I did this circa 2021 (with SketchUp, Enscape, Quest 2) during our house remodel. It was very successful in reducing the number of walls my wife wanted to move around after they had been finished
Me and my partner did this as well, only using a HTC Vive. We modeled our bathroom in two different versions and could toggle between the two while "standing inside" the bathroom. The VR simulation was the deciding factor between the two layouts, as one just "felt" better in person.
Do you recommend an application in particular to make it easy to do something like that (record a video walk through that you turn into a rendering on a PC in VR)? I happen to have a Valve Index with dust on it.
And I mean for someone with no specialized architect/design skills.
Speaking of which, it seems like evolution in the headset world is slow or stalled at least commercially.
My house has definitely been opened up over time since I bought it. Not really the upstairs but the ground floor is much more open and lighter. In fact, it's where I mostly do stuff on a laptop in spite of having a full-fledged office upstairs.
There is a continual stream of TV programs about housing which tell you every problem can be solved by knocking a wall down, building an extension, installing bi-fold doors or a granite worktop.
If your partner watches this stuff then you are in trouble.
I have been unable to give my money to Home Depot, REI and a growing list of online retailers because they use Akamai EdgeSuite, which just assumes I am a bot and 403s on protected API calls. This happens consistently on any IP and any browser on my Linux desktop/laptop.
There are not enough words to describe how much I hate Akamai EdgeSuite. So many random validation loops and 403s across different physical computers, different operating systems, different connections and even countries. A couple of services I need use it and it's 30% I'll make it past their stupid "protection".
It has a zero percent chance of reaching anyone who can do anything about it.
You could try handwriting and posting a letter to their CEO. I think that sometimes works. Probably not very often but there are more than zero CEOs who read those letters.
Maybe they'll figure it out when their revenue drops next quorter or the ones after that?
I was thinking in the same terms: you put up a QR capcha, you don't get my traffic and money. Just the amount of extra work needed, let alone the Google tracking turns me off. As if traffic lights, crosswalks and bridges weren't enough of a hassle.
You can also send an email if you're lazy. In both cases the CEO probably won't read it but a more than minimum wage secretary probably will pass it on to corporate customer support which IME is a lot more useful and the regular support that the company wants you to use.
REI Co-op has an Annual Members Meeting in Seattle, where it announces the results of the board of directors election.
The 2026 one happened Feb 5. Apparently the presentation is only 8m long, some saying it's pre-recorded and it's near-impossible for members to submit a question that actually gets answered:
I'm looking for a technical writer to help us organize and improve our internal technical documentation. This includes on-boarding docs, our internal service endpoints, as well as our data catalog. In addition to at least five years of relevant experience and a strong portfolio, we are looking for someone with good project management skills and the ability to work well across engineering teams to help set the tone of what good, clear and concise documentation should look like. This would be a 3 month engagement, with the potential to extend longer if there is a need. If you are interested, email me directly at marios at tubi dot tv and mention HN in the subject.
We also have a multitude of onsite (SF & Beijing) Sr IC and Tech Lead Software Engineering roles for Scala, Elixir, Machine Learning, DevOps, Frontend, Mobile, etc. They are all posted at https://corporate.tubitv.com/company/careers/.
I have the same, and I concur. In the end, I gave up and just kept the GPU on all the time. Now it works great with external displays in Xubuntu 20.04 at the expense of battery life.
I have never, ever, had a good experience at a Hertz (or most of the other majors to begin with). The process of renting a car is one dark pattern after the other, from the website, to the real-life rental location, even the cars themselves. Every experience was at best frustrating, typically rage inducing. I won't miss them.
The last time I rented a car, I pre-paid everything online, so I was hoping to just pick up the car after a long flight. However at the airport, the new bill the presented me was 10 times higher because they tried to get me to another car (claiming they’ll give a discount), they don’t present you with the no insurance option. I had to explicitly ask them to just give me the car I had paid for.
Or they make a nice offer for an upgrade, which I decline. Then it turns out that the smaller car was not available, so they had to give the upgrade anyway.
And somehow they still looked at me as if I played them..
I always rent through some sort of AAA (automobile club). Almost each country does have a similar organization.
I do mostly rent my cars through ADAC (German AAA) which usually comes with unlimited miles, no excess insurance(s), young driver benefits, free additional driver, ... and a hotline which just 'works':
Hertz once charged a pretty extra on a prepaid rental. One call to ADAC complaining about the extra charge and I had my money back a week later.
The process of renting a car is one dark pattern after the other
I also despise dark patterns that car rental involves. Fortunately, two things make it easy to rent a car from Hertz (or probably any other major):
1) work for a company that has a corporate rental agreement with Hertz. All the bullshit about collision damage waivers, liability insurance, etc. just goes away.
2) sign up for their "rewards" program (the name differs by company). This puts all your important info into their computers. That way they aren't constantly re-entering info from your drivers license, etc.
