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Findecanor

2,855 karma · joined September 24, 2021

Fell in love with computing on the Amiga. Started programming in BASIC and assembly language, as you did in those days.

Multiple cancer survivor; Mechanical keyboard enthusiast; Prop replica collector; Technorealist; Vegetarian.

Unemployable: Recruiters are full of prejudice for unemployed people, which I was after my first cancer, which made me fall into a depression awaiting my cancer to come back. It did and I "survived". I'm looking forward to dying from the next cancer under a bridge somewhere. I just want to work in a righteous occupation, without taking part in exploiting people with gaming/phone/social media/AI addiction, or to be exploited myself. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

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Findecanor··on Bring back crappy forums
I'm on a few classic forums with threads that are over 20 years old, with a wealth of information about a topic.

It is easier to revisit a thread and find new posts when posts are in chronological order. Most such forums remember the last post of your last visit, and takes you to after that position the next time you enter the thread.

Tree views get tedious to revisit after they have reached a critical amount of posts, especially if subtrees can shift position from up/down-clicks. So threads with no revisits don't last as long.

Findecanor··on My Favorite Keyboards
Some enthusiasts have made custom PCBs for Topre and Niz switches, even columnar ergo. I've not seen the ErgoDox layout specifically, and I dunno how to source individual switches though.

There is also the XVX Whisper switch, with has a Topre-like mechanism for Hall Effect keyboards: with a magnet under the dome. You could buy pack of switches but reviews say it is mushier than Topre.

Findecanor··on 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech
But isn't there be a legal difference between a "conspiracy" that led to a bad situation and a "conspiracy to commit murder"?
Findecanor··on 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech
Isn't the purpose of zines to publish them? Then how could that even be considered concealment?
Findecanor··on Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
The world is not black and white and simple. Things could be taken out of context, and people tend to project.

People have got into trouble for having retold a controversial joke that they had heard, when the reason they retold had been because they themselves had been upset about it.

I too don't think that holocaust jokes should be accepted, but sometimes people say things because they don't know better at the time. There have been cases of people retelling "dog whistles" without having understood their contextual meaning for certain groups. I've even seen politicians use the phrase "Works sets you free" without understanding why it is inappropriate. People learn and change, but old posts can linger on the Internet for a long time.

Findecanor··on Epidurals are a miracle technology
I've woken up from surgery with an epidural that had a leak. That wasn't fun.

It made it emotionally difficult to get surgery again.

Findecanor··on How many of the 170k English words do you know?
I got an estimate of 70,550, from a score of 87/100 (20/18/16/17/16). Not native English speaker.

I suppose the words must be weighed, because other people in the thread with more correct words got a not much higher estimate.

Findecanor··on Commodore Releases Flip Phone
Unlike many flip phones, there is smartphone hardware inside capable of running Android apps — except that it is only a curated selection from Commodore's own app store.

The cost of running the app store is probably included.

Smaller production runs also mean higher price.

BTW, early adopters can get up to $100 off. (pre-order discount + discount code in the newsletter)

Findecanor··on Commodore Releases Flip Phone
I had expected it to remind me of a bread-bin C64. A little "cassette futurism". Design language is such a big part of branding.
Findecanor··on Ported my C game to WASM, here's every bug that I hit
WASM has a (pointer + i32) address mode, and the effective address is 33 bits. So WASM implementations use 8GB mappings ...
Findecanor··on Yserver: A modern X11 server written in Rust
How about making the standard client library's API the interface, and have it hide whatever the system is actually using?

A long time ago when I looked at designing a X11 replacement, that was my approach. AFAIK, only special X utilities used anything but Xlib anyway. And later I think this is what early revisions of Canonical's Mir did.

Findecanor··on Open source AI must win
There is no such thing as "Open Source AI". Open Source means that you respect copyright. The types of AI models that this web site refers to do not. Stop this nonsense!
Findecanor··on Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
I have recently begun to call myself a "technorealist". Technorealism is an old movement that I've found my existing views have been aligned with for some time. Technology is meant to serve man, and a solution that involves technology is not always the best one. We must consider the social and political aspects of technology, and discuss how it should best be applied before jumping headlong into using it. Solutions should be made to be sustainable in the long term, even when technology fails.

We've seen many applications of AI lately that aren't particularly sustainable, in several aspects.

Findecanor··on Meta's ships facial recognition on smart glasses
Meta had taken its name from the virtual world "Metaverse" in Neal Stephenson 1992 novel Snow Crash. The novel is the earliest known use of that word, so if it wasn't directly then it was indirectly.

The book also describes "Gargoyles": people using headsets with cameras and sensors to spy on everyone around them for the "Central Intelligence Corporation" while being also simultaneously in the Metaverse.

