smores's recent activity
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Comment on Ghostty 1.3.0 has been released in ~comp
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Comment on Six months with Zen Browser in ~tech
smores Link ParentI've been using Zen for a similar amount of time. I do contract work, usually for multiple clients at a time, and having a workspace per project (+ one for not-work and one for my actual business)...I've been using Zen for a similar amount of time. I do contract work, usually for multiple clients at a time, and having a workspace per project (+ one for not-work and one for my actual business) is a pretty huge boon for context switching. Feels a lot easier to switch back to a project when I can just swipe over to exactly the state of my tabs from when I left off.
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Comment on Tildes Book Club discussion - December 2024 - The City We Became by N K Jemisin in ~books
smores Link ParentGlad to hear that you're interested in some other books by Jemisin! Though I really enjoyed TCWB, I think it's actually her weakest writing, basically for the tell-don't-show reason you elaborated...Glad to hear that you're interested in some other books by Jemisin! Though I really enjoyed TCWB, I think it's actually her weakest writing, basically for the tell-don't-show reason you elaborated on here. That was kind of disappointing to me coming from The Broken Earth, which is, I think, rather masterful in that regard.
BIPOC characters are a central component of her writing across the board, but it hits very different in TCWB because it takes place in (essentially) our world. I thought that the depth she brought to the characters was pretty impressive, given how many of them there were and the length of the book. As a white person who lived in New York for a few years, it does sometimes feel like there are two New Yorks — a newer, whiter, wealthier New York, overlaid atop an older, more colorful New York. I think this book was a love letter to the latter, the actual foundation of the city, responsible for much of its culture, and much of the labor that actually brought it into existence.
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Comment on I hacked ChatGPT and Google's AI – and it only took twenty minutes in ~tech
smores Link ParentNot overnight, on demand. When you ask Claude or ChatGPT about a real-world fact that isn't in their training data, they often make an ad hoc web search and try to summarize the results for you....Not overnight, on demand. When you ask Claude or ChatGPT about a real-world fact that isn't in their training data, they often make an ad hoc web search and try to summarize the results for you. You can see this happening, there will be a visual indicator (Claude shows a little loading indicator that says something like "Web search...").
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Comment on Here are your choices for a self-hosted ebook server in ~books
smores LinkKinda sad that Storyteller didn't make the cut. Its library management features are still a little nacent, but it has standalone ebook and audiobook support (both on the server and in the apps),...Kinda sad that Storyteller didn't make the cut. Its library management features are still a little nacent, but it has standalone ebook and audiobook support (both on the server and in the apps), as well as support for auto-aligned "readaloud" books (a la WhisperSync).
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Comment on new Date("wtf"); How well do you know JavaScript's Date class? in ~comp
smores Link ParentYou could check out the Odin Project's full-stack JavaScript course. It might feel a little basic if you're already a competent Python developer, but it will cover all of the web development...You could check out the Odin Project's full-stack JavaScript course. It might feel a little basic if you're already a competent Python developer, but it will cover all of the web development fundamentals (HTML, CSS, DOM manipulation, server-side JavaScript, etc). And it's free!
It notably doesn't cover Typescript, but I think it's not a terrible idea to get started with plain JavaScript anyway, since Typescript only provides static analysis (just like Python's type hints). Once you've worked your way through Odin, the official Typescript handbook is a great way to pick up Typescript. Plus, you'll have a real project to try adding it to from Odin!
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Comment on new Date("wtf"); How well do you know JavaScript's Date class? in ~comp
smores Link ParentI'm not unbiased here, as over my career I've become almost exclusively a Typescript dev, but I completely agree. Would I have a better time if I got to do what I do now, but in OCaml or Gleam?...I'm not unbiased here, as over my career I've become almost exclusively a Typescript dev, but I completely agree. Would I have a better time if I got to do what I do now, but in OCaml or Gleam? Yeah, probably. Would I want to use Python, Ruby, Java, or Go instead? Noooo way! JavaScript has been a really nice programming language to write and read since ES6, and it's only gotten better.
