saulpw (u/saulpw) - Readit News

saulpw commented on Ask HN: How do you handle release notes for multiple audiences? · Posted by u/glidr_dev

saulpw · 10 hours ago

It's a funnel of sorts:

- The git commit log is the raw material. We try to have clean commits, but it's as messy as it is.

- This gets compiled into CHANGELOG.md at release time; we include all functionality and bugfixes, basically anything that any user or non-team dev might be interested or care about. But if some feature required multiple commits, we only include one line item for it. And if a feature gets reverted, we don't include both the feature and the reversion (that would be very confusing). This is for posterity.

- From the CHANGELOG we gather the "important subset" for the github release notes; this includes all features and major bugfixes, but only major API additions or changes. This has "see the CHANGELOG[link] for the full list of changes" at the bottom. This is for developers and users who follow us on github and are therefore more dev-savvy.

- From these release notes we produce the website release notes. This includes a complete list of new features, options, and commands, and important bugfixes (ones that a user might have experienced and would compel them to upgrade). But not any API changes unless it was a topline item for this release. This is for users and links back to the CHANGELOG.

- From the release webpage we pull highlights for social media, which link back to the release webpage.

We can always target different groups on social media with different subsets of functionality, but linking back up through the funnel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for people who are more interested in the details.

saulpw commented on Senator endorses discredited book that claims chemical treats autism, cancer propublica.org/article/ro... · Posted by u/duxup

antiration · 2 days ago

You can certainly side with Descartes and believe in rationalism, or you can study David Hume and understand those beliefs for what they are.

You can still have and respect beliefs, but distinguishing fact from belief is purely in the realm of philosophical debate. That doesn’t mean you have to accept absence of absolute truth or facts, but there is much we don’t know and that we think we know but we don’t, and that is logical and illogical. Life is dichotomy.

saulpw · 2 days ago

There is a huge chasm between superstition and transcendence. Rationality is limited, to be sure, but I'll take it over MAHA and tariffs any day.

saulpw commented on Senator endorses discredited book that claims chemical treats autism, cancer propublica.org/article/ro... · Posted by u/duxup

gibralterwassel · 2 days ago

With respect, I think that’s a stretch.

Scientific method is practical. Scientific fact is a belief system, not unlike religion. This doesn’t undermine science, it’s just stating what these things are. Scientific belief can be helpful.

These silly beliefs though can be harmful as is the case with Chlorine Dioxide and that horse deworming medicine they said would cure Covid.

Don’t confuse or try to link these things together. The reason that the government is now full of idiots is that people voted those idiots in. It wasn’t due to clarity that science is part belief system.

saulpw · 2 days ago

Why do you think people voted these idiots in? In large part it's due to a distrust of science and rationality, "the system of the elites". Don't tell me that I need to vaccinate my kids! I'll cure my pancreatic cancer naturopathologically.

saulpw commented on The highest quality codebase gricha.dev/blog/the-highe... · Posted by u/Gricha

tayo42 · 3 days ago

How do you end up with 3 to 4 languages in one project?

saulpw · 3 days ago

Typescript on the frontend, Python on the backend, SQL for the database, bash for CI. This isn't even counting HTML/CSS or the YAML config.

saulpw commented on Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands newyorker.com/magazine/20... · Posted by u/rbanffy

phantasmish · 4 days ago

If things aren't close they don't need to be counted.

It's a fact of voting that most folks can vote in every election they can for their entire lives and never make any difference whatsoever, as in, change zero outcomes.

We have social pressure and propaganda otherwise to get people to do it, because if too many people rationally stay home then the system works poorly (in aggregate, that does change outcomes). It'd be much better to just mandate voting, because it is individually irrational and it's not great to base a system on tricking everyone into behaving irrationally.

This feels different because they're not bothering to even count them, but it's not materially different from any voting.

