ewintr's recent activity

  1. Comment on What's something that makes you feel like we're living in the future? in ~talk

    ewintr
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    Same here for me. Despite all the negative parts of how they were created and how they are used nowadays, the technology is astonishing. I was rewatching old Star Trek episodes around the time...

    the dreaded thinking machine. The fact that I can have a reasonable conversation with an LLM running locally on my not particularly overpowered computer is insane to me. That on that same computer, I can generate an original work of "art" that just a few years ago would be considered genuinely good, in seconds.

    Same here for me. Despite all the negative parts of how they were created and how they are used nowadays, the technology is astonishing.

    I was rewatching old Star Trek episodes around the time ChatGPT was getting hyped. I love science fiction, and the talking computer is often a trope in stories in the far future. As a developer, I always discarded them as a fantasy because "that is not how computers work."

    And then I saw the crew of the Enterprise try to solve a problem by talking to the computer, and I realized that it sounded very similar to the conversations that I had with LLMs earlier that week. Suddenly, it was not a fantasy any more. It changed the whole viewing experience for me.

    9 votes

  2. Comment on Which challenging book was worth the effort for you? in ~books

    ewintr
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    I did not hate it, but I did not care at all for the characters either. Once I got used to the style, I found it pretty flat and boring, to be honest. I remember closing it after reading the last...

    I did not hate it, but I did not care at all for the characters either. Once I got used to the style, I found it pretty flat and boring, to be honest. I remember closing it after reading the last page, and just wondering what all the fuzz was about.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Started watching Adolescence in ~tv

    ewintr
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    Is that because of the technique, or because it is very hard to do it well? I have not seen Adolescense, but for me it really works in a movie like Victoria (2015). The one shot approach is very...

    To me, sequence shots are immersion-breaking because they force me to sense the director and the camera person moving around. It feels too intentional.

    Is that because of the technique, or because it is very hard to do it well? I have not seen Adolescense, but for me it really works in a movie like Victoria (2015). The one shot approach is very effective in building up the tension there.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account in ~tech

    ewintr
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    Perhaps. But if you are willing to spend that much energy, why just don't install Linux? Isn't the whole point of using something like Windows that you don't have to think too much and that...

    I used this loophole trick, I suppose you could use an old installer and then update from there?

    Perhaps. But if you are willing to spend that much energy, why just don't install Linux? Isn't the whole point of using something like Windows that you don't have to think too much and that everything works out of the box? Once that is gone, why on earth keep using it?

    2 votes

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

    ewintr
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    Fish shell, ha, that is somewhere on my to-do list as well. To try it out, I mean. Messing around is not something I would have thought of myself. Indeed, sounds a bit scary, but I have some time...

    Fish shell, ha, that is somewhere on my to-do list as well. To try it out, I mean. Messing around is not something I would have thought of myself. Indeed, sounds a bit scary, but I have some time to burn. I'll look into that. Thanks!

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Everything is a remix in ~tech

    ewintr
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    Talking about simultaneous discovery. I have always been fond of the book Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, which explains creativity and invention in much the same way, and that was...

    Talking about simultaneous discovery. I have always been fond of the book Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, which explains creativity and invention in much the same way, and that was published in 2011. The original parts of this video were published from 2010 to 2012, according to the closing credits. If you want to read more on the topics discussed in parts one to three, I can recommend it.

    2 votes

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

    ewintr
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    I could list a couple of half-baked going nowhere projects, but let me do something else. For the last two-and-a-half years, I have been working alone on a backend in a remote job. No-one...

    I could list a couple of half-baked going nowhere projects, but let me do something else. For the last two-and-a-half years, I have been working alone on a backend in a remote job. No-one reviewing my work, no learning from the work of others and also not shipping anything because the priorities keep changing. I am starting to feel burned out.

    To remedy this, I have arranged a break for six weeks to two months with the specific goal of participating in projects with others. I have an eye on a few open-source projects that I perhaps could join for the time. But if anyone here needs the help of a seasoned Go developer, or knows of a project that could use the help: I am all ears.

    For a while, I have had the wish to start with Rust, so that would be cool too. But so far, I have not gotten beyond the hello world example, so I would probably not be of much use there. A project that combines the two would be golden though.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Why is everything binary? in ~science

    ewintr
    Link Parent
    Keep watching a bit longer. It is not an educational video, more of a humorous social commentary.

    Keep watching a bit longer. It is not an educational video, more of a humorous social commentary.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on Why is everything binary? in ~science

    ewintr
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    I actually had no idea where to put it. I decided ~tech because it talks about bits and Elon Musk, but it is, of course, not really about tech. ~science is not a good match either, I think.

