em-dash's recent activity
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI think the difference there is that nobody ever legitimately thinks a toaster has thoughts. It's much more obvious that it's being used in a metaphorical sense than it would be if a large segment...I think the difference there is that nobody ever legitimately thinks a toaster has thoughts. It's much more obvious that it's being used in a metaphorical sense than it would be if a large segment of the population sincerely, literally anthropomorphized toasters.
Anthropomorphized Toasters is the name of my new band
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Comment on 2024 United States election megathread in ~society
em-dash Link Parent"Lizard brain" is a somewhat common idiom referring a person's instinctive reactions as contrasted with the rest of their mental facilities. It's not referring to the person as a whole as having a...- Exemplary
"Lizard brain" is a somewhat common idiom referring a person's instinctive reactions as contrasted with the rest of their mental facilities. It's not referring to the person as a whole as having a lizard-like brain.
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Comment on US Election Distractions Thread in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentYou can affect affects by effecting effects on the affects.You can affect affects by effecting effects on the affects.
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Comment on US Election Distractions Thread in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentI WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS SLANDER AND/OR LIBEL sits downI WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS SLANDER AND/OR LIBEL
sits down
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Comment on US Election Distractions Thread in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentIt is not. The one in “ye olde" is "the"; the one in "hear ye" is "y'all".It is not. The one in “ye olde" is "the"; the one in "hear ye" is "y'all".
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Comment on Meta’s developing a new AI system to detect teens lying about their age in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentTo be fair, that was a blatant misuse of "algorithm" too. Lots of benign things are algorithms. Sorting posts by date, the thing everyone wants instead of an algorithm, requires a sorting algorithm.To be fair, that was a blatant misuse of "algorithm" too. Lots of benign things are algorithms. Sorting posts by date, the thing everyone wants instead of an algorithm, requires a sorting algorithm.
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Comment on US Election Distractions Thread in ~talk
em-dash (edited )LinkLet's talk about one of my favorite bits of weird linguistic trivia, licorne, the French word for unicorn. In French, the indefinite article (English "a"/"an") is un or une. The singular definite...Let's talk about one of my favorite bits of weird linguistic trivia, licorne, the French word for unicorn.
In French, the indefinite article (English "a"/"an") is un or une. The singular definite article (English "the") is le or la. Before a vowel sound these become l', prefixed onto the word after it. It's like contractions in English, but mandatory, like if writing out "it is" was grammatically incorrect.
So Old French comes along, needs a word for unicorns, sees Latin unicornis, says "that'll do" (but in Old French), and adopts it into French as unicorne.
And then people who didn't know Latin etymology heard that and thought it was the two words une icorne. There isn't a thing called an icorne, but language changes. "The unicorn", therefore, was l'icorne.
And then the same thing happened again: people misheard this as the single word licorne.
So now "a unicorn" is une licorne, and "the unicorn" is la licorne.
Language is weird.
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Comment on Apex Legends dev team update: Linux and anti-cheat in ~games
em-dash Link ParentSee also "free software". You know very well that most people will read that as "zero cost software" because that's by far the most common way for English speakers to use "free" applied to an...For a political advocacy group, the FSF really suck at effective communication.
See also "free software".
You know very well that most people will read that as "zero cost software" because that's by far the most common way for English speakers to use "free" applied to an inanimate thing.
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Comment on Are Feeds - like RSS or Atom feeds - Really Worth It For A Personal Blog? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentIf you don't even want to go that far, a friend wrote a tool that just manages feeds and nothing else. I don't use it myself (I looked into it then decided to bodge feeds onto my own weird custom...If you don't even want to go that far, a friend wrote a tool that just manages feeds and nothing else.
I don't use it myself (I looked into it then decided to bodge feeds onto my own weird custom SSG) but it may fit your needs.
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Comment on Timasomo 2024: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentNo worries! Can't guarantee I'll get to it immediately either, life happens.No worries! Can't guarantee I'll get to it immediately either, life happens.
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Comment on Timasomo 2024: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentI would love to take a look at it :D This sounds very much like it could be my kind of book.I would love to take a look at it :D This sounds very much like it could be my kind of book.
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Comment on Paper: Feminism in Programming Language Design in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentThe multilingual language mentioned, inexplicably referred to as Arabic-based immediately after it was introduced*, was kind of an attempted gesture in that direction, but I agree that I would...The multilingual language mentioned, inexplicably referred to as Arabic-based immediately after it was introduced*, was kind of an attempted gesture in that direction, but I agree that I would have liked to see more of that and less of all the other things going on in this paper.
* I had a whole second paragraph here about how replacing one language not everyone speaks with a different language not everyone speaks is a non-solution. Upon rereading, I realized the mentions of Arabic in section 1.1 had led me to conflate Hedy with the Arabic-based Lisp mentioned in 6.2. I still think that one is a bad idea.
