oesmith's comments

oesmith | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: Do you write code on the train? What's your setup?

I've been doing this for nearly five years now, so I've gradually built up a system that works for me. Usually I'll use one of two devices:

* Asus Chromebook Flip (C100PA)

* iPad Pro 10.5 with keyboard cover

When I'm developing, I use ssh or mosh to access my workstation in the office and then tmux+vim. Mosh works pretty great with poor connectivity. I've pretty much mentally mapped the signal quality along my route, so I know when to look out the window for a couple of minutes to wait for signal to come back...

When I'm not developing, I'm usually using Gmail+Google Docs/Sheets/etc to get stuff done. They all work relatively well offline/online.

For connectivity, I use a Raspberry Pi Zero with a 4G data stick as a WiFi hotspot (the on-train WiFi is terrible, and tethering to my phone kills the phone battery way too quickly). That setup can run for 6-8 hours on a little Anker USB battery pack.

oesmith | 10 years ago | on: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

I'm looking forward to Google opening an office in Bristol. Until then, I'm stuck on a daily commute from Bath to London.

The commute sucks, but I couldn't stand living in London (nor SF or the bay for that matter).

oesmith | 11 years ago | on: Has modern Linux lost its way? Some thoughts on Jessie

Pro-tip: you can use "brew info [package-name]" to lookup the post-install info that flashes up after a homebrew install.

    $ brew info cassandra

    cassandra: stable 2.1.2
    http://cassandra.apache.org
    Not installed
    From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/cassandra.rb
    ==> Caveats
    If you plan to use the CQL shell (cqlsh), you will need the Python CQL library
    installed. Since Homebrew prefers using pip for Python packages, you can
    install that using:

      pip install cql

    To have launchd start cassandra at login:
        ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/cassandra/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
    Then to load cassandra now:
        launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.cassandra.plist

oesmith | 11 years ago | on: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

The last paragraph of the article:

"Because of its sample size (1,801 people) and choice of topic, Pew’s study might not be a fully accurate example of social media’s silencing effects, but it’s definitely fodder for discussion – if you dare! – as well as further research."

Sigh.

oesmith | 11 years ago | on: Net neutrality

+1, I live in a semi-rural town of ~10k residents and I get 75Mbps / 15Mbps fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband.

The infrastructure is owned by the incumbent monopoly provider, but the service over the top can be supplied by any one of a number of large and small suppliers.

oesmith | 12 years ago | on: Why air travel hasn't gotten any faster since the 1960s

Premium economy?

I usually fly between LHR and SFO on BA premium economy. It's usually sub-£1000. Compared to economy, the seats are wider with more leg room and the meals are better.

It's a pity they still fly creaking old 747s on that route though. One time went to SFO through LAX where the first leg was on an A380 and that completely spoiled 747s for me.

Unfortunately, the A380 doesn't make up for the horrors of connecting onto an AA domestic flight at LAX, so I can't do that all the time now...

oesmith | 12 years ago | on: Clean, Modern Objective-C

I think many go programmers would disagree with you, and C++ programmers who've discovered clang-format too.

Bikeshed discussions about formatting quickly go out the window when you have an automated tool that can settle all arguments.

oesmith | 12 years ago | on: Frameworkless JavaScript

I wonder why Google's Closure Compiler hasn't taken off more in the open-source world. At the cost of some mandatory comments to help the compiler, it's able to analyze and remove unused library code from your application.
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