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kyleperik

181 karma · joined May 30, 2017

https://kyleperik.com
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kyleperik··on Chat Wells, an Internet Masquerade
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.

kyleperik··on Boris Cherny: TI-83 Plus Basic Programming Tutorial (2004)
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.

kyleperik··on Uxn
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.
kyleperik··on Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?
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.

kyleperik··on Gardeners can grow a genetically modified purple tomato made with snapdragon DNA
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.

kyleperik··on The Software Crisis
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.
kyleperik··on Causality, Interaction, and Complexity
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.

kyleperik··on Landfills Leak More Planet-Baking Methane Than We Thought
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?

kyleperik··on ChatGPT went berserk
> 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?

kyleperik··on No One Gets Rich by Shunning New Cars and Lattes
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)

kyleperik··on Computational survivalist
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.
kyleperik··on Americans' fear of losing their jobs grows
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.
kyleperik··on Why I’m turning my son into a cyborg
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.
kyleperik··on Did capitalism hack the open-source model?
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.

kyleperik··on According to our capitalist overlords, you're broke because you eat lunch
This is true, but honestly, why not just start doing some yoga to avoid $30/month?
kyleperik··on According to our capitalist overlords, you're broke because you eat lunch
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"

kyleperik··on Facebook to ban white nationalist content
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.
kyleperik··on Facebook to ban white nationalist content
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.

kyleperik··on Day Care for All
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.

kyleperik··on Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
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.

kyleperik··on How to teach programming to your loved ones [video]
Didn't mean to imply that they aren't capable, but I think their reward system is different.
kyleperik··on How to teach programming to your loved ones [video]
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

kyleperik··on Fermentation and Daily Life
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.
kyleperik··on GCompris: high quality educational software suite for children aged 2 to 10
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.
kyleperik··on $100 Billion USD oops
So what exactly constitutes an error then? Are then people legally held responsible if gas prices were accidentally set a few pennies below the typical market value? How can someone prove an error like this? Otherwise you could go around selling products at an "accidentally" low price, but then demanding compensation.
kyleperik··on Why Use F#?
Thanks, I think we find ourselves in the same boat.

To everyone else - maybe I should have asked a better question, but it's quite clear to me now that people are in fact using this in production. That's great. My only question now is, what is Microsoft's strategy here? There's no money flow with .net core as far as I know, so why put in the effort?

kyleperik··on Why Use F#?
I understand there exists .net core and mono. I'll give them mono. My problem is I haven't seen a single example of a practical application written in .net core or a company that uses it, everything is .net framework. There just aren't many available alternatives to the frameworks and packages that are those who use .net framework take for granted. I hear what they're saying about it's the future, but I have yet to see the fruit of it.

To me .net core seems more like just a buzz word to prove that they like open source and anyone can use their software. But there isn't any way to monitize it so there isn't any reason for them to focus on it.

kyleperik··on Why Use F#?
Can someone please explain to me how you can use F# without each aspect of the development process being a Microsoft technology?

Not to be rude, I just honestly want to know. There is quite a bit of hype around C#, F#. But every time there is a comparison to other languages it seems to skip over the fact that you much have a windows computer running Visual Studio which is a big disadvantage to some people. Quite honestly, they are great languages. I just don't want to buy in completely to Microsoft

kyleperik··on People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
I agree that the idea of "simplicity" can become convoluted. But some of his specific examples I strongly disagree with. Like others are saying, it comes a lot from your worldview on programming. Coming from someone who was involved in an extreme Microsoft Stack (which I definitely get from the vibe of the writer here, either that or Java?) and gone away from that, I can say simplicity wins. It really just depends on how simple the given language allows you to be, and what that looks like.

In my personal opinion the Microsoft Stack really traps you in a box. Not a bad stack, but you can't really translate the "patterns" you have to use there into a lot of other stacks.

kyleperik··on Ko – A concurrent, immutable, functional language
You're right. This sentence and the general syntax of the language mislead me

> Genericity means that functions do not have to declare argument and return value types, which makes them highly reusable.

Thanks for being kind about pointing out my massive presupposition

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