archevel's recent activity

  1. Comment on The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal, unrelenting decline in ~food

    archevel
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    They mention that the infection spread from Asia. How is it handled in those countries? Natural predators keeping it at bay?

    They mention that the infection spread from Asia. How is it handled in those countries? Natural predators keeping it at bay?

    7 votes

  2. Comment on What is your go-to project for learning a new language? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Nah, the basic data is the same, but the file format is specific to Sweden (I believe). It's a standardized format for exchanging accounting data that has wide adoption from the system providers....

    Nah, the basic data is the same, but the file format is specific to Sweden (I believe). It's a standardized format for exchanging accounting data that has wide adoption from the system providers. Here is some info on it SIE file format. Main thing a lot of applications miss is that it uses cp437 as an encoding which is mostly compatible with ANSI, but reading a file as regular ansinor utf-8 can garble some text.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on What is your go-to project for learning a new language? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link
    I tend to do something I am fairly familiar with domain wise. Learning F# a while back I did a parser for Swedish accounting data using parser combinations via fparsec. I hadn't done much with...

    I tend to do something I am fairly familiar with domain wise. Learning F# a while back I did a parser for Swedish accounting data using parser combinations via fparsec. I hadn't done much with parser combinations before, but I knew the file format fairly well. Other times I build a lisp :) getting a basic interpreter is fairly straightforward (the book SICP is a good reference manual for this).

    Contrary to other people's recommendation I would avoid building something I actually want to use. I want a certain level of mastery and understanding of the tool (language) before doing anything "serious" with it. YMMV.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on Ring camera is getting more and more annoying in ~tech

    archevel
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    Out of curiosity what do these cameras do for you? What problem does it solve?

    Out of curiosity what do these cameras do for you? What problem does it solve?

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech

    archevel
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    I am running Nixos on my work laptop. I like the convenience of just setting up a nix-shell with the necessary dependencies when I tinker with something. It's running hyperland which feels fairly...

    I am running Nixos on my work laptop. I like the convenience of just setting up a nix-shell with the necessary dependencies when I tinker with something. It's running hyperland which feels fairly slick. For my home computer I recently just installed Debian. It is just solid. I figured that if I needed to run some software that wasn't in the regular repo I could just as well either run it in a container or flatpak OR just build it from source.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Yes. If you are working on java I would argue you are working on a legacy system. If you are writing something new with java, then you would just be using a fairly solid and battle tested tool for...

    Yes. If you are working on java I would argue you are working on a legacy system. If you are writing something new with java, then you would just be using a fairly solid and battle tested tool for solving your problem.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Well, arguably Firefox and chrome are both legacy systems. There are a bunch of hidden quirks and obscure settings in Firefox at least dating back many years! Now, are legacy systems automatically...

    Well, arguably Firefox and chrome are both legacy systems. There are a bunch of hidden quirks and obscure settings in Firefox at least dating back many years! Now, are legacy systems automatically bad? No, I don't think so. Are they harder to maintain than greenfield projects? Definitely!

    3 votes

  8. Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Fair point! The age of the he framework (or language for that matter) doesn't automatically imply it is a legacy framework. In the case of react the framework itself has a bunch of "cruft" in it...

    Fair point! The age of the he framework (or language for that matter) doesn't automatically imply it is a legacy framework. In the case of react the framework itself has a bunch of "cruft" in it though. It is kind of inevitable for all but the smallest codebases if they are continuously being developed.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    It is 12 years since the initial release (according to Wikipedia) so I think there is a legitimate argument that it is legacy software. If you were writing react back then and are still using it...

    It is 12 years since the initial release (according to Wikipedia) so I think there is a legitimate argument that it is legacy software. If you were writing react back then and are still using it then your software will likely look very different and have accumulated a bunch of legacy cruft over the years.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Viktor Orbán's Hungarian experiment runs out of steam in ~society

    archevel
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    The Hungarian election seem to be in favor of the Tisza party. How different is this party from Orbán's Fidesz party? My limited understanding is that Tisza formed as a splinter of Fidesz so is it...

    The Hungarian election seem to be in favor of the Tisza party. How different is this party from Orbán's Fidesz party? My limited understanding is that Tisza formed as a splinter of Fidesz so is it expected to pursue radically different political agendas or is it more of a course correction, but ultimately more of the same? Given Hungary's prevention of EU giving loans etc to Ukraine is this likely to change?

    6 votes

  12. Comment on I’m traveling internationally for the first time and could use tips! in ~travel

    archevel
    (edited )
    Link
    Since you mentioned being into motorsports so you might want to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace when you are in the Nordics. I only know of it from my childhood, but it is basically...

    Since you mentioned being into motorsports so you might want to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace when you are in the Nordics. I only know of it from my childhood, but it is basically old beat up cars racing and running into each other. It isn't widely popular, but you'll likely get to see something few tourists end up checking out.

    Edit: just to make sure have your visas sorted out. Not sure what the visa situation is like for Americans. It's likely different for Norway (not part of EU) vs rest of Europe, but just verify that you are able to enter each country you plan to visit :)

  13. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    archevel
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    I ended up converting the original DOOM source into my lisp language ghoul. It runs, not smoothly, but it runs the first level. I render the level, animate sprites, do collision detection, can...

