HackerTrans
TopNewTrendsCommentsPastAskShowJobs

simeonf

no profile record

comments

simeonf
·il y a 8 mois·discuss
Easy - homeschooling may include but does not require "in the home" any more than "homework" is required to be done in your house.

I was homeschooled and have homeschooled my three kids. Never has that meant "only at home and only with my family". My kids have been in co-op classes, taken classes from Art or Technical instruction centers (piano lessons, voice classes, programming, robotics), enrolled in community classes via private institutions and the local JC (cooking classes, performing arts) and been enrolled in independent study charter public schools which have some in-person classes. And in high school they start taking in-person JC courses.

There is lots of regular exposure to a variety of other people in all of that!
simeonf
·il y a 2 ans·discuss
Gandalf says this in the movies, not in the book. However the descriptive language is drawn from Frodo's dream in the barrow downs and his experience sailing into west at the end of LOTR.

> And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
simeonf
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I'm still at the "making tongs from rebar" stage of my blacksmith career but I can probably explain somewhat:

The machine is probably a power hammer. The pointy tool is a punch, used for making holes in the workpiece and often followed by a drift, used to widen and shape the hole.

I understand some people use lubricants when drifting/punching hence the WD40. The v-shaped piece that is supposed to hold the workpiece is probably held there by a square shaft underneath that fits into a square hole on the work surface called a "hardy hole". It isn't unsecured ... but it doesn't seem to have a very fine fit so it moves a bit.
simeonf
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I built a two-story straw bale house with lime exterior stucco and clay plaster on the interior walls.

Many details in the house use reclaimed/salvaged lumber (fake box beams on the ceiling, deep window sills in every window, wood paneling, fireplace mantel, pantry shelves, etc).

I had construction skills at the start of the project due to my dad who is a contractor. But through the project I started doing some finer woodworking and ended up with some hand tool woodworking skills and was able to all the trim: recessed baseboard (bent around curves some places), door casings, window details, some custom cabinetry, etc.
simeonf
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Just getting back on the latest open source Python ecosystem after a long stint of mostly writing Python in a corporate mono-repo context with bespoke tooling.

So far I like:

  - black autoformats my code swiftly
  - ruff is fast and replaces multiple python linters
  - pip-tools lets me manage multiple dependency specifications (local, prod, test) more sanely than manually syncing `pip freeze` with multiple requirements files. 
  - f-strings are nice improvement over .format calls, % string interpolation, string.Templates, etc.
  - I appreciate pattern matching and case classes in Scala. I expect to like them  using dataclasses and pattern matching Python
simeonf
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
>Isn't this partially what you pay your architect for? If you're willing to pay top dollar you should be able to find one that's very hands on and coordinates the whole building process as your representative.

It is amazing how separate most architects are from the actual implementation. I sort of wish architects were required to apprentice as builders before doing design.

I recently built a custom house with a long time friend as the architect and have a family member I could talk to who is an architect. Additionally there was a structural engineer involved in the project for things like truss design and sheer calculations I could talk. That's a lot of talent and experience in residential and commercial design!

On the other hand my father is a general contractor and I have some construction experience and grew up around roofers, framers, etc.

All the architects I talked to frequently had very low visibility into the difficulty and cost factors of their design proposals.

For example: flush baseboards make the wall super clean and don't get dinged up. But no indie contractors in our area can install them.

Curves on drywall interior walls will match the curves in the plastered exterior walls - but while wetted 1/4 inch drywall will bend a pretty tight inside curve it can't be attached to an outside curve because it pulls through the fasteners - I ended up kerf cutting plywood to make the bend, priming it for adhesion and plastering the curves with help from a high end plaster specialist.

High windows downstairs go all the way to the ceiling inside which looks more balanced on the outside... but would require a small "vault" in the otherwise flat ceiling... Which would have affected the framing of the wall, required at least one custom floor truss instead of a standard TJI, made for super complicated trim in the affected rooms, required a very non-standard window size, and an expensive plaster detail at each such window. On my investigation it was going to be at least $25K to make 4 windows 8" taller!

In my experience custom home building architects generally were not very construction aware. Talking about installation practices or costs usually resulted in advice to "get a bid"! Despite being very pleased with my architectural collaboration I don't think hands-on supervision of actual building practice is likely a realistic expectation from a typical architect.
simeonf
·il y a 4 ans·discuss
Agreed on AFCI circuit breakers! They are now mandatory for all 15-20 amp light and plug circuits on new construction where I live - although breakers for large appliances do not require them. But I have several portable tools (eg a carpet cleaner) which will make an AFCI breaker trip every time. AFCI circuit breakers seem to be more fragile (read the box: much smaller range of acceptable heat and limited number of duty cycles) - I apparently killed one just by tripping it repeatedly. And while a regular 15 amp breaker is a few bucks, the CAFCI breaker I'm supposed to use is $45...
simeonf
·il y a 4 ans·discuss
For context I built a straw bale home with a lime exterior plaster (carbon neutral on the long term scale) and clay interior plaster. The claimed R-value of the exterior walls is R44 and there is no thermal bridging due to the 20 inch walls that are solid straw bale with plaster directly adhering to the inside and outside of the bale. I think it's a high performance home... That said:

Part of the conservatism of building is due to building codes. Building inspection is fundamentally about risk management and my building inspectors wanted to see familiar products with already specified installation procedures in the building code - or else a detail stamped by a eg structural engineer so there is somebody to sue if things go wrong. In some cases they would also take a manufactured product with manufacture provided installation instructions.

Any "high performance" building that is innovative will automatically require a lot of additional engineering overhead to pass building inspection and in general residential building departments wish you would just do things like everybody else...
simeonf
·il y a 4 ans·discuss
It's called DuckDuckGoose - see https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/a/2015/twitter-ex...
simeonf
·il y a 11 ans·discuss
I loved dragonbox and so did my daughters. I just bought lightbot jr for my 4 year old and tweeted a pic. He's currently muttering to himself and it's cracking me up - "Oh this one is hard. All you have to do is put an arrow. Now let's turn the other way." He's debugging! Thanks a bunch!