3) There is a third option. You should rent trucks instead! :)
Just kidding about trucks being a real alternative. But whenever I rent from U-Haul it's absurdly pleasant, compared to renting cars as an individual. For example, the collision damage waiver for a car rental can be $30 a day or more. The same thing was only $10 on my most recent U-Haul rental.
Whenever I try to rent a car from somewhere like Hertz I'm presented with a baffling array of choices for waivers and insurance. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to buy and how the insurance works.
They want me to pick and sign right there under pressure and with no time to read the agreement. I'm almost always left with no real understanding of what happens if I have a crash and pretty worried that I may be liable for more than I'm worth.
It's comical they way they wave those barely readable sheets of paper around randomly circling things and putting crosses in places.
Yeah, you gotta be a Gold member (or equivalent at other places) to get around this BS and do it all online / before you show up. I agree that the stock experience is miserable. Fortunately through AMEX it's free, same with Delta if you're any sort of status, etc etc. It's a method of gatekeeping.
I will. I don't have a car, but sometimes I need it so I typically go to Avis. I had very good experience with Avis almost always. Nice clean cars, friendly personnel, sufficiently convenient website. I frequently get free upgrades to premium or bigger cars.
ZipCar, another car-sharing service I sometimes use is horrible. Dirty cars, annoying stupid website, refuel credit cards almost never work, so I have to use my own and submit refunds.
I have always had good experiences, besides the fact that on the website they show a model of a car and you get a different one (but of the same segment)
All car renters are full of dark patterns but in my experience Hertz was the best one amongst them.
After a while you realize how it works: Use some CDP code to rent for cheap on their website and refuse all the addons that are pushed onto you at pick up (where they are trained to scare you). That clears 99% of the dark patterns
Working in this industry I can tell you that it can be in your interest to buy either damage waivers or supplemental insurance. Especially when you are renting larger vehicles. People often don’t realize how much it costs to repair a panel truck. At the very least review your insurance policy to make sure it covers non owned autos. It really sucks when a customer finds out after the fact that their insurance is not going to cover their accident.
Many (most?) credit cards have rental car coverage, it saved me a ~thousand dollars when a bird shattered a windshield. I always make sure the card I rent with has it.
I’ve seen customers get denied by their auto insurance and 2 credit cards. Just because a credit card provides coverages it doesn’t mean it covers everything. Insurance is complicated and you should never assume you are covered.
This is true, but often this only covers physical damage to the car only, not anything you hit. Claims for loss of use of the rental car while it's being repaired often aren't covered, either.
I hated car rental companies every time I had to use them, even if it was being charged to a company I was visiting.
That changed after I became 26. Tons of extra fees and requirements are tossed on younger drivers which turned out to be most of the pain I had with them. Just aging made the rental process so much nicer
Tubi TV | Technical Leadership roles for Machine Learning, Scala & Elixir | San Francisco, Beijing | ONSITE VISA | https://tubitv.com
We make studio produced movies and TV shows available for streaming everywhere and to everyone, 100% free. Some of our studio partners include Warner, Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount. We have tens of millions of users streaming on everything, from mobile apps, to gaming consoles, to Smart TVs.
Why work here:
* Learning is a huge part of our culture. We frequently help non-engineers learn basic programming skills.
* We love OSS, both using & contributing back. We sponsor a few widely used projects as well.
* Strong engineering culture and a focus on data driven decision making.
* Tubi has a solid business model that generates healthy revenue and does not rely on VC to keep the light on.
Common Requirements:
* Based in SF Bay Area or Beijing or willing to relocate. For SF, existing US work authorization, H1B, O1, GC, etc
* At the moment, we are only hiring for Senior roles, at least 4-5 years of industry experience as a Software Engineer
Some of the positions we have open:
- Tech Lead Platform Engineer (Scala): Lead the team and use Scala & Akka to build reactive, large scale systems that serve ML models, power recommendations, AdTech, etc. https://grnh.se/5905b1721
- Director of Machine Learning: ML is core at Tubi, and a true competitive differentiation. Using tools from logistic regression, to matrix factorization, to RL, to NN, there is a huge diversity of challenges beyond RecSys waiting to be solved https://grnh.se/88341be71
Tubi TV | Technical Leadership roles for Machine Learning, Scala & Elixir | San Francisco, Beijing | ONSITE VISA | https://tubitv.com
We make studio produced movies and TV shows available for streaming everywhere and to everyone, 100% free. Some of our studio partners include Warner, Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount. We have tens of millions of users streaming on everything, from mobile apps, to gaming consoles, to Smart TVs.
Why work here:
* Learning is a huge part of our culture. We frequently help non-engineers learn basic programming skills.
* We love OSS, both using & contributing back. We sponsor a few widely used projects as well.
* Strong engineering culture and a focus on data driven decision making.
* Tubi has a solid business model that generates healthy revenue and does not rely on VC to keep the light on.
