mal10c · HackerTrans

3 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I have an almost identical story. I wrote a few games: snake and a choose your own adventure fantasy thing. And likely others that I can't remember, but yeah, I had a teacher tell me basically the same thing. I was pretty sad because those really took a lot of time.

mal10c

5 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I totally agree with this! I've spent a career learning and making software of all types. I started with DOS 4, worked through VB6, and so on. Now I think more broadly and my mind is always thinking of new ideas, but with a family, it's tough to find time to create some of these. I know what the software needs to do and even what it should look like. I know the acceptance criteria and what will and won't work, so Claude has been great just being an extra set of fingers. I use it to create all sorts of projects that I would never have time to make with my busy schedule, and it's so much fun!

mal10c

6 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

reticulating splines

mal10c

7 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I agree with your thought process. Factoring in antenna type and reflections also causes difficulties when explaining concepts like super position. The sinusoid is a good illustration of what a given receiver might detect at some location (X,Y,Z). A more accurate way to show that may be a light source fading on and off to match some frequency (below THz). Then factoring in the speed of light, at time zero, the light will be off, at some arbitrary time 1, the light will be illuminated at 0.25 (scale goes up to 1 here). The light energy peak at time 1 is at the light. Then at time 2, the light goes up to 0.5. That means that the 0.25 light is now 1 unit away from the light while the 0.5 is at the light. Step to time 3 and the light goes up to 0.75, meaning 1 unit from the light, the light is at 0.5 and 2 units from the light, the light is dimmer at 0.25. This repeats with the light hitting 1.0 then falling back to 0.75, then 0.5, etc. The movement of light is key and I think that's what is often either misunderstood or just not considered enough.

mal10c

7 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I really enjoy posts like this one because I always learn something. Sure the whole program can be written using bitwise comparison or modulus, but that's not the point. The thing I learned is how to map that into address space! That's a cool trick!

mal10c

8 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I don't understand how to use this, but it does touch on an interesting topic. I want to create interactive and animated diagrams. I normally use either Draw.io or plantuml. My goal is to better teach folks about the systems I'm building, through better visualizations. Something like IcePanel (which is way too expensive) sort of shows flows, but I'd like to have full control. Does this tool claim to support something like that? If not, are there options out there that I don't know about?

mal10c

8 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Honestly, if it ran Affinity photo and SilverFast, I'd be happy to pay that. Same goes for Linux, whatever can run those!

mal10c

ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

This brought back a lot of memories!

mal10c

2 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

YES! This project, this is what the internet is for!

mal10c

2 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I agree with the comments, that's a pretty lame excuse. But I've gotta understand where others are coming from here. I just don't see why Apple is in such hot water here - they created a gadget (well multiple) that people like. We're not forced to buy those gadgets and we have alternatives. Sure Apple has made a butt load of money on this, but it's not like other players are prevented from making similar gadgets. I guess if I made a thing, say a new type of keyboard and I also make a motherboard and ultimately some new type of computer - then isn't it my prerogative to decide that I'm only going to support that keyboard with that computer? Or is that thinking too simple: instead is the problem that Apple isn't allowing others to take the device they bought (keyboard in this example) and on their own make it work with their Asus computer? eh, maybe a lame example but happy to hear thoughts and feedback.

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

This is awesome! About a year ago, I switched to a Moonlander keyboard. At that time, I figured why not try a different layout while I'm at it, how hard could it be? I compared a bunch of layouts and finally went with Colemak-DHm. I'm nowhere even close to my typing speed on a QWERTY layout, but absolutely loving it! This typing game will really help me get more comfortable with that new layout!

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

For ham operators, there's Winlink, which is an email system that uses ham frequencies to exchange messages. And yep, there are rules where you need to say your call sign periodically, and Winlink does that on your behalf.

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Neat, but I wish there were more information. I'm an active ham but curious about how much space I get, are my emails encrypted or readable on the server, etc.

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Baud rate and symbol rate often refer to the same thing, especially in the context of digital communications. However, they don't necessarily equate to the bit rate. In the digital realm, we're familiar with the concept of 1's and 0's, which represent binary states. When we transmit a single bit, it can be visualized as a digital line being high (for 1) or low (for 0). The rate at which this line transitions from one state to another is called the baud rate or symbol rate.

To understand this further, let's consider a more advanced modulation scheme. Instead of just having two states (high and low) to represent binary bits, imagine we have four distinct states: high, medium-high, medium-low, and low. These states can represent combinations of bits as follows: high = 11, medium-high = 10, medium-low = 01, and low = 00.

