usmanity (u/usmanity)

usmanity commented on Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids tincan.kids/... · Posted by u/derwiki

Huh, I was just thinking about something sort of like this after camping with some friends and our kids this weekend -- we brought FRS walkie-talkies for all of them (cannot recommend this enough!) and on the drive home my four-year-old was asking if he could call his friends on the radio -- rather than getting him a Technician's I was thinking about finding or making some push-to-talk cell/wifi devices for them. It seems like a few of these things exist but they're marketed toward the enterprise (in at least some cases, with a family-style product unfortunately but unsurprisingly being discontinued: https://relaypro.com/families/ ), but it doesn't seem like it would be a hard build aside from making a durable/kid-friendly enclosure for it.

usmanity · a month ago

you could try GMRS over FRS which ends up having more range and only costs $35 for a 10 year license (no test / certification needed). I was recently trying both types of handheld walkie talkies and the FRS range was almost 1/5th the range that GMRS was able to do

usmanity commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025) · Posted by u/david927

cjflog · 2 months ago

Currently a one-man side project:

https://laboratory.love

Last year PlasticList discovered that 86% of food products they tested contain plastic chemicals—including 100% of baby food tested. The EU just lowered their "safe" BPA limit by 20,000x. Meanwhile, the FDA allows levels 100x higher than what Europe considers safe.

This seemed like a solvable problem.

Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent testing of specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports meets Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid's snacks, whatever you're curious about.

Here's how it works: Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, get detailed lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn't reach its funding goal within 365 days, automatic refund. All results are published openly. Laboratory.love uses the same methodology as PlasticList.org, which found plastic chemicals in everything from prenatal vitamins to ice cream. But instead of researchers choosing what to test, you do.

The bigger picture: Companies respond to market pressure. Transparency creates that pressure. When consumers have data, supply chains get cleaner.

Technical details: Laboratory.love works with ISO 17025-accredited labs, test three samples from different production lots, detect chemicals down to parts per billion. The testing protocol is public.

You can browse products, add your own, or just follow specific items you're curious about: https://laboratory.love

usmanity · 2 months ago

this is cool, if you'd like some help on the web UI stuff, I'd love to contribute.

usmanity commented on Starship: A minimal, fast, and customizable prompt for any shell starship.rs/... · Posted by u/benoitg

usmanity · 2 months ago

I started using Pure prompt since I'm only ever using zsh and it seemed to cut down a lot on the setup required, I do have to spend like 15-20 mins on a new computer to get everything working as expected but once it gets going, it feels like the best mix of customization and speed.

usmanity commented on Should we design for iffy internet? bytes.zone/posts/should-w... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

DannyPage · 2 months ago

A big focus is (rightly) on rural areas, but mobile internet packet loss can also a big issue in cities or places where there are a lot of users. It's very frustrating to be technically online, but effectively offline. An example: Using Spotify on a subway works terribly until you go into Airplane mode, and then it suddenly works correctly with your offline music.

usmanity · 2 months ago

100% this, I am almost always on 5G or LTE but in some areas in my city it seems like not even a webpage will load on either. In this case, using any apps is useless and google/kagi search feels like it takes too long to find something basic.

usmanity commented on Show HN: I made a URL expander because short links are too mainstream urlshortenersaresoyesterd... · Posted by u/error404x

usmanity · a year ago

this is great, my succinct little domain that's 6 characters long including TLD was turned into 4000 characters, awesome!

usmanity commented on Helios helios.io... · Posted by u/olivercameron

publicfig · 12 years ago

While we're discussing him, it's worth checking out another project of his, Goldmund. It's piano centric music that really embraces the minimalist aspects of some of the newer neo-classical artists (think Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Nils Frahm or Dustin O'Halloran).

A lot of the music is on Spotify, and here's a link to a set of it on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/keithkenniff/sets/goldmund

usmanity · 12 years ago

I had no idea Helios is also Goldmund. The sound is so different. I found them both on Spotify.

usmanity commented on Mailbox Is Joining Dropbox mailboxapp.com/reservatio... · Posted by u/samps

dhouston · 12 years ago

it's not going anywhere :)

(actually, come work on it: https://www.dropbox.com/jobs :))

usmanity · 12 years ago

man, I wish you guys were looking for a front-end developer! :D

usmanity commented on _why's site is back up whytheluckystiff.net/... · Posted by u/aaronbrethorst

zacharyvoase · 13 years ago

HTTP headers indicate it's being hosted from GitHub pages.

I've confirmed this by looking up the DNS records for the domain; they point to 204.232.175.78 which is the (or an) address of pages.github.com: http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/204.232.175.78

I can't immediately figure out what repo this is being hosted from; a code search for 'DESOLEE' doesn't show anything, so I'm assuming it's a private repo. But at least we know there are git commits happening.

usmanity · 13 years ago

Could be a private repo.