@nicholashead@mastodon.social
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

nicholashead

@nicholashead@mastodon.social

Total #nerd / #geek about all sort of esoteric things; #videogames, #movies, #music, #electronics, #tv ...

Work work? I'm a Staff Engineer, building for the web for 24+ years now. Dreaming of someday working for #WaltDisneyImagineering

Deaf in one ear, thanks to a now removed brain tumor. Happily married, living in sunny So Cal.

Random fact: I made a few of the tray icons in Winamp back in the day.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mattblaze, to photography
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

AT&T Long Lines Oak Hill Tower, San Jose, CA 2021.

This unusual Brutalist tower was part of the former AT&T terrestrial microwave network that once carried the bulk of US long distance telephone traffic. The (long since disconnected) horn antennas are too big and heavy to remove.

Too many pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@mattblaze the long lines stuff has always fascinated me, starting as a kid. The whole infrastructure stuff we take for granted and whose remnants still exists today is amazing

codinghorror, to random

“I’ve never seen an automaker proudly present something of this poor quality, especially not this late in development.” https://insideevs.com/news/694929/tesla-cybertruck-matte-black-impressions/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@codinghorror as someone who wants to see Tesla succeed and ditch Elon, it makes me sad how this became an actual model they’re going to make. Another Elon meme-y distraction that is impractical and going to cost the company money, and makes them seem like idiots. The post-mortems on this…

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Wanna start off your week with a fun little programming brain teaser:

How would you calculate the rotation angle for the minute and hour hand of a clock?

Superficially this seemed like a straightforward problem to solve, but after lot of challenging thinking and dead-end solutions I think I found the right way. This came up because the hands in Widgetsmith's clock widgets now can animate between times in iOS17. Which led to a variety of edge cases.

My solution: https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2023/11/06/design-notes-46/

A grey clock is shown with hands moving smoothly around the watch face. The digital time is shown below.

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@_Davidsmith this was a coding exercise at a job interview I had. I was explaining what I’d do and they demanded I write actual C# code on a whiteboard. 🤦‍♂️ but still it’s an interesting thing to think through.

ai6yr, to climate

WSJ: Buying Home and Auto Insurance Is Becoming Impossible
Huge losses from national disasters prompt industry to jack up prices and pull back from some markets; ‘worst possible scenario’ for consumers (GIFT LINK) https://www.wsj.com/business/insurance-home-auto-rate-increases-climate-change-03b806f3?st=d64b84apskqwj8r&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@ai6yr my home policy with farmers went from $1582 premium to $4831 last year. It’s insane.

homeassistant, to random
@homeassistant@fosstodon.org avatar

The MyQ integration will be removed from Home Assistant in release 2023.12. Chamberlain Group, the owners of MyQ, have released a public statement saying they will continue blocking access to third-party apps like the integration. Read more: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/11/06/removal-of-myq-integration/

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@homeassistant MyQ is total clowns. Example of an old school corporatey mindset. We should be getting away from walled gardens on stuff like this. They had the chance to work with us and come up with some compromise but nope. They don’t want our business. I’m going to actively try and avoid buying them again and tell others about how they treat their customers.

nicholashead, to random
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

Talking to someone this morning about dealing with my second infection and just being mindful of the new studies showing long COVID symptoms and percentage chance and impact for repeated infections… and they proceed to tell me to stop getting my news online and believing everything I read, and that I’ll be fine, it’s just a cold.

Tired Presidential Debate GIF by INTO ACTION

film_girl, to random
@film_girl@mastodon.social avatar

Hmm. Apple will give me $1300 for my 2-year old $4000 laptop. I’m tempted? I would sell for $1500 or $1600 to anyone out there who wants a 14” M1 Max with 64GB of RAM and 10/32 core and Apple Care+

nicholashead,
@nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

@film_girl I have an bottom spec M1 MBA and your offer is tempting lol

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @GossiTheDog oh I definitely get the reference :) I watched that show. There were dozens of us. Dozens!

    cabel, to random
    @cabel@panic.com avatar

    Does anyone else get 2FA Deja Vu? Like, you get your code and you think, “geez I swear I got that exact same code last time”?

    It’s just me isn’t it 😵‍💫

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @cabel my Apple one stays the same for some reason. Anyone else experience that?

    nicholashead, to random
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    Never did a proper on here- so here goes - I'm Nicholas, a lifelong geek/nerd who loves video games, movies, comics, music and all sorts of esoterica. I used to read encyclopedias for fun growing up, so, yeah.

    I've been developing stuff on the web for 23+ years, now a Staff Engineer. I'm married with two lovely kids on the spectrum.

