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zoomablemind

Re:REA Reverse – Engineer Anything on Sunday October 11, 2026 @11:40AM (#50044458)
Thank you for sharing the prompts. Amazing that it was sufficient for the agent to zero in on the bytes. Perhaps it was aware of some prior work done by someone in such context. It's quite possible that the actual code for that behavior could be in some library not the main binary. Yet the agent located it to the binary.
Re:REA Reverse – Engineer Anything on Saturday October 10, 2026 @10:50AM (#50033549)
> One day I got fed up and fed the binary to Claude, asking it to fix the two bugs...

That's quite remarkable. How detailed was your prompting to specify the incorrect and desired behavior?

Re:Replacing the old battery on rechargeable bike lights on Sunday September 27, 2026 @12:22PM (#49868117)
On the subject of bike lights. Most of the current lights appear to use some LEDs which makes sense, of course. However the brightness of output light looks like completely unregulated.

On so many occasions I would get blinded by overly bright lights of an incoming cyclist during late evening ride.

That's very uncharacteristic, especially given all those contingency requirements (backup policies, failovers, testing schedules etc.) imposed on corporations/companies in the wake of 9/11.
Re:The Death of the Brick and Mortar Toy Store on Friday May 22, 2026 @01:00PM (#48238516)
It seems that approach is a way to generate losses without actually losing the titles. These losses are needed to offset incomes elsewhere thus not paying taxes on profits.

Investment fund's commodity is value - the rest are just tools to optimize the value.

Re:Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux on Wednesday April 22, 2026 @10:45AM (#47864406)
WSL was a subsystem to run Linux under Windows 10 without an explicit VM host. It was an Ubuntu Linux version. Later MS released WSL2, complete redesign, still for Windows 10. With Windows 11 the WSL2 also supported GUI programs.
There's hardly a standard for a 'quality' contribution to discussion. Many styles, many opinions, many ways to react and support one's statements.

If anything, it had been quite customary to supply references for some important facts. Thus letting readers to explore further and interpret the facts.

With AI in the mix the references become even more important, in the view of hallucinations and fact poisoning.

Otherwise, it's a forum. Voting, flagging, ignoring are the usual tools.

Re:Brent's Encapsulated C Programming Rules (2020) on Tuesday December 09, 2025 @09:43AM (#46205420)
"...C is my favorite language and I love the freedom and exploration it allows me. I also love that it is so close to Assembly and I love writing assembly for much of the same reasons!"

I wonder what is author's view about user's reasons to choose a C API?

What I mean is users may want exactly the same freedom and immediacy of C that the author embraces. However, the very approach to encapsulation by hiding the layout of the memory, the use of accessor functions limits the user's freedom and robs them of performance too.

In my view, the choice of using C in projects comes with certain responsibilities and expectations from the user. Thus higher degree of trust to the API user is due.

Re:The Death of Partying in the USA on Wednesday July 09, 2025 @08:27PM (#44516086)
I'd count also those memorable school talent shows/performances and events. Another reach out avenue is volunteering, these have a higher chance to match parents with similar availability at least.
Re:Phrase origin: Why do we "call" functions? on Wednesday July 09, 2025 @08:16PM (#44516012)
> ...why is that it's called "routine”

Well, apparently [0], in a 1947 document _"Planning and Coding Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument, Part 1"_ by H. Goldstine and J. von Neumann. It is stated:

    "We call the coded sequence of a problem a routine"
[0]: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/q/20335
Re:Phrase origin: Why do we "call" functions? on Wednesday July 09, 2025 @07:06PM (#44515615)
> ... Why do we "call" functions?

I always thought that the functions did not need a call keyword, as they normally would return a value, so that functions would appear in an assignment. So one just uses the function.

What needed a CALL was a subroutine, which effectively was a named address/label.

Indeed it would be just as possible to GOTO the address/label and then GOTO back. CALL keyword made the whole transaction more comprehensive.

So in a sense it was similar to calling up someplace using the address number. Often times this would change some shared state so that the caller would then proceed after the call. Think of it as if a 'boss' first calls Sam to calculate the figures, then calls Bill to nicely print the TPS report.

Eventually everything became a function and subroutines were associated with spaghetti...

Now, why is that it's called routine (aka program) and subroutine?

Re:The Death of Partying in the USA on Wednesday July 09, 2025 @06:26PM (#44515338)
I thought a prime time for contacting the parents is right after school when picking up the kid. Everyone is there waiting, so it's just natural to chit chat, esp when the kids are friends.
Re:Numerical Electromagnics Code (NEM) on Saturday July 05, 2025 @01:06PM (#44474060)
Does HFSS visualize the field in real-time or a user needs to set the geometry/parameters then precalculate the field and only then be able to explore the visualization?

Say, if I wanted to see immediate effects of changing an incidence angle, could I just "scroll" the incidence parameter?

