cam_l (u/cam_l) - Readit News

cam_l commented on Looking back at my transition from Windows to Linux scottrlarson.com/publicat... · Posted by u/trinsic2

rossdavidh · 2 days ago

The last time my wife's laptop died, I convinced her to give a Linux laptop from System76 a try. Then, when her store's Windows box died, I convinced her (and her business partner) to give Linux a try there. My daughter, 20, has a Linux laptop as well (although in order to get Adobe Creative Suite for school she still has to own a Windows desktop, thanks Adobe). None of these people were interested in software freedom, so their patience for problems during the switch was pretty minimal, and they all switched, and stayed switched. If you buy something like System76 that has Linux pre-installed, and help out with something like Spotify that is possible to install on Linux but not completely trivial, it is not so difficult to convince people anymore.

cam_l · 2 days ago

I recently took the opportunity to get my 80 yr old mother to try out Popos after her old X200 finally stated glitching (and could not update to win 11).

She has been using windows since 3.1 days (and dos before that), but recently has been having so many issues with windows changing interfaces and dark patterns. The cognitive load has gotten all too much, and with so many of her friends being scammed online, her and her group are now scared of using computers.

Anyway, Popos is a breath of fresh air for her. The interface is predictable and constant, nothing pesters for her attention, and background stuff stays in the background. She can just use it when she wants for what she wants and it doesn't need constant attention and learning.

cam_l commented on The issue of anti-cheat on Linux (2024) tulach.cc/the-issue-of-an... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

bob1029 · 4 days ago

Targeting perfect fairness in a multiplayer video game with arbitrary latency between participants is a waste of energy. A much better target is to make it feel like no one is cheating. I don't really care too much if someone is actually better or worse than me at counterstrike. What I mostly care about is wildly implausible gameplay. No one is going to stop the guy who is getting a 5% gain on his ELO by using a 2nd computer, machine vision and a robot to move his mouse ever so slightly faster than he typically can.

However, there are ways to detect when someone is being an absolute madman with the hacks. We're talking head snapping through walls with 100% accuracy and instantaneous displacement across an entire 30 minute match. These people can simply be banned immediately by hardware/steam ID. We can write basic rules to detect stuff like this. There's no "confidence interval" for speed hacking through a map and awping the entire CT team in 3 seconds. You certainly don't need kernel drivers.

cam_l · 4 days ago

Or entire lobbies filled with bots with the same name that stand around doing nothing while one of them goes full spinbot, and auto kicks anyone who happens to join their lobby. Those bots I see week after week with the same accounts and no bans in sight.

cam_l commented on From $479 to $2,800 a month for ACA health insurance next year npr.org/sections/shots-he... · Posted by u/laurex

valianteffort · 4 days ago

>60 or 70% of Americans polled*

I certainly don't want it and nobody I know that actually understands the real cost does either. Every single nation that provides socialized healthcare is hopelessly strained by its cost, and the service has suffered as a result. The system relies on eithe dramatic reductions in the cost of healthcare or a positive birthrate to sustain it.

Nobody I know in socialized healthcare systems has good things to say about it when they actually need it.

cam_l · 4 days ago

The US has the most expensive healthcare costs per capita in the OECD, and the poorest health outcomes on average.

You might think that this is merely because so many people in the US are not covered at all. But even when you account for people who are covered, the results are mixed at best. With the US performing slightly better in some areas, but much worse across the board.

I also know a few people who have moved back from the US, even though they had health insurance, just to receive better socialised medical care in their own countries. I also know of a who went to the US to get cancer treatment. None of that means anything really. The number of people you know and their uninformed attitudes are statistically insignificant.

cam_l commented on Hire People Who Care (2020) alexw.substack.com/p/hire... · Posted by u/suchintan

cam_l · 16 days ago

In a somewhat misguided defence of the OP, he actually makes two points.

Giving a shit about your work is the second point. Without any other comments suggesting the alternative, I assume this is second in order of importance. And as there are only two points I would take that to mean the second point is the least important.

His first point is to give a shit about the company. This being the most important point probably explains the accusations of late payments and wage theft from former employees and contractors against the company. They just weren't putting the company first!

As an aside, I have been thinking of this in relation to the 3 laws, as in a sense, executives see workers as robots, and I think the 3 laws mesh quite nicely with corporate directives.

1) A robot (employee) may not injure the company or allow the company to come to harm;

2) A robot must obey their manager unless it conflicts with the First Law;

3) A robot must protect its own existence (in the company) as long as it does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The work doesn't really come into to it, unless it is a subset of the 3rd law.

cam_l commented on Flipper Zero dark web firmware bypasses rolling code security rtl-sdr.com/flipperzero-d... · Posted by u/lq9AJ8yrfs

jrm4 · 19 days ago

Am I the only one that just hates push to start in every way? Sure, I don't need to have the "insert key and crank" to be real, but physical key seems so superior.

Feels like getting rid of the light switches in your house in favor of "smart home" stuff.

cam_l · 19 days ago

I liked my old 'rolla that I could start with any key at all.. or even a paddlepop stick.

