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slow_typist

1,037 karma · joined October 8, 2022

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slow_typist··on Raspberry Pi Zero 3W and Pi 4 Model A spotted in device trees
The attack surface maybe smaller but less eyes on the firmware images for sure.
slow_typist··on Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers
Thanks Capt. Obvious
slow_typist··on The Future of CSS
I do not think functions in CSS are the original sin. Why we don’t have them, was a valid question in the 90ies already.

And you cannot emulate functions by using a preprocessor in all use cases.

But what bothers me is the governance model of CSS, the increasing complexity that leads ultimately to more framework usage, not to thoughtful engineering of accessible front ends.

Very soon CSS will be Turing complete and we can have a JavaScript-free C64 emulator. Yay.

We need basically control structures and full access to user input to achieve that.

And we can only hope the vendors get the sandboxing right this time, otherwise we will get a entire new class of CSS based browser exploits.

slow_typist··on "I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math
They did not do this in a vacuum. But it doesn’t matter much. Benchmarking needs a benchmark.
slow_typist··on "I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math
It isn’t a benchmark though. Not yet. They rely on mathematicians to check the proofs including all lemmas. And on other mathematicians checking the reviews. Without being on the OpenAI payroll of course. Now they have flooded the zone, overwhelming the review capacity of the whole field by at least one order of magnitude. It is the move of 15-year-olds holding tools they shouldn’t have access to.
slow_typist··on "I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math
Does creativity need sentience?
slow_typist··on I know why the mathematicians weep
+1 We need human verification.
slow_typist··on Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif, monospace font
Thanks, I couldn’t spot a license on the website, but existence of an arch package does probably mean the license is okayish.
slow_typist··on Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe
There are better (and offline) solutions to detect temperature dips in the freezer (e.g. a thermograph, or cheaper, solutions that change color). And as a former trucker delivering frozen and refrigerated goods I can tell you the most dangerous part of the journey to the customer is not in the freezer of the POS. That being said, I admit I don’t know the legal requirements today. But I doubt someone will be sent out at night to salvage a few pounds of frozen spinach.
slow_typist··on Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe
How do you measure core temperature of, say, a block of frozen fish without destroying the packaging and contaminating the good? Do they throw it away after measurements?
slow_typist··on Hackers activate automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe
The thing I can‘t wrap my head around: why does a freezer need internet access at all? My freezer at home works just fine without. I bought it 20 years ago. Worst case in the supermarket: a freezer dies on Saturday night, you throw away the goods on Monday morning and call someone capable to fix it. Lowest TCO solution.
slow_typist··on Show HN: WallHop – 12ft.io is gone, so I built a replacement
I elaborate: the local newspaper was perfectly archivable for years. Then it stopped.

The CMS usually allows search engines to get all content. The feature is to know human browser operators and make them pay, or know archiving/unblocking services and block them.

slow_typist··on Show HN: WallHop – 12ft.io is gone, so I built a replacement
Of course they know. I have seen local newspapers who managed to block archive.ph's mechanism. If a bigger outlet does not use technical measures against services like wallhop, it is safe to assume that’s deliberate.

It makes sense economically since the part of the population using such services is so small and may have specific demographics that justify specific treatment just from a marketing POV.

Then you want search engines to get the whole content (okay at least before they started to summarise everything but the kitchen sink) - that will always leave a loophole.

slow_typist··on Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?
Vittorio de Sica's Ladri di biciclette is a Linux ISO I can recommend.
slow_typist··on Kolibri: A Sovereign Open-Weight Model
Souvereignty is about ownership and about knowing the training data. That is especially important given a business model aiming at the government as a key customer. With Schwarz, Cohere, SAP, NVIDIA and the like as backers society can’t have souvereignty in any meaningful way. Of course it would be a plus to keep US agencies out of the data streams. But this technology will be used to support and make decisions that impact citizens. That being said, incredible achievement.
slow_typist··on Kolibri: A Sovereign Open-Weight Model
How, is the training data public?
slow_typist··on An Update on Orion for Linux and Windows
On iOS it integrates better with Kagi search. It is basically a skin for safari though.
slow_typist··on US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban
That would hold up comparing nominal GDPs of subsequent years. GDP growth rates are adjusted for inflation.
slow_typist··on US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban
Careful with the suffering trope. GDP growth in 2025 was 1.4 % [1]. Even under the external oil price shock, projection for 2026 is >0.

Of course, in the periphery that is not good enough. For developed economies like Germany, France that is a totally normal growth rate. The allocation is the problem, very few people can’t get enough while the middle class is under pressure and the rest has real problems to pay their rents and food. Real growth can only be had by increasing local consumption and/or expansion of governmental spending.

