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virtue3

1,755 karma · joined June 26, 2013

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virtue3··on How to manage oncall as an engineering manager?
On call engineers fixing on call bugs is one of the simplest and most straightforward way out of the hole.

You then also have a direct cost of being “on call” accounted for and on the sprint board.

virtue3··on MicroPython on Flipper Zero
I think if you have enough replays you can deconstruct the rolling code. Not sure.

Also there are ways to desync/resync your key so you might be able to “add a key” with the flipper with certain firmwares.

Cloning the current key and using it can desync it from your car. Super annoying. Be careful

virtue3··on Warning: DNS encryption in Little Snitch 6.1 may occasionally fail
no no, it's just "ours is better", "think different", and "it just works". /s
virtue3··on 47-year-old Voyager 1 fired up thrusters it hasn't used in decades
Not as old as you might think: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia26275-voyager-team-celebr...
virtue3··on A good day to trie-hard: saving compute 1% at a time
Haha thank you
virtue3··on Ford seeks patent for tech that listens to driver conversations to serve ads
Your smartphone

Anything by meta

Amazon Alexa/dot

All smart-tvs are uploading your screen and what you watch constantly. Source: I worked on adding interactivity to ads on certain TVs when they used content recognition on your sceeen caps

virtue3··on Core: an experimental new way to write videogames
the issue with JVM/java was always that when that GC triggers you are just absolutely hosed.

C# tends to be a bit more forgiving about when it triggers GC and how. The generational garbage collector in C# will tend to be more reliable or at least I never ran into super huge issues with the places I've used C# for game dev.

The JVM GC has this unfortunate effect of having very bad pauses occasionally. And appears to do so regardless of the type of GC you are using.

There are some techniques you can use to get around this -> re-using entities. Using C# structs. Not doing allocations/deallocations inside the main game loop if you can.

For small enough games it is irrelevant but as soon as you start to get a larger game with lots of memory allocations/deallocations it really crushes performance.

virtue3··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2024)

  Location: San Francisco
  Remote: Flexible
  Willing to relocate: no
  Technologies: Typescript, React, node.js, graphql
  Résumé/CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16tbAwxlRgM8xwZp7GAJ1HNiByG2MpWWiDGmQ6MbKb0U/edit?usp=sharing
  Email: torhelmer[at]gmail[dot]comM
I've led and contributed to numerous projects across various domains, including SaaS, video streaming, education technology, and online reservations.
virtue3··on Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
sounds like the memory storage is failing on some sort of logging systems for these to be going down at the same time-ish (same number of logs per day written etc over cheap flash).

Shame on this manufacturer.

virtue3··on Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon
I don't feel SUPER bad for patreon here. They're been trying to push people to their app super hard instead of their mobile website. And the mobile website is barely usable.

This is kinda what happens when you put yourself into a situation where you can't make your product work WITHOUT apple or google's store.

virtue3··on Magnetically levitated space elevator to low-earth orbit (2001) [pdf]
might be a good idea to have it (explosively?) disconnect it's segments if it's found to be broken. You'll spread the impact but avoid something like a whip crack.
virtue3··on Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes
Toyota also failed miserably with the unintended accelerator pedals. And basically pulled some of the same stunts with denial and cover ups and blaming everyone but themselves (legally you have to do this I suppose).

So I don't think they're a great example of having excellent QA everywhere. And kind of helps with your point of if the ORG and the division of that org is really thinking about quality and what they ship then it carries through. But that might not be the case for every part of the company (I.E. Boeing)

Turned out to be extremely bad code and some potential mechanical issues from what I understand[1]

[1] https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_...

virtue3··on A reawakening of systems programming meetups
I run a dance practice 2x a month and there's more.

You need to make sure it's on the same day on cadence (we have 2nd and 4th sundays).

And we also spam out fb event invite (use what you want here, email etc) about 1 week prior to "remind" people it's coming.

These things tend to be incredibly effective.

Also when dealing with a venue offering to book out the whole year will get you some leeway with things as you are taking away a LOT of scheduling time for them; which matters.

