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clarity20

14 karma · joined February 10, 2021

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clarity20··on The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)
I don't see why climate change needs "solving" per se, or how it can be "solved." To take your example, there have always been hurricanes. It's not correct to infer there's a human-induced tendency toward destruction that can be reversed by humans, or that yet another hurricane is actually a change to the climate in the first place.
clarity20··on The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
I think he (she?) makes some good points about why community & social life are falling apart and what might be done about it.
clarity20··on The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
Marriage goes way beyond the Jewish and Christian spheres. It's a far-reaching anthropological value. Strictly speaking it's a natural state, which means it isn't an invention. What we're missing most of all in contemporary times is an appreciation and acceptance of our contingency as beings. For want of this restful appreciation of what we really are, we have a tendency to become angst-ridden, semi-nihilistic types trying to find our bearings through acts of will and experiencing misery because we can never get there from here by traveling that path.
clarity20··on CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops
Has any thread had 3000 comments before?
clarity20··on Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'
Grand ideas about structuring society often have an egotism problem. The ego behind the ideas turns its critical lens outward without looking inward. Naturally it ends up telling the world what to do.
clarity20··on On English Melancholy
But that is refutable. You're not a true nihilist as long as you take advantage of the accoutrements of civilization, even down to the technology that enables you to make that post. You can avoid taking advantage of such technology in the spirit of "starting over" (even Pol Pot tried that) -- or you can say the technology around you admits of some advantages, which means limiting the nihilism/radicalism enough to pay credit to something around you. (To borrow from the postmodernists: "Not that there's anything wrong with that.") But for a nihilist that would be an unlikely reversal: the ego having stomped everything under its foot, is now making room for something outside of itself.
clarity20··on On English Melancholy
When postmodernists describe language as referential and arbitrary, they are moving headlong toward nihilism when an "uh oh" borne of caution and self-awareness is in order. Language comes from the human need to communicate, which need none of us can erase; and to be aware of this is a step toward proper humility in the face of our contingency as beings. "Melancholy" and disaffection are likely outcomes if instead you cling too hard to egotism and insist on seeing yourself as a utopian reshaper of entire worlds.
clarity20··on U.S. imposes first-ever national drinking water limits on PFAS
The downvotes came! And it's not like you said something bad ...
clarity20··on The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'
There isn't much to "colonialism". It's just the establishment of colonies. In the many historical cases where the subject peoples were cannibals, I would have supported colonization.
clarity20··on The Triumph of Philanthropy (2018)
"Fascist" began as a neutral description of political-financial relationships and was later made into a household slur by the Soviets to take the heat off after people started likening them to Nazis thanks to their short-lived military alliance, their shared "-ism word", and their common interest in techniques of political oppression (search term: "Gestapo–NKVD conferences"). In this context, there is no logical connection to philanthropy much less to "white supremacy", a term that's almost always used monomaniacally.
clarity20··on Ask HN: How common is developer burnout? Have you ever been burnt out?
Nowadays there are places in the U.S. where the tech staff are largely from (what used to be?) the 3rd World, and it definitely has its effects on the workplace culture. There are teams who rationalize being spoken to like they're garbage, and who cannot be persuaded to push back. If you don't choose wisely, you could find yourself stepping into a self-contained Calcutta every time you enter the office building.
clarity20··on California's largest home insurer won't renew 72,000 policies
Citing "climate change" doesn't make you sound profound. It's a generalized justification for totalitarian controls.
clarity20··on Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG investing
No cataclysm visited upon the entire world would be enough to fulfill your sweeping demands.

Are you sure your wishes are tantamount to a force of nature?

clarity20··on Swept away: $500k sand dune built to protect US homes disappears in days
Waiting to hear the calls for new strong-state controls on human activity because of ... something changing, somewhere.
clarity20··on Ask HN: What have the biggest keys to your personal successes?
Don't look at the competition. It's just you and the finish line.
clarity20··on Ask HN: What do I do? I love writing software but hate these interviews?
Offer to streamline the recruitment/interviewing pipeline for the company(s) in question. Tell them you will give them a technical introduction to your public projects (choosing just the 1 or 2 projects that present your skills in the best light). Additionally, tell them you are happy to analyze and evaluate any code they might be interested in presenting to you.

Be prepared to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly concerning the evolution of your projects over time.

A company willing to sideline their generic process or at least adapt it in light of these suggestions, is a cut above as an employer, and they should understand that an approach like this makes it easier for you and them both.

A company unwilling to at least tweak their process a little bit is a company you probably don't want to work for.

clarity20··on Publishers want billions, not millions, from AI
"Publishers want billions, not millions, from AI"

But why ask for billions when you can have ... millions?

clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
Thank you, and a tip of the hat to them for doing square roots the hard way.
clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
I'm afraid I don't have the wherewithal to do this in the Bourne shell! An explicit call stack using those globals is a neat idea. Generally the [[ =~ ]] construct is my go-to for string parsing. Can you do everything you need with parameter expansion and string globbing alone (without turning on "extglob" swince that would be cheating)? Finally, is your encoder/decoder posted online?
clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
Thank you, I tried to make the code as readable as I could. And yes, since the *nix model for (sub)processes is cleaner than Cygwin-on-Windows it's kind of surprising that that gap is what it is.
clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
;-)
clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
Yes, it's a POC for anyone who might want to use it or expand on it.
clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
Hello, all!

I'm proud to present shellmath, a floating-point calculator written entirely in bash.

Shellmath does not call out to any external programs -- calculators, text manipulators, or anything else -- and achieves execution speeds competitive with GNU awk and bc.

You can do floating-point math directly in the shell, and now you have a ready-made family of routines for doing so!

For skeptics ;-) I've included a demo that calculates 'e'. I've also posted a few words about the methodology, runtime efficiency, and a few bells and whistles on the README and in the project wiki.

I eagerly await your feedback!

Be good, and have a great day!

clarity20··on Show HN: Shellmath: Floating-point arithmetic directly in bash
In the spirit of "back to the basics" I'm proud to present shellmath, a decimal calculator written entirely in bash.

Shellmath does not call out to any external programs -- calculators, text manipulators, or anything else -- and achieves execution speeds competitive with GNU awk and bc.

Not only can you do floating-point math directly in the shell, but you now have a ready-made family of routines for doing so!

For skeptics ;-) I've included a demo that calculates 'e'. I've also posted a few words about the methodology, runtime efficiency, and a few bells and whistles on the README and in the project wiki.

I eagerly await your feedback!

Be good, and have a great day!