Common Requirements:
* Based in SF Bay Area or Beijing or willing to relocate. For SF, existing US work authorization, H1B, O1, GC, etc
* At the moment, we are only hiring for Senior roles, at least 4-5 years of industry experience as a Software Engineer
Some of the positions we have open:
- Tech Lead Platform Engineer (Scala): Lead the team and use Scala & Akka to build reactive, large scale systems that serve ML models, power recommendations, AdTech, etc. https://grnh.se/5905b1721
- Tech Lead Platform Engineer (Elixir): Lead the team and use Elixir to power our entire API layer, content management and large scale video processing. https://grnh.se/db7e29e41
- Director of Machine Learning: ML is core at Tubi, and a true competitive edge. From logistic regression, to matrix factorization, to RL, to NN, there is a huge variety of problems beyond recommender systems waiting to be solved https://grnh.se/88341be71
Tubi TV | Director of ML, Leadership & IC roles for Scala & Elixir Engineers | San Francisco, Beijing | ONSITE VISA | https://tubitv.com
We are making studio produced TV shows and movies available for streaming everywhere and to everyone, 100% free. Some of our studio partners include Warner, Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount.
Why work here:
* Learning is a huge part of our culture. We frequently help non-engineers learn basic programming skills.
* We love OSS, both using & contributing back. We sponsor a few widely used projects as well.
* Strong engineering culture and a focus on data driven decision making.
* Tubi has a solid business model that generates healthy revenue and does not rely on VC to keep the light on.
Common Requirements:
* Based in SF Bay Area or Beijing or willing to relocate. For SF, existing US work authorization, H1B, O1, GC, etc
* At the moment, we are only hiring for Senior roles, at least 4-5 years of industry experience as a Software Engineer
Some of the positions we have open:
- Tech Lead Platform Engineer (Scala): Lead the team and use Scala & Akka to build reactive, large scale systems that serve ML models, power recommendations, AdTech, etc. https://grnh.se/5905b1721
- Tech Lead Platform Engineer (Elixir): Lead the team and use Elixir to power our entire API layer, content management and large scale video processing. https://grnh.se/db7e29e41
- Director of Machine Learning: ML is core at Tubi, and a true competitive edge. From logistic regression, to MAB, to NN, there is a huge variety of problems beyond recsys waiting to be solved https://grnh.se/88341be71
Tubi TV | iOS, DevOps, Elixir | San Francisco | ONSITE VISA | https://tubitv.com
We are making studio produced TV shows and movies available for streaming everywhere and to everyone, 100% free. Join Tubi TV and reinvent the way consumers discover and consume premium, studio content. Some of our studio partners include MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount. We offer very competitive base salary, stock options, full medical, dental & vision, catered lunch, gym subsidies and your choice of hardware. Learning is a huge part of our culture and we frequently help non-engineers learn basic programming skills.
We are hiring for:
* Lead & Sr IC Elixir Platform Engineers: We are heavy Elixir users, using Elixir to power both our gRPC services as well as critical infrastructure like our video transcoding & packaging pipeline https://grnh.se/db7e29e41
* Lead & Sr IC Infrastructure Engineers: This is our equivalent of a DevOps/SRE role. We have been able to grow so far using infrastructure-as-code and configuration-as-code practices, but now we need a build a team to own all infrastructure https://grnh.se/dec2c3b31
* Sr iOS Engineer: We are particularly proud of our iOS app. After spending some time focusing on performance and stability, we are ready to roll out a lot of features that our users have been asking for https://grnh.se/7be0fb951
* Roku OTT Engineer: Roku has been making waves recently and their market penetration is growing. If you are excited about the platform and looking to work on one of the largest apps available on Roku, this might be a role for you. No previous BrightScript experience required, we will teach you all that you need to know https://grnh.se/8f72c2ec1
Positions are available ONSITE in San Francisco & Beijing. If you would like to chat more, email me directly and mention HN in the subject.
Tubi TV | Lead Elixir Backend Engineer | San Francisco | ONSITE VISA | https://tubitv.com
We are making studio produced TV shows and movies available for streaming everywhere and to everyone, 100% free. Join Tubi TV and reinvent the way consumers discover and consume premium, studio content. Some of our studio partners include MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount. We offer very competitive base salary, stock options, full medical, dental & vision, catered lunch, gym subsidies and your choice of hardware. Learning is a huge part of our culture and we frequently help non-engineers learn basic programming skills.
We are looking for someone passionate about solving complex problems using Elixir. You will work on building services for a very diverse set of clients, from standard web & mobile to gaming consoles to big screen TVs. As we grow, we also try to contribute back to the OSS community and even sponsor a few projects (i.e. https://github.com/tony612/grpc-elixir)
Requirements:
* Based in SF or willing to relocate
* Existing US work authorization, H1B, O1, GC, etc
* At least 6 years of industry experience as a Software Engineer
* At least one year working full time with Elixir (or Erlang)
* Previous experience growing a team is a strong plus
I haven't opened the position officially yet, so if interested email me directly marios /at/ tubi /dot/ tv and mention HN.
