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Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#931

Post by vermaden »

exikyut wrote: post #921
dheera wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The documentation is shit though, I spent a full hour digging through forum answers trying to increase my swap space. All this bpool zpool crap. And then my system /boot got full of some snapshot (wtf I never asked for this), apt-get failed to live up to its promise of magic, got more hell about a 20% preservation rule (again wtf). Was cutting and pasting some zpool zsysctl zc -a -f -foo -bar and then some sudo zfs d…

Well, it's an ROI judgement call at the end of the day. ZFS explicitly takes on significantly more irreducible complexity than ext4 so that it can cohesively tie together the features it offers into a complete system that is consistent for users to work with and for developers to maintain while introducing as few bugs as possible. This reminds me that I wrote a little a while back about the occasionally nontrivial ch…

> AFAIK ZFS pools can't easily be resized > you generally have to recreate them

Not anymore. There is RAIDZ Expansion available. Happens on the fly.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF2KgQGmUic

- https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/raidz-expansion-code...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#932

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

grammarnazzzi wrote: post #556
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you also need to find the file first. And sites to search for files are unreliable, often get banned. I remember long before bit torrent there were protocols like napster, edonkey, imesh etc that included search function and were superior to bit torrent in this aspect. Unfortunately, bad design won.

> But you also need to find the file first No. He's describing a distributor's options. You are describing a consumer's problem. Specifically pirate comsumers. He doesn't need to find his own file; he needs to distribute it. Publishing is a separate issue. With napster, you only had one publishing option: napster.com. With torrents, you have many. As he said, "just dump the magnet link somewhere". > Unfortunately, ba…

Well, like it or not, stealing is 99.9% of practical usage of bittorrent.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#933

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

japhyr wrote: post #134

If you split your own firewood by hand, a Fiskars splitting axe is insanely better than any standard splitting maul you'd find in a typical hardware store: https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/gardening-and-yard-care/produc... For mechanical pencils, the Rotring 600 is the best thing I've ever written with: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZWYUA4/

I really like my Pentel Graphgear 1000s. The retractable tip means it doesn't stab you if you want to carry it in a pocket and at least somewhat reduces the probability of it being ruined by a drop.

https://www.pentel.com/products/graph-gear-1000-mechanical-d...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#934

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

graycat wrote: post #693
akeck wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My absolute favorite pencil with which to do math is the Pentel Kerry .7mm. It feels so good.

I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in applied math with a Pentel 0.5 mm. Soooo, there's also a Pentel 0.7?? GOOD. Thanks!

Pentel makes 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9mm

After trying all of them, I really gravitate to 0.4 and 0.7 depending on what I'm doing with it.

0.7 is great for general writing and notation, while 0.4 is better for drawing figures.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#935

Post by codingclaws »

MrDresden wrote: post #720
codingclaws wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What setup do you use for new Android apps? I dabbled in building an Android app months ago and sort of gave up because I couldn't decide on the best "framework".

I do native (Java/Kotlin) and Flutter development, for 10 and 2 years respectively. Just this year moving into the Jetpack Compose territory, and enjoying it immensly. Regarding the question about what you should choose, well that really depends on the problem space and the end goal you have in mind. If the application is generic, will not really leverage platform specific capabilities and will be made for both Andro…

Thank you. Follow up question if you have time. For these native Android apps, I'm interested in building apps that have good backward compatibility and thus low maintenance costs. Is backward compatibility easy to achieve with Android apps? If not, what tips can you provide?

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#937

Post by exikyut »

vermaden wrote: post #931
exikyut wrote: post #921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's an ROI judgement call at the end of the day. ZFS explicitly takes on significantly more irreducible complexity than ext4 so that it can cohesively tie together the features it offers into a complete system that is consistent for users to work with and for developers to maintain while introducing as few bugs as possible. This reminds me that I wrote a little a while back about the occasionally nontrivial ch…

> AFAIK ZFS pools can't easily be resized > you generally have to recreate them Not anymore. There is RAIDZ Expansion available. Happens on the fly. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF2KgQGmUic - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/raidz-expansion-code...

Huh, interesting.

This appears to be specific to RAIDZ though, which I think I'm not using. I'm just using mirrors at the moment.

I'm incidentally currently working through the logistics for a potential upgrade and am seriously torn about whether to switch over to RAIDZ2 or stick with a couple of independent mirror pools. The "all disks thrash on rebuild after failure" property of RAIDZ2 has me scrambling for the sequential simplicity of mirrors, but... giant contiguous datasets... hmmmmmm...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#938

Post by temporallobe »

elsherbini wrote: post #802
temporallobe wrote: post #763

Late to this thread as usual, but I might as well submit mine: My Fender Telecaster. It’s a paradigm of simplicity, reliability, playability, and tone. From the original barrel-style string saddles to the 2-pickup/3-way switching system to the high-output single coil to the bolt-on neck construction to the straight string-pull head stock, there is no better guitar on the planet. What’s even more impressive is that it…

I'm relatively new to electric guitar and have a Tagima telecaster clone (T55pwh). I love it - it has no business being as good as it is for as cheap as it is. One thing about telecasters that you mentioned that is probably not the best design is the 3 barrel string saddles that make intonation challenging (since you can't adjust the intonation of one string without changing another one too). My favorite telecaster p…

Awesome video. I have indeed heard about the intonation issues with the vintage barrel saddles, but personally I can’t really tell on my Tele. It stays in tune better than most of my guitars and the intonation is far better than on my Les Paul Custom with the Tune-O-Matic bridge.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#939

Post by cinntaile »

fastasucan wrote: post #897
cinntaile wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solo tent needs to be below 1kg before I'd consider it light. Maybe it is the lightest tent when considering the weather it can deal with, but this was not mentioned in your original message. I don't get the analogy with the Tesla going to space? You don't expect cars to fly. What would be the tent equivalent? Using the tent as a boat?

Can you give an argument why we should adhere to your personal standard of a tent being light only if its under 1kg? Is it supported somewhere else? What if someone comes and claims that a tent is light only if its less than 500g?

I never said you have to adhere to my standard. Light is subjective of course. There is no such thing as a light weight standard for tents and if there was it still wouldn't be objective. I base my opinion on what is available in the solo tent market where I look at a combination of price, durability, where it will be used and how many days the hike is. There are not that many tents under 500g so it's a bit too restrictive in my opinion, but someone else could claim that and that would be fine.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#940

Post by alpaca128 »

exikyut wrote: post #924
alpaca128 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a custom keyboard with a similar columnar stagger. In addition it's small enough that I can reach every key without moving my hands, which means my accuracy is noticeably better. There's no chance I'm ever going back voluntarily. Typing all kinds of symbols all day just doesn't get more comfortable. This is why I'm always so annoyed by all the "qwerty vs. dvorak" arguments. It's pretty much the least problemati…

If I can ask, what sort of custom keyboard? A completely bespoke 3D printed sort of thing, or a combination of different parts?

I bought the PCB(Signum 3) and soldered on 42 keys and the controller board. It's got no case but with rubber pads on the bottom it's pretty quiet and thin.

I'm planning to build a custom 3d printed one with a comparable layout but fewer keys. Mostly to try some ideas and features.

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