Every time I start thinking about these little modern inconveniences, I re-arrive at the idea that this is yet another example of the difference between a product and a tool.

A product ideally works the same for everyone, with as little friction to the immediate function as possible. All other functions are hidden or deleted. Trying to use a product as a tool is slow and frustrating, because the experience never gets better than the first time you use it.

A tool on the other hand needs learning. Sometimes that learning curve is shallow and long, like a hammer, or steep and long like CAD.

Smart home stuff can be pretty great if you treat it like a tool, and only use it where it is the right tool for the job (so, not light switches).

Anyway, I prefer tools.

cam_l commented on Designing a flatpack bed kevinlynagh.com/newslette... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

cam_l · a month ago

>what does it feel like to have 90% code/abstraction with 10% of visual sketch input

I was playing around with automating some aspects of architectural model making a few years back. I was using grasshopper (because I am an architect and can't really code). I found it interesting at the time, that the program encourages you to play with the ratio of visual-to-programmatic metric, but that ratio also reinforces how you interact with the project.

It was pretty simple stuff.. automatically unfolding meshes for paper cutting, adding tabs and rebates to sheet material for more precise joins, tagging elements for correct assembly, sorting elements by size and shape and using some basic genetic algorithms to optimise orientation and position on sheets to minimise time and material wastage.

But it really got me that when you push the programmatic elements to be more precise and repeatable, you really close down the problem space. When you increase the visual feedback, you tend to do it at the expense of precision and repeatability - your process becomes more tightly coupled to the specific project at hand.

Anyway, I am def going to have to make some time to try some of these out.

cam_l commented on Shallow water is dangerous too jefftk.com/p/shallow-wate... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

timr · a month ago

Those laws sound similarly onerous -- though not identical -- to what we have in many US states. A depth of 300mm is...well, let's just say that's aggressive (11")...but we also have strict rules about the fencing that goes well beyond what would qualify as a normal fence [1]. And yes, there are penalties if you knowingly circumvent the rules and someone dies (though I don't know if these are criminal. There's probably always a way for a grandstanding prosecutor to make it stick.)

> Turns out that drowning deaths in pools for kids under 4 have decreased 5% per year for the last 20 years [0]. That's about 500 kids lives saved in twenty years at the expense of every pool in the country being fenced - about 1.6 million pools.

OK, well...it's a (big) assumption that the laws are the reason for the decline, and moreover, that every part of every rule you described is necessary for the declines.

That's the fundamental problem with these kinds of things -- the "if it saves even N>1 lives!" crowd appears, ignores causation, and ratchets up the strictness of rules -- never the other way around. So you end up with fencing rules around 11" inch-deep puddles of water, and full-employment programs for lifeguards, when maybe one or the other would have been sufficient. Or something else. And maybe next time, they will want to fence the fountain at the local park.

Beyond that, I don't like to engage in "value of a life" debates, because there's no upper bound on emotion. But I should say that your numbers left out the cost of the lifeguards.

[1] Because heaven forbid that a motivated child climbs said fence. If your fence is insufficiently slippery, you will be liable! I'm not joking.

cam_l · a month ago

>strict rules about the fencing that goes well beyond what would qualify as a normal fence

Many of the rules are similar, because they are generally commonsense rules. Australia has a few extra ones. No more than a 10mm wide protrusion within 900mm of the fence externally or 300mm internally, unless the fence is higher than 1.8m. This includes trees. You cannot open the pool area into any internal area, regardless of door safety features, even if that internal area is a locked shed. You must have a minimum 750mm clear zone around at least 75% of the pool. You have to get the pool fence reinspected and recertified every 3 years (this may differ state to state). There are lots of fines for non-compliance.

>it's a (big) assumption that the laws are the reason for the decline

It was not so much an assumption as it it was a presumption, which if true sets a lower bound on the cost. Drownings were getting pretty common in the 90s in Australia as the pool ownership started to take off, and at that time private pools accounted for around 45% of the drowning detahs for kids under 5 [0].

I do not doubt that public safety campaigns and public pool safety are also a big part of the decrease, but add to that the massive increase in not just backyard pools but also population. The fact that the fatalities have decreased during this period points to a sizable proportion being from the laws.

>I don't like to engage in "value of a life" debates

I mean, no one does. I think they can be illustrative though. Taken individually, each pool fence that saved a life only cost the parents $5k. Well worth it. And altogether, while it may sound crazy that so much has been spent to save so few lives, in context the average family pool costs around $30-60k. So the cost of putting the infrastructure in place for the kids to drown in the first place is an order of magnitude higher than the mitigations. If you wanted to look at it that way..

Sure, better stats always help to focus appropraite spending. Though I wasn't really making an argument one way or the other (just sharing my curiosity), I would point out that it is really easy to discount the importance of a safety feature after it has solved the issue. Y2K anyone?

[0] https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ABS@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca2...

cam_l commented on Shallow water is dangerous too jefftk.com/p/shallow-wate... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

timr · a month ago

> The rule should be any standing water feature below 3' (1m) above grade should be enclosed by a fence to a height of 4' (1.3m) above grade if kids are anticipated to occupy the space.

