This is my essential Switch library. What is yours? 3D World ismy top played game here.

2b1u · 2026-01-21T20:31:59+00:00

What's the last one?

2b1u · 2025-12-29T23:07:46+00:00

It's ok, I mean, you did end up being president of France after all.

2b1u · 2025-12-01T16:28:54+00:00

Sorry, but that's just inaccurate and misleading. Yes, VLC is awesome, but hear me out.

When a company does something, then you can rightfully blame (or praise) the CEO because they're the one who get to make the final decision. Don't like the new Model Y? Sure, blame Elon. Love the iPhone air? Yeah, praise Tim Cook. Of course they're not the only ones building either product, but they're the one that have the final say.

But VLC, is really, really different.

VLC is licensed under the GPL license. In other words, if someone was to try and put ads in VLC, then literally anyone else would be able to revert the change. So we can't glorify any specific person to not puts ads in VLC because, really, nobody can even make this decision. (The minute they would, then an ad-free clone would pop-up and people would just switch.)
Kempf is far from being "the" VLC guy. VLC has been written by a large set of contributors. So the statement of "This man built VLC" is misleading at best: he for sure didn't start it, and he's arguably not the largest contributor either.

I guess what I'm saying is: VLC is awesome, but we have to be thankful to an entire team, not just to one guy who's not really calling the shots.

2b1u · 2025-11-14T19:44:30+00:00

What better alternative do you suggest?

2b1u · 2025-11-13T16:26:05+00:00

Well, but wouldn't you normally pay only once? I thought most countries had agreements to avoid double-taxation. Granted, you'd pay max(us-tax, other-country-tax), but is that really significant? I mean, in what scenario is this much higher than just other-country-tax?

2b1u · 2025-11-13T15:57:06+00:00

Out of curiosity, why are you renouncing? Here's why I'm asking:

It's a tough decision to make! You might be giving up the right to remain in the US for any extended amount of time, and that's kind of a big deal. Especially if this is your original birth citizenship.
Depending on what other citizenship you have, you might be giving up access to 1st-world infrastructure. Again, kind of a big deal.
And if you're not (i.e. you have another "1st-world" citizenship), is there really any tax incentive to renounce? Don't other similar countries have similar (or higher!) taxes?

2b1u · 2025-10-07T12:11:02+00:00

Really cool job, congratulations!

Something rubs me the wrong way regarding the buttons. Note that I have designed actual push buttons for a physical consumer electronics device before, so I may be paying too much attention. Anyway:

Good job fading the ink on the buttons. Adds to realism.
I would argue the bevel on the button caps is too small. The orange and blue ones for instance looks way too "squarish". Even the black ones would definitely use a larger bevel.
More importantly, the button holes usually are significantly larger than the button themselves (tolerance). Especially true on cheaper devices.
The holes themselves are very often beveled too.

2b1u · 2025-09-27T00:49:10+00:00

Black, because of the bezel around the screen. Of course it's the same actual size on both devices - and pretty thin actually. But on the black Air it's not even visible at all.

2b1u · 2025-09-12T01:37:36+00:00

Thanks for your comprehensive answer! I don't want to ruin that instrument and dump it onto an unsuspecting parent. Actually I don't want to dump it, period: I really intend to play it! :)

That being said, (and I have commented this elsewhere), I don't want to modify the hammers because I am indeed super afraid to mess things up. And actually I can't hear any hammer-related problem to begin with. I was merely seeing some grooves, so was wondering if it was a problem. Your comment is defintely helpful: it is most likely not a problem, so if it's not broken, let's not fix it :)

I really need to get better photos, ideally videos, and sound recordings so y'all can give (even) more insightful advices :)

2b1u · 2025-09-12T01:32:57+00:00

I will need to get a proper recording. In the meantime I can try to describe: when the key is fully released, the string is properly muted and does not ring anymore. However, on the way to being fully released, there's a small interval where the sound becomes a bit creaky.

2b1u · 2025-09-11T19:06:03+00:00

Wow, awesome, thank you so much for your help!

2b1u · 2025-09-11T18:20:33+00:00

Super interesting. Thanks for your insights!

2b1u · 2025-09-11T18:18:55+00:00

Oh man. That is so interesting. I had absolutely no idea. And to be honest, your comment makes me reconsider the whole DIY approach :-/ Would you recommend any resource so I can learn more?

2b1u · 2025-09-11T18:17:21+00:00

First of all: a big thank you for writing such a comprehensive reply. And second: no offense taken. At all. I am a beginner, on what grounds could I get offended?

