slambast's recent activity

  1. Comment on What the hell is a Typescript or: Creation ideas above my skill level in ~tech

    slambast
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    If you're comfortable with sharing, I would love to check out the design document! Yeah, this definitely seems doable. Some notes: PictoCash feels to me like something that should be done later,...

    If you're comfortable with sharing, I would love to check out the design document!

    Yeah, this definitely seems doable. Some notes:

    • PictoCash feels to me like something that should be done later, and skipped for v1. (I like the idea, I just mean you can do a v1 without it, then add it afterwards.)
    • You may have already considered this, but you're probably going to need some kind of control panels. I'm sure moderation will be required; are there buttons that let moderators make decisions on what/who to kick? And some kind of admin panel; how do you appoint moderators, and set checkpoint dates?
    • Image uploading/hosting is actually very easy, but it costs money and usually comes with moderation overhead
    • It sounds like you're comfortable making changes in the code, especially if they're just content changes. That's good news, because it means you don't need a whole content management system/dashboard!

    Do you have opinions or preferences on the languages and frameworks involved? I'm a big fan of Go on the server-side, using Postgres as the database, sqlc for queries, and twirp for the API. I'm a fan of Svelte, but also fine with NextJS since it's something of a lingua franca.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on What the hell is a Typescript or: Creation ideas above my skill level in ~tech

    slambast
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    One question, since I'm not familiar with Art Fight: how would timing work in PICTOCLASH? I see there's a "next checkpoint in 4 hours..." line; is there a 24-hour window in which to submit...

    One question, since I'm not familiar with Art Fight: how would timing work in PICTOCLASH? I see there's a "next checkpoint in 4 hours..." line; is there a 24-hour window in which to submit strikes, or something? Does any of that happen in real time?

    This seems very doable, mind shooting me a PM? No promises, but I might be able to get the basics set up. (And would be happy to walk you through the code, open-source it, etc.) I'm a backend engineer, but I've done quite a bit of frontend stuff as well.

  3. Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food

    slambast
    Link Parent
    Not really! I mostly just heat it up so that the sugar and salt will dissolve. To be clear, I'm not shooting for shelf-stability or anything, just something I can keep in the fridge for the week.

    Not really! I mostly just heat it up so that the sugar and salt will dissolve. To be clear, I'm not shooting for shelf-stability or anything, just something I can keep in the fridge for the week.

  4. Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food

    slambast
    (edited )
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    I've made several condiments? garnishes? recently that I absolutely love! The easiest is picked onions: halve one red onion, and slice. Bring to a boil on the stove: ~1 cup red wine vinegar, 0.5-1...

    I've made several condiments? garnishes? recently that I absolutely love!

    The easiest is picked onions: halve one red onion, and slice. Bring to a boil on the stove: ~1 cup red wine vinegar, 0.5-1 cup water, black peppercorns, slivered garlic, red pepper flakes, some salt, and a spoonful of sugar. Put the red onion slices in jars, and then pour the vinegar mixture over them. Refrigerate, they last about a week.

    My favorite salad dressing, a caramelized balsamic vinaigrette:

    • Bring to a boil 1 cup sugar + 4 tablespoons of water, stirring frequently. Boil until it turns light golden, then turn off the heat.
    • Whisk in 5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
    • Whisk in (slowly) 1 cup olive oil
    • Add 2 more tablespoons of water
    • Add garlic, salt, and black pepper
      (Refrigerate) I like to use this in salads with pear slices and goat cheese, maybe with some walnuts too.

    But the best of the best is chili crisp. Fantastically good on just about any rice dish, sandwiches, whatever.

    • In a large metal bowl (that can handle hot oil being poured into it): 1.5 tbsp ground arbol chili, 3 tbsp gochugaru, 2 tbsp grated/minced ginger, 4 tsp sugar, 4 tsp ground sichuan peppercorn, 2 tsp MSG, 2 tsp sesame seeds, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground cloves, a 3-inch cinnamon stick, several whole cardamom pods, several star anise.
    • Thinly slice 4 shallots, and a ton of garlic. I aim for a half-cup of sliced garlic.
    • Heat up 2 cups of any oil on the stove (basic vegetable oil works). Fry the shallots. Remove them, then fry the garlic, then remove that.
    • Let the oil get back up to temp, then pour it into the bowl with the dry ingredients, and stir. Let that sit for 30 minutes, then add the fried shallots, garlic, and 1/4 cup of cashews or peanuts.

