__tmk__ (u/__tmk__) - Readit News

__tmk__ commented on LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant github.com/mattermost/mat... · Posted by u/MallocVoidstar

pixelpoet · a month ago

I run a Zulip server and it's pretty good. The way they organise channels is extremely convoluted unfortunately (I wish they would just use absolutely standard channels layout like every other chat, and have everyone able to see them on join!) but well, beggars can't be choosers.

__tmk__ · a month ago

Interesting, I've also heard the exact opposite opinion [0] where Zulip’s non-standard approach is seen as its main strength.

[0]: https://chaos.social/@yorgos/115931944888149528

__tmk__ commented on Base 3 Computing Beats Binary quantamagazine.org/how-ba... · Posted by u/Tomte

danielvaughn · 2 years ago

> A binary logic system can only answer “yes” or “no.”

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds like a silly argument for ternary. A ternary system seems like it would be decidedly harder to build a computer on top of. Control flow, bit masking, and a mountain of other useful things are all predicated on boolean logic. At best it would be a waste of an extra bit (or trit), and would also introduce ambiguity and complexity at the lowest levels of the machine, where simplicity is paramount.

But again, maybe I'm missing something. I'd be super interested to read about those soviet-era ternary systems the author mentioned.

__tmk__ · 2 years ago

I would think there wouldn't be much of a difference because the smallest unit you can really work with on modern computers is the byte. And whether you use 8 bits to encode a byte (with 256 possible values) or 5 trits (with 243 possible values), shouldn't really matter?

__tmk__ commented on Swift sucks at web serving or does it? wadetregaskis.com/swift-s... · Posted by u/MBCook

keyle · 2 years ago

Yeah and it leaves out a lot of details to be desired.

For example, no debian build of Swift. And when I ported the ubuntu version to .deb, I ran into odd bugs, like when you kill it, it lives on! Apparently a known issue.

Basic _big_ bugs that shows Apple's half assed commitment to open-source on any other platform than their own. I can't blame them, but Swift on linux, beware.

Swift is a wonderful language, sadly I'm not seeing the commitment from Apple to make it ubiquitous. Also to note, Apple has basically killed macOS as a server, rendering Swift more towards a system/UI target language; which is a shame, because again, it's a wonderful, safe, language.

__tmk__ · 2 years ago

There's a project for using Swift to write GNOME applications, which is fascinating to me: https://github.com/AparokshaUI/adwaita-swift

I wish them success but realistically they won't have success.

__tmk__ commented on Is Cosine-Similarity of Embeddings Really About Similarity? arxiv.org/abs/2403.05440... · Posted by u/Jimmc414

nerdponx · 2 years ago

It's not even a distance metric, it doesn't obey the triangle inequality (hence the not-technically-meaningful name "similarity", like "collection" as opposed to "set").

__tmk__ · 2 years ago

1-cos_sim(x,y) is a valid distance metric for L2 normalized vectors, though.

__tmk__ commented on How to be successful as a research mathematician? Follow your gut nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/webmaven

__tmk__ · 3 years ago

That's not very actionable advice. I've found this article [0] from Terence Tao very insightful:

  [A]ctual solutions to a major problem tend to be arrived at by a process more like the following (often involving several mathematicians over a period of years or decades, with many of the intermediate steps described here being significant publishable papers in their own right):

  1. Isolate a toy model case x of major problem X.
  2. Solve model case x using method A.
  3. Try using method A to solve the full problem X.
  4. This does not succeed, but method A can be extended to handle a few more model cases of X, such as x’ and x”.
  5. Eventually, it is realised that method A relies crucially on a property P being true; this property is known for x, x’, and x”, thus explaining the current progress so far.
  6. Conjecture that P is true for all instances of problem X.
  7. Discover a family of counterexamples y, y’, y”, … to this conjecture. This shows that either method A has to be adapted to avoid reliance on P, or that a new method is needed.
  8. Take the simplest counterexample y in this family, and try to prove X for this special case. Meanwhile, try to see whether method A can work in the absence of P.
  
  (... 15 more steps)

[0]: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/be-sceptical-of...

__tmk__ commented on The Future of the Vim Project groups.google.com/g/vim_d... · Posted by u/mrzool

pmoriarty · 3 years ago

How much of the rest of the vim ecosystem is Lua-based, though? As far as I know it's still mostly vimscript.

Vimscript's dominance in vim is one of the things that got me to switch to emacs when I got interested in Lisp and Scheme more than a decade ago.

Sure, even then I could write scripts for vim using Vim's scheme compatibility mode, but I'd probably be one of the only ones doing so. Pretty much everyone else was using vimscript.

In Emacs the whole ecosystem is in eLisp, so I'd feel right at home there, could naturally integrate other eLisp codebases/projects, could easily get help on anything related to working with eLisp in emacs.

If I'd written scheme scripts in vim my work would always be a second-class citizen in the vim ecosystem.

How's the vim ecosystem now? Is vimscript still dominant?

__tmk__ · 3 years ago

I've also seen neovim plugins written in fennel [0], so if you want something lispy, that's possible now.

[0]: a Lisp that compiles to Lua, https://github.com/bakpakin/Fennel

__tmk__ commented on Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023 ise.fraunhofer.de/en/pres... · Posted by u/mfld

PurpleRamen · 3 years ago

Not really. Coal was just a temporary replacement, and mostly not for nuclear plants.

__tmk__ · 3 years ago

Coal is 30% currently: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2023/06... and I don't see this going away soon.

The argument is that we could have kept nuclear running and shut down all coal. In 1990, nuclear power plants were producing 153TWh in Germany. Today, coal+nuclear together is producing about as much.

__tmk__ commented on US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance reuters.com/legal/us-sec-... · Posted by u/jen20

I_am_tiberius · 3 years ago

I don't understand why even the hackernews community doesn't see that this is all a political strategy to make sure the digital dollar can exist.

__tmk__ · 3 years ago

I doubt the USG is competent enough to have a masterplan like that. This just seems to me like the actions of a person (Gary Gensler) who personally dislikes cryptocurrencies and who is trying to establish himself as a political player through his "bold actions".

__tmk__ commented on iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe techradar.com/news/ios-17... · Posted by u/walterbell

ko27 · 3 years ago

Is anybody else upset that people are actively making up stories to prop up Apple on HN? Most of what you said is misleading or false:

> Here in Thailand banking apps fraud is rampant

Citation needed (on the "rampant" part).

> Most of the cases are found to be on android devices

Even if it's true most of the phones in Thailand are Android.

> clicking some link that installs some app

Not possible the way you describe it. You need to go through several system screens and popups to install a third party apk file from browser.

> takes control or mobile banking and transfers money from their account

As an app developer I can say, this is probably false. There is no API to do anything like that. Unless we are talking about a 0 day exploit, like iPhone NSO exploits. In that case you need to provide a source.

Let's check your source https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/general/40024972

They are sending detailed instructions to victims on how to install screen recording apps. Users are always warned if their screen is being recorded on both Android and iOS, sideloaded or not. It's a matter of false trust, not sideloading. It's a phishing attack, those people would fall victim in any OS.

__tmk__ · 3 years ago

I think my banking app disallows taking screenshots of it. (Presumably this also means it would be hidden from screen recordings? Not quite sure.)