pstuart (u/pstuart) - Readit News

pstuart commented on Rolling the dice with CSS random() webkit.org/blog/17285/rol... · Posted by u/zdw

This seems like a good opportunity to bring up the old, more hacky, but also more performant and predictable CSS random effect using backgrounds of prime number sizes to achieve a "random" distribution. The "cicada principle"

https://www.sitepoint.com/the-cicada-principle-and-why-it-ma...

https://lea.verou.me/blog/2020/07/the-cicada-principle-revis...

In this case you would use multiple transparent tiles of different star patterns (images, or gradient/clip-path tricks), each one a different prime number in size. It should work with anything you can tile and overlay in CSS though.

pstuart · a day ago

I'm not sure if I'll ever get a chance to use that but it was very informative nonetheless.

pstuart commented on Texas Instruments’ new plants where Apple will make iPhone chips cnbc.com/2025/08/22/apple... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

OhMeadhbh · 2 days ago

I'm guessing the commenter above was asking what trading places and commodities futures have to do with the referenced article. I'm trying to figure out if you view Trump + cronies as the good guys in Trading Places (Dan Aykroyd + Eddie Murphy) or the bad guys (Ralph Bellamy + Don Ameche). Or if you think the old institutional guys conspiring to ruin young Dan Aykroyd's life over a bet were the bad guys or the good guys? I'm not trying to be snarky, it's just that there are a lot of opinions offered on this site and we don't all view the world the same way.

pstuart · a day ago

It should be self-evident which side he's on if one were to look at his hustles.

pstuart commented on Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012) cdn.akamai.steamstatic.co... · Posted by u/Michelangelo11

moomin · a day ago

At least one former employee has confirmed that exactly the problems you are describing were a problem at Valve.

https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/

pstuart · a day ago

side note: Jeri Ellsworth is a rockstar engineer.

pstuart commented on Texas Instruments’ new plants where Apple will make iPhone chips cnbc.com/2025/08/22/apple... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

declan_roberts · 2 days ago

What exactly are you talking about?

pstuart · 2 days ago

The movie Trading Places. It's a comedy and worth a watch.

pstuart commented on How to Build a Medieval Castle archaeology.org/issues/se... · Posted by u/benbreen

pstuart · 6 days ago

If AI doesn't destroy us but actually frees people from the need to work, then projects like this could really bloom. We all need a reason to get up in the morning, as well as being part of something bigger then ourselves -- this is a wonderful example of how that could look like.

pstuart commented on "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec" github.com/whatwg/html/pu... · Posted by u/troupo

raverbashing · 6 days ago

We can laugh at NFTs but honestly there are a lot of technical solutions that fit the "kinda works/kinda seems like a good idea" but in the end it's a house of cards with a vested interest

Imagine people put energy into writing that thick of a book about XML. To be filed into the Theology section of a library

pstuart · 6 days ago

Except the only selling point for NFTs was laundering money and scamming people.

pstuart commented on Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims apnews.com/article/domini... · Posted by u/throw0101a

jibal · 7 days ago

The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.

pstuart · 7 days ago

That was the beauty of it -- it changed the story from the known facts about Bush into Rather using forged documents. It was a very clever trick, I'll give him that.

pstuart commented on Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims apnews.com/article/domini... · Posted by u/throw0101a

mapt · 7 days ago

Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change in an environment where right-wing journalism has turned into a defamation pipeline and then a defamation -> moral-panic -> stochastic-terror cannon that would impress Gerald Bull. These are supposed journalistic institutions, and that used to mean something, legally and culturally speaking. Making them terrified of losing the public trust once again, using some type of fast-moving wrecking ball, is a necessary component of a future where we make it out of this.

So all we need now is an angry left-wing billionaire who can launch a thousand defamation lawsuits, or the most sympathetic group of parents of dead children in history.

The last great nightly news anchor was Dan Rather, who was fired symbolically because their organization merely neutrally reported the existence of a sketchy story about possible documents that turned out to be fabricated about George W Bush's military service.

pstuart · 7 days ago

I remain convinced that Rather was set up by Karl Rove -- it fits in with his other dirty tricks.

pstuart commented on Lab-grown salmon hits the menu smithsonianmag.com/smart-... · Posted by u/bookmtn

Klonoar · 7 days ago

If the cells came from salmon, and it's made to look like salmon, I don't particularly see why we can't call it salmon.

pstuart · 7 days ago

"cultivated" is a reasonable label for these things. So "cultivated salmon" is a concise and accurate description of what is being served.

pstuart commented on Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation npr.org/2025/08/16/nx-s1-... · Posted by u/geox

skort · 8 days ago

Why are we letting private companies own public infrastructure?

pstuart · 8 days ago

Because our political system is rigged to allow the wealthy to make the rules.