ckz

7 ms·

1.
by ckz 1mo ago
@DANmode and @storywatch both called out good paths to explore. I daily drive a monochrome PDA as my core "smart" device. The overall UX is excellent for what it needs to do. Despite color PDAs being widely available, I've fo
2.
by ckz 10mo ago
Surprised my fellow typewriter folks haven't shown up yet! [paging @ebruchez] If you want the writerdeck experience I'll echo the recommendations here for an Alphasmart. The brute-force autotyping file transfer it uses is quaint b
3.
by ckz 10mo ago
Just a note for those in the market (as someone with the unusual distinction of owning ~30 Alphasmarts), a few hundred $ is more like a top of the line, NIB/serviced Alphasmart Neo 2 with bag, manual, etc. If you just want to try out d
4.
by ckz 11mo ago
Thank you for supporting monochrome OS 3.5! Will be taking this for a spin. :)
5.
by ckz 1y ago
You might take a look around for it. They made two original versions, the 1000 and the 5000. The 1000s are pretty hard to find nowadays (seems a lot of early adopters went for the higher memory spec). Some folks in the community even have u
6.
by ckz 1y ago
I've been using a Palm of roughly this spec as a daily driver (black and white and everything) for years at this point. Love it every single day.
7.
by ckz 1y ago
Careful fading Tom Swift too hard. The two main series date from the 1910-20s and the 50s-60s. Basically sci-fi Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys rather than modern YA, especially the second wave of books. They're more "outwitting not-Sovi
8.
by ckz 2y ago
This is how we handle it as well. We were at friends' last night and the older kids had the N64 out. The older kids reported that ours just wanted to be read to the whole time, but early doses of things we intend to introduce anyway (v
9.
by ckz 2y ago
Agreed. So much of it is identity (going back to James Clear in Atomic Habits). "I'm not a smoker" is more powerful than "I'm trying to quit". "We just don't watch Youtube on our phones in this house.
10.
by ckz 2y ago
#1 is exactly what we're doing with ours. The little one understands cassettes and the concept of an audiobook or a Welles radio drama (sometimes MP3/CD, but I record custom cassettes too). I have a millenium-era iMac set up as th
11.
by ckz 2y ago
Sure thing! Third party apps yes (see: palmdb.net), but obviously not typical 3rd party services (no Spotify, etc.). I mostly use a few models of Handspring Visor, typically grayscale, so not even the latest OS. Visor Edge for something as
12.
by ckz 2y ago
IMO your last line there really hits the nail on the head with what I saw both on the ground and in the data. Windows Phone was absolutely crushing it with first-time smartphone adopters, but for folks switching it was tougher, because WP d
13.
by ckz 2y ago
That too. WP7 brought the premise of the amazing UX to the table and then the 7 -> 8.1 -> 10 stuff was a mess for the devs who still did want to invest. Though I'm not sure how much users noticed that fiasco (my SO didn't) a
14.
by ckz 2y ago
I'll second this. WebOS was conceptually way ahead of its time compared to contemporary versions of iOS, etc. A lot of its UI paradigms (switching apps as cards, etc.) ended up being adopted later by the big names as well. Just not rea
15.
by ckz 2y ago
I switched back to PalmOS for my daily mobile computing a couple of years ago, so I think I've given it time for the nostalgia effect to wear off. It's still incredibly fun and absolutely doable. To the article's point, what
16.
by ckz 3y ago
American here. I had a year of American government around 9th grade-ish, which covered the basics of the system, the founding documents, etc. and then spent a lot of time with the formative debates driving it (Federalist/Anti-Federalis
17.
by ckz 3y ago
Yep! An easy way is a color gradient background layer and then another layer like a white gradient intersecting it. The orientation/opacity of that top gradient lets you get anything from super-glossy to more of a frosted glass, especi
18.
by ckz 3y ago
I've actually starting incorporating the Vista/Aero aesthetic again in some recent UI work. Not explicitly in anticipation of the 20y trend cycle returning to it and not nearly the same level of overall gloss (yet?), but I wouldn&
19.
by ckz 3y ago
~B1 French here with Duo being an important step on the way. The trick for Duolingo is to use the desktop version and disable all the "helpful" bits you can or at least use the browser version if on mobile. Desktop had far fewer
20.
by ckz 3y ago
I love this! My father created a panorama with walkable waypoints like this for the Golden Temple in Amritsar and a few other historic sites back in the Shockwave/Flash days (something like 2001). Turned out to be some of my early lear
21.
by ckz 3y ago
An interesting argument I've heard recently (but haven't yet come to a personal conclusion on, so don't take this as an endorsement): Emphasize math for older kids when their brain is better prepared for abstraction (some eve
22.
by ckz 3y ago
The social gap question has been pretty hotly debated for decades (whether it exists and/or is even a concern). For the curious, here are a couple of relevant threads: 5 Days Ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36
23.
by ckz 3y ago
Much appreciated, and thank you for the complement! I was also homeschooled (and loved it) so my perspective does have a certain tint to it. So much of this comes down to the particular child and parent, which is of course the point. :) Fee
24.
by ckz 3y ago
Counterpoint: Perhaps peer socialization, particularly in the form found in typical schools, isn't all that valuable. I'd argue that what serves one best in life is learning to function at an adult level with other adults. Most
25.
by ckz 3y ago
Joshua Sheats over at Radical Personal Finance just ran through an 18-part podcast series (starting at #908) on investing into one's children at a young age, spanning everything from conception through education and character developme
26.
by ckz 3y ago
A common supplier for typewriters in general is Ribbons Unlimited: https://www.ribbonsunlimited.com/ The carbon film you're referring to is likely part #1299095 (black correctable). Believe generics of these are still
27.
by ckz 3y ago
Amazing! Isn't there also a single element one that uses an inverted cylinder with the type on the inside? In general, I'm discovering what a deep rabbit hole I've dug myself into. Last weekend I was trying to decide between
28.
by ckz 3y ago
I believe there were many daisy wheel typewriters, but I (correctly or incorrectly) tend to associate them with true electronic typewriters as opposed to electric ones. IBM Wheelwriters and such.
29.
by ckz 3y ago
As with most artifacts, survivorship bias will ultimately dominate. Some code will prove itself to be unusually durable (parallel: the pyramids) or some will prove to be so useful that someone will maintain it (roads that have been used for
30.
by ckz 3y ago
I was a huge Windows Phone advocate around this time, and indeed in many markets _outside_ the US it had periods of being the #2 behind Android. To my vague recollection maybe India, Mexico, and parts of Europe (where it was sometimes #2, a

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