Recent submissions

Comment · 3 years ago
I think you have very different idea of what "change in laws of physics" means.
Comment · 3 years ago
I am using "Switching Power Supply Design" from Pressman, Billings and Morey and "Switmode Power Supply Handbook" from Billings and Morey.

Both are excellent resources and look at design from a bit different point of view.

I think the biggest problems with swithing designs are not what you have listed, although both noise and failure modes are a huge problem and main cause of concern (and cost) when certifying your designs.

The biggest problem is that they are just so damn complex and they have so damn complex characteristics over time and operating parameters. You might think you understand how a switching PSU works but that's just an illusion. There are people who spent their entire life specialising in switching PSU design and are still learning. At best we can understand how they behave within certain parameters and then try to make sure to shut it down safely when we leave those parameters.

Comment · 3 years ago
Yeah. I use a lot of linear regulators. And they have even more advantages. For example, they are simple. They do exactly what you think they do. They don't leak. They don't create noise. They convert voltage right away and you don't need to wait for it to stabilise. And they have simple failure modes. You just throw in one part and it magically converts voltages. What simpler thing you would really want?

In most realistic designs you put multiple power supply rails in your designs because you need a lot of parts that don't need a lot of power but have different voltage requirements or might need voltage offset. In those cases linear regulators are perfect solution.

More than that, those power supply rails usually have standard voltages and there exist standard linear regulators that output those voltages to make everything even easier.

My strategy is to use linear regulators default and only use anything more complex on those voltage rails where I need to step the voltage up or where the inefficiencies would affect my design's performance significantly enough for me to care.

Oh, and use voltage dividers if you want to convert signal levels (unless it is fast signal and you care about signal integrity).

Comment · 3 years ago
What you say doesn't make much sense.

AFAIK there exists no popular belief that physics was different in early universe. The physics was the same, the only thing that was different was physical conditions. Meaning everything was densely packed together.

If you, even for a moment, assume that laws were different in early universe then you essentially lost any possibility to predict anything.

Comment · 3 years ago
Contrary to some opinions here, I think this is very good advice.

I am always giving as much notice as I can. And also try to finish my projects and accommodate my employer/client as much as I can at the end of the project.

Regardless how unprofessionally they may act, I resolve to always act professionally myself.

I think it is more about the attitude rather than simple cost/benefit calculation.

But even if you are just looking at cost/benefit, after two decades of doing this I am finally seeing people noticing and coming back to me. I have my past bosses bringing new work to me, I have my colleagues spreading information about me by word of mouth. I have CEOs of unknown companies reach out to me because they learned about me from somebody who worked with me in the past.

Maybe you will not get noticed when you are junior level but when you get a bit more exposed position it starts becoming more and more important.

Comment · 3 years ago
> The key point though is that their mechanism cannot work in vacuum. It absolutely requires that the light travels significantly slower than the gravitational radiation

I am not a physicist, but I understand we are talking about Universe so early after Big Bang that it wasn't yet transparent to light. There simply wasn't vacuum yet if by vacuum you mean electromagnetic waves being able to travel long distances.

Comment · 3 years ago
No. That's far beyond our capabilities. Somebody calculated that LHC would have to be over 1000 light years in diameter to do this (and then still we would have to wait for thousands of years for particles to get accelerated).
Comment · 3 years ago
> We have been hearing this for a decade,

But that's not true. What we have been seeing was attempts that looked marginally useful. Helpdesk chats that were only able to handle simplest problems and would respond with something stupid more often than not. Things that did not really look threatening to actual people doing their jobs well.

What I saw recently, on the other hand, is something that can actually perform useful, novel work and that can actually replace some marginally productive people. And this is very important difference.

Comment · 3 years ago
I am not a huge fan of AI but I cannot deny this is probably biggest game changer since smartphones came out.

I find it a bit strange (although entirely predictable) that some people would try to forget about whole matter and hide from it as if it did not exist. The reality is that the IT world is going to go through some fundamental shifts in near future and very likely a lot of people will either lose jobs or do completely different work or do it with a completely different set of tools and skills.

We are now all trying to figure out what's in store for us and prepare for it, or be left out.

I find articles on HN actually pretty useful. And unlike some other hysterias, the whole preoccupation with AI to be healthy and useful.

Comment · 3 years ago
One thing is sure, I would not want to be a UI dev in Mongolia...
Comment · 3 years ago
I specifically, for this reason, not to mistake my (not even opinions but just thoughts) with this disclaimer:

> Given this I wonder if it is possible at least for some people with diabetes...

