News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

dejj

Re:I built a programming language that LLMs can't use on Sunday October 18, 2026 @06:16PM (#50146055)
Related: the Darmok programming language: https://github.com/kevinselwyn/darmok

  Temba, his arms wide stdio
  
  Darmok on the ocean
      Kira at Bashi "Hello, World!\n"

      Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra 0
  Darmok and Jalad on the ocean
Killswitch-lang could become the backstory to how the Tamarians developed their language, in the aftermath of a Dune-like Butlerian Jihad. Also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50127274
This. If it was computer worms or viruses coming from their labs, there’d be consensus.

Instead, we’re mesmerized by various versions of screensaver.exe looking so nice and so productive.

Re:Blindsight (Watts Novel) on Monday October 05, 2026 @03:08PM (#49969084)
How do they determine that Rorschach (or any entity) is _not_ conscious?
Re:Loss of Cell Identity Drives Human Aging on Saturday October 03, 2026 @07:57AM (#49943480)
> destroys his mitochondria Fine print: only the father’s. Maternal mitochondria from the egg are dormant at first and activated after 10 (?) cell divisions. Those mitochondria are never reset, and return to dormant state as soon as specialization into egg cells allows them, afaik.

Notwithstanding heteroplasmic (paternal) mitochondria making it into the cell in 8% of cases, with unknown effects.

RFC 3514 “evil bit” header flag to the rescue: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3514/
It seems like a simplified prisoners’ dilemma: it’s missing the negative weight if everybody presses red.
“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.”

The Aenid, Virgil, Dryden translation.

Re:Overlapping Markup on Sunday January 18, 2026 @06:48PM (#46673411)
Multi-paragraph quotation repeats the opening quote in every paragraph, but closes the quote only once.[0]

Traffic signs repeat after every intersection, similarly.

It's a great help in recovering the "parser state" in my mind.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks_in_English#Quo...

"I think this was a powerful lesson on the dangers of AI. Which by the way means 'love' in Chinese."

Elon Tusk, Rick and Morty, S4E4: https://youtu.be/xQHCz9ZZorA?t=129

Re:X-Clacks-Overhead on Saturday January 03, 2026 @10:09PM (#46484443)
I was curious, and you’re right. It would be Cargo Culting then, if we believed the ritual actually had an effect on Pratchett in the afterlife.
Re:X-Clacks-Overhead on Saturday January 03, 2026 @10:28AM (#46477751)
Does “saying the name lest he be forgotten” classify as Cargo Cult?
Re:An experiment in separating identity, memory, and tools on Sunday December 28, 2025 @12:05PM (#46412489)
Urbit, is this you?
Re:When Compilers Surprise You on Wednesday December 24, 2025 @09:53AM (#46376088)
It’s neat. I wonder if someone attempted detecting a graph coloring problem to replace it with a constant.
Re:Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work on Thursday December 18, 2025 @06:22PM (#46320217)
Plot twist: this universe (planet) was created in order to reverse engineer what the prompt of the previous one was.
Agree.

> cargo-culting Stack Overflow

What do you mean by this? I understand “cargo-culting” as building false idols, e.g. wooden headphones and runways to attract airplanes that never come.

Valid. Maybe something can be learned from using them more frequently, either by the maker or by the user.
Re:How to build silos and decrease collaboration on purpose on Saturday November 01, 2025 @01:07AM (#45779396)
“The office according to The Office” by Venkatesh Rao has the “clueless” act as gatekeepers between “sociopaths” and “losers”:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re:Anscombe's Quartet on Tuesday September 09, 2025 @08:16AM (#45180902)
Would the license help to prevent an AI training on the example code?
Re:A receipt printer cured my procrastination on Friday June 13, 2025 @04:54PM (#44272155)
Your blog reminded me of “Linear RPG”: you run along a line to collect XP. It’s a flash game.

https://sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/

Re:Progressive JSON on Sunday June 01, 2025 @03:26AM (#44149222)
Reminds me of Aftertext, which uses backward references to apply markup to earlier parts of the data.

Think about how this could be done recursively, and how scoping could work to avoid spaghetti markup.

Aftertext: https://breckyunits.com/aftertext.html

Re:Root for Your Friends on Saturday May 24, 2025 @05:03AM (#44079802)
I do the same. Doing HR’s job is not my job. And yet, some how I do. If I rated any satisfaction metric below 80% my manager’s manager would have him talk to me; there would be flogging until morale improves. It seems all a game of Emperor’s New Clothes.
If your mitochondria have bird DNA and your nucleus has bird DNA, then you’re a bird.

There’s an easier way. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that only and rarely is observed in Japanese can extend human lifespan greatly. Flip a single base pair. This seems the most promising first step for genetically engineering humans.

Yes. Afaik from Nick Lane’s “Oxygen” the Cytochrome Oxidase made from the mitochondrial DNA have to match the Cytochrome C made from nuclear DNA. Even slight mismatch seems to lower mitochondrial performance and is a problem why heteroplasmy (mixing of mitochondria from father and mother) seems to be selected-out.
Re:Slow Software for a Burning World on Saturday May 10, 2025 @11:25AM (#43946402)
Reminds me of Urbit. Maybe a HURD server, too.
Re:Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation (2019) on Saturday February 08, 2025 @04:28PM (#42986355)
I see the mountain of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” coming into view.

The approach replaces Confluence instruction pages with semi-interactive walkthroughs (the conscious side).

The other side is test automation: it starts with a big ball of overfitted Xpaths and undocumented steps. Those get re-discovered every time the application changes (the subconscious side).

Hopefully, we reach the summit where we can execute quickly and still know how we got there and why.

Re:What Is the "Mffam" Policy? on Saturday January 11, 2025 @08:15AM (#42665649)
Thank you. I used to fancy MFFAM for it’s seeming cleverness. But tobacco taxing basically does the same. And you could literally pave a road with its residue of good intentions. We’d all be hosting CSAM and pour the revenue into government programmes, but we don’t, because we know it to be more effective to prevent damage than trying to fix it afterwards.
> “Please describe your greatest weakness“

I memorized to reply with “I have a weakness for Italian pasta.”

Even though you may be tempted to reply with “You fight like a cow.”

> The strategy is as simple as it is disturbing: rewarding screen time with financial incentives.

This is just work in IT.

Older »