HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

slantyyz

5,598 karma · joined April 24, 2010

submissionscomments
slantyyz··on I tasted Honda’s spicy rodent-repelling tape and I will do it again (2021)
Reflective bird tape might work. For me, it was effective in preventing birds from attempting to build a nest on my transom window.
slantyyz··on How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed
Not to mention that the Sienna hybrid gets crazy good fuel economy for a mini van.
slantyyz··on Ask HN: Why did consumer 3D printing take so long to be invented?
The Thunderscan, for the time, was pretty awesome though. I remember borrowing one from a classmate to make some scans. Given how we keep a document scanner in our pocket these days, the whole notion of sticking a scanner into a printer seems so antiquated and kinda crazy.
slantyyz··on Ask HN: How to finish last 30% of a side project?
Agree. Calling it done and using it might be the best approach.

If this is truly a "small project for myself", start using it.

If the app mostly does what you want, and you enjoy using the app, anything in the last 30% that you feel like you need - you'll be motivated to fix.

Also, drop the tests. I'm not sure there's a lot of benefit in doing that for a web page editor you wrote for yourself.

slantyyz··on Haiku OS: The Open Source BeOS You Can Daily Drive in 2024
I disagree, but only slightly, Windows 2000 was my personal favorite, especially for its version of Windows Explorer.
slantyyz··on GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe
If you find that bewildering, maybe it's a generational thing. I've been driving for around 35 years, and I never really found it too hard going from one car to another before the LCD era.

At this point, I'm trying to avoid buying a new car, because I don't want a car where I have to put a key in a faraday cage, etc. I don't want to use my phone to unlock my car. To me, these "modern conveniences" have gone so far out of control that they're an inconvenience, and sometimes even dangerous.

slantyyz··on Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted
> Google should have been required to be up front about their definition of unlimited

Well, unless the definition of unlimited is actually unlimited as in "no limits", you shouldn't be allowed to use the word in any marketing material.

If a company can go around saying "Unlimited means there's a limit", then that's just nuts.

slantyyz··on Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted
> expect it to be free forever.

Where does it say he expected it to be free? In the article, there's a tweet that says "So I paid Google a lot of money for a long time for a plan that included unlimited storage"

To me, the bigger problem is that companies are allowed to offer "unlimited" anything in their marketing copy.

slantyyz··on GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe
I dunno, my 18 year old Honda (and wife's Toyota of same age) is pretty much all physical switches (and that's not counting all the cars I've driven since the late 80s). Outside of the occasional manufacturer idiosyncrasies, my Honda's controls pretty much behave the same way that all my prior cars did too.

Yes, there are a lot, but I only use a handful of them at any given time. They work predictably, without any random lags related to CPU load or any other weird stuff that could be related to running a -large- complex operating system. Everything just works, and all the time. -- edit: might want to add that they don't need software upgrades either

I would prefer that over a touchscreen any day.

slantyyz··on GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe
I'm probably in the minority of the minority, but I don't want a touch screen in my car. Or even any big LCD screen in my car. I would prefer my car to be relatively dumb, and free of distractions where possible.
slantyyz··on How likely is losing a Google account?
I've been on Fastmail for almost a year, and I get spam/obvious phishing attempts in my inbox. Compared to my experience with GMail before switching to Fastmail, I found Gmail to be noticeably better at spotting and filtering both spam and phishing emails.

Having said that, I'm still not going back to Gmail.

slantyyz··on Teams is killing my Mac every day
They are just a bookmark, but on Windows, they become a first class citizen on your task bar.

If you are the type to have a ton of tabs open across many windows, this also makes the "app" easier to spot.

You can also pin the app to the taskbar and have it launch with Windows.

slantyyz··on PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities
Which would be easily resolved by having them off by default?

Having said that, I don't know how window snapping being on by default isn't incredibly frustrating for someone who is simply trying to precisely position a window near a corner only to have it snap in a way they didn't want it to.

slantyyz··on PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities
For those situations, there are wobbling mouse platforms that effectively do the same thing as a plug-in USB mouse jiggler.
slantyyz··on Lenovo announces the first Arm-based ThinkPad
> 95% of the time it's a better resolution for doing things like coding and spreadsheets.

