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vondro

163 karma · joined November 15, 2018

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vondro··on Tell HN: Facebook Messenger is testing in-call video ads
Yes, I think that is actually great idea and should be rolled out to everybody!

I hate using messenger but some people I communicate with still prefer it. If this is rolled out, they will surely move to other platforms.

vondro··on Your Next Smart Home Device is a $30 Used Kindle
That is a very cool project and makes perfect sense.

Also I've just realized I am still using my Kindle 3 (the one with keyboard) to read books and it would feel strange to repurpose it to just display screenshots.

vondro··on Google Pixel 6 still freezes when calling Emergency Services
Nice, had to sing it :-)
vondro··on A Digital Euro
But where is the BLOCKCHAIN?!

Anyhow, I wonder what problem does this actually solve. Almost all the money I spend is spent cash-less. Does this somehow allow to bypass Visa/Mastercard and thus be cheaper for merchant? What is the difference between digital euro and "paper cash"/normal euro in my account, being spent via card payments or wire transfers?

vondro··on Apple M2 Pro to use new 3nm process
So we'll see at least 1-2 years of Apple Silicon being at least one node ahead of competition. I am curious for how long will be Apple able to pull this lead off, and what the perf/watt will look like when (if?) AMD has node parity with Apple in the near future. Or when perhaps Intel uses TSMC as well, and the same process node.
vondro··on Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors
The problem is scale and availability of materials to make batteries. Right now almost all the batteries are produced for and used in electric cars, however electric cars only make around 10% of all the cars consumed.

Now you wanna store enough solar-generated electricity for when the sun doesn't shine, worldwide? My napkin math says that either the price per kWh will go up, or that some poor country with enough lithium will be "politically destabilized" soon.

vondro··on Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors
Olkiluoto EPR reactor in Finland was connected to the grid in March this year. There are 2 more EPRs in construction, in France and UK.

So yes, there were new power plants coming online, but after budget overruns and missed timelines.

Anyway, nuclear is still great baseline source of energy, so pity we don't build it better.

vondro··on Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall (2018)
Gave me smile because I have a little anecdote that happened recently. My friend showed up for a B-day party, and after some time invited me and few other friends to have a look at his new car. I was thinking he must have gotten a raise at work, because the car was brand new Volvo V40, which is above average expensive in my country and also our income bracket.

Then it turned out he bought a new collar for his dog, and that the producer of the collar organized a prize lottery, where you could win a really nice backpack, and a car. And that my friend won the main prize, which was the brand new Volvo.

Now I know someone who won something really valuable, and also that these prize lotteries can sometime work.

vondro··on New MacBook Air with M2
It's just a big piece of copper with decent thermal mass, not heatpipe.
vondro··on Tesla is cutting about 200 Autopilot jobs and closing office in San Mateo, CA
Well obviously, the work is done, Teslas are robo-taxiing and self driving since around 2019, no? /s
vondro··on Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro with M2 Chip Has Significantly Slower SSD Speeds
I've used Windows almost exclusively until the end of 2021, when I replaced it with Macbook Air with M1 processor, so I am very aware of Windows vs. MacOS situation. To be honest, I like windows management on Windows better than MacOS, I also like much better compatibility with e.g. legacy printers on Windows 10. Also updates are faster and with much less problems on Windows (I'd never thoght I'd write that).

The above being said, I bought the Mac it exclusively because of hardware. I am aware that you can build much better desktop PC for the money, but I need laptop for my use cases, I don't own any desktop computer and don't plan to.

Going deeper, I only paid around 960 USD for 16/512 configuration (in Europe), and for that kind of money I got great performance, great battery life, very good screen, excellent trackpad and usable keyboard. It's very thin, runs very cool and for the first time I can use laptop more like phone/tablet - only charging it when the battery gets low. Oh, and I have ZERO problems with battery drain during sleep, which on Windows is currently broken (connected standby).

What I also got is mediocre selection of ports and I am not sure how durable the machine is compared to Thinkpad, so I kinda baby it all the time.

YMMV, I personally don't care who uses what but since you asked, above are my points.

vondro··on Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro with M2 Chip Has Significantly Slower SSD Speeds
Speaking about M1 laptop here, yes, the port selection is poor, however the laptop is so good that I will choose it any moment over my Lenovo with many ports. YMMV I guess.
vondro··on McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
Something that has been bugging me for some time (genuine question, please forgive me lack of geopolitics/economy understanding) is this:

Supposing we want to hurt Russian economy - how are we hurting it by stopping selling them licenses/branding/machines to make and sell burgers and fries? Are we not ripping them off money if we sell to them? As in: we gain, they lose?

I understand we don't want to sell advanced technology, or weapons. And we also want to stop buying oil/gas or other goods produced in Russia. But burgers?

If you understand what's going on, please share it :-)

vondro··on After roasting Apple about headphone jacks, Google dumps it from Pixel 6A
Yeah, well when they removed the headphone jack on iPhone 7, which has the same shape and dimensions as iPhone 6, it turned out they just put some piece of plastic in the place where previously the jack was. Youtube channel Strange Parts managed to implement working headphone jack on iphone7:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA

So I call BS on space constrains, I call BS on waterproofing (waterproofed phones with 3.5mm jack exist). Conveniently, when Apple released iPhone 7, they also released 1st gen AirPods :-)

vondro··on Preview, the Mac app people forget about
Try up/down arrows, not left/right.
vondro··on Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)
> Upgrading the OS to a major version without worrying if I'll be able to boot next time.