    I actually had no idea where to put it. I decided ~tech because it talks about bits and Elon Musk, but it is, of course, not really about tech. ~science is not a good match either, I think.

  12. Comment on Beware tech career advice from old heads in ~comp

    ewintr
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    Is a video of the gameplay perhaps enough of a teaser to get people to download it?

    It's kinda an awkward position for me. I'd love to show my games but making something in web is a dead end for most Financials. And isn't necessarily the optimal portfolio to show for industry game programmer positions either.

    Is a video of the gameplay perhaps enough of a teaser to get people to download it?

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Dutch parliament calls for end to dependence on US software companies in ~tech

    ewintr
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    I am not intimately familiar with the exact projects they fund, but NLnet does some good here. A quick search brought me to this page, for instance: https://nlnet.nl/project/mobile-nixos/...

    I am not intimately familiar with the exact projects they fund, but NLnet does some good here. A quick search brought me to this page, for instance: https://nlnet.nl/project/mobile-nixos/

    Replicant also has some projects funded by them.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face in ~tech

    ewintr
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    That sounds like a botnet of hacked computers and iot devices. No company owns such a set of IP addresses. I suspect there are a couple of layers to 'whitewash' this data. Tech giants or other...

    ...and come from tens of thousands of IP addresses – mostly residential, in unrelated subnets, each one making no more than one HTTP request over any time period we tried to measure...

    That sounds like a botnet of hacked computers and iot devices. No company owns such a set of IP addresses. I suspect there are a couple of layers to 'whitewash' this data. Tech giants or other companies don't do the scraping themselves, they get it from a specialized company. And maybe that specialized company gets it from another. All the way down to criminal gangs of hackers that sell access to hacked consumer devices.

    7 votes

  15. Comment on The future is Niri in ~comp

    ewintr
    Link Parent
    The main benefit for me was to be able to quickly arrange the right windows side by side in various configurations, without space in between them. My mind works better and faster if I can see two...

    The main benefit for me was to be able to quickly arrange the right windows side by side in various configurations, without space in between them. My mind works better and faster if I can see two documents/pages/whatever at the same time, and not have to jump back and forth.

    You can do 80%, maybe more, in a regular window manager with a combination of the Super key and the various arrow keys. On most systems, that puts a window in the left/right half of the screen or a quadrant. Tiling offers a little bit extra in that you can have more and diverse layouts. But it comes with some mental overhead to get everything on one screen, as described in the article. Some tiling window managers also don't play well with applications that don't expect to be run in such an environment. Then your browser gets one half of the screen and some dialog gets the other half.

    Currently, I have a mixed version. Basic tiling for terminals within Kitty, the rest is "normal".

    2 votes

  16. Comment on What are your personal reading "rules?" in ~books

    ewintr
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    I have only one rule when it comes to books. In my bookcase I have a shelf for unread books. Whenever a new book comes it, it will be appended to the right. If I am ready for a new book (I only...

    I have only one rule when it comes to books. In my bookcase I have a shelf for unread books. Whenever a new book comes it, it will be appended to the right. If I am ready for a new book (I only read one at the time), I pick the one at the front on the left. I decide there and then whether I am actually going to read that one or not.

    If I decide yes, all is fine and I start. If not, I must get rid of it, by giving it away, donating, whatever. It is not allowed to put it back and the end of the row again, nor is it allowed to skip the first and pick the second, (third, etc.) one from the row.

    This is all to control my Tsundoku and it works really well. It forces me to make a decision about a book. Also, having a physical row helps me be aware of how many unread books I already own. If it gets very long it subcounsiously pressures me to acquire less. If it becomes shorter, I feel more freedom to splurge without remorse.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on Anyone interested in trying out Kagi? (trial giveaway: round #2) in ~tech

  18. Comment on Anyone interested in trying out Kagi? (trial giveaway: round #2) in ~tech

  19. Comment on Anyone interested in trying out Kagi? (trial giveaway: round #2) in ~tech

  20. Comment on Canadian VPS providers? in ~comp

    ewintr
    Link Parent
    I had no prior experience with Hetzner. I tried to sign up a couple of weeks ago, and was asked to provide ID. A quick search on the internet shows that the experiences are mixed. So are asked,...

    I had no prior experience with Hetzner. I tried to sign up a couple of weeks ago, and was asked to provide ID. A quick search on the internet shows that the experiences are mixed. So are asked, others are not. I am in an EU country, though, not sure what would set off the fraud detection alarm bells.

    2 votes