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stevewillows

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stevewillows
·4 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
I've been trying to find a good, portable impact printer for ages that has relatively easy to source paper.

In a dream-scenario, I'd be able to cut A4 or 8.5x11 in half vertically and use that (or any other size) with some sort of rubberized feeder.
stevewillows
·4 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
When you get around to it, for the third part, watch The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Its a recut of the third part that improves on the pacing of the original cut.

Its a fantastic trilogy. If you become a super-fan, there's also a complete chronological cut that is ~10hrs. :)
stevewillows
·4 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
Wikipedia has a good page that also includes shading

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_character
stevewillows
·7 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
yeah, the 5.5 is the best. Such an easy mod, too. Combined with Rockbox and it's a near-perfect media player.
stevewillows
·7 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
yup! You I replaced it with an iFlash Quad [1] -- it takes up to four micro SDs.

I also replaced the battery with a 2000mAh and keep it all in the 30gb case. I also replaced the headphone jack and lock switch so they were black.

Modding iPods is a breeze, too. Just be gentle when you're disconnecting the battery.

[1] https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-quad/
stevewillows
·7 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
A guy in /r/buyitforlife posted a palm pilot (Tungsten C), and it got me thinking about heading back down this road (further than I already have.)

For portable audio, I'm using a souped-up iPod video. I'm thinking 2020 will be the year where I take another step in this offline direction -- at least with hardware.
stevewillows
·8 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
shadow-banning is handy for spammers and bad-posters because, to them, it looks like their posts are public. Its not hard to find out if you're shadowbanned (use incognito mode), but it often does the trick.

In the subs I mod I have a long list of awful contributors on an auto-remove list executed by automoderator. I've got people who have been saying awful thing to people for years, but those posts are never seen. Banning them will only lead them to create a new account.
stevewillows
·8 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
they're most likely in /r/all. Reddit now has filters for subs that will show up in that feed, which handy.
stevewillows
·9 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
somebody always pays. Ideally it would have a strong app and desktop version with a standard calendar export... not too far off from facebook today, just omitting their other garbage. It wouldn't be too server intensive, but if people are using it, there's a cost.

Also, keep in mind that not everybody is as savvy as the people who typically participate on HN. It should be as simple and minimal as possible.
stevewillows
·9 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
exactly. Even with meetup, its not perfect for 'I want this specific group to come over.'

In a lot of ways, mid-2000s evite would be perfect -- but there's the spam / nagging side of their business that spoils it.

To be fair, I have no idea how one would monetize my dream events platform.
stevewillows
·9 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
For most people I know, we're only using facebook for events and as a centralized location where I can basically contact anybody. The sooner someone creates a standalone, sustainable event organizing application that doesn't spam you to death, the sooner the exodus can begin.
stevewillows
·9 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
It's sad to see Pirate Joes go away. I don't know anyone who shopped there on a regular basis, but I do think TJ would do well in that neighborhood.

The main draw to Trader Joe's is that its part of the journey across the line. This week I'll be doing this same old routine -- pick up some packages at the mail place ($2 per package), hit up a few grocery stores for different hot sauces and staples (including condensed milk in a squeeze tube), have lunch in Bellingham, go for a walk around Fairhaven, then return home.

Trader Joe's is part of that journey, much like Target (who had a massive, depressing attempt to break into Canada). Strip away that special-trip aspect, and all you really have is another grocery store with a few exceptional items.
stevewillows
·10 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
It feels like a lot of people are creating an archive of a life they wanted to live, but didn't.

An ex of mine has a young boy who she treated more as a mannequin than anything. She'd get angry if I didn't take a Vogue-level portrait of her posing with an ice cream cone. It was exhausting --- and to what end? To get a higher Klout score?

Big whoop.

Online social apps should be focused on improving the offline world.
stevewillows
·10 ปีที่แล้ว·discuss
About five years ago I bumped into an old friend of mine that I hadn't seen since around 2005. Despite not keeping in contact physically, we both knew everything about each other's lives. It was great to reconnect, but we didn't have the typical reward that comes with the rediscovery. I knew what he was doing for work, the projects he had going on the side, etc.

Tracking my friends stripped a lot of the romance, joy. and mystery out of reconnecting.

Around the same time I got into a new group of friends that were all about their 'personal brand.' Every occasion was started with a good ten minutes of silence while they checked-in to Yelp, Foursquare, snapped photos of the venue / table / food, and tweeted bullshit along the lines of 'having the time of my life!' -- I spent the time looking for typos and leading errors on the menus. It was exhausting. Everybody was there, but nobody was present. Even the meal itself was dull because of the endless obsession with creating something it wasn't.

I never bought into those bullshit games of 'put your phone in the middle of the table' or whatever. If you're a typical human being, my expectation is that you can silence your phone and have the slightest bit of restraint to avoid looking at it every few minutes. I understand if there's an emergency or whatever, but otherwise, keep it on vibrate and be done.

Around this time I completely disabled all notifications and the phone never made a peep.

A few years after that I starting tracking how many images and tweets I was reading vs enjoying. It was about one in twenty or so.

Examining my own tweets and other contributions to social media had me realizing that I was as social as a guy at a party shouting opinions over the music to a room full of people doing the same. It wasn't social, and it was barely media.

I decided to purge the accounts and start from scratch -- and will be doing so every year or so. Starting fresh is nice, but I find that I rarely have anything of actual value to contribute.

I've avoided facebook for years and only use it for events. Instagram is all kids. Twitter is all business and 'I'm speaking at x conference --- here's a link to an instagram post of a photo of a slide in my presentation taken from the back row'. I've avoided the graphic design sites like dribbble where most 'portfolios' aren't filled with client work or art, just 99designs level work that is good, but irrelevant... and the list goes on.

Social media isn't completely dead, but for me, I checked out a long time ago.

I'm hoping that the next wave will be a hybrid of twitter, meetup, foursquare, and tinder --- an app where you check into a location to say 'I'm here, who wants to hang out?' and you can hang out with some strangers for a time.