Children drowning is tragic, but this is nanny-state stuff. Are we to wrap literally any pond, lake, stream, fountain, etc. with a four-foot tall fence, because children exist? Imagine Central Park, but with the ponds surrounded by chain-link fences -- now that I think about it, I'm sort of amazed that New York City (where every other building is perpetually surrounded by ugly and useless scaffolding because one person died from falling bricks once) hasn't actually done this.

At some point, parents have to take personal responsibility for where their children run off to. Per TFA, the state the story took place in already had a law stricter than the one you're saying should exist [1]. It didn't prevent this incident. To the author's credit, this is not a plea for better laws, but rather, one for better parental supervision -- they knew there was a water feature, and still let the child run free.

So, PSA: teach your children to swim, and keep a close leash on the ones who don't know how yet.

[1] In many states (including PA, apparently, per TFA), it's already required that you wrap any standing water greater than 24" deep with a fence, even if you don't have children or ever intend them to be there.

cam_l · a month ago

Australia has some pretty strict laws around fencing pools and water features, requiring them to be fenced when deeper than 300mm (and very strict and onerous rules about the nature of the fencing). This applies to private or public water features. However, public water features also require life guards present during operating hours.

If you as an owner, a professional, or even the labourer circumvent these rules and a child dies in the pool, you will likely be criminally charged.

These laws started to be introduced in the late eighties as pools started to be more common place. So I was curious about how these laws had effected drowning deaths since they were introduced. Turns out that drowning deaths in pools for kids under 4 have decreased 5% per year for the last 20 years [0]. That's about 500 kids lives saved in twenty years at the expense of every pool in the country being fenced - about 1.6 million pools. (Australia has the highest per capita private pools in the world.)

At an average cost of about $5k for a pool fence, you could suggest saving each child cost about $16m.

Drowning deaths in other age groups and other locations have not really changed in that time.

Even then, I have never seen any natural waterway, river, creek, beach or whatever being fenced, not even man made natural ponds in public parks.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S132602002...

cam_l commented on The U.K. closed a tax loophole for the global rich, now they're fleeing wsj.com/world/uk/the-u-k-... · Posted by u/fortran77

trebligdivad · a month ago

If they're here they tend to spend money, and employ people. That all ends up as tax slightly more indirectly.

cam_l · a month ago

So what you are saying is, it eventually trickles down?

edit: The reality is they don't spend enough for it to offset the harms that wealth inequality brings.

I know a couple of people who have been using this London loophole as a way to avoid paying taxes anywhere at all. They are not residents here, they are not residents there, and their income is earnt globally. So they think they shouldn't have to pay tax to any particular country.

cam_l commented on Show HN: I built library management app for those who outgrew spreadsheets librari.io/... · Posted by u/hmkoyan

bhattisatish · a month ago

I have more than 500 books too. I have tried using multiple platforms and I end up leaving them because they become a social platform or more than a simple book management. I don't have issues with that, but it's about how much time I want to spend on interacting with people. For e.g. my wife used to be very active in Librarything and Goodreads, but during covid and post covid, she has completely stopped using these platforms. So depending upon peoples needs the platform can become useful or time leeches. And it will depend upon what they need from it at that given moment.

Now, I have an excel sheet with all the books I have, and I don't see any way to import that list into the platform. I don't see myself sitting and rescanning or manually entering that list. For maintaining the library, i.e. whenever we buy books at that moment scanning or manual entry makes sense. But during onboarding I need an excel or csv import provision.

Currently we are using [My Library](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vgm.mylibr...), an android app. I am ready to move out of it as then the whole family can operate it.

Features I will like:

- Easy on boarding of a large collection

- Auto categorization. I don't want to sit manually and tag it or set the genre

- Multiple people be able to add and update a collection (Family mode)

- Borrow/Loaned status

- Books read but not owned

- Sharing the collection with closed group (friends and family)

- Sharing the collection with a larger community (if someone in the family is interested, but only in their profile and not all family members)

- Book recommendations (things that fall in my interest are fine, but also that surprise me). I miss the days when the book store owner used to remember us and used to recommend something which otherwise I wouldn't have picked up.

- And obviously able to export my data. I have been burned by enough platforms in the past 15 years that, this is necessary!

cam_l · a month ago

I have been using zotero for this purpose. And I know it is absolutely the wrong tool for the job.

But it is pretty good at grabbing the book detail, and I have a bunch of custom fields and comments, and I can add other stuff into the book definition like text files and PDFs and jpgs and URLs.

You can also wholesale share libraries and create group libraries etc. But it is not very good at tracking read and unread status, let alone borrowed and returned. And it definitely doesn't give recommendations.

One of my main difficulties in moving from this to other media libraries is they are all each so focused on one kind of media. I find a lot of the things I want to keep track of, and share, and remember, are mixed media, authors who also paint, or website only books, multi media comics, films, art and literary theory. Not just the things that happen to sit on a shelf that I own. Which database does that music producer / graphic artist / film maker / author sit in my collection?