SiVal (u/SiVal) - Readit News

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

arrowsmith · 6 months ago

If it's not obvious: "Dick" was a nickname for Richard long, long before it became a slang word for "penis".

And the newer meaning is probably why almost no Richards go by "Dick" anymore.

SiVal · 6 months ago

Yes, Dick has been a nickname for Richard for about 800 years but only got its modern slang meaning in probably late-19th or early 20th century. It seems to have come out of the British military from the phrase "Tom, Dick, and Harry", which were such common names that the phrase meant every ordinary man. (Tommy was already slang for "British soldier".) And from there, one more evolutionary step for mankind....

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

matsemann · 6 months ago

My surename is Svensson, literally "Sven's son". But patronymic surnames aren't used in Sweden/Norway anymore, so at some point we just got stuck with whatever father was the last in line, a bit weird. Maybe I should try to figure out which Sven it was.

I guess the tradition of it being the man's name passed on means that's why there is no common surnames with *dottir as it is with *son? (Not sure what the english version for a daughter is).

Had some Icelandic friends in school (which still has patronymic names, moved here after they were born), and it was for them somewhat problematic at times that the siblings had different surnames (Björnsdottir and Björnsson), as people don't assume they're family, and especially not that the parents both had different surnames again. Like school pickup with a teacher not knowing the situation.

SiVal · 6 months ago

The English form of daughter was also -dottir, but it was not common.

SiVal commented on Malware can turn off webcam LED and record video, demonstrated on ThinkPad X230 github.com/xairy/lights-o... · Posted by u/xairy

jdblair · 9 months ago

or, you can have a physical switch, like the Framework. that also hits your BOM but its not complex!

SiVal · 9 months ago

Would a bit of Post-It Note (for minimal adhesion) damage the screen coating if left on most of the time? Would even that much thickness stress the screen when opened and closed thousands of times? Is there a better (self-service) material?

SiVal commented on The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan tokyodev.com/articles/the... · Posted by u/pwim

tkgally · 10 months ago

Thank you for the kind words! I am glad to hear that you found that book useful.

The editor and I did discuss a sequel and I started collecting material for it, but I had changed careers by that point and no longer had the time or motivation to see it through to completion. And now I’m not sure if there’s a market for such books anymore. At least, if I were learning to read Japanese myself now, rather than buying a book of annotated readings I would choose my own texts and ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini about the parts I don’t understand.

SiVal · 10 months ago

It's a little sad, but you're right of course that many books no longer make business sense now that everything they offer is online and free. Well, when the AIs put us all out of business and we're home all day in our rabbit hutches, we'll have plenty of time and free content to read.

SiVal commented on The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan tokyodev.com/articles/the... · Posted by u/pwim

tkgally · 10 months ago

I am the author of this article and will be interested to read HNers’ thoughts and discussion about the topic.

I will also be happy to respond to questions.

SiVal · 10 months ago

Ah, I thought your name sounded familiar! In 2008, I bought "Reading Japanese with a Smile" on a trip to Japan and loved it. It was very well done and perfect for me. I ended up buying two copies and for years I kept checking on Kinokuniya visits hoping it would become a series. No such luck, but my guess is it was just too much work for too little reward. But you should know that a HN reader still remembers your work fondly after 16 years.

SiVal commented on Claude for Desktop claude.ai/download... · Posted by u/meetpateltech

frogperson · 10 months ago

Claude requires a phone nu.ber to sign up and the won't accept a Google number so they are completely un-usable.

I would love to try their services, but they refuse to take my money.

SiVal · 10 months ago

Is this for the paid version? I'm using the free version, and it hasn't asked me for a phone number, but if the paid version requires a phone number, my reaction would be the same as yours: sorry, no.

SiVal commented on AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing arstechnica.com/cars/2024... · Posted by u/Bender

nextaccountic · a year ago

> Plus, say a nuclear weapon went off anyways and all the FM transmitters died. Is anyone seriously thinking a lone AM transmitter 2000 miles away is going to help?

AM radio is simple enough to build with makeshift materials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio). You don't need batteries or even a power source at all! (the radio waves themselves can bring power)

If civilization had a catastrophic event, I would guess that AM radios would be one of the few surviving technologies

SiVal · a year ago

I would love to see kids given the materials and taught how to build makeshift emergency radios in science class every couple of years. Then they could take them home, stick them in a closet or drawer somewhere, and in case of emergency, they would be everywhere.

SiVal commented on Did we lose our way in making efficient software? rufatmammadli.medium.com/... · Posted by u/rumad

zer00eyz · a year ago

Ok

Set up CC processing on the web:

How much are you going to pay stripe? 2.9% + 30¢ ... that means you have to charge 10 bucks to get down to a 6% transaction fee. Quite the price floor and an interesting cap on your pricing model!

What does managing chargebacks cost you? The moment your taking money your going to hire in customer service, or spend time dealing with CS. What happens when you get a chargeback, or do a refund? Most of the time you loose money (processing fees etc)

If your under a million bucks a year apple is 15%. If you're building a low price app or a value add app, odds are that apple is going to be a far better deal for you than doing it on your own.

SiVal · a year ago

Does Apple charge 15% for each dollar up to a million plus 30% for each dollar above a million, or when you cross a million (in a year), do they suddenly jump to 30% of everything? IOW, if I have earned $999,999 so far this year, I have to pay Apple about $150,000. If I then make another $1 sale, do I owe a few cents more or another $150,000?

And once your rate goes to 30%, does it stay there the following year, or does the whole system reset to zero each year?

SiVal commented on Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site old.reddit.com/r/webdev/c... · Posted by u/laubonghaudoi

isoprophlex · a year ago

There's no way in hell anyone should ever under any circumstance use a free service that might, for reasons entirely outside your control, suddenly bill you 5k, or 104k... or any non trivial amount really.

Just suspend service on excessive overages...

SiVal · a year ago

I understand that some businesses might want to take the hit from a cost surge because they get an even higher revenue surge. But a large fraction of sites aren't like that and would prefer a loss of service to a cost overrun. Service providers should always offer a "maximum out-of-pocket cost" service option. Those that don't aren't suitable vendors for most customers and customers should be warned about them.

SiVal commented on Ask HN: Local Mac Wysiwyg HTML Editor? (for “Lo-fi” website) · Posted by u/dv35z

SiVal · 2 years ago

I'd like the same but with one more deployment option: create a (simple) static site that doesn't require any web server. I started an old relative on Dreamweaver about 25 years ago thinking that simple HTML files would make a good, open, archival rich-text alternative to plaintext. He wrote many articles that can still be double-clicked and viewed on any platform today and are among the most likely doc formats to still be readable a century from now (if any still are).

I had hoped that simple HTML would become a better choice than PDF or MS-Word for ordinary people writing for posterity, but unlike old Dreamweaver, almost all HTML tools today produce docs that must be served by a web server (and consist of separate HTML, CSS, JS, img files that get scattered.)