Narry's recent activity
-
Comment on Tildes “orphans”, what do you do for Christmas? in ~life
-
Comment on Solo developer rebuilds Adobe Creative Suite in Rust using Claude, releases it free to all in ~tech
Narry Link ParentHonestly I might actually sit down and vibe code a few titan killers just to shake shit up and get them to take AI regulation seriously. Just call me Zeus.Honestly I might actually sit down and vibe code a few titan killers just to shake shit up and get them to take AI regulation seriously. Just call me Zeus.
-
Comment on Donald Trump strikes deal with Vladimir Putin to get diesel in sharp reversal of US policy weeks before midterms in ~society
Narry LinkWe produce somewhere north of a million tons of diesel per day in the US, we just happen to export a lot of it. We just switched to the fall/winter blends and the drop in prices (I saw my prices...Instead, Trump announced that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “within a short period of time” after that, he wrote.
We produce somewhere north of a million tons of diesel per day in the US, we just happen to export a lot of it. We just switched to the fall/winter blends and the drop in prices (I saw my prices 40¢ a gallon cheaper when I was out driving yesterday, compared to one week ago.) I don't see where this is going to be more than a drop in the bucket.
-
Comment on Deno is joining Cloudflare in ~comp
Narry Link ParentTo answer your parenthetical, in my experience an open source project usually... well, I don't know if they NEED their corporate sponsor but they often acquire it under one of a few conditions:...To answer your parenthetical, in my experience an open source project usually... well, I don't know if they NEED their corporate sponsor but they often acquire it under one of a few conditions:
- The creator (or creative team) wants to work on the project full-time and sought out a business that can pay enough to essentially soft-acquire the project
- The corporation has come to rely very heavily on the project and need a closed-source version or favored-partner status that allows them to either get the earliest features, exclusive support, and either early access to features or a pipeline to help shape ongoing versions of the project
- The corporation needs to vent some money to get a tax break and the non-profit at the heart of the open source project is a good donation pathway
- The corporation needs some PR recovery and donating to a popular platform deep in their milieu can help to rehabilitate their image
That's the things I can think of off the top of my head that I've seen happen out there. Mostly that's been my experience with the Mozilla Foundation and the Blender Foundation.
-
Comment on Given everything we know about AI so far, what do you think it can or cannot be good for? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentHonestly all I'm gaining from this is that I need to use the Farmer's Market sales angle to position myself as an artisan craftsman, working on hand-made prose that's ruggedly real and that the...Honestly all I'm gaining from this is that I need to use the Farmer's Market sales angle to position myself as an artisan craftsman, working on hand-made prose that's ruggedly real and that the only suffering involved in my process is my own.
-
Comment on Productivity tools on MacOS in ~tech
Narry LinkThere’s a lot of these apps that have been mentioned year I use and co-sign. For security, I use a lot of Objective-See’s free/open source tools. Mostly I use Lulu, ReiKey, BlockBlock, KnockKnock,...There’s a lot of these apps that have been mentioned year I use and co-sign.
For security, I use a lot of Objective-See’s free/open source tools. Mostly I use Lulu, ReiKey, BlockBlock, KnockKnock, RansomWhere and Netiquette which comes with Lulu but is available on its own I believe.
For usability I use Shottr for screen capture, btop in my terminal in place of Activity Monitor (installed via homebrew), HyperKey to give me a spare meta key that I remap keyboard shortcuts to so that I free up the command key for other apps, and eqMac because he default volume controls are kinda spotty for my TV monitor.
-
Comment on Given everything we know about AI so far, what do you think it can or cannot be good for? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentI’d like to gently push back on the notion that we have no expectation to privacy in public; while you should expect to be recorded in public, you should not expect to be tracked or have your...I’d like to gently push back on the notion that we have no expectation to privacy in public; while you should expect to be recorded in public, you should not expect to be tracked or have your likeness used without your consent.
The reason that I gave the caveats that I did (such as a good lawyer tearing apart a high profile case) is because I may be delusional but I still believe that overall we’ve got a strong justice system in the U.S. (just a slow one) and that a reasonable judge would be persuaded that the state is overreaching their authority to use such equipment in the single-minded pursuit of catching criminals. It’s getting to the point that the technology allows them to invent a criminal out of thin air.
-
Comment on What foods are better after a day or two? in ~food
Narry LinkAs others have stated, chili is great the second day, as it gives the spices time to really marinate in there and dig deep into the meat and/or the beans. I find many pasta dishes are excellent at...As others have stated, chili is great the second day, as it gives the spices time to really marinate in there and dig deep into the meat and/or the beans.
I find many pasta dishes are excellent at this as well. Second day lasagna (American style) is one of my favorites, as well as day old properly refrigerated Asian food leftovers such as lo mein, pad thai, and certain curries.
For me the real question is usually: reheat them or eat them cold? There are some things that I actually enjoy just as much cold as warm. Pizza is one of them, oddly.