    I am deaf in my right ear (thanks to a now-removed brain tumor). And look forward to meeting awesome folks on here.

    craiggrannell, to random
    @craiggrannell@mastodon.social avatar

    Looks like YouTube has figured out how to block ad blockers. And not how to not block ad blockers when you’ve disabled the ad blocker for YouTube. Idiots.

    EDIT: Nope. I just tried in a private window, but with the ad blocker still on, and the video worked fine. Good grief.

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @craiggrannell https://mastodon.social/@jwz/111276197531408996 is relevant. I use Vinegar and Baking Soda for Safari as well as StopTheMadness to make Safari nicer. But not sure what JWZ landed on. Hope the thread helps?

    nicholashead, to random
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    My 11yo daughter, who normally isn’t into video games, discovered Return to Monkey Island on Xbox and played through it, enjoying it.

    I then introduced her to Day of the Tentacle (remastered) and she plowed through that in a day and said she loved it too! The old gamer in me is pleased. Wonder what other delightful classic games she’ll enjoy.

    Thanks @grumpygamer !

    18+ ai6yr, to climate

    We're burning down the planet and US politicians have this bill...

    The “Refrigerator Freedom Act” which will "prohibit the Secretary of Energy from prescribing or enforcing energy conservation standards for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers that are not cost-effective or technologically feasible, and for other purposes."

    https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7637/text/rh

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr it’s not just that one. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a60735949/house-refrigerator-laundry-freedom-bills/ - I hate my country sometimes. All this waste of time and (forgive me) energy.

    molly0xfff, to random
    @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

    having a pretty great time with https://mmm.page/

    https://molly0xfff.mmm.page/

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @molly0xfff was wondering why I couldn’t load that domain at all - my pihole doesn’t like it: https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists?tab=readme-ov-file#closed_lock_with_key-threat-intelligence-feeds---increases-security-significantly-recommended- it’s part of the “threat intelligence feed” - I wonder if that domain is used for sketchy stuff? lol

    Daojoan, to random
    @Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

    AAA games have never looked more beautiful. The problem is, they also look incredibly homogeneous and they aren’t any fucking fun to play.

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @Daojoan yep. I’m just about to finish Assassin’s Creed Mirage and it is a boring non innovative chapter. Embarrassing :-/

    ai6yr, to Plumbing

    Sigh. Restoration company saying this is going to be a big job. All the carpet will have to come out, and ceilings and walls in several of the rooms. And I caught it within an hour and a half of the break.

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr that really sucks. So sorry. The curveballs of life sometimes..

    ai6yr, to RaspberryPi

    This looks decent for powering a Raspberry Pi or equivalent off POE. https://jcutrer.com/iot/howto-power-a-raspberry-pi-poe

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr I use something like this across multiple pis and it works great. Even have one for my main router. PoE all the things!

    sophie, to random
    @sophie@social.lol avatar

    Captchas are getting really difficult and I’ve actually started failing them sometimes?? “Select the pictures of items that can be cut with a knife and scissors” and then pictures of things I can’t even make out because they’re clearly AI generated garbage

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @sophie relevant: https://xkcd.com/2228/

    ai6yr, to random

    Hmm, I wonder if the petulant billionaire's new AI was ONLY trained on the petulant billionaire and the right wing accounts he is such a fan of :-(

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr

    Man Reaction GIF by Ford

    ai6yr, to random

    Well, that must be one heck of a house fire to have an evac warning. (San Diego, Carlsbad)

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr https://citizen.com/-NylbUOAHol7UHTelLaX one killed one injured. This is somewhat near me

    motoridersd, to random
    @motoridersd@pug.ninja avatar

    I am now remembering more of S1 of Julia, mostly because Sarah Lancashire

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @motoridersd I think the whole show is cast wonderfully!

    exchgr, to random
    @exchgr@mastodon.world avatar

    whyyyyy does apple tv recode dolby 5.1 to multichannel lpcm 7.1 😭

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @exchgr I hate that they don’t just pass through the signal all the time. And only seem to allow certain apps to do it?

    ai6yr, (edited ) to random

    Wifi A/P in the attic. Not working as well as I hoped, may have to pop this back into the house on wallboard instead of wood....

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @ai6yr if using 5ghz, wood/walls are much worse than they were with 2.4- also check manufacturer’s manual for what antenna pattern/array is coming out of it, to properly orientate it

    exchgr, to random
    @exchgr@mastodon.world avatar

    this and no posts for a couple of days has me worried https://saturation.social/@jkottke/111364835317629919

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @exchgr I still don’t know the original context

    sophie, to random
    @sophie@social.lol avatar

    Well, I forgot I was interviewing a candidate today, and I'm wearing my new "Jazz Crabs" t-shirt

    nicholashead,
    @nicholashead@mastodon.social avatar

    @sophie that’s just your alter ego then (maybe you’ll get this reference lol)

    Ron Swanson GIF by Parks and Recreation

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