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Perenti

632 karma · joined January 23, 2019

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Perenti··on America.gov
Here in Oz there is a long tradition of calling Americans "septics" from rhyming slang. "Septic Tank" -> "Yank".

The current US Government has added a whole new level of meaning to the slang, as a septic tank is typically full of shit.

Perenti··on Suspension of the de minimis administrative exemption for imports $800 or less
The hoops you poor Americans have to jump through to get affordable health care is ridiculous in what is presented as a developed nation.
Perenti··on Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
All the comments I see are about is it two organs, or a composite organ.

Surely the interesting thing is the ability to grow hindbrain cells in vitreo. That's what's potentially going to lead to the cure of lots of things, not whether 1=2.

Perenti··on The first new cat species discovered in 100 years
I don't think they'll hybridise - Leopardus has 36 Chromosomes, while all other cats have 38.
Perenti··on No Man's Sky Cosmos
I have over 3500 hours logged on Steam for NMS, and at 65 hours you have barely scratched the surface. Like many open world sandbox games, you have to make yourself goals. If you want a nice guided "start here" to "finish there" type game NMS is not for you.
Perenti··on Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
I noticed the figures seemed odd. The causes of female mortality are just plain wrong. The top two causes of female death post-puberty were domestic violence and childbirth related. Neither are listed in the "top mortality" table.

Slop.

Perenti··on DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813
Graphs without labels and/or scales on the axes are useless. I know less after viewing that page than before, but I got to see some pretty lines that I guess must mean something.
Perenti··on 'Every millimetre counts': Inside the beast tunnelling under Sydney Harbour
Thank you.
Perenti··on Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's
How many elderly Taxi drivers die of traffic accident? Perhaps the job is culling the Alzheimer's sufferers before other symptoms and signs arise?
Perenti··on Our position on open-weights models
What this document suggests is a way to fast-track Chinese development of advanced silicon, as far as I can see. Does Anthropic really believe all the silicon is made in the USA? I thought Taiwan and Korea did most of the really heavy lifting.
Perenti··on “We have information that Moonshot distilled Fable for the development of K3”
Yes, China stole the recipe for pasta and noodles from America. China stole gunpowder from America. China stole printing from America. China stole the idea of paper money from America. China stole the idea of entry exams from America. China stole the invention of the rocket from America. Seriously, do you really believe this American Bubble bullshit that everything of value was invented in the USA?
Perenti··on Apricot Computers: An underrated British brand
I recall announcements in 1984 that Apricot were building a m68k machine. I was very excited at the time. I never heard if it ever really happened though.
Perenti··on Claude Code is steganographically marking requests
To be honest, my first thought was also that the line between how the US treats its citizens and how China does theirs is very fine. You may not be aware of how the USA is represented outside the USA.

Quite a lot of serious people think this way, in many parts of the world.

Perenti··on Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development
If you're not good at prompting yet, that $10 doesn't go very far. The local model allows me to learn what works and what doesn't without paying for tokens. Then when I know how not to waste them, I'll try a paid model.
Perenti··on A glitch in February of the year 0
In a zero based array type language. In pascal I believe arrays can start where you want them to as in "array[-10..10] of integer". It's been a while though.

There is no year zero. Trying to compute with one is almost certainly an error. Trying to work with it is like dividing by zero - it does not make sense.

The year "1" was originally a Julian Date. Using a Gregorian Date before the calendar was introduced is almost certainly an error.

For ancient things, use Before Present, where I believe Present is defined to be sometime in 1950 or there about. For "modern" things (varying definitions of modern) use a sensible format/calendar that works in your database.

Perenti··on White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report
In my experience, ringing the AEC and saying "I thought I might have flu, and thought it best to avoid crowds" is enough to save AUD$50.

A huge difference between here in Oz and there in the USA _as I see it_ is that we are conditioned to vote, whilst you are conditioned to vote if you care enough. The fine here is just enough to be annoying, and given the streamlined process at most polling places (you still get queues) it's usually much less hassle to go to the local polling place (town hall or primary school usually) for half an hour. Given the existence of early polling and postal votes there's really not much excuse for _not_ voting unless you're religiously opposed - although I have avoided fines by calling ill-health.

