jlg23 (u/jlg23) - Readit News

jlg23 commented on Emacs as your video-trimming tool xenodium.com/emacs-as-you... · Posted by u/xenodium

Zobat · 6 days ago

This is impressive, but (and probably because I'm not the intended audience for this post) I don't get it, I kind of want to get it though. With "it" I mean making Emacs do X, where X is something far from editing text files. It always seems to me like playing Doom on a pregnancy test. Sure you can do it, sure it's impressive, but should you?

n.b. I'm a C# developer that has accepted my fate and use Visual Studio to earn a living, though I've made sure I know my tool, flaws and merits, better than most developers I've met/worked with. My first job as a programmer was writing C++ code in Emacs and can't remember anything negative about that experience (other than getting used to ctrl+x, ctrl+s for saving and, by reflex, doing the same in Excel, and losing a big part of the document that I had just selected to move, because Excel couldn't undo past last save).

Reading the (at the time I'm writing this) 13 comments on this post I see mentions of at least three lightweight programs that does this. What other than "the mountain is there" makes someone think Emacs would be the tool for this? As a Resolve user I know what tool I'd reach for even if using a multi GB, Hollywood grade, non linear editor, compositor and color grader for trimming a short video clip is about as ridiculously overpowered as using a sledge hammer to press a key (and I did exactly that just a few days ago).

Like I said, I'm most likely not "getting it", on multiple levels. Please educate me, why would I use Emacs for this or any of the page upon page of "strange" use cases you find if you search for "Emacs" here on HN. I know Emacs is a powerful editor but I can't for the life of me understand why I would use it to trim video clips.

jlg23 · 6 days ago

I did not "get it" from the post itself, but it linked to a post that mentioned "subed", subtitle editing for emacs with syncing with/control of video playback in mpv. I could see myself doing that and then would be happy if I could also trim the video while I am at it.

jlg23 commented on Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death energyvanguard.com/blog/t... · Posted by u/almuhalil

pavel_lishin · a month ago

One question - how does this prevent mosquitos from breeding in other bits of standing water that I can't locate?

I have no idea where ours are coming from; I suspect they hatch somewhere, and then migrate to the shaded areas of my yard, which is where I typically get bit.

Adding a bucket will prevent some mosquitoes from laying eggs elsewhere, but not all, right? Or is the bucket so attractive to mosquitoes that they ignore other water sources?

jlg23 · a month ago

> One question - how does this prevent mosquitos from breeding in other bits of standing water that I can't locate?

It cannot and that is not its purpose. Practically you should be able to locate any other breeding grounds by mere observation and then you have to eliminate them one by one until the mosquitos are left with the ones you set up.

jlg23 commented on Student discovers fungus predicted by Albert Hoffman wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/... · Posted by u/zafka

randomNumber7 · 2 months ago

It is know since a long time that morning glory seeds contain LSA.

Also LSA is different from LSD. While you can legally get the former it is (from my experience) way more dangerous than LSD.

jlg23 · 2 months ago

> it is (from my experience) way more dangerous than LSD.

That is not necessarily related to the compound but the method of consumption. Natural sources of psychedelic compounds have, naturally, variances in potency. With Morning Glory seeds you also ingest some other probably pharmacologically active compounds, again in amounts that vary from seed to seed.

jlg23 commented on An interactive-speed Linux computer made of only 3 8-pin chips dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&... · Posted by u/dmitrygr

nine_k · 5 months ago

> So, which pins could be combined with SDIO's three? After much thinking, the solution is obvious. RAM's nCS can be the SD card's CLK. RAM's CLK can be the SD card's CMD. RAM's MOSI can be the SD card's DAT. Try and figure out all the possible interactions with each device and what that would look like to the other, to convince yourself that it will work safely.

This is truly a brilliant hack, well worth publishing at Hacker News.

jlg23 · 5 months ago

And worth a shirt "After much thinking, the solution is obvious."

jlg23 commented on The Candid Naivety of Geeks ploum.net/2025-03-28-geek... · Posted by u/SlackingOff123

jlg23 · 5 months ago

The Candid Naivety of Geeks

> Did you really think that "marketing" is telling the truth? Are you a freshly debarked Thermian? (In case you missed it, this is a Galaxy Quest reference.)

