ryanchoi's comments

ryanchoi | 3 years ago | on: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

Yeah, I opted for a smaller phone this last upgrade (in what, four years) in hopes of using it less and being less noticeable in the pocket. Used to have this big screen phone with which I wouldn’t have much issue watching or reading stuff on. Now with a much smaller one, “not” having a huge screen to consume media on, making it less attractive to do so, and it’s been working pretty well I think. Couldn’t bring myself to go full dumbphone, er, feature? phone.

ryanchoi | 6 years ago | on: Sunscreen enters bloodstream after just one day of use

The four ingredients here (avobenzone, oxybenzone, ecamsule and octocrylene) seem to be specific to chemical* sunscreens, as opposed the sunscreens that are "physical" like Titanium dioxide/zinc oxide based ones.

They're like the ones in the Hawaii ban on some otc sunscreens (on oxybenzone and octinoxate) because those two chemicals appear to be particularly bad for coral reefs or something.

Then again, there is ofc the issue of nanoscale particles on your face passing through your own skin, but that sounds like it applies for a lot of modern makeup anyways. And for that, I take it cosmetics R&D people already have something on this...(?)

(*Chemical/physical sunscreens are categorized by their uv protection mechanisms: the former type generally uses organic compounds to absorb uv, the latter type uses inorganic compounds to generally just reflect/scatter, to loosely put it)

ryanchoi | 6 years ago | on: Bored Lonely Angry Stupid

Happy to hear you've got yourself back on track :)

I heard/hold a similar take on depression that sounds a little nicer, for better or for worse: it's an issue for which you must seek the answer to on your own, but the problem is that the condition itself takes away your motivation to do anything about it...

ryanchoi | 7 years ago | on: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

Above user might not find it to be a hassle at all. I turn GPS off whenever I notice it on as well, but it's pretty far down the list of ux concerns when using my phone. Sometimes an app reminds me I need to turn it on before continuing, but that's all handled smoothly in-app these days. (unlike sibling comment my phone has gps toggle in the slide down menu)

In my case it's a longstanding habit from when I was told that GPS could drain battery faster :p (maybe it still? does, I don't know)

ryanchoi | 7 years ago | on: Two years later, I still miss the headphone port

I definitely care more than the average person, but all things considered I prefer my wired IEMs over over-ear wireless headphones, or today's chunky earbuds that need to be charged too often for my liking (and/or their charging cases, to be exact). Same reason I didn't get into smart watches, the pros were outweighed by the cons. But like wireless gaming-grade mice, I think we'll get there with audio.

I'm the meantime I'll be keeping an eye out for the 3.5" jack in the future, I guess. I do think that it's very convenient to not fiddle with wires, but I like the choice I have now: Preferred shape/sound, vs all the friction associated with wires (sorry ;).

The way I see it, if wireless is here to stay, my situation should only last until someone comes up with a wireless product that I like more than today's lineup. It's just that I prefer my wired setup for the time being!

ryanchoi | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: What technologies did you learn in 2018?

In terms of tech: react native, vue, ffmpeg. There's still lots to delve into on these items of course..!

In terms of more foundational things I tried to brush up on linear algebra. Lacking a formal/rigorous college course experience in linalg, I used LAFF from edX before MIT OCW/Prof. Strang's online lectures. I liked both. LAFF was pretty easy/fun, but ymmv, I knew matlab and python (you may see one or the other depending on what year archive you look at) and my undergrad was in a computer-unrelated engineering field (whose math curriculum focused far more on diffEQs which is why I never got deep into linalg much before)

Next year for fundamentals, I'll try to get a better base of statistics and probability. I'm quite weak in the latter.

ryanchoi | 7 years ago | on: A tweet storm explaining the history and state of Ethereum's Casper research

Unrolled tweets: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1029900695925706753.html

It's certainly interesting to read about new efforts to bring about PoS in a way that isn't another dPoS take...

But wow, I don't usually care about chained tweets, yet I can't help but to notice this being 75 tweets long (!?) This isn't just banter type of stuff or responding to tweets, it's a research history recap, something that'd be nice to be searchable a month from now. Amusingly he links to his own blog posts during all this (1). I wonder why he wouldn't just use that? :/

(1) https://vitalik.ca/

ryanchoi | 7 years ago | on: Certified Translator, stuck in Venezuela, looking for remote freelance work

I know people have concerns with altcoin longevity/soundness/security but in a situation where every cent matters maybe an additional crypto to accept would be NANO? Though it seems to be less bartered locally. I read this a few days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/8wfl2r/venezu...

edit: Oh never mind, moments after I posted this i realized that with altcoins you could end up even less crypto worth vs BTC than you'd save on tx cost. :)

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