I would highly recommend trying out a spot for a few months first before committing.

virtue3··on Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam
good thing the investment firms kept the fees the same tho :)
virtue3··on HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak achieves first plasma
I dont believe magnetic containment would contain heat, so just run a liquid through the reactor and use it to heat up water to make steam and drive a turbine. Nuclear plants do this.
virtue3··on Brain circuit scores identify clinically distinct biotypes in depression/anxiety
Honestly a lot of these diagnosis issues are incredibly difficult.

depression with anxiety is dramatically more difficult to treat than either or.

Bipolar can come across as ADHD in certain parts of the cycle or just usually depression. In fact, you can even have uni-polar depression that does not respond to traditional anti-depressants and you don't necessarily exhibit hypomanic episodes.

Relying on patients to know and understand what they are experiencing other than "this is just normal I assume everyone else experiences this" is not reliable.

Having something that can reliably diagnose and find markers for these conditions would be _huge_.

I wade through whitepapers and books on this stuff because of my own issues. I don't expect the average person to even remotely know about all of this; it's a lot and very subtle.

To add on to all of this, people tend to not seek treatment until there IS a problem. Sometimes this can be really life alteringly bad, sometimes it's benign. But it would be helpful if people could just "take a test" and know or at least have an idea.

The issue with being "objective" is also that your doctor has to be "objective" and I've had a lot of friends that are clearly ADHD and end up with DRs that think they are just trying to get medication and don't have ADHD.

Worse yet; they do get medications and they have to cycle a few different ones because of the way they tolerate it. It would be really nice if we had an idea to correlate your ADHD, your body chemistry, and which drugs would be most effective for you rather than the 3-12 month ordeal of figuring that out.

virtue3··on Writing an NVMe Driver in Rust [pdf]
second on ben eater; the USB one showing inputs on a keyboard and such with an oscilloscope blew my mind.

I was like -> oh, it really just is a huge bus and there's A LOT happening.

virtue3··on Lessons learned from studying 4k YC companies
This is actually really helpful thank you
virtue3··on 'Right to roam' movement fights to give the commons back to the public
Not really true - that case was an urban myth I believe from my own searching (as I heard about it when I grew up). Would like sources if it's true.

What I did look up:

"Premises liability laws generally do not extend to trespassers, such as burglars, because they do not have a legal right to be on the property. However, property owners in California may be liable for injuries caused by a crime on their property if they should have reasonably foreseen the crime and failed to take steps to reduce the risk. This is known as negligent security and can apply to crimes such as burglary, theft, and robbery. Factors that may contribute to a negligent security claim include: Broken or missing surveillance cameras, Lack of security guards, and Broken or inadequate locks."

virtue3··on Weapons in Space Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of SDI
extremely, probably.

But then again - lets imagine having a few thousand missiles in space that are remotely controllable. So any nation state actor(maybe less) could conceivably take them over and retarget them at a whim.

That sounds fun.

virtue3··on Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
"A large amount of beef is grown in areas that are not suitable for crop farming in the United States. In fact, 85% of the land used to graze cattle in the U.S. is marginal land, which means it's not suitable for growing crops. Marginal land is either untouched or used for grazing livestock, mostly cattle"

Grain finishing is another matter. But it's not a 1 grain : 1/10th beef type situation.

Now chopping and burning down the amazon to create grazing land for cattle? yeah that's going to probably kill us all.

virtue3··on Computers Reduce Efficiency: Case Studies of the Solow Paradox (2023)
I think this article is drastically downplaying how dramatically more complicated designs and things are now than they were before.

I don't believe it's computers that are to blame; I believe it's complexity nightmare problem.

We have much tighter tolerances for everything now; everything "does more" and relies on my components.

Back when we used pen and paper to create military vehicles it was mostly JUST about performance and completing the objective. There wasn't thousands upon thousands of other requirements and features (whether or not this is a good thing is debatable).

virtue3··on Evidence of price-fixing in the oil industry?
in the actual FTC release: "Through public statements, text messages, in-person meetings, WhatsApp conversations and other communications while at Pioneer, Sheffield sought to align oil production across the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico with OPEC+."