    You should get about 2 12-oz jars out of it. If you don't like spicy, maybe cut the arbol and gochugaru in half, or replace with a milder chili powder. It should keep for quite a while, but needs to be refrigerated.

  5. Comment on Tesla Cybertruck owners shocked that tires are barely lasting 6,000 miles in ~transport

    slambast
    Link Parent
    Pretty much! If top speed in top gear is around the redline (max RPM for the engine), then going half that speed will be a much lower RPM, which is better for fuel consumption, noise, etc. Also,...

    Pretty much! If top speed in top gear is around the redline (max RPM for the engine), then going half that speed will be a much lower RPM, which is better for fuel consumption, noise, etc.

    Also, not a car, but I previously had a motorcycle which had a top speed of around 90mph—well above legal speeds anywhere on US public roads. And yet, add a headwind and an uphill on a 70mph highway, and suddenly it's not possible to keep up with traffic... Not to mention that holding it at 9000 rpm was not comfortable! Quite a lot of noise and vibration.

    6 votes
  6. Comment on Whistleblower who accused Boeing supplier of ignoring defects dies in ~transport

    slambast
    Link Parent
    John Barnett was 62, but Joshua Dean was 45.

    John Barnett was 62, but Joshua Dean was 45.

    4 votes
  7. Comment on The await event horizon in Javascript in ~comp

    slambast
    Link Parent
    Yes - there's nothing stopping you from constructing a function like this: func TotallyConformantFunction(ctx context.Context) { newCtx := context.Background() doTaskThatShouldBeCancelable(newCtx)...

    a top-level deadline should be passed along with each remote call, which in turn gets added to a child operation’s context. I believe this is best-effort, though, rather than a guarantee?

    Yes - there's nothing stopping you from constructing a function like this:

    func TotallyConformantFunction(ctx context.Context) {
    	newCtx := context.Background()
    	doTaskThatShouldBeCancelable(newCtx)
    }
    

    ...and lo, the original context's CancelFunc does nothing. Not only can it be escaped on purpose, it requires a bit of discipline to remember to handle cancellations. You might, for some god-forsaken reason, want to have a function like this:

    func WaitFor3Seconds(_ context.Context) error {
    	time.Sleep(3 * time.Second)
    	return nil
    }
    

    But this will ignore context cancellation. What you have to do instead is:

    func WaitFor3Seconds(ctx context.Context) error {
    	timer := time.NewTimer(3 * time.Second)
    	select {
    	case <-timer.C:
    		return nil
    	case <-ctx.Done():
    		timer.Stop()
    		return ctx.Err()
    	}
    }
    
    4 votes
  8. Comment on Nobody warned electric vehicle owners how quickly they would burn through tires in ~transport

    slambast
    Link Parent
    I do :) my car (3,200lb, 250hp Focus) came with Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric summer tires, which were worn out after about 20,000 miles. I replaced them with Yokohama Advan Sport A/S+ all-season...

    I do :) my car (3,200lb, 250hp Focus) came with Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric summer tires, which were worn out after about 20,000 miles. I replaced them with Yokohama Advan Sport A/S+ all-season tires which have a 55,000 mile treadwear warranty. I've been on those for ~25,000 miles and they look basically new. They have noticeably less grip in warm and dry conditions, but are better in the wet/cold, and obviously last much longer. My driving trends towards spirited as well. 6,000 miles is ridiculous - that's motorcycle territory.

    1 vote
  9. Comment on I have an issue with the 3 Body Problem in ~tv

    slambast
    Link Parent
    This is explained in the book: one message from earth is not enough to pinpoint its location, but two messages would be. It doesn't matter if other Trisolarians/San-Ti hear it. The message in the...