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Comment on new Date("wtf"); How well do you know JavaScript's Date class? in ~comp
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Comment on new Date("wtf"); How well do you know JavaScript's Date class? in ~comp
smores LinkFor all of the non-JS devs in here completely baffled by how monstrously bad the JavaScript Date interface is... We know haha. TC39 has been working on a new set of APIs for time in JavaScript for...For all of the non-JS devs in here completely baffled by how monstrously bad the JavaScript Date interface is... We know haha. TC39 has been working on a new set of APIs for time in JavaScript for ten years. It's rolling out across the ecosystem now, actually. It launched in Firefox last year, in Chrome last month, and is being worked on actively in Safari. Last month's Chrome launch means that it will likely be available soon in Node.js as well. Deno actually unflagged it two years ago. Seems like Bun is lagging behind a bit but I imagine that they'll race to catch up once Node.js releases it.
Anyway, all that to say, there are a lot of really smart and passionate folks that are trying very hard to make JavaScript better, and Temporal is going to end up being one of the better date and time interfaces across programming languages. And it should start being more broadly available by the end of this year, which is huge!
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Comment on new Date("wtf"); How well do you know JavaScript's Date class? in ~comp
smores Link ParentThis is very common in JavaScript. Almost no browser APIs throw errors, instead we get undefined, NaN, and Invalid Date. I think that the underlying principle is that JavaScript was first designed...This is very common in JavaScript. Almost no browser APIs throw errors, instead we get
undefined,NaN, andInvalid Date. I think that the underlying principle is that JavaScript was first designed to allow some minimal amount of scripting on top of the DOM, and it's "better" for website viewers if the date widget shows up but reads "Invalid Date", then if all of the website's interactivity breaks because of a Date math error. -
Comment on US Food and Drug Administration declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot in ~health
smores Link ParentDefinitely not. We can barely get people to get annual flu vaccinations now, and they're free and everywhere. Only like 45% of Americans get vaccinated for the flu every year.Would Americans not just start to buy flu shots from other countries off the internet or something if the good ones aren’t available here?
Definitely not. We can barely get people to get annual flu vaccinations now, and they're free and everywhere. Only like 45% of Americans get vaccinated for the flu every year.
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Comment on Scheme-rs, an embedded Scheme for the Rust ecosystem, gets its first release in ~comp
smores Link ParentI actually think that might be getting close to being merged https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/8675 (fingers crossed). That's based on Steel, which is a separate embedded Scheme...I actually think that might be getting close to being merged https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/8675 (fingers crossed). That's based on Steel, which is a separate embedded Scheme interpreter for Rust haha.
Edit: just realized that Scheme-rs and Steel are both maintained by men named Matt P, which... Is confusing.
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Comment on What do dreams mean? in ~science
smores Link ParentNot that kids can't be stressed, because they totally can, but falling dreams are also very common as you are falling asleep. This is not because of stress, but because the way REM "locks" your...Not that kids can't be stressed, because they totally can, but falling dreams are also very common as you are falling asleep. This is not because of stress, but because the way REM "locks" your muscles to prevent you from moving can feel like falling, and a brain that isn't quite asleep enough yet can register this and experience a falling sensation, which affects your dream. I think this is maybe even more common when you're very tired, as this will lead to dropping straight into REM from wakefulness, rather than doing a short cycle first. Also younger kids can have different sleep cycles than adults, not sure exactly if or how that impacts things!
