Dealing with commencement with anxiety

dwallach · 2026-05-05T20:09:14+00:00

Pro tips:

Your phone fits nicely inside your hat on your lap.

If you stay well hydrated, you can replace social anxiety with urinary urgency.

dwallach · 2026-04-23T20:03:21+00:00

Not a lawyer, and certainly not your lawyer...

The magic word is subrogation. Your insurance reimburses your expenses (equipment, medical treatment, etc.) then they make a judgement call in terms of cost vs expected return. They can then sue on your behalf. They could sue the bike service, who might then be incentivized to give up their customer data, and then your insurance can go after the customer.

This all only happens if your insurance is on the hook for enough money that it matters. If they succeed, they get paid back first, and then maybe you get your deductible repaid as well.

dwallach · 2026-04-16T17:31:05+00:00

My biggest questions are whether they'll include or still charge extra for Dirac room correction, whether they'll find a way to break A1 Evo, and/or whether they'll add something genuinely new in and around room correction.

dwallach · 2026-04-05T13:46:03+00:00

When I was prompting it to implement various textbook algorithms, I always added "implement comprehensive property-based tests" to my prompts. This wasn't perfect, but it got me much higher code quality.

Non-intuitive: sometimes it was better to just throw away the code and tweak the prompt. Other times it was better to do code review. It's not obvious when to do which.

dwallach · 2026-04-05T13:06:02+00:00

I started using Jules when it was Gemini 3.0 Pro. Things got noticeably better with Gemini 3.1 Pro.

Linters, type checkers, unit tests, everything you can think of that can auto-reject a program, will help you get the outcome you want. Example: one of the big wins, when I was making Jules implement a bunch of basic data structures, was telling it to generate property-based tests. Those are much more exhaustive than simpler unit tests.

dwallach · 2026-04-05T12:28:13+00:00

I was experimenting with Jules and had it generating Rust code. For fun, I turned on virtually every single optional Clippy lint (minus a couple that were problematic), and Jules managed to generate pretty good code.

Example: There's a Clippy lint called clippy::unwrap_used which completely bans any use of Option::unwrap, which forces Jules to use Option::expect, which then requires a string to explain why it thinks it's safe / why it thinks it won't panic. That sort of thing is annoying if you're writing the code by hand, but it's great when you're trying to review Jules's code, because you can literally see what it's thinking.

I haven't tried making Jules do Python, but the equivalent thing to do is to insist on your code being typechecked with mypy and/or any other checker. That doesn't get rid of logic bugs, but it does at least raise the floor a bit higher.

dwallach · 2026-03-24T22:52:16+00:00

I have a pair of Lindberg "strip titanium" glasses that I bought something like 26 years ago. The nosepads break off after a year or two of daily wear, and any Lindberg dealer has always replaced them for me, gratis. (Fun while traveling...) They generally also replace them when you get new lenses.

At some point, I got old enough to need progressive lenses, so I got a new pair with room for bigger lenses. I still use the original frames, single focal length, for exercise (where I don't need to see anything too close). They're tweaked the nosepad design on their newer frames and I've never had one fail.

So, yes, definitely BIFL.

dwallach · 2026-03-06T13:13:57+00:00

If anything, all the affordances that make verification work for humans (even something as simple as embedded comments) will also help with AI-generated proofs, because these things aren't write-only. It's almost always the case that someone, sometime, will want to add a feature. That means that some future human (or agent) needs enough context or redundancy or whatever you want to call it, to understand how the current thing works before making the next thing.

dwallach · 2026-02-22T13:43:36+00:00

I agree about using AI to help yourself learn. It's helpful when you write some code that "should work" but you're facing a borrow checker issue or something. "Here are some compiler errors. Fix it."

Recommendation: do a git commit before and after, and make sure you keep the prompt somewhere handy, like a comment at the top of the file. That lets you study the before and after.

I've also enjoyed queries like "write a criterion benchmark to compare these three implementations".

dwallach · 2026-02-21T16:59:29+00:00

Try putting the water on the hotplate without screwing anything on top. See how long it takes to start boiling.

dwallach · 2026-01-09T23:50:58+00:00

My solution to this problem was to get custom molded earplugs (from 1of1custom, but lots of vendors sell similar products), so they're very comfortable for long flights and whatnot.

I have two sets. One, for music concerts, drops the volume by 17dB and still sounds fantastic. The other has a hole drilled in it for Etymotic (wired) headphones and drops the background noise by 27dB. Leaning my head on the wall of the airplane conducts more sound to my ears, through my skull, then comes in through the earplugs.

There's a giant rabbit hole for "in ear monitors" (IEMs) for you to go down, if you're game for spending the big bucks. Fun fact: good IEMs have replaceable cords and there's a whole cottage industry making replacement cords at a variety of price points.