    I ended up converting the original DOOM source into my lisp language ghoul. It runs, not smoothly, but it runs the first level. I render the level, animate sprites, do collision detection, can open doors, shoot monsters, pick up stuff and get damaged. It was fun to see it actually working. Then I used it to do some performance improvements to the interpreter so it is at least playable! All the computation is in ghoul and I only needed a small go library for rendering a buffer to screen and handling keyboard inputs and sound. The tooling I've made makes it fairly simple to wrap arbitrary go code. It has some limitations, but it mostly just works. I used it to wrap most of the go stdlib so I can throw together a quick http server with lisp code which is kind of neat!

    3 votes

  14. Comment on Project Glasswing: securing critical software for the AI era in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    You could aim for provably correct code I suppose. It's a very high bar and used to not be out of reach for all but very simple or highly critical software. I can see agentic coding doing that...

    You could aim for provably correct code I suppose. It's a very high bar and used to not be out of reach for all but very simple or highly critical software. I can see agentic coding doing that sort of thing more cheaply, but it is still probably not worth it for most software tbh.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Claude Mythos preview in ~tech

    archevel
    Link
    This video by an anthropic employee working on security gives a bit of insight into what is going on security-wise. It does sound mostly as a plead to everyone to pitch in to secure what we can...

    This video by an anthropic employee working on security gives a bit of insight into what is going on security-wise. It does sound mostly as a plead to everyone to pitch in to secure what we can and hope that these tools will ultimately benefit the defense. Bad actors will be using the increasing capabilities of LLMs to find and execute exploits. This can basically be set up to be done autonomously at this point.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Harm reduction centered on AI use in ~tech

    archevel
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    I usually enjoy Dr. Fatima's well researched videos and I did like this one too. It made me ponder my own use; why do I use it instead of asking a person for advice on e.g workout. A lot of it...

    I usually enjoy Dr. Fatima's well researched videos and I did like this one too. It made me ponder my own use; why do I use it instead of asking a person for advice on e.g workout. A lot of it boils down to convenience:

    • I don't know a lot of people with expertise in the field.
    • I want an answer to my question now.
    • I mostly don't want to pay for the advice.

    If I didn't use an LLM I'd probably be asking the same questions, but I'd be using a search engine and trawl through forum posts instead.

    Anyway, the video discusses the harms of generative AI focusing on LLMs. It discusses what effective ways are of reducing those harms and calls out shaming as a bad way of reducing others use. The last point is kind of central and worth reflecting on (not just in the case of AI). It ends on suggesting a few alternate avenues that is likely superior in reducing the actual harm caused by AI usage in society.

    Aside: I always have a hard time picking n area where to post commentary on tech. I mean this isn't really tech, it is more society related in general. Feel free to move it :)

    3 votes

  18. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link
    I have been picking up my old lisp interpeter I started back in 2016 (I think). It already had support for proper tail call optimization and was fairly lean and easy to grasp (for me). I got stuck...

    I have been picking up my old lisp interpeter I started back in 2016 (I think). It already had support for proper tail call optimization and was fairly lean and easy to grasp (for me). I got stuck on two major features back then. One; hygienic macro support. Two; a tool for wrapping arbitrary golang code to make it callable from the lisp code.

    So being a modern developer I pointed Claude to the repo and pointed it to the racket documentation about hygienic macros and instructed it to work in a TDD like manner. It is amazing what it can spit out, but it tends to be like most developers and omitt edge cases so I keep insisting it to check the code coverage to make sure the test coverage doesn't degrade (it sits well over 90%). Apart from the new macro support (almost finished, just need to add support for syntax-case) and the tool for wrapping golang libraries it has also helped me add a require/module system. Lots of fun, and a bit addictive.

    Next step, once the macro support is finished, will probably be to rewrite the parser. It currently yacc based, but I'd like to create one using the new SIMD capabilities that is experimental at the moment.

    6 votes

  19. Comment on Any beginners advice or resources on developing a 2D RPG/Puzzle video game? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link
    I enjoyed the GameDev Tavern's video tutorials series on building two fairly straightforward, but different games. Each part of the series builds on the previous in a natural progression. I think...

    I enjoyed the GameDev Tavern's video tutorials series on building two fairly straightforward, but different games. Each part of the series builds on the previous in a natural progression. I think they made a bunch of the resources available, but I used other ones just to get a better grip on the process. It's too easy for me to otherwise just end up in copy paste land (and then I don't really learn).

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Sweden's old‑growth natural forests store 83% more carbon than managed woodlands – new study in ~enviro

    archevel
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    Hopefully this can change if we manage to vote out the current right wing coalition currently leading the country come september (it is an election year here). I don't anticipate that forestry...

    Hopefully this can change if we manage to vote out the current right wing coalition currently leading the country come september (it is an election year here). I don't anticipate that forestry policy will be a major political issue, but I expect that with a left wing coalition the environmentalist vocies will not fall on deaf ears to the same extent. There are a bunch of challenges aside from "just" global warming, e.g. water and pollution management, exploitation of shorelines and seabeds, fishing quotas, hunting permits/quotas for wild wolves and lynx... Lots of small issues where there are different interests that all have legitimate concerns or at least opposing (short term?) interests.

    7 votes