Disqus - Latest Comments for Pyrodogg

Re: Some Pixel 3 XL owners are complaining of buzzing/distorted speakers

Skyler Kehren — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 12:13:52 -0000

So disappointed in the speakers on the Pixel 3 XL. It can't even handle a simple acoustic singer. For how much you can feel vibration in the back of the phone at the very lowest volume setting, I'm not surprised something is getting distorted.

Re: The Capture Camera Clip v2: A Sleek New Design Meets Tons More Functionality

Skyler Kehren — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 00:53:35 -0000

As much as I agree with Kicstarter that it shouldn't be a store, I couldn't not enthusiastically pre-order me a capture pro.

Re: Don’t Mix Business And Personal – Why Facebook Comments Is A Bad Idea For Your Site

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:12:47 -0000

I like these particular share buttons. Mind sharing your source?

Re: The 10 percent: Southpaws at the U

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:10:51 -0000

Southpaws, woot, woot!

Ok, writing on the whiteboard bothered me a bit, sure my writing was probably a bit messier than normal because I wouldn't rest my hand on the board at all. Sure it takes some getting used to but it's not too hard to not smear the writing all over the place.

I never really encountered a problem with the tablet desks either. It wasn't much work to reach over to the right just a bit, actually exactly like the photo. It just didn't bother me at all.

The rest of the article, talking about specialized tools relating to dentistry and surgery isn't all that surprising. If there have really only been 3 lefty surgeons in the past seven years it's no wonder there is no effort to provide ambidextrous tooling options. Hell, I'd expect a surgeon to be pretty damn good with both hands anyways.

Surviving as a lefty in a righty-dominated world isn't really all that difficult. You work around the pen smudges pretty quickly. I have really never understood the gribe about spiral bound notebooks. Unless it's huge and you're constantly writing on the left margin it's hardly a problem.

Re: 3D Printing comes to life in MSP

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:18:09 -0000

I would like to throw out that we also have two MakerBots at Twin Cities Maker in S. Minneapolis. One bot, on loan from a member, recently received the newest electronics. The group's bot needs some TLC regarding it's build platform.

Open house every Wednesday at 7pm
3119 E 26th Street, Minneapolis
http://www.tcmaker.org

Re: Group pushes tobacco-free campus

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:43:01 -0000

Here's a test for how well student-self enforcement would work.

The CURRENT laws, ordinances, et. al state that there is a no smoking zone within 25 feet of entrances to buildings. How comfortable are you with approaching someone (or a group of people) smoking right next to the butt bin less than 5 feet away from the door? Would you be able to confidently tell them to move, that they are breaking the law? It's just 20 more feet they need to move, right.

Now imagine asking them to truck it all the way off campus to enjoy the rest of their cig.

I tried it as a social experiment when I was at the U in '08, the last time this came up. It's awkward, and when confronting groups of people at night it can be downright scary.

Re: Gmail error creates backlog for students

Skyler Kehren — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:59:59 -0000

Here was one of the better lulz that came out of it. http://imgur.com/N0FMn

Re: World’s Largest Lego Great Ball Contraption

Skyler Kehren — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:54:03 -0000

Gahh!!! Stop pitching more balls in during the whole run when someone is taking a video. If you want to be the worlds longest/best/whatever make it work better. Or at least add balls off camera.

Re: Minneapolis Mini Maker Faire — Call for Makers

Skyler Kehren — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:08:10 -0000

Yes, there are lightsabers toward the center. Other sci-fi replicas are around them

Re: Keep public universities public

Skyler Kehren — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:04:06 -0000

I'm willing to put money down that if any Wisconsin state schools go private or semi-private a certain sitting Governor is going to have his financial fingers all over them when his term is up, possibly even earlier.

Re: Shelf Pod is Both Bibliophile’s and Cat’s Dream House

Skyler Kehren — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:28:17 -0000

Not to a bibliophile but I have an absolute addiction to places like this. Unique nooks and crannies fascinate me.

Re: TCF Bank Stadium will host Vikings game if Metrodome cannot

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:23:44 -0000

Dayum. This is going to be interesting.

Re: MSA OKs Northrop bike lanes, three new reps

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:30:18 -0000

Wow. Bike lanes near the mall?! I didn't think PTS would ever suggest such a thing!

Re: Plow bicycle lanes

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:04:05 -0000

Not really, if you've built your schedule to depend on moving around efficiently on a bicycle. People don't just bike to and form campus, you have to also bike around it. The east bank alone is about a 3/4 mile square. Walking through slush isn't an option when you need to move around quickly.

Re: The right to smoke outside

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:54:45 -0000

If people would observe the Universities existing rules on smoking away form the entrances to buildings it's would remove what little problem most people have with smokers.

Re: PTS: We already have bike storage

Skyler Kehren — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:03:09 -0000

The bike lockers have never been a very feasible solution for safe storage of a bicycle around campus. Since you can only rent a locker at a specific location they are really only good for 1. Keeping your bike locked up near your res hall if you live on campus, or 2. Having a single place to park your bike if you bike commute in. In either case, if you drive your bike to any other location on campus you have no choice but to lock it up outside.

The best option to avoid bike vandalism is to simply ride something that isn't worth wrecking or stealing. Bikes are resilient machines, you can have one that runs just fine but looks like trash. Never drive a brand-new, shiny, expensive bike around campus.

