a side project by a non-IT professional created years ago, and he's had to get up to speed on the latest best practices in a hurry. From the interview:

> It’s taken up a lot of my time the last week to figure out how to fix the site to give access to those who want it. I’ve spent a couple of days rebuilding the server from the bottom. I’m sitting around looking up best practices for server maintenance and talking to people on forums to learn more. I’m pretty computer-savvy for a historian, but I’m still having trouble parsing things written for full-time engineers.

I always have a lot of admiration for non-experts who wade in and learn enough in a short time to build a site that can draw and support a global audience.

mesofile··on Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?
Two suggestions to add to the many excellent ones already here:

Arthur Wesley Dow’s Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected From a New System of Art Education [0] is a wonderful, wonderful book in the public domain – recently submitted here but didn't get much attention. It is well worth spending a lot of time studying its exercises and examples.

[0] https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dow-composition/

My second suggestion is more general but it worked wonders for me. I had a teacher years ago whose take-home assignments consisted of extremely rudimentary drawing exercises, starting with drawing a series of straight lines in parallel across a page, then moving on to squares, circles etc but always basic geometric shapes. His point was that drawing is, at its most basic level, a physical skill like many others which require physical and neurological adaptations that can only be improved with practice. In addition to the creating these lines and shapes, one was obliged to pay strict attention to their relation to other marks on the page – your circles could not overlap, for example, and your straight lines must run parallel and start and end at the same page border. The lines had to start and end very definitely at the correct point. He was also keen to examine and correct each student's physical stance in relation to the easel, the light, and the subject, and insisted we draw from the shoulder, not the elbow or wrist, as much as possible. The goal was to train one's whole body to gain full control over where the instrument marks the page.

For some students this practically remedial approach seemed almost insulting and a few would balk at it, but it was just incredible how much even very mediocre drafting skills improved when these exercises were applied diligently, including my own. I'm sorry that I don't know a name for this pedagogical system or a book that explains it.

mesofile··on The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
I think what's been even more effective than moderation for Metafilter is the imposition of a $5 flat fee to join. I would happily pay as much to stay on HN. A very affordable and worthwhile purchase for an individual, but a significant economic barrier for bot farms.
mesofile··on Safari: Point to specific bugs and missing support that frustrate you
FYI, it seems that RES is being EOL'd [0]. The linked announcement describes how the contributing developers have dwindled down to only two people. I am curious how this situation will evolve, or if it will, since I also dislike using Reddit without the enhancement suite.

Edit: link to HN discussion from last week [1]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/RESAnnouncements/comments/sh83gx/an... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30157233

mesofile··on A tale of two translators, caught between civilisations
TFA confuses the senior George Leonard Staunton [0], the lieutenant of George Macartney, with his son, George Thomas Staunton [1], the 12-year-old interpreter who is apparently one of two primary subjects of the book under review.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_George_Staunton,_1st_Baron... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_George_Staunton,_2nd_Baron...

mesofile··on The Tesla-Financial Complex
https://archive.md/2V7cL
mesofile··on Bikeshare riders respond to bad weather
I did not link directly to the study discussed in this article because it is only available as a PDF and over an insecure connection, but if you would like to skip to the source, it is here: http://elvumgar.fea.st/papers/Bike_Sharing_accepted.pdf
mesofile··on Microsoft is force installing PC Health Check in Windows 10
As noted in the article, PC Health Check's "primary use has been to analyze a device's hardware to check if it's compatible with Windows 11." A wide range of Windows 10 users will see this check permanently and uselessly 'failing' for them whenever they open Windows Update.
mesofile··on Gentle Introduction to Realtime Fluid Simulation for Programmers and Artists
Can you link some examples?
mesofile··on Baltimore Museum of Art will host an exhibition curated by the museum's guards
For any art aficionados visiting Baltimore, I'd also recommend the American Visionary Art Museum, a fantastic experience. https://www.avam.org/
mesofile··on All Is Orwell
> "It is often the contradictions in an individual’s character that give it distinction; in the case of Orwell, these were more marked and more numerous than in most, but it is not clear whether he was even aware of them."

I gave up right there, this was so grossly condescending to its subject. Orwell was not aware of his own contradictions? Has the author ever actually read any Orwell?

mesofile··on How Sex Surrogates Are Helping Injured Israeli Soldiers
In front of a judge, or just on HN?
mesofile··on The TTY Demystified (2008)
A veritable Internet classic, well worth a read by anyone who uses a text terminal -- real or emulated.

Previous discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=TTY+Demystified

mesofile··on No, I did not hack your MS Exchange server
When I visit Italy I’m often impressed by the physical lock & key systems in use even in pretty humble domiciles. Those keys look incredibly complex compared to anything I normally see in the US short of, say, a Mult-T-Lock.
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