AlunAlun (u/AlunAlun)

AlunAlun commented on Surnames from nicknames nobody has any more blog.plover.com/lang/etym... · Posted by u/JNRowe

junto · 7 months ago

Likewise there are several patronymic surnames from the Welsh “ap <father’s name> (son of) that have ended up as new surnames retained the “ap” in several cases, mainly in reduced form at the start of the surname, as in Upjohn (from ap John), Powell (from ap Hywel), Price (from ap Rhys), Pritchard (from ap Richard), and Bowen (from ab Owen).

AlunAlun · 7 months ago

I came here to say exactly this. Delighted that it’s the top comment (or at least it was when I saw it!). Other examples are Parry (ap Harri), and Pugh (ap Huw)

I wonder if there are similar examples from our Celtic cousins? e.g. from Mac or Mc in Scotland, or the O’… in Ireland?

AlunAlun commented on A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work mertbulan.com/2025/01/26/... · Posted by u/mertbio

sam0x17 · 7 months ago

> There are a few reasons for this, but the most concrete is that your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one

This is completely false. I literally haven't seen someone do a reference check once in the last 10 years. Early 2010s it was more common but this practice is dead. Now every company is a new slate. In fact, I've seen people repeatedly rewarded for jumping ship and build there career on that. Companies have stopped investing in devs, so why should devs not reciprocate?

And there are so many startups. More than you can count. There are more new ones every day than you could ever have time to apply to. They don't all have time to talk to each other.

Not saying it's not good to have pride in your work, but within reason, and within a framework of fairness and quid pro quo. Don't let people exploit you any more than you exploit them. Employment is 100% transactional and the moment you forget that is the moment you get taken advantage of.

AlunAlun · 7 months ago

> This is completely false.

It's not completely false at all - but it does depend greatly depends on which country you're based in.

Where I am, in Spain, your network, and your reputation within it, are _everything_. Good jobs will sometimes not even be advertised, as the first thing a hirer will do is ask around their network for recommendations, and those recommendations count for _a lot_. On the other side, when you are looking for work, the first thing you do is ask your network for an intro - and again, that intro counts for a lot.

That's not to say that the traditional interview process will be skipped, but candidates coming from recommendations will have a massive head-start over others.

AlunAlun commented on Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court cosmowenman.substack.com/... · Posted by u/abetusk

permo-w · a year ago

so it wouldn't be easy because these scans are highly detailed and so would require too many polygons to be loaded at once

would this remain true for modern higher end graphics cards?

AlunAlun · a year ago

For rendering an individual piece, maybe not; but as part of much larger scene with many objects, animation, and rendering effects, it would place an unnecessary burden on the GPU.

It would be much easier to simply have a 3D artist create the object anew from scratch, in a format and resolution that best fits the game.

AlunAlun commented on FFT-based ocean-wave rendering, implemented in Godot github.com/2Retr0/GodotOc... · Posted by u/RafelMri

Archelaos · a year ago

The demo looks unrealistic. The waves never break. Increasinlgy steeper slops with pointy peaks travel from left to right until they just sink down towards the left.

AlunAlun · a year ago

This is explicitly a simulation of ocean waves, and ocean waves do not break.

AlunAlun commented on Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem idealista.com/en/news/leg... · Posted by u/diggan

vvillena · a year ago

No. If someone enters your home, as in, you live there, the city has you registered into that address, and/or your ID card states that's your address, it's not squatting. That's trespassing, and the police will happily assist.

AlunAlun · a year ago

This reply is very true and should be higher up.

Squatting occurs almost exclusively in second residences, abandoned properties, and places reclaimed by the banks, etc.

If you can prove that the house is your primary residence, the police will oust the squatters promptly. As a result, squatters will not target a house that is clearly 'lived in'.

AlunAlun commented on Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem idealista.com/en/news/leg... · Posted by u/diggan

matt-p · a year ago

Can we establish that the squatters are doing this out of economic necessity and not to "profit" (e.g can't afford to rent or own someplace else)? I imagine so as living with no security in an abandoned building with no utilities seems pretty desperate, sub-optimal and sad.