Re:Show HN: ESP32 RC Cars on Sunday February 02, 2025 @10:18AM (#42909162)
What are the battery requirements for such feed combo (RC + FPV + servo)? From experience, how does this translate to play time?
Re:Show HN: Handwritten Christmas Card for Hacker News on Tuesday December 31, 2024 @12:34PM (#42560252)
Maybe it's just me, but the font appears too small for my eyes on this smartphone's 6" screen (Firefox).

I like the idea. Happy New Year!

Could you mention a few of such, to save time going through search results?
Re:Merry Christmas Everyone on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @02:03PM (#42510478)
> ...That year he said: if you didn't need to worry about money or success, what other career path might you find interesting.

Such a wise way to both elicit ideas and encourage introspection. Very inspiring!

Re:Ask HN: How do you find part time work? on Monday December 16, 2024 @11:55AM (#42432833)
We live in a world full of uncertainty. When someone you know is in a current need, helping that person is one way to hedge against the uncertainty of the future. Who knows, one day you may need such help too...

That's why this advice is common. It's important to be clear about the reasons for reaching out.

Re:Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:46AM (#42431428)
It's more gruesome about the chicken. These are also said to be counted in fall. It's not just about hatching (in summer), but rather about surviving till fall...

The original Nokia 5110 obviously lived long, probably still is there in author's drawer in some disassembled state.

Re:Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:37AM (#42431329)
Should be marked as [2022].

Indeed, the announced Part 2 has not been linked so far...

Yamaha digital pianos have on-board recorder which is quite convenient and separates left and right hands.

However, the internal capacity is fairly limited and there's some tolerable yet a delay after the recording to save the buffer on the flash.

I don't think there's a ready way to copy such internal recording from the piano onto some external medium.

This device may be a nice 'upgrade' for such digital pianos. It'd be nice if the recordings can also be played for a selected hand, so that it could be used in learning.

Re:34x34x34 Rubik's Cube on Friday November 01, 2024 @11:19AM (#42017769)
IMO, the firstmost source is your own observations. 3x cube is very tactile, so some moves are just natural.

It helps also to develop some sort of notation for yourself. This way you can track and repeat your moves.

Solving by layers is kinda logical. So solving one side (first layer) is not hard. Then some experimentation with rotation sequences which temporarily break the solved layer/face and then re-assemble it will lead to discovery of moves to swap the edges into the second layer.

The hardest then is to solve the third layer. Again, the notation and observations help charting your way through.

A curious discovery may be about some repeated pattern of moves which may be totally shuffling the cube yet, if continuing it, eventually returns the position to the beginning state. It's kind of a "period".

Have fun.

Re:Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games? on Wednesday September 25, 2024 @08:03PM (#41653143)
+1. Scratch indeed is very flexible environment for that (even younger) age group.

Lots of interactive ideas could be easily implemented with already available assets (sprites, backgrounds, sounds), customized too. It's more tooled for platformers. There are many nice tutorials (loadable projects). Tons of books (we used 'Super skills. How to code').

The other day this 8yo even had to face first ever concurrency bug - the race condition. Alas there are no ready mutexes as such in Scratch, but we found a way to synchronize the execution.

At times I did feel that it'd be faster to just type the code, but the kid actually felt more in control doing all the needed coding with touch/mouse.

Also the projects/games are shareable, so friends can load that too.

Re:Written by a 16 year old, a book on how computers work on Sunday August 04, 2024 @02:36PM (#41155420)
Perhaps, my comment is seen in detachment from the article in question. The "blah blah" is actually part of the article, and serves to dismiss the verbosity of a formal description of RAM.

I do question the need for the verbosity of their own.

As a constructive advice, I do believe that a visual representation of the subject serves better not only to this context but also to the target audience.

As a side-note, I have a member of such audience still enjoying the summer break ... the wall of the OP text proved impenetrable, despite the initial interest.

"...“We were worried they were going to use it in a hospital or something,” said former FBI agent Bill Kinane. [...] Ultimately, the FBI was confident that the tech wasn’t ending up in civilian infrastructure, and was all being funneled to the Soviet military and intelligence agencies."

The most long-lasting attitude of the barbaric "empire", still very much observed in the present day russia. Now with so called "parallel import" they smuggle the hi-tech to try and kill more of their neighbors and sow chaos around the rest of the world, not to provide their own populace with washing machines, smartphones and gadgets.

Fundamentally differing balance of ethical values.

There used to be a Firefox plugin with much similar features. However since the change of Firefox plugin arch, it's no longer available.
Re:Secret Hand Gestures in Paintings on Friday June 07, 2024 @10:39AM (#40609190)
Syndactyly is a medical condition; paintings seemingly display this as being more prevalent than reported in medical records of the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndactyly

That OnStar button is a service, it needs location. Other mfgrs have some kind of remote assistance service too. Now, what if the owner have not subscribed?
Re:Why SQLite Uses Bytecode on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @09:24AM (#40210725)
How does this reflect on SQLite's possibilty of parallelizing some of the operations, like aggregates, for example?
Cool memory. Almost a screenplay. Alter-you, a fork on life path. No doubt, you live the right one!

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