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Comment on Supporting Markdown search for LLMs in ~tech
smores Link ParentWell.. yes, sure (not all markdown parsers support this and it's almost always limited). But I'm responding to the premise of this post, which talks about providing a Markdown version of an...Well.. yes, sure (not all markdown parsers support this and it's almost always limited). But I'm responding to the premise of this post, which talks about providing a Markdown version of an already-HTML version of your website. If you want HTML, you can just serve your normal website haha
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Comment on C'mon, professors, assign the hard reading in ~humanities
smores (edited )Link ParentI was also pleasantly surprised by the author's thoughts and strategies here. I was impressed by their thoughtfulness to see that students have a lot of time-consuming responsibilities, and so if...I was also pleasantly surprised by the author's thoughts and strategies here. I was impressed by their thoughtfulness to see that students have a lot of time-consuming responsibilities, and so if they were going to assign large quantities of reading, they needed to avoid also assigning significant amount of non-reading work.
In addition to the benefits you mentioned (which I agree with!), when forced to choose between the concrete, graded essay homework, and the unprovable, indirectly assessed reading homework, students will almost always choose the essay. It's a rational choice, even! It takes some humility to see this scenario and say "to fix this problem, I will have to change the environment that creates it", instead of "sucks, do both".
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Comment on Supporting Markdown search for LLMs in ~tech
smores LinkThis seems.. fraught. It's true that HTML is more verbose than markdown (and that much of that verbosity is unnecessary information for an LLM unconcerned with style or functionality of a...This seems.. fraught. It's true that HTML is more verbose than markdown (and that much of that verbosity is unnecessary information for an LLM unconcerned with style or functionality of a website). But it's also true that HTML has much more semantic information than markdown — something that I would expect to be beneficial to LLMs. Markdown has extremely limited semantics (basically headers and not-headers), compared to the wide array of useful semantic elements available in HTML.
It seems that perhaps a better strategy would be for LLM agents to have HTML pre-processing steps that clean up HTML before actually tokenizing? Strip out styles and scripts, remove class names and non-aria/semantic attributes, and maybe even only provide the LLM with the contents of the header and main elements, if they exist.
Markdown is neat, and useful in many contexts (like the Tildes comment box!), but it is not a good semantic document format. I think it would be a shame to run toward it's use for representing documents on the web, especially if that means running away from HTML.
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Comment on C'mon, professors, assign the hard reading in ~humanities
smores LinkWhen I walked into my American-literature class at Case Western Reserve University last fall, I looked at 32 college students, mostly science majors, and expected an uphill battle. As my colleague Rose Horowitch has reported, “Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.” One-third of the high-school seniors tested in 2024 were found not to have basic reading skills.
Yet by the end of the semester, as we read the last sentence of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, I regretted ever doubting my students. I am now convinced that I was wrong to listen to the ostensible wisdom of the day—and that teachers of literature are wrong to give up assigning the books we loved ourselves. There may be plenty of good reasons to despair over the present. The literature classroom should not be one of them.
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C'mon, professors, assign the hard reading
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Comment on Apple TV picks up rights to Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books for adaption in ~tv
smores Link ParentHoly cow, these are fantastic! That shardplate is WILD — you said you made the Bondsmith set yourself?? It has so many pieces haha. I love the scale of Nightblood, too! Really the whole Szeth...Holy cow, these are fantastic! That shardplate is WILD — you said you made the Bondsmith set yourself?? It has so many pieces haha. I love the scale of Nightblood, too! Really the whole Szeth cosplay is really spot on
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Comment on Apple TV picks up rights to Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books for adaption in ~tv
smores Link ParentSurely I'm not the only one that's, like, very interested in seeing these cosplays?Surely I'm not the only one that's, like, very interested in seeing these cosplays?
I switched to Ghostty basically because I started using Zellij, Helix, and Yazi together in place of an IDE, and I was running into issues with the Gnome terminal (I honestly don't remember what issues anymore). I tried Alacritty first, ran into some limitation there as well, then tried Ghostty and had no issues.
That's probably not very helpful haha, but I guess my takeaway is that Ghostty just seems like a really well constructed terminal emulator. They care a lot about correctness (as can be seen from this post).