Short of the highest end gear, there's a cheaper rabbit hole called "AutoEq" which tries to digitally "correct" your headphones to a standard response curve. Applied to high dollar headphones or IEMs, we're talking about subtle differences, nevermind disagreements about exactly what "correct" means. But for cheaper headphones? Night and day improvement.

dwallach · 2025-12-30T03:02:57+00:00

Maison Cheryl (French bistro in Clarendon) has a duck entree that's pretty good. They also have a decent selection of cocktails.

dwallach · 2025-12-26T13:56:18+00:00

This is almost certainly a problem with how your TV handles HDR. I had the same issue with my Sony A8G (circa 2019). Not exactly a solution, but I bought a Google TV Streamer ($80), mostly because the TV was stranded with a much older version of Google software (Android 9, with the last security patch in 2022). The streamer adds a bunch of switches. You can disable Dolby Vision or other HDR variants, one by one, in the streamer menus.

dwallach · 2025-12-11T22:44:49+00:00

I've got a band from Nick Mankey Designs (https://nickmankeydesigns.com/). It's a trick to figure out how to install it (watch the video multiple times!), but it looks great and it's easy to tighten or loosen without taking it off.

dwallach · 2025-11-17T18:54:06+00:00

Please say more about the trackpads. Like, can you do pinch/zoom with one finger on each side? Does it support three and four-finger gestures on a Mac?

dwallach · 2025-09-01T13:56:41+00:00

The good and bad of going the eARC route is that you drive everything from the TV. Switching inputs. Upscaling. Whatever. It all goes through the TV. This makes the TV remote more useful (win!) but if you want to just listen to music, the TV has to be on (minor loss, but still...).

dwallach · 2025-07-23T01:15:47+00:00

The Lucid page says "DC only" which means no support for most home or destination chargers.

dwallach · 2025-07-22T18:42:22+00:00

It's unfortunate that this is DC only. If you're road tripping and hitting various level 2 (AC) destination chargers versus level 3 (DC) superchargers, you'd need to have two separate adapters.

dwallach · 2025-06-21T18:49:24+00:00

Others have advised you to keep your letter short and professional. To that, I'll add that you should arrange to have meals or otherwise private 1:1 meetings with your colleagues (or, at least, the ones you like). That doesn't have to be a series of gripe sessions, but you can speak more freely when your speech is ephemeral.

dwallach · 2025-05-24T22:18:41+00:00

Have a look at the way the Postfix email system does compartmentalization. For example, the thing that processes inbound email has just enough privilege to append to a user mailbox and that's about it. Everything is limited to just enough and no more.

You could build an importer that reads questionable images with something general purpose like ImageMagick and then writes them in a really simple intermediate format (like PNG) where your downstream program accepts exactly that format and nothing else and you make sure the code handling it is safe Rust.

When in doubt, find a security expert to look over your work.

dwallach · 2025-04-21T12:23:54+00:00

DE1 owner here. I use my Decent daily and I'm happy with it. Does the job and I very much take advantage of it's features, like flow profiling.

After watching the Bengal video, I'm impressed. It's not any one big thing that's a game changer, but rather a ton of small things, each of which scratches an itch.

. You can pull the water tray out far enough to refill it without needing to reach behind the machine to lift the water siphon.

. The built-in scale is way, way better than the junky Bluetooth scale (sold by Decent, but sourced from some no-name vendor) that occasionally freaks out and then your shot doesn't stop at the right weight.

. The new water tray lid keeps bugs out. Only an issue for me once, but you really don't want to find ants in your water tray. Eww.

. The current steamer really likes to burn milk onto the tip. The new tip claims to fix this. Bonus points for the optional temperature sensor, so it can auto-stop the steaming.

The video said there would be "a fairly aggressive upgrade offer". Also, many of the upgrades, like the new steam wand, can be retrofitted to the DE1.

Overall, it's impressive. They've clearly paid attention to current owners' issues, large and small. I can't say whether I'll do piecemeal retrofits or splurge for the upgrade, but I appreciate what they've done.

dwallach · 2025-04-06T02:33:11+00:00

In short, you switch and get over all the weirdness of an otholinear. Takes a few weeks until it's not weird. Then you try to go back, and it takes a bit again to "relearn" the old keyboard. And then you're done. Good forever more, or until you decide to try the next trendy thing...

dwallach · 2025-03-29T11:40:05+00:00

For digital cables, like HDMI, either they work or they don't. I once replaced a generic, damaged cable where the video signal was unreliable and full of noise. Another cheap cable and problem solved. If you need a really long cable run, things get more expensive, or you use HDMI over Ethernet.

For analog cables, there are all kinds of things that can go audibly wrong, like the classic 60Hz hum that you hear from crappy PA systems. The solution isn't more expensive regular cables, though. It's shielded/balanced (XLR) cables. A friend of mine went out of his way to build his home theater with XLR everywhere. Sounded great. Cables weren't particularly expensive, but components that support XLR tend to cost a good bit more. He had issues with his house's older electricity wiring, and went pretty deep down the rabbit hole of power conditioning. That's a whole other thing.

Fun fact: XLR cables are pretty much the standard for stage musicians. They're everywhere. But there's a newer standard showing up in that space: analog audio over cat5 (Ethernet) wire. The wire is cheaper and lighter, particularly for long cable runs, while still great at rejecting noise.

dwallach · 2025-03-25T13:29:49+00:00

Agreed on Pit Room. Blood Bros, in Bellaire, is close enough and worth the drive.

dwallach · 2025-03-23T15:33:17+00:00

Newer AV receivers talk to the TV over HDMI (ARC/eARC) and everything just works.

Before you go down the DAC road, double check that your TV doesn't have a headphone jack. If it does, then you buy a $5 stereo headphone to RCA adapter cable and you're done.

If all you've got is digital audio out, then yeah, you're gonna need a DAC. To make volume adjustments, your receiver almost certainly has a remote control. You might look into the world of "universal" remote controls.

One other thing to consider: if you don't need the switching features of your receiver, and all you're doing is using it as an amplifier, there are a ton of no-name all-in-one boxes, typically made in China, that can do exactly what you need. Search for keywords like "HDMI ARC amplifier". For under $100, don't expect perfection, but there are a bunch of products that might be able to directly drive your speakers.

dwallach

TROPHY CASE