Re: U raises about $38K via GiveMN

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:22:13 -0000

I used this GiveMN opportunity to donate to Twin Cities Maker. If you're interested in the Hacker/Maker/DIY movement, check them out. http://www.tcmaker.org

They have open meetings and reduced student dues.

Re: City tows thousands in season's first snow emergency

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 03:37:58 -0000

Also, follow them on facebook if you happen to be on it.

http://www.facebook.com/Min...

Re: CSE celebrates 75 years of “inventing tomorrow”

Skyler Kehren — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:46:01 -0000

Wait what did Comp Sci & Eng. do now? lol. Still getting used to the name change and acronym hijack when scanning headlines.

Nevertheless I'd like to congratulate the college on 75 years of teaching the engineering disciplines and the sciences.

Re: Share the sidewalks

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:28:41 -0000

The problem becomes a matter of personal opinion and perception unless an
actual speed limit or some other restriction is put in place (and is
actually enforceable and enforced).

One persons fast is another's brisk pace. Pedestrians moving in multiple
directions on a side walk, or even a wider space like Church street, create
a very fluid system. A biker or even a fast moving (running) pedestrian has
to maintain a certain pace to maintain a path though the constantly changing
crowd.

The biker is constantly scanning the situation around them to determine how
they can move between the people. This generally means that they react
quickly and travel faster to hit certain gaps before they close and change
into something else. This isn't necessarily safe. A person on a bike at
speed could very quickly level someone.

This brings up the idea of more strictly separating the bikers, and
pedestrians into more distinct travel corridors. This usually has an
emphasis of moving bikers wholly to the streets and making them obey the
traffic laws. The three biggest problems for this as a solution are the
wide range of bikers ability, the location of the streets, space on campus
for alternatives.

There are many different bikers of varying levels of ability. Not everyone
feels comfortable riding on the street with the cars who are much larger
than they are. They feel that it puts them in more of an unsafe environment
than pedestrians are with bikes on sidewalks. This could be alleviated if
more people slowly got used to actually riding with cars and cars give
bikers space.

Problem two is a bigger issue. Campus, even just the East Bank, is very
large. Cars and roads are largely relegated to the outskirts of the
University. They hardly cover efficient routes across campus. Need to get
around the mall? Well you could go all the way around on the street, or
navigate side walks with pedestrians for a quarter of the distance. So,
even if bikers took more to the streets where the streets worked, there is
still plenty of off-road biking they would have to do.

As I mentioned in the last point bikers would like to get from point A to
point B without going out of their way to get there. Currently campus is
pretty well covered with sidewalks, with a few bike paths. In some cases
there just is not any room to install bike paths. Painted on lines like
the west bank has are a partial solution but not ideal as an actual
separated path. Some days so many pedestrians need to cross it and do that
it almost defeats the purpose of a path.

Along Washington the sidewalk is already crammed between buildings and the
busy street. So right now it's sidewalk or busy street as options. I'm
curious to see how this area develops with the planned light rail and travel
plaza, etc.

This seems to be a perennial topic. Every year there are thousands of new
people to campus (bikers and pedestrians) who haven't learned the rules of
the road. There are also returning people set in their good or bad ways.
Since the university is so slow to make infrastructure changes compared to
the traditional 4-5 student's university 'life span' it seems like nothing
ever changes.

I don't claim to have any magical solutions to these problems but I know
that there are students at the university who study transportation and
transportation engineering. This sounds like a perfect problem for them to
study. This is the University of Minnesota, it should foster this sort of
research and problem solving in all of it's undergraduates. Practical
problem solving in the world around them. If enough bright students
actually put their minds to the problem i'm sure they'd come up with
something creative.

-Skyler K

Re: Zombie Pub Crawl nothing but “sanctioned mayhem”

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:31:11 -0000

I guess I posed it as a general comment because I noticed a few other comments referring directly to U students. You are right though, it does give the area at large a bad image.

Re: Bruininks presents plan to solve economic issues

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:57:32 -0000

"Increased competition for students also poses a challenge for the University as the number of college-ready high school graduates decreases."

This line got me. It's not increased competition because we're a competitive school. It's phrased as a lessing of the potential student body as a whole. Are class sizes overall shrinking or are a larger percentage of students leaving high school truly not ready to try college?

If secondary education truly starts tanking then colleges and universities have a rude awakening coming.

Re: Zombie Pub Crawl nothing but “sanctioned mayhem”

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:50:43 -0000

I like to point out that the ZPC isn't exclusive to University students by any means.

Nor does the West Bank exclusively refer to the large(ish) speck of campus across the river, there are a few neighborhoods over there.

Re: Share the sidewalks

Skyler Kehren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:42:46 -0000

I remember being one of those nice bicyclists who was more than happy to travel at a pedestrian pace while still on my bike pretty much coasting a long.

I discovered this, you can be traveling slowly and be the most amiable person on campus but it doesn't work. When most people see a biker in their peripheral vision (particularly when looking to the side and seeing the biker behind them) they immediately assume they're going to be run over. Actually they don't need to see you, just year a bike behind them.

Then, when you don't move to pass and just keep coasting along they almost seem confused, paranoid, defensive or that they need to flee your path for their life.

Some people just don't understand the mechanical advantage of coasting a bike vs walking. Same distance covered in same time for less effort. Gotta love that engineering knack for find efficiencies.

Re: U re-launches ad campaign amid talk of cuts

Skyler Kehren — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:01:07 -0000

$1.3 million on TV ads!? What return does this get the the other than the possibility of warm fuzzy feelings from people who don't know better?