News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

wanderer

If the following is not well known to electrical engineers, I would appreciate a little explanation of how it is done:

"Thus, analog ICs are designed so only the ratio of resistors matters, not the absolute values, since the ratios remain nearly constant"

If it well known, a reference would be helpful.

(K. Shirriff, your posts offer a lot, even to those of us who do not have a technical background. Thank you.)

Re:Ask HN: What would be a better name for TeXmacs? on Saturday January 15, 2022 @08:41PM (#29952446)
How about "ScienceWrite" or "Science Writer"?
Re:The LaTeX Font Catalogue on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:21PM (#27925509)
> Default LaTeX fonts give me a nasty uncomfortable feeling > in the stomach by reminding me of Math and CS tests

Me too. The formulas look so dark. Do you know of any typefaces where the mathematics and physics formulas look lighter, and, at least to some of us, less imposing?

Re:Ask HN: Are the high quality alternatives to Zoom? on Sunday December 20, 2020 @06:34PM (#25490643)
You might want to look at the review of the Facebook Portal by Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac in NY Times (November 2018).

It seems to make conversation between two people more natural.

I hope others will comment here on features that might improve the "sociability" of meetings via zoom-like applications.

Re:My Parents Are Flat Earthers on Sunday January 20, 2019 @05:29PM (#18956034)
I wonder if the author realizes the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to be drafted. In World War II Germany, they paid dearly for this refusal. Belief in a flat earth seems like a minor failing compared to the moral strength the Witnesses have shown in resisting one of the demands of "civilization" on its members.
Re:The Future of the Word Processor (2016) on Friday June 09, 2017 @12:46AM (#14519228)
I do understand the workflow you outlined, but I don't follow it, because I don't like it. In InDesign, I just open up a text box and start typing. Once I am within a text box, however, my irritation begins. I don't want to use tabs to align text. I suggested an alternative in my first post.

Thank you for getting back to me.

Re:The Future of the Word Processor (2016) on Thursday June 08, 2017 @06:37PM (#14517707)
> a stilted compromise

Not to me. I was so happy when I tried MacWrite on my new (early 1984) Macintosh. I enjoy "fighting myself" because I am very unwilling to separate content and appearance. InDesign provides me with some succor but nowhere near what I would like. It is not visual enough. Why can't I align text by dragging a vertical line onto the text and request alignment to that? After all, this can be done with figures in InDesign, and unlike tabs, you get an immediate sense of what the result of the alignment will look like.

(A sad setback in word processing is Apple's Pages. It has two modes "word processing" and "page layout". I hope Larry Tesler never encountered it.)

Re:If you were a smart home, how would you kill your master? on Saturday February 06, 2016 @06:24PM (#11050534)
In the Demon Seed (1977), the master isn't killed, but the mistress (played by Julie Christie) is assaulted by their smart home.
Re:Edit: A Relaxing Mix of Vi and Acme on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @02:13PM (#8357022)
Eddie(Text Editor) by Pavel Císler has a worksheet like that.
Re:Xiki: The Command Revolution on Monday June 09, 2014 @08:32PM (#7871294)
I think Xiki might help me escape the editing environment of the shell and REPLs provided via the shell (specifically the bash shell of Mac OS X Terminal, and various Scheme REPLs.) I want to work just as I can in TextEdit, or for that matter in the humble HTML textarea: put the cursor anywhere and start typing or deleting. The Mac OS X program Eddie permits some of this.
Re:Properties: The New Variables on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @04:47PM (#4200799)
I want to agree with po from an entirely different point of view--a non-programmer often trying to figure out how a particular program (in a language I don't know) works. If I spot the "my" or "my-" prefix, I take it that the corresponding token (e.g. "mypref", "my-limit") is not a reserved term of the language, but one the programmer is defining or assigning. So the "my" prefix can be helpful (at least to some non-programmers) and I don't want it co-opted to become a reserved word.
Re:Ask HN: Is it time for a new browser? on Thursday December 15, 2011 @05:33PM (#3358365)
I would like a webkit based browser that can only open local files. I want to be free of the security restrictions (as I understand them) which do not allow me (for example) to save the text I enter in a textarea to a file on my desktop. Finally, I do not want to use a local server.

I do not want to deal with local servers either