em-dash's recent activity
-
Comment on I need advice, which laptop would you buy now? in ~tech
-
Comment on Victories and challenges: An A[u]DHD community and support fortnightly thread #2 in ~health.mental
em-dash LinkMy partner and I are in the last few days before loading all our stuff on a truck to move to the other side of the continent, and ughhh there has been and continues to be So Much Stuff To Do. This...My partner and I are in the last few days before loading all our stuff on a truck to move to the other side of the continent, and ughhh there has been and continues to be So Much Stuff To Do. This has still been taking up all of my time and physical and mental energy. (I am very thankful that she's taken on most of the parts that involve repeatedly calling businesses that don't answer their phones.)
Meanwhile, I've been trying to power through finishing a project at work that I am thoroughly tired of looking at, so that I don't have to come back to it after moving, and it's actually going... okay? I wouldn't describe myself as "enjoying" it, but it's felt a lot closer to the sort of programming I do actually enjoy, despite being a lot of the same kind of work.
I think what I've learned from these two things, though, is that hard deadlines are a stronger motivator for me than I thought. When I really do need to get something done, something in my brain switches, such that I can direct my hyperfocus at that thing. This is new; I spent a lot of school getting much lower grades than one would expect from me because I just couldn't be bothered to do boring work, and then most of my career being moderately frustrated with myself over some vague sense of "I feel like I should be more productive than I am".
I assume that if I figure out how to intentionally trigger this effect, I will immediately overdo it, then burn out and lose the ability to do anything at all. Because, as I just read elsewhere in this thread:
Is your energy quite cyclical, where when you feel like your brain is working you'll push yourself really really hard, and then be totally exhausted and need time to recover?
I wish I could just run my brain at a normal power level all the time, instead of having these cycles. The crash when this one ends is going to suck.
-
Comment on Nexus Mods ownership changing hands: An update from Dark0ne in ~games
em-dash Link ParentSerious question, I'm not familiar with the scale of the numbers involved: how much better does it get if you just slap bittorrent-or-similar over it, and only fall back to HTTP if there aren't...Serious question, I'm not familiar with the scale of the numbers involved: how much better does it get if you just slap bittorrent-or-similar over it, and only fall back to HTTP if there aren't enough seeds?
The worst of it will be very popular mods for very popular games, and "distributing very popular things that many people have a copy of" seems like the kind of thing p2p file sharing would be best at.
-
Comment on The world’s most-visited museum shuts down, in response to mass tourism in ~travel
em-dash Link ParentAnd not every student is an official enrolled student at a university.And not every student is an official enrolled student at a university.
-
Comment on What is a non-problematic word that you avoid using? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentSudden realization that calling surgery "scalpeling" is absolutely the kind of silliness I strive for. -- a computer toucherSudden realization that calling surgery "scalpeling" is absolutely the kind of silliness I strive for.
-- a computer toucher
-
Comment on Is there a sane way to use Git as a glorified sync tool? in ~tech
em-dash LinkYou should only be seeing diffs you didn't ask for if you have conflicts or you're doing a pull request sort of workflow. If you just pull + make changes + commit + push to the same branch every...I do not wish to go through diffs approving every single change.
You should only be seeing diffs you didn't ask for if you have conflicts or you're doing a pull request sort of workflow. If you just pull + make changes + commit + push to the same branch every time, and don't mess with it from another computer between those steps, you shouldn't ever need to see them since your history can't ever diverge into multiple timelines.
As for automatically committing and pushing, not that I'm aware of. It's designed for use cases where you want the programmer explicitly saying "yes, I am done with this part and now wish to inflict it upon other people".
-
Comment on Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests in ~humanities.languages
em-dash Link Parent⸵I also found the Arabic one at about the same time you did (see edit); however, I think this one visually fits better, at least in this font. Thanks!⸵I also found the Arabic one at about the same time you did (see edit); however, I think this one visually fits better, at least in this font. Thanks!
-
Comment on Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests in ~humanities.languages
em-dash (edited )Link ParentHonestly, I was looking for one flipped the other way to use it like Spanish question marks; I found this character in the process. ؛edit: it does exist; I'm going to invent so many weird...Honestly, I was looking for one flipped the other way to use it like Spanish question marks;
that doesn't seem to be a thing butI found this character in the process.؛edit: it does exist; I'm going to invent so many weird punctuation conventions with this knowledge.
I have no idea what it's actually used for.
