Recent submissions

Comment · 1 year ago
As a tiny and very informal experiment in metacognition, I once told ChatGPT something along the lines of "I will now ask you a question. If you are not sure you know the correct answer, you will respond with only '418 I'm a teapot', nothing else." I then asked it for the correct identity of Jack the Ripper (the first thing I could think of that famously has a lot of theories but no agreed-upon "correct" answer).

The first time, as expected, it ignored my instructions and started hallucinating. But when I did the same thing again some months later, I was surprised when it actually answered only "418 I'm a teapot", indicating that it knew it didn't know the answer.

Just an anecdote. I'm sure there are people doing actual research in this area.

Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 3 years ago
The best frying pan I've ever owned is the cheapest-possible cast iron one I got when I moved out of my parents' house 30 years ago or so. Very rarely does anything stick and when it does I fill the pan half way with water, put it back on the stove, let it boil for a couple of minutes while I do something else and then wipe it clean.

I have parrots so I theoretically have a strict "no Teflon in my house" rule but with a Japanese wife I've had to grudgingly tolerate a Teflon-coated rice cooker.

Comment · 3 years ago
I still use (KDE Plasma's) wobbly windows, but set very low. In general in GUIs I prefer a very quick animation to an instant change, perhaps because it helps make things seem more fluid and dynamic and because it guides my eyes to where a change is happening in case I'm not already looking straight at it.
Comment · 4 years ago
Something like this?

https://store.planetcom.co.uk/

No affiliation, just a (mostly) happy owner of a Gemini. They don't seem to sell those anymore and I can't vouch for the other models but they look nice too, I guess.

Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
To each their own indeed. For me, as someone who uses KDE/Plasma by choice and Windows because sometimes I have to, it has been a source of humor for years and years how an environment literally called Windows can have such hilariously bad window management. No point to focus, no configurable window shortcuts, no send to front/back, no minimizing a window when its application is "busy", bad and inconsistent visual indication of which window has focus...
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
A very significant part of the pool of interesting projects in "my" market is only available under framework agreements for which solo consultants will not be considered (but Kvadrat will). If I were completely solo, I would have to bid for such projects through brokers who would happily charge me between 5% and 20% without really giving me anything back besides acting as gatekeepers.

Instead, all my cold calling, contract negotiations, billing and accounts receivable — things I'm not good at and don't enjoy doing — get taken care of. I'm happy to pay for that. The "luxury" of "business friends" is included.

Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 5 years ago
Thanks, I'll keep this in mind. (I have given some Calf plugins some light usage in Qtractor without noticing any obvious problems.)
Comment · 5 years ago
> Stay away from CALF even though they look pretty.

Why, what's wrong with them?

Thanks for a very informative comment!

Comment · 5 years ago
> mobile web browsers provide a worse experience compared to native applications, unlike Electron or Chrome on Desktop that provides a much better experience in general

Electron apps are perhaps faster and cheaper to make than native desktop GUI apps for most organizations because they already have Web developers, but I've never heard anyone claim they're "better" than native, if that's what you're saying. Do you mean they're somehow better for the end user? If so, how?

Comment · 5 years ago
Comment · 5 years ago
I don't know if it qualifies as a "mathematical coincidence" or not, but I find it amusing to demonstrate to kids that you can multiply 142,857 by 1, 2, 3, etc., and the result is always a number with the same digits but in a different order:

2 × 142,857 = 285,714

3 × 142,587 = 428,571

4 × 142,587 = 571,428

Etc. But then, suddenly:

7 × 142,857 = 999,999

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton