News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

mfgs

Re:Writing a C compiler in 500 lines of Python on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @06:32AM (#37390007)
Explicit variable size is useful for limited memory space envs like microcontrollers.
The kids in my family attend a school where the parents have all verbally agreed to not get their kids a smart phone until 16. This removes the peer pressure element of owning a phone/instagram/etc. When that’s removed there is little downside and huge upsides to the kids not having phones.
How are you measuring O2 levels?

I’ve also been experimenting with a slightly elevated mattress recently, it seems to help quite a lot for my OSA.

Re:The hidden cost of air quality monitoring on Tuesday June 27, 2023 @10:27PM (#36501562)
Do you mean a petrol leaf blower? Because of the motor emissions or the blowing?
Re:In-Flight Entertainment Challenge on Monday March 20, 2023 @08:39PM (#35240986)
Myst would be a perfect game to play on a long flight. Sorting the right controller setup might be tricky though.
This joke’s also a reference to the fast turnover Australia had around that time of prime ministers, due to them getting replaced by their own party.
Re:Poor Sleep Drove Me Insane, and My Long Path to Recovery on Monday February 27, 2023 @04:06AM (#34954457)
For anyone using or considering a CPAP device, you should also do some research into mandibular advancement devices (MADs). They’re basically a mouth guard that opens your airway by moving your lower jaw forward.

They are lesser known than CPAPs but are much simpler and way less invasive. They’re often well suited for people who are thinner and/or have milder OSA symptoms.

I couldn’t use a CPAP but using a MAD has helped significantly (although perhaps not completely).

Re:Why type hinting sucks (/r/Python) on Saturday February 11, 2023 @06:36AM (#34751418)
It already can be used for development, IDEs such as PyCharm perform quite effective live type checking based on type hints.
Re:And Worst Decisions I’ve Ever Made on Friday January 27, 2023 @03:43PM (#34551588)
Acidic foods and drinks will temporarily soften the enamel in your teeth. Brushing right afterwards can remove the softened enamel.

Brushing right after drinking acidic soft drinks or soda is meant to be much worse for your teeth than not brushing.

Re:Building an E-Ink weather display for our home on Sunday November 13, 2022 @11:36PM (#33590230)
I'd love to see a display of absolute humidity for indoors and outdoors to see if opening the windows will reduce or increase indoor humidity.
Re:The Worst Website Ever on Thursday November 10, 2022 @04:58PM (#33554053)
It's not that bad, it doesn't even have an accept cookies popup blocking half the screen.
Re:Show HN: I made a new AI colorizer on Wednesday October 19, 2022 @11:25PM (#33270483)
Cool. Interesting to note that the original is not necessarily the "correct" real world color palette (it's accuracy is subject to camera settings, sensor response, lighting, etc), so the colorized version could in theory be even better than the original in some or all areas of the photo.
Re:The life and sketchy business practices of Crazy Eddie on Monday August 22, 2022 @02:14AM (#32547944)
Heist Poscast did a great episode on Crazy Eddie: https://facebook.com/heistpodcast/posts/the-story-of-cray-ed...
Re:Cast iron leet on Saturday August 13, 2022 @07:54AM (#32449045)
I love my cast iron skillet, which must be at least 4 decades old. It’s great for cooking with the only challenging task being scrambling eggs on low heat (for fluffier eggs), which can stick a little.

I recently bought a new cast iron skillet and it just doesn’t seem to be of the same quality, it’s a lighter colour and doesn’t seem to season as well. Are there different grades of cast iron, or are they just not made like they used to be?

Re:The mites in the skin of our faces on Thursday June 23, 2022 @01:26AM (#31845457)
> Their reproductive organs have moved anteriorly, and males have a penis that protrudes upwards from the front of their body meaning they have to position themselves underneath the female when mating, and copulate as they both cling onto the human hair.

Does this mean they’ll die off relatively quickly if all body hair is cut off? Or does this happen beneath the skin?

Re:Why do you waste so much time on the internet? on Friday May 06, 2022 @07:06PM (#31290463)
Once you have an internet connected phone or PC (as we all do) then the cost in physical or mental effort, time, or money to click another link or watch another video is basically zero. It also gives relatively high levels of dopamine as you're constantly seeing or learning new things.

So with practically no barrier to sitting there longer and a constant stream of stimulation the cost to benefit _ratio_ is incredibly low, arguably lower than anything else we're likely to do regularly. Any real world activity, which all require time and mental or physical effort, yield likely a much higher cost to benefit ratio.

Wasting time on the internet is basically just the path of least resistance and the best "deal" in your own mental economy.

Re:The case for induction cooking on Sunday March 13, 2022 @12:36AM (#30658314)
The odour you smell is unburnt gas (to make gas leaks less dangerous). Burning gas produces carbon monoxide (among other things), which has no odour.
Re:My Favorite Math Problem on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @06:48AM (#29329044)
As a start (and possibly as an equivalent proof?) you can mentally brute force it by cutting the board down to 4x4 and just visualising how the blocks might fit. It quickly becomes obvious that it's not possible.
There is usually at least 1000 people shot by police each year in the US.

All other developed nations have significantly lower rates and incidences of police killings: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/.

Interesting. I'm definitely looking forward to electric buses and trucks though. Standing on the sidewalk when a bus accelerates next to you can be offensively loud.
Re:New Ways to Be Told That Your Python Code Is Bad on Thursday September 02, 2021 @08:57PM (#28399303)
"it unconditionally flags every use of while expressions."

I'd find that pretty annoying.

Consider a while loop in a thread:

  while not quit_thread_requested:
    # do threaded task
It probably has something to do with not getting notified when someone replies to your post.
Re:Instagram Has Become SkyMall on Saturday July 10, 2021 @09:51PM (#27797886)
I only use insta in the browser on my phone, which is quite a nice watered down experience that doesn't show ads (even without an ad blocker) or annoying account suggestions.
Re:Play online chess with a real chess board on Saturday June 26, 2021 @06:18PM (#27646460)
Camera calibrations are often done with a chess board pattern, as it shows scale, skew, rotation, etc of the real world plane you are imaging.

Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessboard_detection.

How is that ultimately different from handling the exception under `except`?
Re:Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help? on Monday May 03, 2021 @09:47PM (#27033212)
Leave your phone permanently plugged in to the charging cable, somewhere that is not comfortable or particularly convenient to use it (e.g. nowhere to sit down). That way you can use your phone as much as you need when you need to, but you will be disincentivized to stand there on it for longer than you should.

Older »