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arc_of_descenton RIP Val Kilmer: Real Genius .. the Film Nerd Culture Deserves (2015)

RIP. Great acting in The Island of Dr. Moreau

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?

A stock screener. Plan to have lots more features soon.

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What is a specific use of GPT-4 that you think is remarkable?

Sorry, I really meant refactor here. I did ask it to optimize code, and it came with a suggestion of trimming down my function into a smaller chunk and creating a new function. So it actually refactored it TBH, but I am going to try how I can check if it can optimize code too.

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What is a specific use of GPT-4 that you think is remarkable?

Write unit tests, document code, optimize code, explain code. I've tried Python functions and React code. It even converted a class based React component to a functional style component!

arc_of_descenton The Mathematics of Music [pdf]

Made my day!

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?

While programming in Elixir, iex. I spend most of my time in the REPL, testing my functions, learning new features, and of course the recompile command!

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What do you do when have free time?

Stock Trading.

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

I'm using a ThinkPad E480, with 2 monitors attached. Lubuntu 19.10. It's my main dev machine running Postgres, VirtualBox, Elixir, Node, etc. Battery is still amazing after 4 months.

I've always wanted to buy a MacBook Pro, mostly for music production, but the ThinkPad is a fine beast by itself. For music, I use Studio One 4 on Win 10.

arc_of_descenton Coffee Is Hard

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

arc_of_descenton Show HN: 2M fully loaded concurrent WebSockets

Have a look at distillery for building Elixir releases, and edeliver for deployment.

arc_of_descenton Mistakes, we’ve drawn a few

I'm currently reading Statistics for Dummies, and these kind of techniques used i.e. wrong scale, incorrect starting point, etc is explained very well. Highly recommended.

arc_of_descenton CSS-Powered 3D Engine (2014)

This is nice. But she is still using images right? It's the same. Choose a great texture, apply it to objects.

arc_of_descenton Ending our Medium integration

Wordpress is great. I've signed up for a yearly plan, I get to use my own domain. And their editor is really great.

arc_of_descenton Crypto 101 – Introductory course on cryptography

Thanks for this. I just finished the XOR stuff and can't wait to read more!

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What is one Vim trick most people don't know?

Ctrl-e and Ctrl-y to scroll with the cursor on the same line.

arc_of_descenton Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

I use Ansible via the API. I want to do it Python 3. I moved the ansible directory from /usr/local/python2 ... to /usr/local/python3 and then squashed out any bugs by hand.

It works! I'm using Ansible via the API in Python 3!

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What are you doing for your mental health?

Deep breathing helps to relax me. Meditation and waking up early.

arc_of_descenton Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

I used Arch Linux around 4 years back. I did a routine upgrade and it broke my system.

What is this rolling release fiasco? Even Ubuntu, which I use now has a "release" (technically an pt-get upgrade), almost every other day. But I've never had it break my system. If you keep your Ubuntu updated a dist-upgrade works just fine.

I might try Arch again, but for now I'm sticking to Ubuntu.

arc_of_descenton I don’t know who the Web Audio API is designed for

Yes, Audio does work. But the Web Audio API has some things more to offer for the simpler stuff. Simple games, timing, effects, detune, etc.

arc_of_descenton I don’t know who the Web Audio API is designed for

The Web Audio API is designed for web developers who would want to integrate sound into their web apps. Notifications, etc.

That pre-browser era where we would have sounds for everything. Minimize window, user logged in, logged out, all that crap.

Also the API has good support for visual. Spectrum analysis. This is pretty good for an education course to offer for beginners on sound processing.

I wouldn't use it for anything serious like a DAW.

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?

Mind is a myth - UG Krishnamurti

Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter

Unweaving the rainbow - Richard Dawkins

arc_of_descenton The Simplest React Stack – Part 1: Bootstrapping and State Management

Its turtles all the way down!

arc_of_descenton The Simplest React Stack – Part 1: Bootstrapping and State Management

So you pass the entire state object, however large it might get to all child components?

arc_of_descenton Disconnect. Offline only

I realise that I might be off an a tangent but this is a not a good analogy. If I were an alcoholic, I would rush off to the nearest drug store and get a fuckin' beer. I would not even own a fridge. :)

A book that has personally helped me is Kick the Drink....Easily! The idea is that there is no such thing as will power. The more you fight it, the more the psychological crutches grow, and then its difficult to jump off.

What the upper thread mentions is very true for porn addicts. They do this all the time. Program the router to shut off at certain times. Does it work? I doubt it.

Distraction is a very real thing. Hell, distraction is recommended as an aid for anxiety disorder :)

Get distracted, be human. Get back to work.

arc_of_descenton Disconnect. Offline only

Nice!

arc_of_descenton Disconnect. Offline only

Yeah. Now I wish I could save Google offline :)

arc_of_descenton Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

I'm not sure what this has to do with Aadhaar, although the initial petition mentions it I think.

Aadhaar is setup as a way of proof of identity and not proof of citizenship. I for one did not get an Aadhaar until a week ago! The only reason I had to was a company that I applied to, said that please use your full name as mentioned on your Aadhaar card.

India is a bureaucratic mess. And as UG Krishnamurti put it very succinctly, India is a failed country. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we desperately first need to focus on poverty first.

arc_of_descenton HackerNews Grid

I dread the day when the average Internet user can do such things. Or even _want_ to do such things. Please hire a good developer to do this and pay good money :)

I recollect a conversation I had with a recruiter around 12 years back. He was predicting that a day will come when a "manager" can drag and drop objects and create any kind of software application. That day has not come and it will not come.

arc_of_descenton The Internet Archive has digitized 25,000 78rpm Gramophone records

Thank you! Made my day. History is amazing.

arc_of_descenton Ask HN: What language/framework do you plan to use in your next project?

Python + Flask + React