Perenti··on New drug 'functionally cures' many hepatitis B virus infections
I'm pretty sure that if the virus and its DNA are undetectable then you can't spread it. I believe that's how it works with HIV anyway.
Perenti··on VibeOS: First ever AI-native operating system
If it can't run on the metal, is it really an OS that's "native"? Surely an "AI-native" OS runs the AI in ring zero? Is a dockerfile the same as an OS? Always?

These are serious questions, about what is surely not a serious project.

Perenti··on Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
I got six a few times at High School. Compared to the beatings at home they were kinda weak. But I guess it'd freak out kids who had never been beaten.

I can't see the threat of three strikes with a cane on the bum over clothes, or on the hand being any kind of disincentive to a determined trouble-maker. I do think the _threat_ of corporal punishment does help keep some kids on the straight and narrow, but I don't think it'll deter people like I was - terribly angry teens.

Perenti··on US will start revoking passports for parents who owe child support
I've been told that American's have a very low rate of passport issuance. I don't know if that's true, but the figure quoted was only 10% of adults hold passports. Is this a really effective way to get people to pay for their kids, or just the appearance of doing something to quiet the voters?
Perenti··on Tell HN: I'm sick of AI everything
I just wish it did what it said on the tin. Seriously, separating the hype from the reality is so time consuming.
Perenti··on Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD
I've always been suspicious of the claims THC helps anxiety. CBD may, but my experience is that high doses of THC without corresponding CBD tends to induce anxiety in many people. I also found the brief notes in the article about MMJ and autism intriguing. I'm diagnosed ASD. I would think the use of THC to manage overstimulation could be problematic, as it tends to make colors and sounds and flavours _more_ intense. Conversely, indica strains tend to slow you down.

DISCLOSURE: I use large amounts of high potency cannabis flower with CBD/CBG edibles for intractable neuropathic pain. I also smoked a hell of a lot of weed in my 20s and 30s. I've more experience of Pot than most. MMJ lowers my pain a bit, and reduces suffering a lot. Its the suffering that makes life difficult.

Perenti··on Launch HN: Captain (YC W26) – Automated RAG for Files
You're welcome. By the way, as an AIdiot, anything that makes RAG less brittle is good.
Perenti··on Launch HN: Captain (YC W26) – Automated RAG for Files
Just a note on the website, I thought at first my browser had been hijacked by a shipping or travel agent. The first impression is how AI has improved ship tracking, so you can now track ships with 98% accuracy, with little to no hint this is AI infrastructure until you scroll down.

If you know what Captain is, this is not an issue. I closed the browser tab at first, thinking "what the hell is this, I don't give a damn about shipping forecasts"

Perenti··on Shall I implement it? No
This relates to my favorite hatred of LLMs:

"Let me refactor the foobar"

and then proceeds to do it, without waiting to see if I will actually let it. I minimise this by insisting on an engineering approach suitable for infrastructure, which seem to reduce the flights of distraction and madly implementing for its own sake.

Perenti··on Aura-State: Formally Verified LLM State Machine Compiler
Interesting. Seems you are automating my qwen workflow. Every output stage is verified through mathematical proof whenever possible, before being fed to the next step in transforming ideas into code. Except for when qwen decides to go in a very unusual direction, its working reasonably well at producing provably correct code. It's slowish though, with lots of nested iterations, and when qwen goes strange it takes a lot of effort to get it back on task.
Perenti··on Smalltalk's Browser: Unbeatable, yet Not Enough
You can run any smalltalk code from workspace-style frames in the Inspector, Workspace, Explorer, Finder and Debugger. You can edit classes and methods in these windows, as well as spawn Browsers as desired. I'm not sure what the integration points are that are lacking. That's not to say there can't be a better way, but I cannot see the point he is making.
Perenti··on Why does C have the best file API
It may have a tidy mmap api, but Smalltalk has a much better file api through its Streams hierarchy IMHO. You can create a stream on a diskfile, you can create a stream on a byteArray, you can create a stream on standard Unix streams, you can create a stream on anything where "next" makes sense.
Perenti··on A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
Will this only apply to an OS with human user accounts? I wonder how autonomous agents that are operating systems running on bare hardware are defined under this strange law. Not all OS are for humans. Consider many uni-kernel applications.
Perenti··on A Nationwide Book Ban Bill Has Been Introduced in the House of Representatives
Could you claim any book with boys being different to girls breaches the sex talk rules? I'm just wondering how you could use this law to show how ridiculous it is.
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