HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

xjay

424 karma · joined October 24, 2015

submissionscomments
xjay··on Google dropping continuous scroll in search results
Re: Pagination

Situation: There are N results shown per page. There are N+1 results remaining.

Rigid/simple: The last result is put on a separate page.

Flexible/human: If the last results are within some reasonable threshold then include them on the last page.

The last page is a different context.

xjay··on Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]
Perspectives

[2015-09] Anne C. Reboul: "Why language really is not a communication system: a cognitive view of language evolution" - , Laboratory on Language, Brain and Cognition (L2C2), Institute for Cognitive Sciences-Marc Jeannerod, Bron, France [1]

> [2013-09] Noam Chomsky: One of the most striking cases of incompatibility, that I know, is the sharp conflict between computational efficiency, and communicative efficiency. Language is just badly designed for communication, but well-designed to be efficient, it seems. [2]

> [2013-09] Noam Chomsky adds: There's a kind of phrase that is sometimes used for this that drives people crazy; "Language is beautiful, but unusable." It's kind of true, you know. Even if people don't like it. [2]

[2022] Nick Enfield: "Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists" [3]

> Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), ... [3]

> [2023-01] Ev Fedorenko: "Although language and thought often go together, they are robustly dissociable." [4]

> [2023-01] Ev Fedorenko: Fallacy 1: "Good at language = Good at thought". Fallacy 2: "Bad at thought = Bad at language". Fallacy 3: "Bad at language = Bad at thought" (emphasis in being judged on how smart you are based on how you say something). [4]

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-72JNZZBoVw&t=4493s

[3] https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5472/Language-vs-Real...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9AiYuCwdE&t=250s

xjay··on Simple sabotage for software (2023)
In a web context, I was thinking this when I checked out the web site of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [1]; why would they use a thin, small typeface with light gray color on a bright/white background which makes the text less appealing to read? It must be subtle sabotage from within!

(Some may counter this with Hanlon's razor [2]; Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.)

[1] https://www.eff.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

xjay··on The 'Dead Internet Theory'
Somewhat related: "The Egg" [2009*] is a fictional short story by American writer Andy Weir. [1]

> You, a 48-year-old man who dies in a car crash, meet God, the narrator, who says that you have been reincarnated many times before, and that you are next to be reincarnated as a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD. God then explains that you are, in fact, constantly reincarnated across time, and that all human beings who have ever lived and will ever live are incarnations of you. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Egg_(Weir_short_story)

Kurzgesagt adaptation of the story (31M views):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI

xjay··on Högertrafikomläggningen
Underscore as a separator, YYYY_MM_DD:

  1970_01_01
  2024_06_09
  2024_12_31
  16383_12_31
Treated as base-10 number literal in some programming languages.

5 bits for DD [0, 31] + 4 bits for MM [0, 15] + 14 or more bits for year [0, 16_383] = 23 bits.

xjay··on The Distinctiveness of Human Aggression (2022)
Related: 2016: Facts and statistics on domestic violence at-a-glance

> The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project: The world's largest domestic violence research data base, 2,657 pages, with summaries of 1700 peer-reviewed studies.

> Overall, 25.3% of individuals have perpetrated IPV.

> Overall, 22% of individuals assaulted by a partner at least once in their lifetime (23% for females and 19.3% for males).

> Rates of female-perpetrated violence higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%).

> Higher rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among younger, dating populations “highlights the need for school-based IPV prevention and intervention efforts”.

> Among large population samples, 57.9% of IPV reported was bi-directional, 42% unidirectional; 13.8% of the unidirectional violence was male to female (MFPV), 28.3% was female to male (FMPV).

> Among school and college samples, percentage of bidirectional violence was 51.9%; 16.2% was MFPV and 31.9% was FMPV.

> Within military and male treatment samples, only 39% of IPV was bi-directional; 43.4% was MFPV and 17.3% FMPV.

> According to national samples, 0.2% of men and 4.5% of women have been forced to have sexual intercourse by a partner.

https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/domestic-violence-facts...

xjay··on Microsoft blocks Windows 11 workaround that enabled local accounts
Windows should be broken up.

"Windows 11 Platform" for applications, drivers, security updates, and gaming. No (forced) Microsoft account. Only security updates.

"Windows 11 Plus" is a subscription model for enhanced features.