Depends on the use case. my wife (accountant) lives in Excel, and I set her up with two 21:9 monitors side by side (42:9 overall) and she loves that setup compared to the one she has in the office.

slantyyz··on Lenovo announces the first Arm-based ThinkPad
If you're authoring 16:9 content, you can display 1080p video at native resolution with UI controls on a 2560x1440 monitor, which is also 16:9.

16:10 in a vacuum is a useless metric. Real world stuff like actual resolution, screen dimensions, font sizes, scaling, etc. only make 16:10 ambiguously better.

slantyyz··on Five major Canadian banks mysteriously go offline in hours-long outage
> Doesn't really explain all the major banks going offline at around the same time. https://twitter.com/AB_inmate/status/1494079461347643392

I'm not sure I understand how that tweet offers proof the banks went offline. Only one of the four charts in that tweet shows a number of reports that I would consider significant (3000 vs less than a hundred for the other three).

slantyyz··on Five major Canadian banks mysteriously go offline in hours-long outage
> These 5 banks do not share infrastructure.

Don't they all use Interac for a variety of services including e-transfers?

slantyyz··on Ask HN: Software you hate but can't replace?
Is that a thing?

Outside of SMS, I only use Skype, Slack and Whatsapp for instant messaging, and in terms of spam, SMS, which is bound to my number, gets the most spam, which is already quite rare.

slantyyz··on Ask HN: Software you hate but can't replace?
That it binds to your cell phone number, and that I can't run the web client on an Android tablet (at least the last time I tried).
slantyyz··on My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi
Sadly, I don't think dishwashers will last 20 years any more. Since 2005, I'm on my third dishwasher. The first one lasted 9 years, the second one around 5 (with one under warranty repair).

At some point the repairs/parts cost more than what the original dishwasher is worth.

Regarding the algorithm, I'm not sure they make a huge difference anyways. FWIW, The Technology Connections channel on YouTube has a couple of pretty interesting videos on how dishwashers work and how to get the most out of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6-eGDpimU

slantyyz··on My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi
Also, since dishwashers are "supposed to" last 10 years or more, they may force you to keep an older version of Wifi available on your network (e.g., 2.4ghz n) when all of your other devices may be on the latest version.
slantyyz··on Ask HN: What are options to replace “G Suite legacy” when it's retired in May?
From what I understand you can use a custom domain on the personal/family plans, but if you're aliasing emails (e.g. info@yourdomain, notify@yourdomain) to a single address, you need the business plans.
slantyyz··on Ask HN: What are options to replace “G Suite legacy” when it's retired in May?
Also, if you are using your GSuite account with Google Play, any purchases you made could be lost.
slantyyz··on Ask HN: What are options to replace “G Suite legacy” when it's retired in May?
I looked into this as an option, and it's worth mentioning - if you need email aliases, you'll need a Business 365 account, not a Personal 365 account.

The Basic (lowest tier) Business account is roughly same price as the personal 365 account, but I believe they are completely different services. If you have an existing personal 365 account, I don't believe there is a seamless switchover to a business account. You will need to create a business account separately.

slantyyz··on Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills
> I have stacks of class action letters and in almost every case I get exactly zero...

I was pleasantly surprised when I got around $250 CAD from a Lenovo class action suit. I bought one of their consumer laptops that had a piece of crapware on it. It was big news when it happened. Otherwise, I normally get maybe $20 for the class actions that I sign up for.

slantyyz··on Show HN: Record Your Accomplishments
If I didn't have a solution in place already, I think I'd pay for it. $10 for the lifetime fee is far from egregious, imo.
slantyyz··on Show HN: Record Your Accomplishments
While I agree with you in principle, at some point, you're going to run out of places to work at.

Even the managers who I considered to be good at their jobs didn't record this stuff.

slantyyz··on YouTube suspended my channel for a video with disclosed issue in Grammarly
What I find funny is that YouTube knows who I am and where I live (English-speaking Canada), but every now and then I go through a short time period (a few days) where most of the ads are in French (for Canada).
slantyyz··on YouTube suspended my channel for a video with disclosed issue in Grammarly
I also wonder how many paid users they have.

Seems like the starting price is USD $12/mo, which IIRC, costs more than my Office 365 Personal subscription.

Page 1 of 34Next →