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SoleilAbsolu commented on US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February   bbc.com/news/articles/cjd... · Posted by u/smartbit
JumpCrisscross · 9 days ago
Thank you. Is there a good reason this is showing up now versus in the 2025 data?
SoleilAbsolu · 9 days ago
I'm in publicly funded mental health...federal cuts are starting to cause states & counties to either immediately slash what CBOs thought was solid funding for essential services, or to let us/them know to expect significant cuts starting in the next fiscal year.
SoleilAbsolu commented on Little Free Library   littlefreelibrary.org/... · Posted by u/TigerUniversity
purplejacket · 13 days ago
I had my handyman build one of these in front of our house. Also, I make a hobby of biking around to circulate books between different little free libraries in my extended neighborhood. I've found some amazing books over the years, things that were very different from my typical prior experience of books. I like this aspect, that it can be eye opening. Each little free library has it's own style of books. Some are better at handling magazines. Some see a lot of book movement, some much less. These factors influence how I move books around from one to another.

Suggestions on building a little free library: 1) By far the number one priority: Waterproof. If it's not waterproof, in my opinion you're actually doing a disservice to the community, rather than a service. And have an angled roof for proper drainage. 2) Don't make it too deep. Definitely not more than 18 inches. Probably 15 inches is a good depth. 3) If you can, make two levels: One level for tall books, another level for short books. 4) Don't make it too tiny, because then it's hard to get books in and out of. 5) A good solid stand so it doesn't fall over. 6) A good latch that will resist wind. Magnetic is good. I also like to have a magnet plus a hook that can be used for backup. Also with time it's nice to have the second option in case the shape changes a little and the magnet doesn't work. 7) You might try making a mockup out of cardboard so you can see the physical size and get a sense of how many books will fit. 8) Not a building tip, but: Try to arrange the books to look nice. If you have few books you can face some of them to attract attention.

SoleilAbsolu · 12 days ago
Great points - a Little Library near me has become more of a dumping ground than it used to be because when they re-did it, they replaced the clear plastic window with a frosted/corrugated plastic (you can't see what's in it without opening the door), and they replaced the hook latch with a chain one that lets rain get in.
SoleilAbsolu commented on Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer   spectrum.ieee.org/jimi-he... · Posted by u/tintinnabula
arrowsmith · 17 days ago
It's incredible what people were able to accomplish with their free time before smartphones
SoleilAbsolu · 17 days ago
???

Hendrix was a working musician who paid his dues on the chitlin' circuit with artists like The Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Ike & Tina Turner, and Sam Cooke before making it on his own. AFAIK those are pretty high-pressure assignments, and count as real work...

SoleilAbsolu commented on Why is Claude an Electron app?   dbreunig.com/2026/02/21/w... · Posted by u/dbreunig
lateforwork · 21 days ago
> Electron apps are bloated; each runs its own Chromium engine. The minimum app size is usually a couple hundred megabytes.

I only see these complaints on HN. Real users don't have this complaint. What kind of low-end machines are you running, that Chromium engine is too heavy for you?

> They are often laggy or unresponsive.

That's not due to Electron.

> They don’t integrate well with OS features.

If it is good enough for Microsoft Teams it is probably good enough for most apps. Teams can integrate with microphone, camera, clipboard, file system and so on. What else do you want to integrate with?

SoleilAbsolu · 21 days ago
I run IT for a nonprofit and have 120 "real users" doing "real work" on "low-end machines "providing "real mental health, foster care, and social services" to "real communities".

These workers complain about performance on the machines we can afford. 16GB RAM and 256GB SSDs are the standard, as is 500MB/sec. internet for offices with 40 people, and my plans to upgrade RAM this year were axed by the insane AI chip boondoggle.

People on HN need to understand that not everyone works for a well-funded startup, or big tech company that is in the process of destroying democracy and the environment in the name of this quarter's profits!

BTW Teams has moved away from Electron, before it did I had to advise people to use the browser app instead of the desktop for performance reasons.

SoleilAbsolu commented on Show HN: Box of Rain - Auto-Layouted ASCII Diagrams   github.com/switz/box-of-r... · Posted by u/switz
josefdlange · 25 days ago
I'm just here for the Grateful Dead reference.
SoleilAbsolu · 24 days ago
If this runs on the CLI, the system prompt should be "What do you want me to do?"
SoleilAbsolu commented on Neurons outside the brain   essays.debugyourpain.com/... · Posted by u/yichab0d
bitwize · a month ago
Gurdjieff was literally, physically correct: we are three-brained beings.
SoleilAbsolu · a month ago
I'm in the middle of reading "All and Everything" and had the exact same thought!
SoleilAbsolu commented on A Cosmic Miracle: A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=14.44 Confirmed with JWST   astro.theoj.org/article/1... · Posted by u/yread
shipman05 · a month ago
Everyone I know who studied astrophysics ended up in Fintech doing data science anyway. "illusion of choice"
SoleilAbsolu · a month ago
Well there is Brian May, guitarist from Queen, who finished his astrophysics PhD in 2007 but he is probably an outlier!
SoleilAbsolu commented on Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game   latimes.com/entertainment... · Posted by u/proposal
ggfdh · 2 months ago
I’ve only ever seen Klosterman do friendly interviews. I think his work would improve if it was challenged more.
SoleilAbsolu · 2 months ago
He's kind of on the 3rd or 4th act of his career...I think he started on sports, really made his name in music/pop culture, moved on to be New York Times Ethicist for a while (!) and is back to sports. IMO he asked good occasionally hard questions of pop stars. One thing I love about him is at heart he is a true superfan of the disciplines he covers so is not a "critic" per se, but that may steer things more toward the positive because of that. He helped me realize many things about music I loved growing up in the '80s that I couldn't quite articulate at the time.
SoleilAbsolu commented on Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency   cdm.link/ni-insolvency/... · Posted by u/TonyTrapp
_fzslm · 2 months ago
How much of this is the consequence of piracy? So many musicians use NI VSTs, but because of the expense they're pirating. What if they'd targeted the hobby musician more?
SoleilAbsolu · 2 months ago
I'm sure piracy has an impact, but they are already targeting hobby musicians with all the soundpacks that can run on Kontakt Player or Reaktor Player and lite versions of Traktor.

I think it's more due to things like - the brilliant founders are no longer there...folks like Stephan Schmitt used Reaktor (node-based audio DSP environment) to prototype so many products over the years, hard to find a bigger product evangelist than founder/COO/CTO types who eat their own dogfood.

When they released Massive X it was way too early, clearly a cash grab and IDK if they ever added back basic UI features like "navigate menus with arrow keys" that worked in all previous versions. Then there are clearly decades of technical debt that still need to be addressed - I stopped using Reaktor and Kontakt several years ago because the tiny anti-aliased fonts still used in various key places are literally too painful to look at.

SoleilAbsolu commented on The Startup Graveyard   loot-drop.io/... · Posted by u/skogstokig
SoleilAbsolu · 2 months ago
Once they're done, shouldn't they be called "stopdowns"?

u/SoleilAbsolu

KarmaCake day442March 17, 2017View Original