    This is explained in the book: one message from earth is not enough to pinpoint its location, but two messages would be. It doesn't matter if other Trisolarians/San-Ti hear it.

    The message in the book was: This world has received your message.

    I am a pacifist in this world. It is the luck of your civilization that I am the first to receive your message. I am warning you: Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!

    There are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission.

    But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered!

    Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!

    2 votes
  10. Comment on The end of the MrBeast era in ~tech

    slambast
    Link Parent
    I just watched one linked in the article for the first time, and it definitely validated my feelings about that genre of content ("pop-youtube"?). It felt like I was being smacked in the face with...

    I just watched one linked in the article for the first time, and it definitely validated my feelings about that genre of content ("pop-youtube"?). It felt like I was being smacked in the face with an entertainment bat.

    29 votes
  11. Comment on The FBI’s new tactic: Catching American suspects with push alerts in ~tech

    slambast
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    iOS is the one I have familiarity with, so I can answer that at least: when you give an app permission to send push notifications, that app is then allowed to get a push token for that user....

    iOS is the one I have familiarity with, so I can answer that at least: when you give an app permission to send push notifications, that app is then allowed to get a push token for that user. Generally, the app then sends that to a server somewhere that handles notifications and talks to APNs. So AFAIK, if you don't give push notification permissions for an app, this de-anonymization won't work.

    (Honestly, it's news to me that all apps get the same push token—I thought it was unique per-app)

    Edit: At least for iOS, push tokens are unique per-app. See here:

    This address takes the form of a device token unique to both the device and your app.

    So this seems slightly more involved than just looking for string matches.

    Edit 2: The existence of provisional authorization for trial notifications seems like this attack might not be mitigated by simply not allowing notifications. Unsure how those work.

    5 votes
  12. Comment on Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads on January 29th in ~tech

    slambast
    Link Parent
    I had a month-to-month prime subscription that I canceled today because of this. They allow either not renewing next period, or canceling immediately and getting a refund. I'm in the US, but I...

    I had a month-to-month prime subscription that I canceled today because of this. They allow either not renewing next period, or canceling immediately and getting a refund. I'm in the US, but I would guess that you'll be able to get a refund too.

    21 votes
  13. Comment on Meeting bloat has taken over corporate America. Can it be stopped? in ~life

    slambast
    Link Parent
    Just me; I would do the daily posts of updates, and I also have unscheduled one-on-ones with the founder where I would give more detailed updates 1-2x per week. I still have more video chat hours...

    Just me; I would do the daily posts of updates, and I also have unscheduled one-on-ones with the founder where I would give more detailed updates 1-2x per week. I still have more video chat hours a week than I would like, but my team's meeting time is way lower, so I'm calling that a win.

    1 vote
  14. Comment on Meeting bloat has taken over corporate America. Can it be stopped? in ~life

    slambast
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    I've worked at a small startup (<10 people, all remote) for a couple years now, and we've struggled with too much time spent in meetings as well. The founder is clearly the only one who's meeting...

    I've worked at a small startup (<10 people, all remote) for a couple years now, and we've struggled with too much time spent in meetings as well. The founder is clearly the only one who's meeting oriented, and it's astonished me how much constant push-back it takes to keep things reasonable.

    When I started, it was normal to spend 1-2 hours every day in a meeting with the whole team. After I became lead, I managed to get it down to 45 minutes once a week + 10 minute sync every day, which I'm quite happy about! My biggest solve there was noticing this:

    1. The founder being present tends to elongate meetings.
    2. The founder liked to see progress happening, and got nervous when they didn't.
    3. A lot of the technical work (fixing a minor bug, refactoring, laying the foundation for some new feature) takes up a lot of time, but is almost invisible to someone casually checking out the product; i.e. progress often appears slow, even when a lot of necessary work is getting done.

