News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

kyleperik

Re:Chat Wells, an Internet Masquerade on Tuesday August 18, 2026 @12:14AM (#49341175)
Algorithmic social media blasts content from strangers, Chat Wells is an experiment in opposition to that trend.

Sit down next to strangers and chat for a while. See what they're up to, post about something yourself and check in every so often to see what's changed.

Lots of stories about being bored in class and making programs, so I thought I'd share mine.

The functions feature allow you to define and graph equations with x and y. Well other variables also factor in including program defined variables such as z. That enables 3d orthographic graphs to be drawn.

Then I took it a step further and translated the results into a matrix and used that data to make real 3d projections of my graphs (or other shapes)

A bit serendipitous as my father just gave me back the calculator I used, I will be passing that down to my kids.

Re:Uxn on Thursday October 10, 2024 @08:45PM (#41805045)
Uxn runs on its own VM, so each emulator emulates this VM, just like every java implementation emulates the JVM, etc. In other words, the emulator isn't designed for any specific physical machine to begin with.
Re:Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)? on Sunday September 29, 2024 @10:41PM (#41693002)
An experimental programming language that uses pattern matching and pipes.

https://git.sr.ht/~kylep/pipes

Just a toy, but I like playing with novel semantics and paradigms which break out of the procedural/functional/oop styles.

The most prevalent use of GMOs in agriculture by far is resistance to roundup herbicide, enabling free use to knock out other weeds. Other GMOs are rarely viable on the wider market, likely because natural mutation and selection are just more efficient for improving varieties.

> what is actually bad about improving food?

With that said, I'd suggest you reconsider your opposite premise that GMOs invariably improve food.

I agree your mentioned echo chambers are unhelpful, just try to avoid feeding into it with equally uninformed opinions.

Re:The Software Crisis on Saturday July 06, 2024 @04:02PM (#40892839)
Along the same lines is a general theory of mine that many people in this era generally underestimate the cost of coordination, and overestimate the efficiency gain of bulk processing.
Re:Causality, Interaction, and Complexity on Thursday April 18, 2024 @11:29AM (#40077251)
People don't generally read hacker news because of its polish, but because of its novelty. There's plenty of polished backwash to read elsewhere.

For me, undeveloped personal insight is just the kind of content I find most interesting here.

I have seen little consideration made to the carbon cycle which produced this result of methane output in landfills.

It doesn't come from nothing. Methane is a compound generally produced by the breaking down of organic compounds in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic decomposition)

Organic compounds generally gain carbon from the atmosphere. So where is the extra carbon entering the system?

Should the focus not be on disposal methods but on ensuring sustainable regeneration of farmland in this case?

Re:ChatGPT Has Gone Berserk on Wednesday February 21, 2024 @03:28PM (#39459051)
> The need for altogether different technologies that are less opaque, more interpretable, more maintanable, and more debuggable — and hence more tractable—remains paramount.

Good luck, sounds more reasonable to hire some kind of an AI therapist. Can intelligence be debugged otherwise?

Re:No One Gets Rich by Shunning New Cars and Lattes on Saturday February 01, 2020 @04:35PM (#22213419)
I don't think it's correct to say it's not good to buy lattes or new cars, but I think we should be aware of what it costs you verses the alternative.

I think it's common knowledge that new cars deprecate extremely quickly, so for most middle class individuals it's better to go with a used car to avoid losing loads of money in the long run.

A medium latte costs at least $3. For daily drinkers that's about $90/month, which is at least triple the value of the beans and milk it took to produce.

Frugal living alone doesn't make you rich but I think it can really help you if you're in debt (like most Americans)

Re:Computational survivalist on Thursday October 10, 2019 @08:32PM (#21220527)
I'd say there's a fundamental difference I think between the examples. Windows and the software that comes with it isn't undesirable because it's cheap, but because it's locked down.
Re:Americans' fear of losing their jobs grows on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @06:06PM (#20934336)
I'm not sure that's what was meant by government backed. The government doesn't pay for your retirement fund, a Roth IRA just doesn't charge tax on withdrawals.
Re:Why I’m turning my son into a cyborg on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @10:47AM (#20460035)
I see your point and agree... there should be no difference. But I think a lot of times it's not WYSIWYG when it comes to software, because there is so much hidden infrastructure on top of something simple.
Re:Did capitalism hack the open-source model? on Tuesday June 04, 2019 @12:03PM (#20096269)
I see open source and capitalism as very similar ideas. It really is summed up in the absence of rules. And I like the analogy from the article

> empty spaces do not remain vacant for a very long time

But this seems to be impling that we need rules otherwise they'll be taken up by greedy companies. I think this is underestimating the role of the individual, who ultimately is the one who decides who gets business.

Maybe instead of being "Google addicts" but expecting the everything to be balanced, maybe we should be more conscious and intentional about who gets our business.

This is true, but honestly, why not just start doing some yoga to avoid $30/month?
Every piece of advice listed is great but it's twisted to sound ridiculous. Believe it or not, you can do a lot of things yourself.

- Buying raw food from a grocery store and cooking it yourself can save a lot of money

- You can jog outside or do push-ups and many other exercises at home for free

First make sure you're doing all that you can to support yourself in the future before you blame "the capitalist overloads"

Re:Facebook to ban white nationalist content on Thursday March 28, 2019 @10:08AM (#19512302)
Facebook has no obligation to share what you share. No one has that obligation. They may be a "platform" but that doesn't mean it's a free playing field.
Re:Facebook to ban white nationalist content on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @02:17PM (#19504121)
Quite clearly this is just a move to gain back support.

But this has nothing to do with free speech. If I tell someone something, they have no obligation to broadcast what you said. Why should Facebook act differently?

I don't like that they're targeting such a specific group. I think we should be on the lookout for real racism, and this is certainly an example of that.

Re:Day Care for All on Monday February 11, 2019 @05:59PM (#19139348)
The progressive to-do list could add a whole slew of other things. How about free housing, electricity, internet, food, clothes, phones for all? But at what cost?

The thing I don't get about the socialist movement in America is where does it stop? Aren't we supposed to make our own living?

I think if you know someone who is in need, then help them. I can't take this idea that it's the government's job to take care of everyone.

Re:Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @12:15PM (#19087292)
I agree. I thing Americans are drifting apart because we aren't making an effort to create a social fabric that can support those less fortunate around us.

But I strongly disagree that this is a good job for the government. I think empathy exists, but we aren't going to find it in the hearts of the government or enterprises. Empathy comes from people.

Re:How to teach programming to your loved ones [video] on Thursday January 31, 2019 @03:45PM (#19048646)
Didn't mean to imply that they aren't capable, but I think their reward system is different.
Re:How to teach programming to your loved ones [video] on Thursday January 31, 2019 @02:43PM (#19048043)
This is true. It comes down to two things I think that go hand in hand

1. Do they have enough persistance to learn and then tackle problems 2. Do they even care?

Most people just aren't wired that way and it's nice enough if you find someone who's even willing to listen to you talk about technical things

Re:Fermentation and Daily Life on Sunday January 27, 2019 @11:41AM (#19012386)
Recently I've been trying out fermentation with sourdough, ginger beer, kefir and anything else I can find to try out. It has many upsides, preservation, it's healthy and it's fun. In my opinion this article goes a bit too far, it's not a religion. It's just a diet that more people should know about and practice these days.
I actually played this when I was a kid. I remember really enjoying it. Now I'm a computer programmer and I won't use any OS other than Linux.

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