davesmylie (u/davesmylie)

davesmylie commented on A beginner's guide to split keyboards justinmklam.com/posts/202... · Posted by u/thehaikuza

soufron · a month ago

The main question should be: are split keyboards any better than normal keyboard?

When I gave it a look, the studies were on the side of split keyboards being the hardware equivalent of snake oil.

But whatever.

And maybe then: are keyboards the best input device in 2026?

davesmylie · 22 days ago

completely anecdotally (sample size of one!) but I found big improvement in comfort and posture when i moved to the kinesis ergo (split, but joined) about 15 years ago.

Eventually I moved to a full split, positioned quite some distance apart (~25cm) and found that even more comfortable.

Always hard to know with stuff like this if you are just imagining it, but for various reasons, I'm pretty convinced it was an improvement for me.

davesmylie commented on New books aren't worth reading? atlaspress.co/p/new-books... · Posted by u/speckx

davesmylie · a month ago

> Unfortunately, reading books for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a log cabin on the prairie. You have Netflix, you have video games, you have TikTok, you have Twitter (you really spend too much time on Twitter anon). No one reads books for entertainment anymore, because paper is an inferior entertainment platform.

That's a hard disagree from me - I'm not a heavy reader but I'll still easily get through a couple of fiction books every month. TV/Movies are far less information dense (ie interesting) that even a light fiction book.

I'll happily watch a show or movie on TV with the family - there's a lot to be said for shared entertainment, but there's a reason for the trope "the book was better than the movie".

davesmylie commented on Ask HN: Best Podcasts of 2025? · Posted by u/adriancooney

surfsvammel · 2 months ago

The SGU. There is only one podcast that I always come back to! https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts

davesmylie · 2 months ago

Certainly one of the few podcasts that I've stuck with. I think I started about 15+ years ago, and I know it was running for a while before that. Can't say every episode is great (not a fan of the live shows) or every segment is great (what's that noisy), but you can't beat it for it's consistency and general interest.

davesmylie commented on · Posted by u/imgdesgen

davesmylie · 6 months ago

oof.

Of all the things I wouldn't trust AI to hallucinate facts on, mushrooms would have to be right up near the top of the list

davesmylie commented on AI Slop and the Destruction of Knowledge irisvanrooijcogsci.com/20... · Posted by u/sebg

ofjcihen · 7 months ago

Honestly that would make a good sci fi short story. What appears to be a well of knowledge created by an advanced but missing species that turns out to be nothing but well ordered gibberish.

Maybe it spreads to other civilizations that find it and accidentally incorporate it into their technology.

Or maybe they go to war over it and destroy themselves leaving whoever is left to find out that’s its cyber trash.

davesmylie · 7 months ago

Not AI related, but the (hard sci-fi) book Blind Sight by Peter Watts explores this from a different angle. He posits that consciousness is expensive and some species may evolve to just "fake it".

Also, space vampires.

davesmylie commented on Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England news.sky.com/story/facial... · Posted by u/amarcheschi

davesmylie · 7 months ago

Well, that's some distopean shit right there ain't it

davesmylie commented on AI hallucinations will be solvable within a year (2024) fortune.com/2024/04/16/ai... · Posted by u/rvz

davesmylie · 7 months ago

Obviously it's well over a year since this article was posted and if anything I've anecdotally noticed hallucinations getting more, not less, common.

Possibly/probably with another years experience with LLMs I'm just more attuned to noticing when they have lost the plot and are making shit up

davesmylie commented on Ask HN: What software subscriptions are worth paying for? · Posted by u/helloworlddd

davesmylie · 8 months ago

Personally nothing - a one off payment for software is fine.

Subscription based software - it's what I do for a day job but I'm not interested in any more monthly money drains than the bare minimum - ie mortgage, rates and utilities.

davesmylie commented on Tough news for our UK users blog.janitorai.com/posts/... · Posted by u/airhangerf15

rimbo789 · 8 months ago

Good. Tech companies have acted far too long like the law is something like they can get to next week.

This firm doesn’t care a whit about the impact on users - they are just too cheap to follow the rules.

If your business can’t operate without regulation it shouldn’t operate at all because it clearly relies too heavily on exploiting labour and or consumers

davesmylie · 8 months ago

> This firm doesn’t care a whit about the impact on users - they are just too cheap to follow the rules.

I'm old enough to remember when one of great things about the web was the low barrier to entry.

Not every site has a large company with deep pockets behind it. Some of the websites I've run, I've run at a loss because I was interested in the subject and thought it provided real value for other people. Probably the income from these sites was in the hundreds of dollars a year range, the cost in time and effort waaay beyond that.

I don't know the actual compliance costs here - I know the cost of a UK lawyer just to review obligations and liabilities is probably going to be a few hundred quid, if not substantially more. I don't know of many non-professional, or FOSS sites that could afford that.

Your curt dismissal of this huge chunk of the internet saying they shouldn't be operating at all is mind boggling

davesmylie commented on Show HN: Piano Trainer – Learn piano scales, chords and more using MIDI github.com/ZaneH/piano-tr... · Posted by u/FinalDestiny

ganonm · 8 months ago

It's probably not got the entertainment factor of Guitar Hero, but I'm working on an Android app that connects via Bluetooth/USB MIDI and teaches you sight reading. It starts with individual notes, then progresses to intervals, triads and more complex chords. All of these are exercise based, so you can pick and choose areas to focus on.

The notes are all rendered according to conventional music notation standards as per Elaine Gould's book "Behind Bars". Writing this code was not straightforward, but worth the effort as it's very flexible.

Progress is tracked intelligently, i.e. accuracy and response times are recorded per note, and exercises can be directed towards improving weak spots. This was all borne out of a frustration I had with how long it takes, and how much material is needed to make progress with sight reading skills.

I'm hoping to release it soon (next few months - it's mostly finished), but slightly concerned it's too niche. I guess it will mostly appeal to serious but beginner/intermediate pianists who want to put in the hard yards to develop sight reading abilities to an advanced level.

davesmylie · 8 months ago

Hey, would be interested in checking this out when you release it