    My solution was: for daily meetings, don't include the founder - keep them technical discussions only. This keeps them short. Also, I posted a daily update in Slack, saying what each one of us had done and was going to do. This worked REALLY well—we could often finish meetings in 5 minutes, and only went over when there was actually something we needed to talk about; our boss got to see what we were working on day-by-day, but didn't have the need (or really the opportunity) to micro-manage any of it. The downside was that large changes are often large for very complicated reasons, and it was occasionally difficult to explain why tasks like "add first push notification" was the focus for days in a row. More detail helps here, even if it trends jargon-y.

    So, if you figure out (1) who is pushing the most meetings, and (2) what they're gaining from it, there may be another way to solve that need and save a LOT of time. Unfortunately, I don't think this would work for systemic meeting bloat, but who knows, it might alleviate it somewhat!

    11 votes
  15. Comment on Ads don’t work that way (2014) in ~life

    slambast
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    The distinction between inception (creating associations between a product and positive emotions) and cultural imprinting seems minor to me. As the author notes, the beach corona ad does work by...

    The distinction between inception (creating associations between a product and positive emotions) and cultural imprinting seems minor to me. As the author notes, the beach corona ad does work by inception, at least partially. The idea that cultural imprinting is inception + common knowledge is definitely an interesting framing, but I would frame it differently—it's all the inception model, and part of that inception is a brand identity that you will assume everyone else has picked up on as well.

    Brand identity seems to be a common goal in advertising. Corona is a beach relaxing beer, Nike is a top-performing athlete shoe. I do think there is a distinction between emotional inception and brand identity, but the distinction seems like splitting hairs, because regardless, the ads work by forming associations between products and positive feelings (except those positive feelings include an identity). IMO, this is not functionally any different from the common story about how ads work.

    2 votes
  16. Comment on Black women with guitars? in ~music

    slambast
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    Some of my favorites that come to mind (hope banjo is an acceptable substitute!): Amythyst Kiah (Fancy Drones) Rhiannon Giddens (Wayfaring Stranger) Kaia Kater (Saint Elizabeth)

    Some of my favorites that come to mind (hope banjo is an acceptable substitute!):

    6 votes
  17. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    slambast
    Link Parent
    I was having exactly the same problem! Glad it's not just me. Let me know what you do think if you try it out (and use with caution since it's a newly made tool that has the capability to delete...

    I was having exactly the same problem! Glad it's not just me. Let me know what you do think if you try it out (and use with caution since it's a newly made tool that has the capability to delete files)!

  18. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    slambast
    Link Parent
    I bought an ESP32+small e-ink display kit with similar goals, but I never got much further than printing bad-looking text to the screen. It looks like the Inkplate's software situation is much...

    I bought an ESP32+small e-ink display kit with similar goals, but I never got much further than printing bad-looking text to the screen. It looks like the Inkplate's software situation is much better - have you found that part easy to use?

    1 vote
  19. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    slambast
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    I've been working on rescaffold, which is a tool to unpack reusable parts of codebases (scaffolds) into multiple projects as needed. It's roughly similar to yo/create-react-app and the like, but...

    I've been working on rescaffold, which is a tool to unpack reusable parts of codebases (scaffolds) into multiple projects as needed. It's roughly similar to yo/create-react-app and the like, but it can update a codebase to use updated versions of the scaffolds in it!

    It's functional enough to actually be used, even though it can't git pull yet, and doesn't have sophisticated conflict management. But it can unpack a scaffold into an existing project, with template replacement for configurable things like project names, and it can also update existing files (and won't overwrite files you've changed yourself). It will also remove files that have been removed in the updated version scaffold they came from.

    For example, you can make a small scaffold that adds source for an executable to a Go project. It might just contain one file: pkgs/go/cmd/<command name>/main.go. Adding this scaffold will ask you what the project name should be. If you say "foo", it'll create pkgs/go/cmd/foo/main.go, creating any directories that don't exist yet, and leaving everything else alone. Then, if the scaffold source is updated, you can update the file with the new contents, but only if you haven't modified the file yourself. You can use many small scaffolds this way, or few huge ones, and it should just all work together!

    3 votes
  20. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp