powersnail

Joined 7 years ago

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2,781
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794
Member since
Feb 21
Just a naive coder, grappling through the world. https://powersnail.com
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Recent submissions

Comment · 5 months ago
Interesting, I have the exact opposite experience with flipping vs linking when it comes to books like _Pale Fire_. It's a lot more difficult for me to read the end notes on kindle, especially when it cross references more than one other end notes. Just couldn't keep my head straight as where I had been already. I had to buy a paper copy of _Pale Fire_ after fidgeting on my kindle (which I usually prefer) for a while, and I just kept two bookmarks (one in the poem section, one in the end notes section), and find other end notes ad hoc. The physicality of the pages helped me navigate back and forth.
Comment · 6 months ago
Maybe the developer was using Headspace as part of the test data and it bled into production?

It's hard to imagine what Headspace would like to achieve if this were an exploit executed by them. It's so salient, that it makes no sense to do on purpose. At least some portion of Apple employees and their families are going to be affected by this, and this would escalate to the legal department immediately.

My money is on Apple being the buggy one here.

Comment · 8 months ago
Whenever split keyboards come up, ulnar deviation is mentioned, and non-split keyboard users are depicted to be using the keyboard like this (image from the post):

https://www.justinmklam.com/posts/2026/02/beginners-guide-sp...

I don't know if it's just me, but I don't use the keyboard like that. I know the illustration is said to be exaggerated, but still. There is no need to squeeze your hands in front of the keyboard. Just naturally bring your hands in front of chest, the same as when you are reading a book or writing notes with a pen. No twisted wrists. No ulnar deviation. The idea that you can't do something with your hand in front of the center of your chest without hurting the wrists seem like a strange supposition.

Admittedly, I've never looked at a significant number of people typing on a non-split keyboard, so I don't have the data to refute the need of this invention. I just feel like the natural posture already doesn't have the problem of ulnar deviation.

Comment · 10 months ago
I was just on a short trip to Japan, and I find the replica food very intriguing. Take the experience with a large grain of salt of course, since it's just a few days worth of sightseeing.

What's particularly interesting, is that the replicas really do look like the actual food. Some replicas are so good, that I would not be able to tell that it is fake even by close inspection. One of the gyoza replica got the doughy body, the crispy bottom, and oily surface that is visually indistinguishable from a real one. Even the touch is somewhat real.

I'm not saying seeing those replicas gives me a better appetite; that's doubtful. I just appreciate the crafts.

The other side of the coin is that the actual food do look like the replica/photos, so it's not a bait-and-switch scheme. The people who prepare the dishes---be it a chef or a worker at a fast food chain---all seem quite accurate. Not that all dishes always look beautiful; but they do look consistent. Your plate of curry over rice might be plain, but it will look exactly the same as the previous order (and also as the photo), even if it is created entirely by hand. It's kinda amazing in its own right.

> Meanwhile, in restaurants without visual clues, you can only let your imagination go wild and guess what you're going to have. Once the plate is put in front of you, two surprises awaits you: does it looks like what you imagined and is it good? > > At least that's the experience I'm looking for in restaurants.

Well, you still retain the second part of the surprise: "is it good?". But yeah, it will ruin the first one, because of the accuracy. It's not something that particularly bothers me, but I can understand why you want to avoid the spoilers.

Comment · 10 months ago
Just curious, what algorithm is good for laying out images of arbitrary orientations, sizes, and aspect ratios? That seems like a pretty difficult problem. Some sort of variation of knapsack problem maybe?
Comment · 11 months ago
I could see a case where the core logic needs to be performant, but the UI does not. The front end could be some menus, displaying (not a giant amount of) data, and a progress bar, while the back end does heavy computing.

And furthermore, if you want fast code writing, you write in the language you already know. For some people, that is Rust.

Comment · 11 months ago
> in traditional rich desktop applications, I can't say I have ever missed the ability to select and copy text from the UI chrome

I forgot what desktop application it was, but there was a time that I repeatedly needed to copy texts from a dialog, which didn't support text selection. It frustrated me so much, that I put together a script to do OCR on the dialog.

Supporting complex data types for copy & paste is good; but it is almost trivial to also support plain text copying as a fallback when it already supports copying of other mimetypes. The problem is that some UI has no support of copying in any format at all.

Comment · 1 year ago
I sincerely hope that apple will consider making a phone with a worse camera that is flatter. As someone who rarely takes photos, and never photos of importance, the bump is just a dead weight to me. My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera. As long as it runs all the common communication apps reliably, I'm happy. I'll pay $100 more than the standard body version even. But it doesn't seem like apple (or any notable phone brand) thinks this is worth doing.

It's the peril of being a niche customer. I can and have voted with my wallet, but it doesn't nudge the needle anyway.

Comment · 1 year ago
That's a very surprising angle of questioning. Are you writing some sort of compile-time-only programs?
Comment · 1 year ago
Talking on the phone is the most painful form of conversation for me. The sound quality is often awful, due to the ambient noises picked up by phone, which occurs particularly often for busy restaurants. You don't know if the other side has heard you because you can't see them and there's no visual signal, so there's more back and forth, prolonging the pain. Since you are ordering via the phone, you have to pay by reading out your credit card number. People sometimes hesitate, and you don't know if it's a bad connection, or if they have just paused......

So yeah, I'd gladly pay a bit more to order via an app. When I'm ordering delivery, I'm already paying premium on that day anyway, the margin of which is way higher than 20%, so I might as well go all the way and avoid dealing with something I don't like.

If I'm not using an app, I'd rather run a mile to make the order in person, than make a phone call.

Comment · 1 year ago
To clarify: in that anecdote, I'm talking about washing hair in shower, with hot water, with no shampoo.
Comment · 1 year ago
> No; you would need to touch people hair after a shampoo shower and after a non shampoo shower to see the difference.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. My girl friend has long hair, and doesn't wash with shampoo every day (which is somewhat common for long-haired people I believe), and the texture after shower is very different.

In college, especially exam week, we had more anecdata. It was possible to see people who 1) had not washed their hair, 2) had washed their hair in a sink with water only, 3) dry-washed with those sprays, and 4) washed with shampoo. It was very easy to tell which they did.

In general, soapy cleaner (or similar substances) is going to help immensely when cleaning oily stuff. And hair can be really oily. Water-only is just not the same.

One scenario I don't have is comparing other soapy products to shampoo. But shampoo aren't more expensive than other soaps anyway, so I never bothered to look.

Comment · 1 year ago
> shampoo did nothing to your hair

I don't know the scope of "nothing" in your statement, but shampoo does help remove dirt and oil, in a way that washing with water only cannot achieve, which is the number one goal of using shampoo for most people.

This is verifiable by observing and touching hair of other people's hair before and after shower, which eliminates the possibility of shampoo manufacturers secretly altering what you perceive with your fingers.

Comment · 1 year ago
I can think of so many pieces of software that does that: having a local state, having a remote state, and keeping them synchronized whenever internet is available. It's how email apps work. That's how all cloud drives work, and Dropbox is more than a decade old at this point. It's how notes apps work. Etc. etc.

Really can't see how this can be regarded as a recent idea.

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