nathell (u/nathell) - Readit News

nathell commented on I program on the subway scd31.com/posts/programmi... · Posted by u/evakhoury

> GPD MicroPC 2, a 7” laptop with a real keyboard

Is it actually decent for typing on? I'm perennially tempted, but I'm somewhat skeptical of a small keyboard vs touch typing.

nathell · 19 hours ago

Another GPD MicroPC owner here. It’s not quite as comfortable as a normal-sized keyboard, but much more comfortable than it looks. It’s quite decent for occasional recreational programming, and I’ve also used it to write daily blog posts from a long-distance cycling trip.

nathell commented on I program on the subway scd31.com/posts/programmi... · Posted by u/evakhoury

nathell · 20 hours ago

A few years ago, I spotted a guy on the underground in Warsaw, hacking on some code in a language I didn't recognize, but it was definitely assembly of some sort. Being shy, I resorted to throwing curious glimpses at his laptop for a few stations, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I asked ‘sorry, is this ARM’? To which the guy replies, smiling, ‘ah no, it’s MIPS!’

Now I program casually in public spaces, including the underground, on my GPD Micro PC [0]. It, too, has attracted numerous glimpses and been a conversation starter on some occasions.

[0]: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/08/18/i-love-my-gpd-micro-p...

nathell commented on What will enter the public domain in 2026? publicdomainreview.org/fe... · Posted by u/herbertl

mchusma · 21 days ago

I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off?

So many ideas better than the current regime.

nathell · 21 days ago

Which key pieces of IP are worth the exponential fees?

nathell commented on Installing Java in 2025, and Version Managers blog.hakanserce.com/post/... · Posted by u/hakanserce

nathell · 25 days ago

Fortunately, the Java ecosystem isn’t JS where breakage is so common that you have to be extra careful about the version of Node you’re using. As a Clojure programmer, I have never seen a case where it mattered which vendor my JVM was coming from, and 95% of the time I don’t care which version I’m using, as long as it’s reasonably recent.

For the remaining 5%, on macOS, my JVM version manager is this zsh one-liner:

    jvm () { export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v $1`; }

nathell commented on Ask HN: Anyone else use FreePascal as their low level language? · Posted by u/rlawson

drnick1 · 2 months ago

Write in C, write in C

Pascal won't quite cut it

Write in C

nathell · 2 months ago

Don’t even mention COBOL.

nathell commented on Zoo of array languages ktye.github.io/... · Posted by u/mpweiher

nathell · 2 months ago

Is this written by Arthur Whitney himself?

nathell commented on Haiku Validator haikuvalidator.com/... · Posted by u/mrstone

ThinkingGuy · 3 months ago

Authentic haiku

need a season word (kigo).

It's true; look it up.

nathell · 3 months ago

Authentic haiku

needn't have seventeen morae

in total, either.

See, e.g., Bashō's crow haiku, arguably one of the genre-defining poems [0]. Plus, English is on average terser than Japanese; I've read somewhere that, in English, 3-5-3 syllables pack roughly the same amount of content as the Japanese 5-7-5.

[0]: https://matsuobashohaiku.home.blog/2020/11/21/upon-a-withere...

nathell commented on Folks, we have the best π lcamtuf.substack.com/p/fo... · Posted by u/fratellobigio

creata · 3 months ago

The font stack is just "Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;" so either one of those or a system font is the culprit.

nathell · 3 months ago

It’s Verdana.

Fun fact: the article uses U+03C0 GREEK SMALL LETTER PI (π), but Unicode also has several pi codepoints meant to be used specifically for math. E.g., U+1D6D1 MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL PI (let’s see whether HN strips it: [edit: it does, see [0]]).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(letter)#Unicode

nathell commented on You don't want to hire "the best engineers" otherbranch.com/shared/bl... · Posted by u/rachofsunshine

Centigonal · 4 months ago

There is no such thing as "the best engineers." Some engineers are definitely better than others, but once you pass the bar of "really smart, great work ethic," the tech tree diverges pretty dramatically.

Some engineers (like Notch) are amazing at quickly putting out vast quantities of mediocre code, prototyping ideas, maintaining a clear product vision, and bringing something into reality quickly. Other engineers (like John Carmack) are great at generating well-founded opinions and finding clever solutions to difficult issues. Some engineers (like Bill Atkinson) worked mostly remotely and developed amazing technology, while other engineers (like Joel Spolsky) insisted on in-office and built a best-in-class mentorship organization.

While hiring people with exceptional talent is a step-change when it comes to any organization's ability to accomplish its goals, there is no one metric for "best." Much better to identify the specific skills for which you need exceptional talent, and to create a hiring funnel that identifies people who excel in that dimension.

nathell · 4 months ago

Yep. Existence of "the best engineers" would imply existence of The One True Metric by which you can judge the person in all context; but that's at best an oversimplification.

The actual metrics (not necessarily easily quantifiable) are the desired traits you put in your job description; they don't correlate perfectly.