Funny, how the gargoyles are described in the book in a somewhat derogatory manner, and the villain of the story is an billionaire who owns a large Internet corporation.

At least the gargoyles in the book got paid.

Findecanor··on Meta's ships facial recognition on smart glasses
Sometimes I have wished I had a handheld EMP gun for such situations. What are they going to do? It would be harmless to living beings and leave no trace. Their device would simply stop working suddenly.
Findecanor··on Gooey: A GPU-accelerated UI framework for Zig
I have also found a UI framework in C++ with OpenGL named Gooey (2008-ish).

And in early 2000, I was in a mailing list for designing a successor/replacement to X11, code-named "Gooey" that never went anywhere.

Findecanor··on Chuwi Minibook X
TV signals (PAL and NTSC) were 50 and 60 Hz so as to be in sync with the flickering of electric lamps.

When film is converted to 50 Hz TV, the film is sped up 24->25 fps and every frame shown twice. When converted to 60 Hz TV, there is "2:3 pulldown": every even frame is shown twice, every odd thrice. (Actually, both PAL and NTSC have interlaced video modes, with only every other line updated each frame, so as to conserve bandwidth.)

BTW, when 60 Hz computer monitors were introduced in Europe and used in office spaces with fluorescent lights with passive ballasts that flickered at 50 Hz, some sensitive users suffered headaches from using the computer screen for too long. These days, both fluorescent lights and LCD backlights tend to flicker at much higher frequencies that it isn't much of a problem.

Findecanor··on Mysteries of the Griffin iMate
On ADB keyboards with two Command keys, both keys result in the same code being sent — so it is impossible for a converter to distinguish between them.

I have seen that on the AEKII the two keys' switches are even electrically connected on the circuit board.

Findecanor··on Algebraic Effects for the Rest of Us
Good article! I've been struggling to grasp what these new "effects" were.

When I had been in university twenty years ago, I had constructed a language with "effects" as I had understood them then: side-effects annotations. I could not in my head recognise how the new effects were like those I had read about in the literature back then.

More recently, I've been working on a compiler back-end/runtime in my (too much) free time with support for resumable exceptions. I didn't know it before, but after reading this article, it appears that the runtime actually does have support for "effects", without me really trying.

Findecanor··on YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos
There are several Chrome extensions for turning that off automatically, but I agree: you should not have to need extensions to use YouTube.
Findecanor··on Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers
BTW, SAAB did produce cars from 1949. General Motors bought 51% of SAAB Automobile in 1990, and it was defunct in 2016.
Findecanor··on Theseus: Translating Win32 to WASM
When I clicked, I thought this was going to be about the Theseus operating system [0]. Running win32 programs on it would have been ... interesting.

It too uses WASM, but for running non-Rust programs in sandboxes. Everything else is Rust. Hmm.. Last updated in 2024 though.

0: https://github.com/theseus-os/Theseus

Findecanor··on Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
You can't tell whether a polyp is cancerous or not before you have removed it, sent it to the lab and got the results back.

Therefore, all polyps should be removed. (Sending them all to the lab might be superfluous though)

Findecanor··on Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
Some people have turned vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free for health reasons, but substituted foods for other foods with additives that may come with their own health risks.

Methyl cellulose is in gluten-free bread and in most fake meat products.

Some emulsifiers are found in mayo, other sauces and "ice cream". Not just vegan brands, but overall.

Findecanor··on Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
It is likely that your friend could have a genetic disposition for colon cancer. He should get a gene test once he has recovered.

I was the same age. My doctor saw signs in an early blood test, and followed it up so mine got detected relatively early. My test was positive for Lynch syndrome, and I am now a colonoscopy veteran.

Findecanor··on Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
There are brands of "mayo" and other products that contain some emulsifying agents that have been observed to deteriorate the mucus membrane in the colon, and that effect is believed to increase the risk of colon cancer.

I haven't heard about any risk with the natural emulsifier in egg yolk though.

Findecanor··on Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
There are slow-acting laxatives that you have to drink a lot of and tastes wile but is soft on the intestines, and then there is quick-acting laxative that is easier to get down. The former tends to be prescribed by default, obviously.

If you have no prior intestinal diseases and are in for a routine check, ask for the quick-acting one. You will have to drink the same total amount of liquid, but at least most of it will not be drinks of your choosing.

Also get anal cream, and apply it once before going to the toilet.

Findecanor··on Stockholm poised to become leading European geospatial intel player
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esrange

They have not launched anything into orbit yet though. Only high-altitude probes.

Findecanor··on Magnifica Humanitas
I would not take solace in IPCC retiring a scenario. Their predictions are based on conservative aggregates of existing science, and have always been considered by many in the climate science community to be underestimating climate change.
Findecanor··on Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
Many Youtube-to-mp3 sites exist, though.
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