-
Comment on The return of phones with physical keyboards? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentIt may well be a combo of nostalgia and muscle memory desiring to be used again. I had a knockoff BlackBerry with a physical keyboard and it was… okay. My longtime favorite was predictive T9...It may well be a combo of nostalgia and muscle memory desiring to be used again. I had a knockoff BlackBerry with a physical keyboard and it was… okay.
My longtime favorite was predictive T9 typing which was a feature on phones only briefly before being replaced by on-screen keyboards, but I used a phone with that feature well into 2013 and I could use regular T9 to type blind into the keyboard because I knew where everything was and how many taps it took to get it typed.
My current most used phone input method is slide to type, which I use for most everything now. I do sometimes use two thumb tap typing, but mostly not.
-
Comment on Amazon uses its tracking data to guess whether shoppers have a flat butt and no friends in ~tech
Narry LinkThey know all about me... stuff I readily would admit to other people. Like owning 6 Keychrons, or preferring to buy digital books but physical media for movies.They know all about me... stuff I readily would admit to other people. Like owning 6 Keychrons, or preferring to buy digital books but physical media for movies.
-
Comment on Given everything we know about AI so far, what do you think it can or cannot be good for? in ~tech
Narry Link ParentTrue, but at the same time they're allowed to find any old reason to bounce you.True, but at the same time they're allowed to find any old reason to bounce you.
-
Comment on Given everything we know about AI so far, what do you think it can or cannot be good for? in ~tech
Narry LinkHere's a bunch I could think of off the top of my head: Generative AI for Images I think it's going to kind of go the way Photoshop has: a thing that's there, a tool to be used, but with a light...Here's a bunch I could think of off the top of my head:
Generative AI for Images
I think it's going to kind of go the way Photoshop has: a thing that's there, a tool to be used, but with a light touch or you'll be accused of graphic design being your passion.Generative AI for Non-Fiction Prose
It'll continue apace, people find it useful for cleaning up corpo-speak and helping them marshal messy thoughts into something coherent. It will be obvious if you used AI to help or just had the AI shit something out for you.Generative AI for Fiction Prose
I think this may get really messy. There's a lot of finger-pointing and reveals of obvious uses of AI that "somehow" made it late into the process (including pending books being pulled when the publishers "found out" it was AI and yanked it due to outcry/backlash). I think people will continue to try to use it, but we may get to a point where we have to insist that authors submit their git commit histories of their books.Generative AI - Coding
I think mostly it turned into knowing how to use the tool, and while you CAN do things the old-fashioned way by hand, largely you won't.Image Recognition AI - Medical
This is one of the most mature technologies and I trust it, coupled with a seasoned medical staff, to pick up things early and aid in correct diagnoses.Image Recognition AI - Law Enforcement
We're one or two high profile cases being lost or thrown out for using systems with shitty hit rates because a good lawyer was able to argue that the technology isn't anywhere near mature enough to be admissible in a court of law as evidence. But I do predict it'll be used in casinos and other age-gated establishments to help keep out cheaters and the under-aged. I think ultimately that automatic license plate readers are going to be snuffed and we'll go back to cops having to take a picture and decipher the numbers and manually look up and confirm the plates themselves.That's kinda what I can think of right now, but yeah... I think especially local models are going to be popular as people feel guilty about using huge data centers, like me.
I should say that I'm fully a layman, I have no background in any of this and though I don't generally like generative art and writing AI, I'm fairly agnostic about the rest.
-
Comment on Single-axis scroll has been adopted into the CSS spec and will be supported in Chromium soon in ~comp
Narry (edited )Link ParentThank you for explaining, but I found your explanation as dense as anything in the article; this is probably down my general fatigue trying to parse tech stuff by the time I get the chance to look...Thank you for explaining, but I found your explanation as dense as anything in the article; this is probably down my general fatigue trying to parse tech stuff by the time I get the chance to look at Tildes at any given time rather than a reflection your ability to explain. I parse tech for a living and one has his limits.
The demo explains in a way that I can comprehend. This looks like an improved version of Excel's Freeze Top Panes feature that allows you to lock the very first row of cells from A1:?1 but with additional rows that can overtake the first one as the top column headers. This is indeed a very welcome feature.
Edit: A few words here and there.
-
Comment on That book you remember some details but can't recall the title in ~books
Narry Link ParentThe cover looks vaguely familiar. I'll see if I can find a copy and check it out. Thanks for the heads-up!The cover looks vaguely familiar. I'll see if I can find a copy and check it out. Thanks for the heads-up!
-
Comment on Single-axis scroll has been adopted into the CSS spec and will be supported in Chromium soon in ~comp
Narry LinkOne of the few times I wish I could embed a GIF. I both love and loathe CSS. When you pull something off and it works right, you feel like a friggin' god. But most of the time I feel like I've...One of the few times I wish I could embed a GIF. I both love and loathe CSS. When you pull something off and it works right, you feel like a friggin' god. But most of the time I feel like I've been freshly hit in the head with a hammer. I tried reading this and honestly I haven't the fainest idea what they're talking about.