Did you really think that an article humiliating your readers is going to change anything?

Yes, we the people, are stupid. No, we the people, are not keen on being called stupid. We might accept that from people we admire but not from someone we have to look up on the interwebz. Someone who has to point out that there is a page on him - in, for god's sake, the FRENCH wikipedia! And yes, I missed it, because Galaxy Quest is nice popcorn TV but nothing I would commit to long-term memory.

No matter how justified the cause, badly voiced anger just sounds like something between bad impulse control and idiocy.

I get the points the author is trying to make, I sympathize with them, but I would never send that text to anyone I try to convince.

jlg23 commented on Germany tightens travel advice to US after three citizens detained euronews.com/my-europe/20... · Posted by u/belter

vkou · 5 months ago

That will only protect you from CBP.

ICE, who are currently the ones responsible for disappearing people will happily pick you up at a domestic arrival terminal.

jlg23 · 5 months ago

Yes, but ICE can pick you at random (probably lawfully at least close to borders and international airports) while you always have to talk with CBP when entering the country. I personally have been avoiding travel to/through the US whenever possible just because some of the wrong people have been my friends and I happen to make my money with drugs - completely legal, helping to disseminate neutral information for free, but I would not want to discuss the finer details of ethics and drug policy with an underpaid officer of any police force.

The one thing that protects me somewhat from ICE is that I am white, in my forties, middle class and non-confontational when talking with officials. Or how a friend put it: No worries, you could be drinking a beer, smoking a joint and cops would laugh about your accent before telling to have a nice one.

jlg23 commented on Germany tightens travel advice to US after three citizens detained euronews.com/my-europe/20... · Posted by u/belter

jlg23 · 5 months ago

This is travel advice I've been following for 25 years; because, as the article states, the rules are not new: Go through a port of entry that is not on US soil so being refused entry does not lead to incarceration and deportation. For people in the EU, Dublin is such a port of entry. Once on a plane from there, arrival in the US is the same as for a domestic flight.

jlg23 commented on Ultrasonic deep drawing cuts friction by 20%, extends tool lifespan techxplore.com/news/2025-... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

TimSchumann · 6 months ago

Didn’t know the people behind the mp3 format were into tooling for metalworking. Guess it makes sense, it involves a practical application for use of sound, and they are a research institution.

I wonder if the metal can hear the difference if it’s not the full 192 kHz.

jlg23 · 6 months ago

That's not the same group. "Fraunhofer" is not a single group but the umbrella organization for 76 different institutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society

jlg23 commented on Learn Arabic arabic.fi... · Posted by u/teleforce

kamikazeturtles · 6 months ago

Many years back, I wanted to learn Arabic, but, the problem is, there isn't one "Arabic". It seems you have to decide, do you want to learn Moroccan Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Quranic Arabic, Modern Arabic...

When faced with this question, I just decided Farsi seemed a lot more interesting and accessible.

jlg23 · 6 months ago

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a good foundation.

Darija (Moroccan Arabic) is probably furthest away because it is heavily influenced by the Berber languages (and Arabs are not the majority in Morocco, they are just the largest minority). Also, Moroccans tend to do lots of context switching to French.

Egyptian Arabic is widely understood everywhere due to Egypt's strong position in the Arabic movie/TV industry.

jlg23 commented on Project Scripts paul-samuels.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/ingve

jlg23 · 6 months ago

Did this a few times, devs loved it: all in posix-shell, the main script was a rather ugly thing but devs would never touch it. You'd code your command as a simple shell script in cli-lib/$username/$command, it would be available to you as 'cli $command', to others as 'cli $username.$command'.

Useful commands would be copied over into the directory that contains the commands accessible to all. Usefulness was determined at the coffee machine, the smokers' room or in conversations after presentations on their work given by devs.

Also, interested interns would be tasked to spot "optimization potential" - so they read through these commands, learned to read and write shell scripts and they had to learn to efficiently address senior devs.

Everytime this was more a social thing than actual workflow optimization: Tooling became a permant side project, people could (and would) look their peers' scripts, one could take a short break from the main project by working on this. One observation I made: the more senior the devs, the less interested they were in this "playground" - after all good devs are always faster at hacking solutions to these simple problems than evaluating and adapting existing ones.