(barring the "sometimes not even counted then" part, of course)

saulpw · 3 days ago

I do understand that, in principle. But having a mathematical reason to let some 'difficult' votes go uncounted gives ammunition to those who would put political pressure on vote counting for their advantage, while also making people in general feel disenfranchised. (We have a huge problem with turnout in the US in general, and the message you're presenting only adds fuel to that!) This is why I wrote "sometimes not even counted then", because we do have a kind of apathy towards these small and easily disenfranchisable groups, and once you open it a crack, it becomes easier for some partisan to drive a wedge into it (see Bush v Gore 2000).

Also, it's a mistake to think that the only result of voting is to produce the winner of the election. The margin matters also. A politician winning by a large margin (or even a majority) can claim a 'mandate'; one who only wins by a plurality will have more spirited opposition.

We've seen this in the most recent US election; imagine if small percentage of those who didn't vote in the solid blue states because their vote didn't matter (a refrain I've heard from many people) actually voted, and Trump swept the swing states but lost the popular vote. The entire political landscape would be different, and we might even have momentum in the coming years to abolish the Electoral College.

So if we are fans of liberal democracy, we should be doing everything in our power to structure the system to make people feel as though their voice and vote matters.

saulpw commented on Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands newyorker.com/magazine/20... · Posted by u/rbanffy

wing-_-nuts · 4 days ago

??? Tons of US citizens vote from abroad every year?

saulpw · 4 days ago

They are provisional ballots, not counted unless things are close. And sometimes not even counted then.

saulpw commented on The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat anandsanwal.me/ai-educati... · Posted by u/LouisLazaris

banbangtuth · 4 days ago

Why not just let it be survival of the fittest? Those who are lazy will continue to be lazy. Those who are determined will continue to be determined. We don't need to help everyone, especially those who don't want to help themselves. If they want to suffer financially in the future because they are being lazy now, oh well, it can't be helped.

saulpw · 4 days ago

The lazy and stupid but rich will out-survive the industrious and smart but poor.

saulpw commented on We Need to Die willllliam.com/blog/why-w... · Posted by u/ericzawo

SoftTalker · 4 days ago

Yes, immortality would be imprisonment. An eternity in this existence with no escape.

It's also the ultimate equalizer. Everyone is born, everyone dies. There's no amount of wealth, luck, work, or misfortune that happens in life that changes this. We all end up as dust.

saulpw · 4 days ago

And it goes beyond humans: everything that arises must cease.

This is one of the three foundations of existential intelligence (or wisdom).

saulpw commented on The AI wildfire is coming. it's going to be painful and healthy ceodinner.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/LordAtlas

dmix · 7 days ago

VC is inherently high risk capital. It's by design most companies will fail or at most break even via acquisitions/acquihires, while a small few make investors massive amounts of money.

The only real difference this time around is all of the datacenters being built. There's real hard asset costs making it much riskier and capital intensive.

saulpw · 7 days ago

The big difference this time around is that this 'high risk capital' isn't a small amount, it's 1-10% of the entire economy.

saulpw commented on Pink Lexical Slime: The Dark Side of Autocorrect (2017) cyberdemon.org/2017/12/12... · Posted by u/dmazin

pixelpoet · 15 days ago

> Without it, typing on a smartphone would be exceedingly difficult.

I've never understood this argument, and never use autocorrect. The phone has a screen and a delete key, fukkin' use them!

Anyone blaming autocorrect for their errors is just lying to themselves about simply being uninterested in reading what they write. Everyone makes typos, there's no need to be a victim and blame autocorrect for human error, pretending as if they actually do know the difference between there and they're and their when they obviously don't.

The worst part is how everyone gets so insulted when people don't buy their obvious lie. Come on dude, it's all over "you're" writing and it's insulting to me that you think I can't tell the difference between a simple mistake and your not knowing better.

/rant, at no one in particular, but also pretty much 9/10ths of native English speakers on the internet.

saulpw · 9 days ago

Elle Cordova - "Autocorrect - we have a live/hate relationship"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtOgnq8lLtw