In this scenario, each state transition represents a symbol, and since each symbol can represent two bits, the symbol rate (or baud rate) is half of the bit rate. If you know the symbol rate and want to determine the bit rate, you'd multiply the symbol rate by the number of bits per symbol. In this example, you'd multiply the baud rate by two.

Most signals rely on techniques beyond simple voltage differences though to transfer information, and that's when you delve into the world of RF theory. Instead of a discrete voltage, a sine wave is used at a particular frequency. The amplitude of the sine wave can be adjusted just like we adjusted the voltage on that line. If we want even more symbols, maybe 0000 to 1111 or bigger, we can introduce another variation to the sine wave called phase. Phase of a sine wave is just shifting it left or right, but could be visualized as two people on a race track. If they start a race from the same line and run at the same speed in the same direction, they're in phase. If one of them starts a quarter of the way ahead from the other and they both run at the same speed in the same direction, then he's a quarter phase shifted from the other.

That adjustment of phase and amplitude falls into a broad category of RF modulation called QAM, and it's used in more than RF between two radios. It can also be used over Ethernet or PCIe busses.

I could go on rambling for a long time on all this, but hopefully this helps answer your question.

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Really interesting reading both sides of this argument, but I do see something missing from the entire conversation (unless someone snuck it in and I missed it):

Independent from the side you take on this, this decision was made by the judicial branch in the context of (hopefully) the constitution. If you disagree with the decision, there's a process (albeit a long one (on purpose)) to change our system, but that process resides in the legislative body, not the judiciary.

I encourage folks from both sides of the argument to keep that in mind.

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

There's always Gitea [1]. I've been using that for personal projects and it's perfect.

[1]: https://docs.gitea.com/next/installation/comparison

mal10c

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

"That's right! Every file you've ever created, or anyone else has created or will create! Copyright infringement? It's just a few digits of π! They were always there!"

I didn't think that was actually mathematically proven yet. Was some proof accepted recently that makes that quoted sentence true?

mal10c

4 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

My personal setup is: /home/eric/repos/

All git repos end up in that folder - it's basically my project folder. Before explaining more, I should specify that this setup works well for me, but I could see how others may not agree with it.

Let's say I have 2 projects called prj1 and prj2. In that case, I would have the following directories:

/home/eric/repos/prj1 /home/eric/repos/prj2

Both of those would be git repos. Now, let's say that both of those repos rely on a shared repo, which I'll called shared-repo. In that case, I would have this:

/home/eric/repos/shared-repo

Then (and here's the part that probably won't sit well with folks), I just reference the parent directory from either prj1 or prj2 to access shared-repo.

Down sides: I'm forcing a hard coded directory hierarchy and directory naming. Up side: it's simple. If symlinks worked just as well on Windows as they do on Linux, I could just create a symlink in both prj1 and prj2 that points to my shared-repo directory and that could solve this whole mess too.

Having said all that, submodules have worked for me in the past, but I use them so rarely that I always need to look them up - so I've gotten in the habit of keeping things simple for myself and just doing things the way I mentioned above.

mal10c

4 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

This took me down memory lane but in a weird way. One of the first languages I really took to was vb6. I was absolutely convinced I could write an OS with that language... I tried and tried - really not knowing what I was doing and finally realized its limitations. Such a good lesson on using the right tool for the job.

mal10c

5 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I don't think companies are black and white like that. Even the big ones. Sure management focuses on profit and loss and they keep an eye on legal hurdles. When I hire someone, I want their skillset (otherwise I wouldn't be offering them the job). My goal is to be fair with their rate while being mindful of the fact that I need to pay my other employees, and give enough room to hand out raises, pay for benefits, file for new patents, order parts, etc, etc, etc. I know that the person I've just interviewed is capable of getting a job elsewhere and may have other offers on the table, so it's in my best interest to give a fair offer that's within my comfort zone.

Having said all that, business does boil down to a lot more than just profits. Those are important but so is the livelihood of the employees, along with their expertise and tribal knowledge. I know those feed into profits, but I'm thinking beyond that. It's my job to ensure that my employees are able to take home the pay they've earned. Often, I have to put on more of a social worker hat and help out some of my employees with personal issues. That may be loaning a car at no charge, or giving a low interest loan to buy a house. In the past, I've paid for weddings and funerals. All of that goes with the job of being an employer. That doesn't mean every employer has to do those things. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can help out in those ways, so I take advantage.

I think this highlights the point I'm trying to make: too many people focus on businesses trying to maximize profits and they push to enforce rules to help out the little guy. If businesses do that, then that's too bad. If you work for one of those businesses, then talk to your manager about it and if necessary, find a company that shares your outlook. Not all businesses are like that though - in fact, a lot of them aren't. Most businesses really do try to be fair and understand there's competition out there that may be trying to lure in some of your star employees.