I am fully aware that diabetes is a dangerous, life threatening condition and that you can't do the same things that are totally fine for a healthy person.

And while I do not agree with some of the treatments for diabetes, it is just my own opinion and everybody is responsible for their own health and in doubt they should follow their health professional's advice.

Now... given the above disclaimer so that nobody confuses what I am about to write as an actual medial advice... I have just lost 1/3rd of my body weight and feeling absolutely fantastic by doing exactly the opposite to what health professionals are saying. I also observe a lot of people struggling to get any lasting effects by following the popular, official advice. I am angry and feeling powerless to the inertia of the health establishment and forces that do not really want people to get healthy but would rather avoid change that would disrupt their jobs, keep pushing medication that could be easily avoided for most of the people.

I have learned that so many "professionals" do not really understand what they are talking about. And it should not be a surprise, when you go to multiple "professionals" for advice and they give you opposite advice.

Just yesterday I had to visit an ophthalmologist to remove a foreign object from my eye (a piece of eyelash that got stuck for the past week). I had to spend at least 20 minutes to hear his ranting about how improper glasses I wear and how this is going to damage my vision. About a year ago I red (here on HN) that you can actually reduce your shortsightedness by slowly reducing the strength of your glasses which I have been doing successfully for the past year. I went from -3 diopters to -2 diopter glasses. I am currently seeing perfectly with -2.25 diopter glasses and I am using slightly lower strength for most of the day except for driving a car. Some of the stuff he said is that "This has been proven not to work by a study X", and "This is going to my shortsightedness to only deepen" (when exactly opposite has been happening) and that "If there are any result this is only my imagination" and "If I am seeing well at -2.25 it must be because my previous prescription of -3 diopters was wrong".

I am grateful that I am intelligent person that can read and make my own opinions but I am dismayed that people who can't do the same have to rely on those fucking idiots for their health.

Comment · 3 years ago
It is interesting but my data is useless. I lost over 70 pounds since July last year but I don't have any good record of blood sugar measurements. I did measurements whenever I liked either to confirm I am in ketosis or just to check my blood sugar / ketone levels in response to how I felt or to check how much various meals raised my sugar. But I did not keep any log.

There is couple things I learned. When you are on a strict ketogenic diet your blood sugar pretty much stays the same throughout the day. Even if I eat one huge meal for entire day, my sugar after the meal is pretty much the same as before the meal or within 10mg/dL. My exercise and circadian rhythm affect sugar more than meals.

Given this I wonder if it is possible at least for some people with diabetes to skip carbs completely and live carb-free but also insulin-free life.

Another thing I learned is that as I started my first keto month, your blood sugar starts dropping, then goes back up after about two weeks. Coincidentally, I also felt pretty poorly for those two weeks and my running performance dropped dramatically until my body adapted. The second time I started keto (after two months of break from it) I have seen nothing of the sort. Actually, I feel (but don't have good enough record to be sure) my blood sugar got a bit higher. But I have only been doing regular sugar measurements when I was in keto so I don't have data for sure.

Comment · 3 years ago
My blood sugar goes below 60 but I am not hypoglycemic and no, the alerts are not useful. And yes, the measurements are correct -- I have more than one way to measure blood sugar level.

Hypoglycemic means your body is dependant on sugar, can't get sugar and has adverse reaction to it.

My body can't get sugar, true, but is not dependant on it (fat adapted) and I have no reaction to it.

As I have not eaten any carbs for about two months any notion of hypoglycemia due to not eating sugar is a bit meaningless.

I know people who get much, much lower blood sugar levels and feel fine. The levels they get would (below 40? below 30?) would be lethal to "normal" person, if sugar addiction can be called normal at all. But they all feel fine and are probably healthier than most.

I put CGM on my arm to learn how my blood sugar levels look when on my diet and then what happens when I switch carbs back on -- I expect my body to "freak out" a little bit and then stabilise within couple of days and that's what I would like to see in a bit clearer detail using my CGM.

As to driving the prices down... nah, I am not making a dent. These devices are too expensive to use regularly even for me (software devs salary). I will just put a couple of them to learn a bit about myself and then stop when I got what I needed.

Comment · 3 years ago
Can confirm. Just at this moment I have a Dexcom G7 attached to my arm and I don't even have diabetes. Just using it to learn a little bit about my blood glucose patterns.

But these devices are not really built for non-diabetics. There is a constant barrage of alerts as my blood sugar regularly dips into hypoglycemic levels. I feel fine but the device purposefuly does not have any way to disable the alarm.

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