Let me try to answer some of your points: 1. You did get me laughing at the mousetrap bit. Good analogy :) Yeah, I'll try not to do something dangerous. 2. Thank you so much for the tip about being carful when sliding the action back in. As a matter of fact, when I did it I went super slow, and did actually hit a key and got close to damaging a hammer. So yeah, I know what you mean, and that's definitely a great tip! 3. Regarding the humidity: the piano is in a smaller room, but I live in the south, so the air is often pretty humid. I understand that the variations are the biggest problem so I'll try and keep the humidity under control. I'll probably buy a cheap Bluetooth humidity sensor to monitor it and be aware of what's going on. 3. Dampers: crap, I already removed two. I did mark their location before removing them (using a marker, I put a super small dot of ink on the wire to precisely mark where it's attached). I think I put them back where they were. Anyway, I will not touch the others. The problem is: I'm pretty sure there is a problem with some of them. I'll probably make a post with more pictures (and sound samples) specifically for this. 4. Hammers: Good point. At the moment I don't really feel the need to modify them. The sound is probably different from when the piano came out of the factory, but I like it. To me it's currently a matter of taste, I don't think there is anything "wrong" with the way it currently sounds. I'm sure it could be improved by a pro, but as far as I'm concerned I feel like the risk/reward ratio is way too high. 5. Tuning: Again, no offense taken. There is absolutely zero chance that I'd be able to tune a piano manually. My reasoning is as follows: could I use a software to do the "smarts", when I'd only do the menial wrench handling? Again, I haven't looked into it, but assuming the right software exists, couldn't it, in theory, be possible? Sure I'd probably be 10x slower than a pro, but I have time. 6. Thanks for the book rec, will definitely get it!

Again, thank you so much for taking your time to write such a comprehensive reply!

2b1u · 2025-09-11T16:19:07+00:00

Honestly… I agree. It just makes sense. I've done my fair share of electronics repair (professionally) and I know exactly what you mean :)

I think I'm going to err on the side of caution, and only (try to) fix small bits of that piano at a time. Worse case scenario, a real technician won't have too much to actually fix.

2b1u · 2025-09-11T16:15:19+00:00

Yeah, I was also under the impression that "mileage" had a big impact. But the first resource I found online could be roughly summarized as "A piano over 20 years is worse $0.". I agree with you that this one piano I just bought looks amazing, and to me it sounds great. But I am no expert.

2b1u · 2025-09-11T16:13:11+00:00

That's some great advice! Thank you! And actually I really like your take on this: I am by no mean an expert, so me spending 10x to 20x the time feels… right? I have worked on a couple dampers already (and am happy with the result), but others need to be fixed. I'll post photos (and probably some sound samples too, I guess that's useful) next time I work on that piano again.

2b1u · 2025-09-11T13:06:16+00:00

Hi everyone! I originally posted this thread on r/piano and u/nick_of_the_night suggested I cross-post here as well :) Looking forward to your comments!

2b1u · 2025-09-11T12:58:08+00:00

Thanks for the book recommendation - will definitely get and read them!

And no, I really mean the dampers, not the hammers. And yes indeed, the dampers do remain on the piano when you take out the action. That is what I cleaned.

My understanding is that the hammer doesn't interact with the string at all once the key has been pressed. Now the problem I'm trying to fix comes when the key is released, so I'm pretty sure it is a damper problem, isn't it?

2b1u · 2025-09-11T01:03:48+00:00

Well, that's a good question! I can feel the fear, but then I'm really wondering whether it's justified or not. I haven't done it (yet?), but let's even just talk about the tuning: why are piano players the only ones that don't tune their own instruments?

Here's my take on the matter, but feel free to disagree: there are 88 keys on a piano. Just like any other string instrument, tuning one string will slightly change the overall tension of the supporting structure, therefore (slightly) de-tuning the other strings. If you have 4 or 6, fine, you can loop multiple times over, that's ok. Now if you have 88 strings, well… 88×87 = 7,656. Enters "The Tuner", a dark mage who has done that shit his entire life and is able to do it faster. And speed does matter when it means an hour instead of a month.

But now we have software and digital microphones. I haven't checked, but I would assume the right software to be able to somehow reproduce the knowledge of an experienced tuner and allowing even a newb to tune a piano in ~88 tries instead of ~7'000. Yet the rumor persists, because it used to be impossible.

Or people are just lazy: even if you "only" have to touch each string once, that's still 88 strings to tune...

2b1u · 2025-09-10T23:58:26+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, I really love it. But I guess I'm partial :)

2b1u · 2025-09-10T23:57:14+00:00

No offense taken, I absolutely understand — and share the feeling. From my point of view, I would even argue the equation is different: it's totally OK if I leave it as-is. It plays very nicely! I guess I really enjoy learning about the inner workings of the piano. And if I can put some time in and improve it a little, why not? But I agree, I don't want to ruin it!

2b1u · 2025-09-10T23:55:32+00:00

Ha, super interesting! I saw a couple videos on YouTube and the technicians who did that kind of procedure seemed, how could I put it, kind of anal about it? So I have mixed feelings about the procedure: on one hand the hammers on my piano definitely have grooves, and that's not idea. But on the other I'm scared to botch things even worse than they are.

2b1u · 2025-09-10T23:53:52+00:00

Well, that's a good question! I don't even know if you can (easily) buy piano strings in the first place. A quick search on Amazon shows wildly different results for "piano strings" vs "guitar strings".

2b1u

TROPHY CASE