bipson (u/bipson) - Readit News

bipson commented on Vacheron Constantin breaks the world record for most complicated wristwatch hodinkee.com/articles/int... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

lm28469 · 5 months ago

Mostly because it'll be worn by a rich dude who uses it one day per week and sends it for CLAa every 5 years, treating it like some sort of religious idol every step of the way. The most extreme thing it'll go through is the swing of a golf club

bipson · 5 months ago

No, because the achievement, the mastery behind it is not obliterated in the next few years, by the upcoming iterations of newer smartwatches.

Smartwatches, Phones, (most) Cars, TVs, ... all of these are mass produced, and as such completely obsolete in a few years, even if they are sold as "premium" products for a month's salary.

Unique, manufactured Design pieces are... timeless. It's a piece of art. And I say this without any inclination to ever join that market.

bipson commented on The Worst Programmer I Know (2023) dannorth.net/the-worst-pr... · Posted by u/rbanffy

NalNezumi · 5 months ago

Glad to hear that Tim stayed and author managed to steer the entire process towards the right direction. Which requires a listening manager.

I experienced the "bad ending" of this productivity metric trickle down: OKR. This startup wanted not just team-based 3-month review Objective Key Result but also individual one, and on top of it, tied stock option to OKR. It was a robotics startup so very cross-domain teams (Software, Hardware, Embedded, DevOps, HW design, HW testing, HW maintenance etc etc).

The result? Developers became lonely islands. There were no "Tim" anymore. When I (Software Integrator) encountered an issue, that I just couldn't figure out but had a hunch it must be a deep-rooted issue, went to the expert (control/kinematics) for feedback. The answer I got was "I'm sorry I really want to help you but my OKR deadline is very close, and I simply don't have time". He could've probably fixed it in a day or less, but it ended up taking 2 weeks.

The problem turned out to be quite deep: inside layer upon layer of C++ mega monorepo, I found that boost library and a custom kinematics library had implicit struct copy and the different libraries (more than two) used different order for representing translation & rotation (xyz, rpy, Euler, Quaternion) and all of the ordering of each components were different. Somehow over 2 years of operation nobody got troubled by this until our new team had to use it.

Afaik I reported it to the Software team, but again, because OKR, nothing was done about it.

bipson · 5 months ago

I think just because this startup botched OKRs they still make a lot of sense.

Intel and Google apparently relied on them heavily in their formative years. But:

- they should be cascading (so conflicting OKRs between departments should not happen)

- you should never, ever tie them to individual performance results/compensation/rewards

bipson commented on Using a graphics tablet as a programming tool (2018) jeandavidmoisan.com/posts... · Posted by u/akkartik

bipson · 6 months ago

I can totally relate to the premise of the blog post. Thinking (for most people) benefits from some sort of free form scribbling and drawing to make sense of it, and realize what you're missing. At least for me it makes a huge difference.

I remember reading a tip more than a decade ago from a senior developer, that you should always have pen and paper next to your keyboard, to take notes, visualize problems, keep notes of where you are. Most of the thinking happens there.

When I'm working on bigger things alone, it helps me keep track or the bigger picture, how to keep separation of concern und understand where my abstractions started leaking.

Moving that pen and paper to digital unfortunately was never low-barrier for me. I thought about acquiring a reMarkable for that purpose, but it isn't perfect either.

I used excalidraw in the past, but it also does not integrate too well with my environment.

Now, with everyone being remote I would really love to have something that not only replaces my own scribbling and conceptualizing, but also serves as "whiteboard" for collaboration. I clearly clearly miss the whiteboard when discussing abstract things/ideas/problems with peers.

The app mentioned in the post seems a little abandoned unfortunately. Does someone out there use something similar?

bipson commented on Using a graphics tablet as a programming tool (2018) jeandavidmoisan.com/posts... · Posted by u/akkartik

mschnell · 6 months ago

Miro works great, I really like the UI

bipson · 6 months ago

Unfortunately Miro really is not too great with a Wacom on Desktop:(

bipson commented on Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update us.community.samsung.com/... · Posted by u/ftufek

mschuster91 · 6 months ago

> Why else would a soundbar need updates anyway? It either performs its well defined functions when you bought it or they sold you a device that doesn’t input/output sound.