Yeah, well my friend's Intel Mac mini got bricked when he updated from Big Sur to Monterey in the first week after release. Needed to send it to Apple service. IMO Mac updates are almost as broken nowadays as Linux updates were 7+ years ago when I daily driven it.

I also upgraded my Thinkpad X220 from Windows 7 to Windows 10 when the update showed in my system, and everything worked without any reinstall since then.

vondro··on Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)
Since I don't have (nor plan to have) Magic mouse, that's kinda expensive solution :)

I use this instead: https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser and it works well. Generally my preferred settings is like this: natural scrolling (ie. the mac default) for trackpad, but inversed (ie. linux/windows default) scrolling for mouse.

vondro··on Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)
Thanks for the tip. While the plugin from Google never failed for me during file transfer, it's incredibly limited! I was very surprised that that is absolutely NO macOS-Android compatibility out-of-the-box when I got a Mac recently.
vondro··on Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)
Apart from written in the article, my 2 cents:

- cannot invert scrolling just for mouse (I use normal mouse with wheel, not apple mouse) -> I have an app for that

- cannot connect Mac to a low dpi screen (like 1080p) without macOS looking like crap

On the other hand, macOS can run MS Office, or professional video and photo editing apps, which Linux cannot do. Alternatives exist, but are IMO worse.

vondro··on Using Asahi Linux as a developer workstation
My opinion: M1 gives you (speaking about laptops here): thin and light, very powerful device that runs very cool, a combo that you don't get anywhere else for less money. Frankly it's hard to get close for ANY money. You also get great screen, trackpad, speakers. HW is the reason to get Mac nowadays IMO.
vondro··on The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone
> Just taking apart a modern iPhone is a warranty-voiding, screen-cracking, glue-ripping operation.

From my experience iPhones are as hard (or a bit easier) to open as other waterproofed phones, but battery and display replacements are actually prioritized in the design and easy to conduct once you open the thing. Cryptographically paired components are the problem with iphones, not the way they are built.

vondro··on Ask HN: Is Facebook Dying?
Meta (pun intended) answer: Everything is dying, slowly or fast, from the moment of inception. Instagram included.

But observing my surrounding, it seem that Insta is the sh*t currently, with money, influencers and generally nice pictures, while facebook is for parents to post pictures of their kids.

vondro··on Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4
Many people in comments write about difficulties with onboarding to remote-only companies, with establishing relationships with colleagues at work.

My close friend works remotely at a Finnish company (he is Fin himself), and every Friday at 14:00 they finish working, and have beer drinking session and casual chit-chat over teleconference. Every week. He likes the experience overall.

Of course, not everybody wants nor can drink, but it is some idea to get each other better.

vondro··on Apple has a clear path to $1T in revenue by 2030
>If I stick with Google/iPhone, I just log into my account on the latest and greatest device, and voilà, all my stuff populates on the screen. Apps, conversations, albums, playlists, etc.

I digress, but I wish it would work like that on Android. Its backup and restore is a hot mess, i.e. text messages or launcher settings/icon layout/links saved as launcher icons are not backed up at all.

vondro··on Apple's custom NVMes are amazingly fast – if you don't care about data integrity
Shouldn't Mac OS issue flush on restart, as it does on sleep?
vondro··on Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B
Samsung is not that much behind, recent nVidia GPUs and Qualcomm CPUs are manufactured by Samsung (8N and 4nm, whatever those mean anyway). While density and perf/watt is worse than TSMC, it's THE competitor for TSMC.
vondro··on Intel's CEO is tired of Wall Street doubting his turnaround plan
Even though I don't like Intel, I hope they'll have success, as competition is always good - it's apparent looking at what AMD did recently. And Alder Lake seems to be very good, at least from performance standpoint. That being said, I feel like this is gonna be very hard uphill battle.

For them to really succeed as they wish, it might take TSMC and Samsung having much delayed their next 1 or 2 process nodes, and/or Apple/AMD somehow managing to screw their architecture, or hoping that Qualcomm still doesn't come out with some decent processor (after Nuvia acquisition).

Anyway, good luck Intel!

vondro··on Cryptocurrencies – An Assessment by Reserve Bank of India
Well, this piece has bits of reasonable analysis mixed with wishful thinking of central authorities it seems.

Don't ask the winery owner if their wine is good, as they say.

But anyway, it's very readable without almost any financial jargon, so anybody can read it and make his own mind on the topic.

vondro··on A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people
Thanks for this.

I started to write too long comment about how I feel scheduling my life would not work for me, but that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

I've just texted an old friend.

And I think I'll set up some yearly reminder to reach my few friends that don't respond anymore, but that I care about anyway.

vondro··on Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
My pleasure, always glad to help /s.

On a more serious note, yes, the layoffs are bad and I am sorry to hear about it, but when I see people in comments posting about their negative experience with the service, I feel like it's relevant to balance it with my overwhelmingly positive experience with the service.

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