What their system requirements tell consumers:

> Windows 11 Pro for personal use and Windows 11 Home require internet connectivity and a Microsoft account during initial device setup. [1]

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

xjay··on Let yourself be monitored: EU governments to agree on Chat Control
EU: In the name of the EU government, you are all under arrest.

Democracy: It's treason, then.

xjay··on Why is x & -x equal to the largest power of 2 that divides x?
See also: Bit Twiddling Hacks

https://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html

xjay··on Microsoft's AI chatbot will 'recall' everything you do on its new PCs
Cloud 1: Cloud does all the compute, logic, storage, and transfer.

Cloud 2 = Cloud 1, but delegate more compute/logic to edge/local computers to reduce cost. [1]

Cloud 3 = Cloud 2, but edge/local computer has hardware specifically made to do the compute, store intermediate data, and send the results to someone else who might give you something in return for free, and possibly make you pay for it later.

Marketing can call it Cloud <3 (heart). Some might say </3 (broken heart). [2]

> [~10 years ago] Smartphones began incorporating AI accelerators starting with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 in 2015. [3]

> An AI accelerator, deep learning processor, or neural processing unit (NPU) is a class of specialized hardware accelerator or computer system designed to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, including artificial neural networks and machine vision. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_computing

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons#Western

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_accelerator

xjay··on North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
Replace it with a QR, but it contains a UUID which has to be used to look up the current street name.

(If all you have is a phone, everything can be solved with an app.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code

xjay··on Key Consciousness Connections Uncovered
See also: The Elephant in the Brain [1]

> The main thesis of the book is that we are very often not aware of our real reasons for most of our behaviours. Our behaviors are optimised for living in a social group and very often, from the point of view of natural selection, it is useful if we are not consciously aware of our real motivations. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_in_the_Brain

xjay··on The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
Android defaults to sending the IMSI (SIM ID) to Google.

> SUPL is used as part of the A-GPS (Assisted GPS) system to get a faster Time to First Fix. The problem is that Android's implementation automatically sends the IMSI (ID of the SIM card) to the SUPL provider for no apparent reason. And because Google is the default provider it's a big breach of privacy.

https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Alt-Repo/supl-replacer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS

xjay··on The man who killed Google Search?
I can imagine this happening in many places: 1) Idealist phase. 2) Hype phase. 3) Novelty wears off = Leave. 4) Bean counter phase. 5) ???
xjay··on David Lynch presents 'A Thinking Room'
Random stuff: David Lynch on what lead him to cast the set decorator, Frank Silva, as "Bob" in Twin Peaks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37P0ukg4io0&t=40s

xjay··on Fastest way to get IPv4 address from string (2015)
This is what happens when you over-iterate on a specification.

Keep it simple. Be kind to your fellow automaton.

xjay··on How might software development have unfolded if CPU speeds were 20x slower?
Sidenote: MSVC had an optimization option for Windows 98, I think it was /OPT:98 (/FILEALIGN:4096). It sets the "file alignment" of sections in the portable executable (PE) file to 4096 bytes (0x1000) = 1 memory page -> noticeably more efficient because it's a direct copy operation. It's sacrificing space (padding empty space with thousands of zeros) for time (one copy operation instead of many to shuffle data into memory pages).

(The file alignment still defaults to a 512-byte (0x200) sector size which means the inefficiency is there today even though you may not notice it in isolation, but the "sector"/buffer size has been at least 4096 bytes since 2011. [2])

> The /FILEALIGN option can be used to make disk utilization more efficient, or to make page loads from disk faster. [Assuming it matches the page size = 4096 bytes.] [1]

> All hard drive manufacturers committed to shipping new hard drive platforms for desktop and notebook products with the Advanced Format sector formatting [4096-byte or greater] by January 2011. [2]

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/fileal...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

xjay··on Llm.c – LLM training in simple, pure C/CUDA
> They haven't open sourced anything. They posted a tweet. [1]

[1@2024-04-06] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7MRj4N2Cyk&t=429s

[Twitch] https://twitch.tv/georgehotz

xjay··on Science fiction and the death of the sun
In some 1990s sci-fi series, an alien race played the long game by directing some (invisible) energy beam at the sun, accelerating its transition into becoming a red giant, a process which would have otherwise taken billions of years.
xjay··on Traffic jams, AirTags and GPS darts are ways NY, NJ are trying to stop car theft
Star Trek: TNG, season 1, episode 8, "Justice".