Unfortunately there are soooo f..ing many devices out there that don't follow the specs, no wonder given how long and complex alone the Bluetooth specifications are, and HDMI/HDCP (which a soundbar with ARC support needs...) is even worse, and don't even try to get me started on CEC because that is an even bigger pile of dung, or stuff like GPUs that run HDMI over DVI, MHL or USB-C in DP mode and god knows what else people expect to "magically work" with a 5 dollar adapter they got off of Alibaba. And no, "audit products to follow the specs" isn't a foolproof solution either. That means that everyone has to deal with everyone else's quirks and at least the most popular devices and their manufacturers have to supply firmware updates to react upon reports of quirks.

bipson · 6 months ago

While I agree with what you wrote

> [...] GPUs that run HDMI over DVI [...]

I thought HDMI and DVI use the same signalling (at least the 'digital part' of DVI, was it DVI-D?), just over a different connector?

In my memory only the connectors competed for adoption, and Home Entertainment industry opted for HDMI and the PC-industry opted for DVI, while the signalling was not contested (besides DVI also being able to carry analog signalling with full spin-out, and HDMI carrying audio instead). My memory might not serve me well here though.

I never thought HDMI would win :( but it makes sense I guess - Computers/their use changed :(

bipson commented on Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions autocar.co.uk/car-news/ne... · Posted by u/zfg

technothrasher · 6 months ago

A quick search showed that it is illegal in Spain, but not Germany, France, or the UK, and nothing really showing up either way about any other European country. Though I didn't dig down enough to find legal advice I would actually trust.

bipson · 6 months ago

It's not that clear cut it seems.

For private drivers it is not illegal per se. But if you have an accident, they (police, prosecution, insurance) will quickly blame it on unfit shoewear.

There is (legally accepted) consensus in Germany and Austria that a regular, closed shoe without heels gives you best control.

Barefoot is IMHO treated unfairly, if you're used to drive barefoot. And living in a country where people wear shoes most of the time, they will assume you're not used to it.

bipson commented on Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions autocar.co.uk/car-news/ne... · Posted by u/zfg

porridgeraisin · 6 months ago

> if it's legal

It's illegal in some places?

I'm in India and I learnt to and mostly always drive barefoot. If I try to drive with shoes it just doesn't feel right. I can't get the tactile feedback right. Have to get used to it I suppose. But then I don't really wear shoes that much (slippers do just fine for most of my day)

bipson · 6 months ago

Very illegal in most of the EU AFAIK

bipson commented on Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions autocar.co.uk/car-news/ne... · Posted by u/zfg

amelius · 6 months ago

The upside of a touchscreen is that you can make the buttons disappear if they go out of context.

bipson · 6 months ago

The point is that those "essential functions" never go out of context.

bipson commented on MacBook Air M4 apple.com/macbook-air/... · Posted by u/tosh

camillomiller · 6 months ago

It’s easy until you can’t really fine tune the software because you use windows and it’ll eat the battery alive for reasons you can’t control as a manufacturer (but customers will still think it’s your fault)

bipson · 6 months ago

Even with Linux (where the manufacturer could fine-tune) if they want to, the story isn't much better.

The performance/power gains come from the own ARM-chips and a OS/build system/framework fine tuned to make use of that

bipson commented on Should managers still code? theengineeringmanager.sub... · Posted by u/blah2244

dataflow · 6 months ago

> The real EM job is [...] being the leader [...] of the team

That's quite a confusing description. Then what does the team lead do? Manage the team?

bipson · 6 months ago

There is plenty of words written on what the difference is between leading and managing.

True leaders are role models, not higher-ups, the ones where authority comes from competence, not position, showing the way, not just telling what to do, facilitating self-organization, giving direction, prioritizing, giving vision and perspective, not orders, fostering intrinsic motivation.