-
Comment on Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests in ~humanities.languages
em-dash Link ParentHear me out: ; as a seriousness marker. this sentence is completely silly lol this sentence has a ha ha only serious vibe; lol I also propose the use of matched pairs of semicolons to allow...Hear me out:
;as a seriousness marker.this sentence is completely silly lol
this sentence has a ha ha only serious vibe; lol
I also propose the use of matched pairs of semicolons to allow returning to the previous thought; I think that would be a good idea ⁏it's like parentheses but without implying the second thing is an aside.
-
Comment on Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests in ~humanities.languages
em-dash Link ParentPeople pick up weird archaic words and phrases all the time and meme them back into usage; I think we could pull it off. what if we use it with the lol sentence terminator particle like this; lolPeople pick up weird archaic words and phrases all the time and meme them back into usage; I think we could pull it off.
what if we use it with the lol sentence terminator particle like this; lol
-
Comment on CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe in ~science
em-dash Link ParentI've heard "grams of TNT" as a scale reference before, but as a relatively normal person who doesn't regularly use TNT, I have no idea how much that actually is, besides "40 billion grams is a lot...I've heard "grams of TNT" as a scale reference before, but as a relatively normal person who doesn't regularly use TNT, I have no idea how much that actually is, besides "40 billion grams is a lot of grams".
Is 40 billion grams of TNT a "remove an unfortunate town from Europe" amount, or a "remove Europe" amount?
-
Comment on Personal inventory management software in ~comp
em-dash LinkPart-DB is what I use for this. But honestly, try a bunch of them and see what sticks. It's a very "use what fits your brain" category IMO, because it's so easy to stop using it out of laziness...Part-DB is what I use for this.
But honestly, try a bunch of them and see what sticks. It's a very "use what fits your brain" category IMO, because it's so easy to stop using it out of laziness and then it's suddenly out of sync with reality and useless.
-
Comment on NFTs that cost millions replaced with error message after project downgraded to free Cloudflare plan in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentIt's more like the address on the deed stopped being a real place. Which brings me to my sudden intense curiosity of the day: how would land ownership interact with events like "I dug a hole to...It's more like the address on the deed stopped being a real place.
Which brings me to my sudden intense curiosity of the day: how would land ownership interact with events like "I dug a hole to the center of the earth and this area kind of doesn't exist anymore", or "a gravitational anomaly appeared and now spacetime is curved a bit differently along the formerly straight property line"?
-
Comment on All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of their funding in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI think you're thinking of Gemini. I agreed with its goals, but I never got into it because it's... extremely opinionated, to the point of forbidding a lot of reasonable content. For example, it...I think you're thinking of Gemini.
I agreed with its goals, but I never got into it because it's... extremely opinionated, to the point of forbidding a lot of reasonable content. For example, it doesn't support inline links. I couldn't have written that first line in a Gemini page. I'd have to instead do:
I think you're thinking of Gemini.
I wonder what could have been had the authors not been so preoccupied with reproducing Gopher's limitations.
-
Comment on No one likes it, but I have to admit that unexpected, hardcore adversity is a feature not a bug in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentHonestly, even those people are — to the rest of us — obviously fucked up from the experience and in denial a lot of the time. You don't get to claim something made you a better person if it...When people say getting bullied in school was good for them, made them stronger, grow a thicker skin
Honestly, even those people are — to the rest of us — obviously fucked up from the experience and in denial a lot of the time. You don't get to claim something made you a better person if it actually made you a worse person. (I say this as someone who used to be obviously fucked up in many ways, due in large part to extremely questionable parenting strategies.)
Of those who legitimately did benefit from it without being negatively affected in the long term: you know what's even better than having a thicker skin? Not needing a thicker skin.
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentI tried converting the largest PDF I currently have (The Art of Electronics: The X Chapters) to plain text, reducing 263MiB to 1.7MiB. But it took a while (long enough that I went off and did...I tried converting the largest PDF I currently have (The Art of Electronics: The X Chapters) to plain text, reducing 263MiB to 1.7MiB.
But it took a while (long enough that I went off and did other things and stopped counting minutes), and the results are... not what I would choose as reference material.