"Sheffield, for example, exchanged hundreds of text messages with OPEC representatives and officials discussing crude oil market dynamics, pricing and output. In discussing his efforts to coordinate with Texas producers under a production cut mandated by the Railroad Commission of Texas, Sheffield said, “If Texas leads the way, maybe we can get OPEC to cut production. Maybe Saudi and Russia will follow. That was our plan,” he said, adding: “I was using the tactics of OPEC+ to get a bigger OPEC+ done.”"

"NOTE: The Commission issues an administrative complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. When the Commission issues a consent order on a final basis, it carries the force of law with respect to future actions."

This is also legalize, so he hasn't been PROVEN to yet; but it's obvious they have a lot of things to go through here.

virtue3··on The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement
I think 500$ for an hour might have been a little more than a dance, and probably inline with what that kind of service offers.

If not did you goto one of the top strip clubs in America? that sounds insane. Haven't been to a strip club in a real long time myself tho (absolutely don't have the income nor desire).

I think top golf is an interesting metric; I'd be concerned about linking it to two things so addictive - golf addicts and alcohol consumtion. But with the prices at top golf and how much the drinks cost it's probably a good indicator of the sector.

One of the downsides of it might be it only targetting people in upper income brackets (golf is an expensive game per se, def not as everyman and top golf isn't really accessible).

Then again I can't think of any metric that wont be "inflated" by more well off people consuming something cheaper and less well off people having to use another option (aka mcdonalds).

virtue3··on A recent security incident involving Dropbox Sign
good reminder to enable 2fa on my dropbox account. Whoops.
virtue3··on Asynchronous Programming in C#
I think that might have been the case a while ago but they have even dropped .net-core and it's now just .net and cross platform.

It appears to have been the case since .net 5 (2020) (I've also stopped paying attention to MS a bit before then).

"Yes, .NET 5 is cross-platform and can be installed on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It aims to provide a consistent development experience across platforms by unifying different .NET flavors, including .NET Core, .NET Framework, .NET Standard, and Mono. .NET 5 also aligns all frameworks to support a common set of APIs, making it easier to build cross-platform libraries."

virtue3··on Anti-municipal broadband budget amendment gets nixed in New York
It's not like we didn't already give the major major ISPs 200 BILLION DOLLARS.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556

virtue3··on Mazda’s rotary engine in the age of the electric car
While I also share in your love of Wankel engines I think you are grossly skipping over their unreliability (mostly around the seals).

There's an extremely good reason "rural" applications are reliant on diesels. It's not uncommon for a diesel engine to hit 300k+ miles and still operate reliably. And not to mention simply. They are relatively easier to maintain than a standard gasoline engine.

Diesels also greatly benefit from being on a fixed power band. It's why they work so dang well on large ships.

Where as rotary engines(rx-7's at least) need a rebuild every 80-100k miles. So I think without really knowing what you're doing mechanically or having access to a mechanic that can repair those kinds of engines you aren't going to be super reliable with a rotary.

Green hydrogen approaches via rotary engines does seem quite interesting. I think if the reliability of the rotary could be improved that could have some serious merit. Or at least making small enough generators that you can easily ship them out to be replaced/repaired could have serious merit.

virtue3··on Controlling 3.6kW of Solar EV Charging with an Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi
The vertical panels are bifacial so they get some of the light being reflected from the other side. This is a huge boost to their productivity.

The other major advantage here is that you can use them with farming and actually do something with the space.

In addition areas where it snows sees a dramatic uptick in solar power because of the reflection of the snow and not needing to brush the panels off.

vertical panel layouts really open up a LOT of options that were not available before. (using them as fences, putting them on sun facing walls of homes spaced off and letting the pass through sunlight hit the other side). There's a lot of possibilities here).

virtue3··on Ventum, Dimond, Cervelo – Why do these triathlon bikes look so weird?
took me a second but that was hilarious.

Friend fell over at a red light from a stop (was clipped in on the pedal on the wrong side and fell over). Had to get frame x-rayed and it was cracked inside. He was fine of course...

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