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Comment on Using AI generated code will make you a bad programmer in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentThe problem is code exists in a context. Is this tiny helper function a security problem? That depends on how it's called. Is this database query going to be slow? That depends on the indexes and...The problem is code exists in a context. Is this tiny helper function a security problem? That depends on how it's called. Is this database query going to be slow? That depends on the indexes and size of the data. If I went around reviewing pull requests at work leaving comments like "make sure there are indexes!" without actually looking to see if there are indexes, or if the table being queried has a two-digit number of rows in practice and doesn't need indexes, I'd expect to be quickly told to knock it off.
Code review requires reasoning, something LLMs can only emulate. They are good at one thing, generating text. Generating text is not the hard part of code review.
Personally, I think there's some mostly-unexplored territory around automated code quality, but LLMs ain't it. I'd like to see a small fraction of this level of effort go into better deterministic static analysis tools. If I'm touching a tiny helper function deep inside a codebase, go look at all its callers, and their callers, etc., and see what behavior actually changes, and tell me - deterministically, with certainty - if that will cause issues.
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Comment on Using AI generated code will make you a bad programmer in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentThat's a thing. It is not good. Effective code review requires domain knowledge and codebase knowledge, in addition to "best practices" knowledge. That's why code reviewers tend to be more senior...Maybe they are more useful for reviewing code I write rather than writing code I have to review
That's a thing. It is not good.
Effective code review requires domain knowledge and codebase knowledge, in addition to "best practices" knowledge. That's why code reviewers tend to be more senior employees; you can't just hire an intern and give them a How To Do Software Architecture Real Good book and tell them to review all the code everyone else writes.
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Comment on I am disappointed by dynamic typing in ~comp
em-dash LinkI think the thing I'm missing here is why any of the author's proposed features depend on dynamic typing. For example: Lots of statically typed languages have callable non-function objects! Fewer...I think the thing I'm missing here is why any of the author's proposed features depend on dynamic typing. For example:
We can replace a function with an object that can be called for the exact same behavior, but also gives us an information sidechannel.
Lots of statically typed languages have callable non-function objects! Fewer let you replace functions, but that's not a dynamic typing thing, that's a "considering globally-defined functions to be constants" thing. That the two tend to correlate is a property of how languages influence each other, not of the type system.
For example, here's a direct C++ translation of the Python example from the article, using a mutable function reference since you can't overwrite the function directly.
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Comment on Stacking laptops in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI once accomplished this by physically removing the magnets that would trigger the lid sensor. You should probably not do this on a machine you don't own.I once accomplished this by physically removing the magnets that would trigger the lid sensor.
You should probably not do this on a machine you don't own.
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Comment on Timasomo 2024: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash LinkLast night, I assembled a prototype of my Steam Deck keyboard, and did some typing and hardcore gaming with it. It's in desperate need of real button labels (I at one point just ssh'd into my...Last night, I assembled a prototype of my Steam Deck keyboard, and did some typing and hardcore gaming with it. It's in desperate need of real button labels (I at one point just ssh'd into my laptop, pulled up the keymap in the qmk source, and referred to it while playing nethack), but I think the core idea is definitely sound.
I abandoned the original plans I had for the dpad, in which I would just put a taller dpad on top of it, upon realizing that the dpad is special: it's the one button that tilts when pressed instead of just moving downward, so you can't just constrain it to move up and down like you can with other buttons. And the taller you make it, the more horizontal movement is generated by a given tilt angle. The four-separate-button arrangement shown there is me experimenting with what to do instead. It's... usable, but it does not feel good to use.
I'm also going to look around for some lower-profile diodes. The switches I'm using (KXT3) are very low profile, and part of what made button design so challenging is that the diodes (1N4148WS) are significantly taller and mounted right next to each switch, so the bottom of each button has to be shaped to hit the switch while missing the diode.
I have also gotten a friend sufficiently excited about this project to help me out with mechanical design :3 She is good at this sort of thing and will very likely have better ideas about some of these issues than my decidedly "idk just mess with the numbers until it fits right" approach to design.
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Comment on Stacking laptops in ~tech
em-dash LinkYes, that would work. The magnets are much less powerful than you're probably thinking. They're only there to trigger a lid-closing sensor on the other side. You could place the laptops directly...Yes, that would work.
The magnets are much less powerful than you're probably thinking. They're only there to trigger a lid-closing sensor on the other side. You could place the laptops directly on top of each other and it'd be magnetically fine.
Heat is the bigger concern. Anything that keeps them a couple of inches apart and doesn't block the fans is good enough, unless you have very hot laptops.
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Comment on Timasomo 2024: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentYep, that's one thing I discovered after printing this. It is just barely wide enough for full motion with the stock joystick, but I have a silicone cap on mine that adds a couple of millimeters...I'm sure you're already planning to, but probably want to fillet or chamfer the joystick hole.
Yep, that's one thing I discovered after printing this. It is just barely wide enough for full motion with the stock joystick, but I have a silicone cap on mine that adds a couple of millimeters of width and bumps into that circle.
This sounds cool. As an enthusiast of cursed, hacked-together input devices, I approve.
Heat shrink, by the way, is not really intended to hold things together. It's to cover joints that are already soldered or crimped.
If you're not already, I'd also recommend trying a leaded solder (63/37 is nice to work with). Lead-free solder is harder to melt.