Alchanically it produces an electric field). It’s a tiny loud though there’s an electric field between the plates of any speaker (and microphone!) - you can sometimes hear these capacitor (proportional to the instantaneous voltage), and things, when there’s an audiofrequency signal across them.
you can sometimes hear these capacitor and things is the name of my new electronica band
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentThat thumb key is an example of a leader key: a key that isn't a hold-down modifier, but you use it as a prefix for sequences of other keys. Doesn't have to specifically be the QMK thing (I think...One idea is to dedicate a thumb key on my Ergodox as a one-shot layer containing the macros. This would open the door for defining something like 30 macros which can each be entered by a sequence of two key presses.
That thumb key is an example of a leader key: a key that isn't a hold-down modifier, but you use it as a prefix for sequences of other keys. Doesn't have to specifically be the QMK thing (I think the term originally came from vim?), though QMK does have support for it that's probably easier than setting up a massive layer tree.
Another variant of the same concept is the compose key, where
compose ' etypes é. (The output of compose key sequences is usually a single character, because that's what it's primarily designed for, but doesn't have to be.)I'm not sure what namespaces are though, what do you mean by this?
"Namespaces" isn't an official term from anywhere; I'm using it to mean well-defined sections out of the whole set of possible key sequences and combinations you could type. "Ctrl-shift-(letter)" is a namespace. If you add a new modifier key, that creates a new namespace. I don't know if people have another word for this.
My thinking, though, was that you could (for example) say
leader athroughleader mtype words themselves, butleader nthroughleader ztake another key after them. -
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentSize comparison of various sorts of storage devices I had lying around: https://i.ibb.co/hRrw5ZHb/disk-sizes.jpg So I'm already going to the effort of build a database of all the books for...how much physical space does a collection of 2.5 TiB tapes + drive and computer connection take up?
Size comparison of various sorts of storage devices I had lying around: https://i.ibb.co/hRrw5ZHb/disk-sizes.jpg
Also, (how) do you plan on indexing?
So I'm already going to the effort of build a database of all the books for deduplication; it seems reasonable to just use this as an index too. I'm treating the tapes as write-once, which means files won't ever move once they're written, so I'm planning to just add
tape_idandoffset_into_tapefields to the existing database, and then make that database easily queryable somehow via a "do I have this specific book? if so, where?" lookup tool. Currently that's a 16GB MongoDB database, which is entirely storable on normal media and backupable with my normal backup processes. -
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentOh, absolutely, there'll need to be some sort of index somewhere. I imagine in practice the use will be something like "just use libgen if it still exists at the time, else consult the index and...Oh, absolutely, there'll need to be some sort of index somewhere. I imagine in practice the use will be something like "just use libgen if it still exists at the time, else consult the index and go pull a tape off the bookshelf". (Because of course this needs to be displayed on a bookshelf like a row of paper books.)
If you could make a deduplicated extract of LG/OL converted into markdown and tar'd zstd? by upload Y-m-d I'd be interested in seeding that!
The metadata, or contents? I suspect all the contents may be too big to keep on a reasonable set of hard drives even as compressed markdown (as funny as seeding torrents from tape would be, I do not think it would be a good idea), but once I have a decent chunk of them downloaded I'll convert what looks like a representative set and extrapolate and see how it looks.
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
em-dash (edited )Link ParentTo add even more complexity for you, some more ideas to explore: namespaces for both leader+1 and leader+2 sequences, with the latter mapping to the few hundred most common words over three...To add even more complexity for you, some more ideas to explore:
- namespaces for both leader+1 and leader+2 sequences, with the latter mapping to the few hundred most common words over three letters long. e.g.
leader tbecomes "the", butleader b cbecomes "because". - tap-hold on letter keys (
b cjust types those two letters, butb+ctogether types "because") - foot pedals as extra layer shifts
- circular keycaps so you can fit extra keys between your letter keys
- adopt þ back into english, it is a cool letter and we were wrong to drop it
- https://hackaday.com/2025/03/14/building-a-ten-hundred-key-computer-word-giving-thing/
(hi, I am Tildes's resident Weird Input Device Enjoyer)
- namespaces for both leader+1 and leader+2 sequences, with the latter mapping to the few hundred most common words over three letters long. e.g.
I had a Framework 16, had stability problems with it, and eventually switched to a Thinkpad L16. It's pretty good. In practice, it has the same sort of repair support as the Framework; they just make less noise about it.
I'm still hoping Apple's success with the M* chips eventually annoys other vendors into making similarly impressive hardware. It seems to be amazing hardware from what I can tell; the software is just aggressively incompatible with me, and last time I looked into it I wasn't sufficiently convinced running Linux on it would be as painless as I'd like.