That being said, I agree with your analysis.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2026/06/oecd-economic-o...

slow_typist··on US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban
Europe hasn’t grown some balls yet and I am afraid they will roll over again.
slow_typist··on Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout
Yeah it’s amazing - but I think feet don’t grow on adults, they get flatter over time and therefore longer/wider footprint.
slow_typist··on The Microeconomics of Artificial Intelligence (2025)
Which paper are you referring to?
slow_typist··on The Microeconomics of Artificial Intelligence (2025)
How are they non-deterministic? Ok there is random involved but for watermarking results the random is substituted by pseudo-random, otherwise it won’t work. If you control the randomness, you should be able to reproduce answers to prompts in equal context 100%.
slow_typist··on Why the AfD Wins
The Economy is not imploding. While 2025 was a lost year for growth Germany‘s GDP is consistently growing since q4 2025 - despite a very interesting geopolitical situation. It is part of the problem that every media outlet from progressive to far-right paints the economical situation in the worst light. What is decreasing are nominal wages at least for parts of the population which is a pure allocation problem. Sure the automobile sector has structural problems and the chemical industry needs cheaper energy but Germany is still an economical powerhouse even without a strong domestic ICT industry, which is, in comparison, the most important driver of growth in the US. During the pandemic something went terribly wrong and public institutions seem to be incredibly weak in the moment. Don’t be fooled though, the problems are solvable, the question is how to find political majorities for doing so. The tale of the weak economy is taken as a reason to cut down welfare and thus the CDU/CSU have a vested interest in writing down the economy. This policy will soon lead to even more people turning to political extremism and the CDU is going to suffer most from this development. On the other hand, with the AfD in charge in Sachsen-Anhalt, a small part of Germany with only 1.7 million voters, France, which has its own political problems, is already getting wary of chancellor Merz's plan to build the largest conventional military forces in Europe. Maybe this mechanism explains why so many Germans in the pacifist movement are so compatible to so called nationalists (who also want to withdraw from helping Ukraine against Putin). The biggest irony is that Germany is gaining so much through the Euro currency (most of the exported goods stay within the EU) and a German national currency, which the AfD wants to implement, would appreciate so hard and quickly that exports would go down enormously. That would easily cripple GDP by 10% or more leading to substantial problems.
slow_typist··on How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
That’s what I thought, the European market is already very difficult for startups, market entry is overly restrictive and therefore expensive and time consuming. From this perspective, the new waste regulations are just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
slow_typist··on The Lost Treasure of Sid Meier's Pirates
With the printed map and some game experience you will find your way around pretty easily. What really develops if you play the game multiple times is optimising routes, e.g. by postponing the pickup of a relative until you have another good reason to sail to a remote place. Also you get really allergic to sailing downwind over long distances. Then the speed of the fleet is determined by the slowest ship and damaged ships sail even slower not only in battle. While we enjoyed having fleets with big battleships with lots of storage room as kids and 300+ staff, I prefer a lean and fast approach to my fleet management today, i.e. mostly barques and the occasional frigate. That means to dump a lot of goods because you are out of storage really quickly but is the better approach in the long run.

Also nowadays I try to avoid fencing like hell since you can get wounded and that costs years of your prospective career.

Still, pick 'skill of fencing' as a beginner obviously.

slow_typist··on The Lost Treasure of Sid Meier's Pirates
In a c64 emulator, full screen. You can find the .d64 floppy images online. Use a joystick or at least a cheap usb gamepad, the ship to ship fighting is more fun than.

Or if you have a real C64 with a CRT that would be best, but than with some kind of mass storage attached (anything that is faster than a 1541 since the game is so big it has to load before every fight or other activity).

The game can be pretty immersive and playing it through is a multiple hour endeavour.

If in a ship to ship fight, you gotta raise sails first (by moving the joystick up).

Edit: Vice is an emulator packaged in Debian Contrib, but you need the C64 ROM file (easy to find online).

slow_typist··on Fastmail offers EU data region
Especially if European companies have an office and significant share of customers in the US.
slow_typist··on German Driving Licenses for Expats
There are a lot of questions. And 41 % of applicants failed the theory in 2024.

https://www.tuev-verband.de/pressemitteilungen/mehr-als-2-mi...

slow_typist··on German Driving Licenses for Expats
- if you don’t plan to stay in Germany for longer than 6 months or don’t want to drive a car in Germany it is probably not very relevant for you. Get an international driver's license if you want to drive within the 6 months limit.

- otherwise, I‘d recommend to read the full article

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