-
Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
Narry Link ParentI think the problem is that it feels like an extra bit of work to make sure that gender agrees across the sentence, but it ultimately has no useful payout in almost all situations. It's extra work...I think the problem is that it feels like an extra bit of work to make sure that gender agrees across the sentence, but it ultimately has no useful payout in almost all situations. It's extra work often for no reward, but if you get it wrong you sound like an uneducated speaker, at least from the perspective of an outsider learner. It's all drawbacks, but again just from a non-native speaker's perspective. If there was something other than "it makes it sound nice" that it was doing to make the sentence more clear and more understandable I wouldn't ever think twice about it. "Of course it's -ita for everything here, you must know that this is a very cute table. Lita lindita mesita."
-
Comment on How mods changed video games forever in ~games
Narry Link ParentTo be honest, Skyrim is everywhere and honestly it feels half-baked. Maybe three-quarters baked. It's a game where, in order to make it minimally viable, I have to: Refuse to engage the main...To be honest, Skyrim is everywhere and honestly it feels half-baked. Maybe three-quarters baked. It's a game where, in order to make it minimally viable, I have to:
- Refuse to engage the main storyline and forever leave the Jarl of Whiterun waiting for me to come tell him about the dragon from the intro scene.
- Install mods to give all characters the Khajit nightvision, make it stay on when toggled and not a timed spell, and take away the screen blur effect that it normally has because the color balance on the game in dark areas is basically crippling.
- Always play as a ranged stealth character, because melee combat is so impossibly broken that I have yet to uncover mods that make it more realistic
And that's just to be able to dink around in the game. The only other character type I can play is Nord/Orc/Redguards that sprint into battle and tank a ton of damage and bash people to death with war hammers or long swords. Nothing else can handle melee combat. I recall trying to make casters in the past, but basically if you don't burn/ice someone down before they reach you, in the early game you're basically glass and you'll go down in just one or two hits. Many is the time a low-level bandit one-shotted my mage.
But none of this, absolutely none of this has stopped me from pouring about 350 combined hours PC/Xbox into this game. It's an affliction, I don't know why I am like I am.
-
Comment on How mods changed video games forever in ~games
Narry (edited )Link ParentAh, many a gameplay session of mine ended at the hands of Captain Hector. In later games he didn't do anything but fly into the system and nag you to buy, but I recall in early games he'd...Ah, many a gameplay session of mine ended at the hands of Captain Hector. In later games he didn't do anything but fly into the system and nag you to buy, but I recall in early games he'd annihilate you.
I never did end up paying for it, and honestly I might've cracked it myself, I can't recall. When I get the itch/urge to play EV again, I turn to Endless Sky: Steam / Github -- I have 265 hours logged on Steam, but I've probably got closer to 500 hours in the game across Linux / Mac / Windows. It's a very faithful recreation of the EV series as a whole, with a lot of Quality of Life improvements that game in later iterations. I still haven't managed to explore the entire galaxy.
As a fellow xkcd quoter, I usually find myself quoting 927 or 1053
Edit: Also I just noticed your name is Maelstrom. Did you know that game is available on Linux?
-
Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
Narry Link ParentI should probably point out that I construct languages as a hobby, so my answer to "would it improve the language" is an emphatic "yes" because... well, it's the unfortunate delusion of my hobby.I should probably point out that I construct languages as a hobby, so my answer to "would it improve the language" is an emphatic "yes" because... well, it's the unfortunate delusion of my hobby.
-
Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
Narry Link ParentI think the assumption here is that you drop all gender features, except in cases where it's important to describe what you mean. Like, take your example of "manzana roja" where if you just agree...You still have to say manzana roja, so you still need to know the gender of any noun you're playing with. At that point, is there any difficulty in saying la once you already know the gender of the noun?
I think the assumption here is that you drop all gender features, except in cases where it's important to describe what you mean. Like, take your example of "manzana roja" where if you just agree that the words always pair with the masculine as the neuter, you end up with "el manzana rojo" because "el" and "rojo" no longer carry the connotation of "the definite (masc) article" and "red (masc) color" they just carry the connotation of "definite article" and "red color" regardless of the noun they're attached to.
I'm just genuinely not sure what important information that gender agreement is carrying here. Take a longer descriptive, where all the genders must apply: una pequiña manzana roja. None of that tells me anything important about the smallness of the apple, the appleness of the apple, the redness of the apple, or even the oneness of the apple. I learn the gender rules in the languages I speak, but it doesn't mean I have to like them.
Anyway, let's agree to disagree at this point, I think I'm going in circles.
I grew up a particular flavor of fundie Christian that didn't celebrate, so... it's meaningless to me. I celebrated for the first time when I was 14 but over the last 30+ years I've officially celebrated like... 5 times? Usually with extended family.