> One punishment for any crime. Execution. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7XqGiwfUyI

xjay··on Context: The Missing Feature of Programming Languages
See also: Data, context, and interaction (DCI, 2000-) [1]

> The paradigm separates the domain model (data) from use cases (context) and Roles that objects play (interaction). DCI is complementary to model–view–controller (MVC). MVC as a pattern language is still used to separate the data and its processing from presentation. [1]

> DCI was invented by Trygve Reenskaug, also the inventor of MVC. The current formulation of DCI is mostly the work of Reenskaug and James O. Coplien. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data,_context_and_interaction

xjay··on Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law
The problem is that we as a society constantly have to deal with adult children, so don't expect reason. Do expect elaborate rationalizations intended to waste the energy of an indecisive parent, who is basically getting bullied by a kid throwing a tantrum.

This kind of behavior reminds me of the book: "Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists" - Nick Enfield, Linguistic Anthropologist [1]

[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548465/language-vs-reality/

xjay··on Pornhub Blocked in Texas
Maybe one hack would be to have a binary "restricted" flag communicated through the ISP's reverse IP lookup (probably very slow). It wouldn't put any personal information at risk, but it would probably open Pandora's box, except that Pandora's box had hope inside of it.

1) IP address from "Restricted Region" connects to website.

2) Server attempts a reverse IP lookup and waits for reply from ISP's DNS.

3) If DNS reply contains "restricted" (on behalf of the subscriber), server has to restrict access, etc.

xjay··on Working with Purpose, Forever
Alan Kay mentioned this recently at a UCLA talk [1] in February. It's known as the "The Friedman doctrine" after the American economist Milton Friedman.

A) Milton Friedman: Shareholder profits > All. "...the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. This shareholder primacy approach views shareholders as the economic engine of the organization and the only group to which the firm is socially responsible. As such, the goal of the firm is to increase its profits and maximize returns to shareholders." [2]

B) Peter Drucker: Customer has primary focus. "A company's primary responsibility is to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company's continued existence and sustainability." [3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZQ7x0-MZcI&t=5205s

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker

xjay··on Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning
Writing by hand implicitly involves a delay which is another factor to consider.

With the modern typewriter and rectangular light bulb, you may have to explicitly slow down to soak the information, in this hypothetical scenario.

xjay··on Study suggests a 'dark mirror' universe within ours where atoms failed to form
"The 80/20 rule"/The Pareto principle

> Mathematically, the 80/20 rule is roughly described by a power law distribution (also known as a Pareto distribution) for a particular set of parameters. Many natural phenomena distribute according to power law statistics. It is an adage of business management that "80% of sales come from 20% of clients." [1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

xjay··on Farm owners bewildered after Apple Maps removes business and street from app
Imperialism also exists in the digital realm.

Step 1) Aggressively capture some digital space using money and resources few others can match in physical space. Step 2) Control who or what can access this now prevalent realm.

The shortest path (OSPF) helps sustain it.

[OSPF] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First

xjay··on Examples of AI rip-offs making their way into Google News
Sobering read in an age of alcohol intoxication ("AI").

There is a project that tracks/curates "AI" in the context of bad use or real world (mis-)application [1].

[1] https://incidentdatabase.ai/

xjay··on Things software developers should learn about learning
Warning from Daniel Kahneman on "System 1" and "System 2". [1]

> I'm going to use "System 1" and "System 2", absolutely as homunculi. [...] They don't exist. [...] Don't look for them in the brain, because they are not two systems in the brain, of which one does one, and the other does the other. So why am I using this terrible language? I'm using it because I think it's helpful. It fits the way our minds work, and to explain the background of that decision--of why I use "System 1" and "System 2"--I refer you to a very good book. [...] It's by Joshua Foer and it's called "Moonwalking with Einstein". [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0&t=1224s

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein

The article does put these terms in quotes.

xjay··on Understanding every byte in a WASM module
In this case, a 64-bit little-endian unsigned integer Ought to be enough for anyone. [1]

Using variable-length "micro-compression" schemes like these merges concerns [2], add processing overhead, and lose out on the simplicity and efficiency of working on the data directly in memory, maybe even reusing the same memory/cache line after checking identifiers, etc.

The 7-bit VLQ scheme [3] makes sense for MIDI sequences (1980s), as they were stored on MIDI hardware with limited memory, and had basic processing needs.

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/08/640k-enough/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-length_quantity

Page 1 of 5Next →