zem (u/zem) - Readit News

zem commented on Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools larr.net/p/namings.html... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

bitwize · 2 days ago

> Same thing applies to other fields like chemical engineering, where people there maintain even stricter discipline. IUPAC nomenclature ensures that 2,2,4-trimethylpentane describes exactly one molecule. No chemist wakes up and decides to call it “Steve” because Steve is a funny name and they think it’ll make their paper more approachable.

Ummmmm...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_compounds_wit...

"You sure 'bout dat? You sure 'bout dat?"

My favorite: there's a protein called "sonic hedgehog" that's essential to animal embryonic development. (All of the "hedgehog" family proteins would cause fruit flies to take on a spiky appearance when mutated, hence the name.) When chemists synthesized a drug that suppresses SHH protein's action, they named it "robotnikinin".

zem · a day ago

"windowpane" was my first thought :) such a lovely play on the "-ane" suffix

zem commented on Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools larr.net/p/namings.html... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

necovek · 2 days ago

Then Gimp is also a great name, right? GNU-is-not-Unix Image Manipulation Program: immediatelly obvious what it does as soon as you learn what the acronym stands for.

Or Gtk even: Gnu-is-not-Unix Image Manipulation Program ToolKit (later changed to refer to Gnome instead of Gimp I believe).

zem · a day ago

and gdk was, delightfully enough, the gnu's not unix image manipulation program toolkit drawing kit

zem commented on AI chatbots can sway voters with remarkable ease nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/marojejian

marojejian · 3 days ago

While I'm as paranoid about LLMs as the next HN'er, there are some silver linings to this research:

1) the LLMs mostly used factual information to influence people (vs. say emotional or social influence) 2) the fact were mostly accurate

I'm not saying we shouldn't worry. But I expected the results to be worse.

Overall, the interesting finding here is that that political opinions can be changed by new information at all. I'm curious how this effect would compare to comparably informed human discussions. I would not be surprised if the LLMs were more effect for at least two reasons:

1) Cost-efficiency, in terms of the knowledge required, and effort/skill to provide personalized arguments. 2) Reduction in the emotional barrier to changing your mind: people don't want to "lose" by being wrong about politics to someone else. But perhaps the machine doesn't trigger this social/tribal response.

Cited papers:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09771-9

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea3884

zem · 3 days ago

the scenario that worries me is "fox news but personalised", e.g. fox can run a dozen pieces on "immigrants are taking your jobs" but an LLM hooked into your google profile could generate an article on how "plumbers in nashville are being displaced by low-paid mexicans" that is specifically designed to make you personally fear for your job if the nazi du jour isn't elected.

zem commented on How Google Maps allocates survival across London's restaurants laurenleek.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/justincormack

zem · 4 days ago

super interesting project. I would love to generate a similar list for my own neighbourhood

zem commented on Show HN: Gemini Pro 3 imagines the HN front page 10 years from now dosaygo-studio.github.io/... · Posted by u/keepamovin

keeda · 4 days ago

I feel like your expectations have been swayed by the average sentiment of HN on the capabilities of LLMs. These things can be shockingly good at humour and satire.

As a very quick experiment, I would encourage you to have an AI roast you based on your HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42857604

zem · 4 days ago

haha, that's pretty hilarious :) score one for the LLMs.

zem commented on Show HN: Gemini Pro 3 imagines the HN front page 10 years from now dosaygo-studio.github.io/... · Posted by u/keepamovin

benbreen · 4 days ago

Was going to say - it would be fascinating to go a step further and have Gemini simulate the actual articles. That would elevate this to level of something like an art piece. Really enjoyed this, thank you for posting it.

I'm going to go ask Claude Code to create a functional HyperCard stack version of HN from 1994 now...

Edit: just got a working version of HyperCardHackerNews, will deploy to Vercel and post shortly...

zem · 4 days ago

I think it's perfect as it is, trying to expand the headlines into articles would belabour the joke too much.

zem commented on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain repebble.com/blog/meet-pe... · Posted by u/freshrap6

miyoji · 4 days ago

I'm not sure what other people's hands are like, but mine are pretty big and I can just barely push my thumb against the part of my index finger where I would wear a ring, and doing so renders my thumb useless for any of the opposable things that I usually use my hand for. It's also extremely uncomfortable for my hand and thumb. I've managed to press buttons on my watch with my hands full, but it would literally be impossible to activate this thing with my hands full.

I've worn rings, and they can rotate in place on the hand if they're not perfectly sized, and there aren't any half sizes here, so this would definitely rotate on my finger, making no guarantee that I can even reach the button without adjusting the ring with my other hand, or maybe awkwardly spinning it with my thumb until the button is in reach again.

And it only lasts for 10-15 hours of recording time. And there looks to be a cloud services upsell for better STT than the open source offering on device.

This seems like an early alpha version of something that might be a good idea, but as it is I can't imagine buying one.

zem · 4 days ago

I figured the button went on the side of your finger nearest the thumb, and you curled your hand into a loose fist to press it

zem commented on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain repebble.com/blog/meet-pe... · Posted by u/freshrap6

jbstack · 4 days ago

It's pretty bad when you consider that you have to limit it to just this use-case (3-6 second recordings 10-20 times a day), when it could have instead been useful for other things e.g. recording much longer thoughts or making notes while reading a book or watching a video.

Even for just the narrow use-case, 2 years is still pretty poor. I generally expect my tech to last a lot longer than that.

zem · 4 days ago

this seems to be optimised for the use case where you just want to record something quickly; if you wanted a longer recording session the up front overhead of pulling out a dictaphone or something wouldn't be too bad, and you would have better ergonomics than holding a button pressed and your hand to your face.

zem commented on Quanta to publish popular math and physics books by Terence Tao and David Tong simonsfoundation.org/2025... · Posted by u/digital55

srean · 5 days ago

I might be unusual in the sense that in my teens I absolutely adored Asimov as a writer of non-fiction rather than as a sci-fi author.

For the current generation, I never miss a chance to mention Gamow's non-fiction.

It's unfortunate that works of great non-fiction writers evaporate away from our cultural consciousness after their death.

It makes me sad that there will be a generation, or maybe it's already upon us, one that has not delighted in Martin Gardner.

zem · 5 days ago

martin gardner stood head and shoulders above everyone else for me, but asimov did indeed have some great works of non-fiction.

zem commented on Quanta to publish popular math and physics books by Terence Tao and David Tong simonsfoundation.org/2025... · Posted by u/digital55

srean · 5 days ago

Ha!

I did not know about this. Arthur C Clarke was indeed my favourite at that time (even now).

Asimov, however, killed it with his two goosebump-good shorts, Nightfall and Last Question.

zem · 5 days ago

brilliant stories both, but my two favourite asimov shorts are "profession" (I really, really love the trope that a regimented society depends on outcasts and outsiders for any sort of innovation) and "the martian way" (one of his more minor shorts, but it captures the joy and optimism of golden age solar system exploration fiction like nothing else I've read)