If we can then realistically the root cause to this is lack of housing supply. "Just build more f**ing houses" would fix this no?

AlunAlun · a year ago

No, we can’t explicitly establish that. It is of course true that many squatters do so out of financial necessity, but others do so for other reasons: a lifestyle choice, a political choice, or plain freeloading and financial gain - in a squat in my village there were people living there with full time jobs and driving brand new Audis!

I would add further that the responsibility of paying the utilities and tax falls on the building owner even if it is occupied by squatters.

None of this diminishes the fact that housing is increasingly expensive in Spain, particularly in Madrid and Barcelona, and this is causing real problems.

But the situation is definitely more complicated than just ‘build more houses’.

AlunAlun commented on Reverse Z in 3D graphics (and why it's so awesome) tomhultonharrop.com/mathe... · Posted by u/fanf2

GenerocUsername · a year ago

Articles about graphics and rendering without a single image should be a misdemeanor. I know it's not explicitly about any particular graphic and instead about performance, but I still think it's missing that extra pizaz

AlunAlun · a year ago

I disagree. Anyone with a basic understanding of how perspective projection matrices work will understand the article, especially with the code samples and equations. (Edit: and anybody without this understanding won’t be interested in the article anyway).

I thought it was great, and had a full-on “smack my forehead” moment as to why I had never realized something so simple and effective, after 20 years of programming 3D graphics!

AlunAlun commented on A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair tegowerk.eu/posts/bicycle... · Posted by u/victorstanciu

AlunAlun · a year ago

I suspect what the author takes joy from is more the satisfaction of learning a new skill.

Like many things, bike maintenance eventually becomes a chore. Most of my (many) bikes over the last 30 years have been built from the ground up, including the wheels. And I don’t (or won’t) trust any shop mechanic to touch them. But now, the thought of doing any sort of maintenance fills me with dread - I want to ride my bikes, not spend hours fiddling with brake hydraulics and suspension seals!

AlunAlun commented on 3D Map of Shinjuku Station in Three.js satoshi7190.github.io/Shi... · Posted by u/brw

robotresearcher · 2 years ago

I managed to get lost there. An incredibly nice person stopped and asked in English - I’m a tall white person - if I needed help and insisted on walking me to my exit, several minutes out of her way.

I love Japan and traveling around there is easy.

AlunAlun · 2 years ago

This is very Japanese. My experience was that if you ask for help directly from a stranger, they will stammer and be flustered and not be so helpful; but if you stand around and look like the lost tourist you are, within a minute or two somebody will approach you and offer to help.

AlunAlun commented on Barcelona-style “superblocks” could make cities greener and less car-centric anthropocenemagazine.org/... · Posted by u/grzm

ars · 3 years ago

No thank you.

They want to somehow have every single person in a 3 block radius park on the perimeter of that area? And this is somehow supposed to make things better?

I also have zero interest in walking 2 blocks to my car when I need it, nor do I want to carry my items that far from my car.

I especially like: "or reducing the number of parking spaces or the number of traffic lanes, for example—actions that might catalyze bigger, more permanent changes in the future."

Yes, let's make people miserable now, because it might possibly make some change later.

The concept of first make things better seems to have escaped them.

I'm really tired of anti-car advocates that have just a single idea: Make people too miserable to use a car, and maybe then there will be less cars.

Making people miserable is not a viable strategy.

AlunAlun · 3 years ago

I suggest, respectfully, that you make an effort to understand the wider context before you make such an aggressive comment.

Many people in BCN do not own a car. If they do own one, it is used almost exclusively for getting out of the city at weekends. For journeys within the city, the public transport system is excellent, and the climate lends itself to walking, cycling, and scooters. As such, parking two blocks away is not much of an issue.

Finally, as a resident you are still allowed to drive within the superillas to access your building’s car park, if it has one, and also for loading/unloading.

The superillas were controversial at first but now they are very popular the people who live within them.