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TazeTSchnitzel

27,169 karma · joined February 4, 2012

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TazeTSchnitzel··on Needed 1+1, built a functional programming language
This sounds a bit like Smalltalk! But with partial application…

It also reminds me of the Emily programming language: https://github.com/mcclure/emily/blob/stable/doc/tutorial.md

TazeTSchnitzel··on Climate is accumulating 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs worth of heat per second
I guess that demonstrates the concept of “a drop in the ocean”, but turning a massacre of civilians into a unit of energy feels crass at best.
TazeTSchnitzel··on The Lost Atomic Update on Loongson CPU
> The fix is to set bit 13 of MCSR24 to 1. MCSR24 is an internal CSR whose function is not described in the manual. After setting this bit, the lost update no longer occurs. Testing showed the performance loss is very small: single-core performance is unaffected, and multi-core performance drops only slightly.

Presumably this is a so-called “chicken bit”.

TazeTSchnitzel··on International observers to investigate Swedish election fraud
“Clan voting” and “mosque voting” are terms that try to exoticise the phenomenon with a racial overtone. I don't think they are conducive to a healthy discussion. There's an in-built assumption in those terms that these voters are only voting a certain way due to some kind of special “foreign” type of social relation that Swedes without immigrant backgrounds would not have. This plays into prejudice and is not necessarily supported by the evidence. It also presupposes a particular conclusion.

I think you can be concerned about voters with low levels of education and poor socio-economic circumstances being pressured to vote one way or another without immediately framing it in this racialised way. Why must it be a “clan”? Does such a concept even have a clear definition? Wouldn't Swedes with a Somali background perhaps be inclined to support someone else who is also Somali if they happened to be a candidate for political office, as they would feel represented by them? How do we know they are from the same “clan” and not just the same country? Are Sweden Finns who vote for Sweden Finnish candidates “clan voters”?

Similarly I can point out that mosques are not special. If someone is influenced in how they choose to vote by what they hear at church, are they a “church voter”? Remember that religious institutions are often at the centre of social life in certain communities.

TazeTSchnitzel··on International observers to investigate Swedish election fraud
It looks like the OP is determined to push a certain narrative about election fraud being pivotal in the 2026 Swedish election.

I think in that context it should be pointed out that the 2026 election was not particularly remarkable. It went from a 2-seat majority for the liberal-conservative bloc to a 2-seat majority for the liberal-left bloc (there's two different liberal centrist parties, one in each bloc… Sweden's a funny place). There was a mere 0.67 percentage point increase in turnout from last election. Some of that may be from recently naturalised citizens, who according to polling are somewhat more likely to vote for the left-leaning parties (not strange given those parties are less hostile to immigrants). But the biggest change in this election is the 3.05 percentage point drop in support for the most right-wing anti-immigrant party. I don't think you need to resort to accusations of fraud to explain that one: the anti-establishment populists have been in power for the first time ever, and been forced to compromise. It's not surprising that voters become a bit less enthusiastic. But only marginally: this was an election won on a single-percentage-point swing. If there's been large-scale fraud here, it's very very subtle.

TazeTSchnitzel··on International observers to investigate Swedish election fraud
Whoa there, hold your horses:

- There's an ongoing investigation into alleged election fraud, which has not yet proven anything

- The candidate himself is not even a suspect in that investigation

- The candidate is known to have had some contacts with Somali government officials in the past, but no relation to this election is alleged by said investigation

- So far, it doesn't sound like they even have actual evidence any fraud took place (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/senaste-nytt-om-val-2026?...)

I believe in innocent until proven guilty. Remember that political opponents might have an incentive to fabricate allegations.

TazeTSchnitzel··on International observers to investigate Swedish election fraud
Sweden uses a party list proportional representation system. Seats are allocated based on how many votes a party gets, and they are allocated to parties first. The selection of who then sits in those seats then comes down to ”personröster” (literally “person-votes”, but I think they're conventionally translated as “preferential votes” or something like that), which are optional. Most voters do not put a cross next to their preferred candidate, they just put the party ballot paper in the envelope and the envelope goes in the box. And because they're optional, there's therefore a threshold for how many personröster a candidate has to receive to be elected. That threshold is 5% of voters in the particular electoral district. Only candidates that get more than 5% of votes are even considered in this process; if there's none (or not enough), then the candidates from the party list are taken.

The seat would have gone to the Left Party either way. But only this guy specifically got enough personal support to get elected. There's nothing that crazy about it. Participative democracy rewards those who choose to participate. In this case, it's a two-tier participation system. People who vote for a party, but not for a specific candidate, are letting the people who do vote for a specific candidate choose for them. And that's fine.

TazeTSchnitzel··on The US 'Kill Chain' That Destroyed an Iranian School
This article from back in March correctly predicted that the problem was, essentially, Palantir: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...
TazeTSchnitzel··on Grand MS-DOS Gaming General MIDI Showdown
> Although not perfect, [Sound Canvas VA] is the closest recreation of the original SC-55 in software form as of 2023.

Ah, this submission should have a “(2023)” added to the title. In 2024, Nuked-SC55 (https://github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SC55) was released, which is a fully accurate software emulation of the SC-55/SC-55mkII (it relies on having the original ROM files).

TazeTSchnitzel··on The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021
FrontPage didn't generate your content for you! So there was no reason to assume a FrontPage page might be meaningless just from how it looked. For AI-generated sites, though, if the page looks like slop, is it worth bothering to figure out if it actually is slop? It's not like they're uncorrelated variables. Sure, occasionally it won't be. But I'm drowning here. I must simply assume that if someone is serious about conveying a message, they won't package it in this form.

I don't think it's even gatekeeping. You could copy-paste two tables and write two sentences into a Word document and export to HTML, one of the laziest possible ways to produce a website, and it'd still be less off-putting because it doesn't have the association with slop content.

TazeTSchnitzel··on The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021
You could be presenting the most carefully-researched information in the world, but with such an obviously vibecoded site I'm not going to attempt to read it.
TazeTSchnitzel··on What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?
The account named "Administrator" that Windows created for you always had the chess piece.
TazeTSchnitzel··on What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?
The "Windows Classic" look on XP is exceptionally ugly, because those 3D-rendered icons just do not belong on a Windows 2000-style grey background for menus or buttons. (I have recently had to test both these OSes in VMs…)
TazeTSchnitzel··on AI Cold Showers
There's such an avalanche of blogposts on HN constantly saying relatively similar things about AI, that it would be really nice if they were all just filtered down into lists like this occasionally.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Visualizing Rust's Vtables: How dyn Trait Works In Memory
I'm not sure if this quite answers your question, but the difference in philosophy here is that C++ objects with pointers always have identity, whereas a Rust object only has identity if it has a non-zero size. It's an application of the zero-overhead principle, "you only pay for what you use".
TazeTSchnitzel··on Gmail to end support for "Send as" for third-party addresses, such as @yahoo.com
…but make sure you keep on top of your domain renewals, make sure they can renew automatically, and make sure there is a backup email address that isn't on your domain that can be used to get into your domain registrar account.

(You probably don't need to ask how I know. I am very lucky that there was a grace period after my domain expired, where I spent a few days not realising why I wasn't receiving any email any more.)

TazeTSchnitzel··on Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business
https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/searc...

GNIS, Geographic Names Information System

(Which still shows Lake Ontario for me as I write this. The body of water along the US's southern coast is Gulf of America however.)

TazeTSchnitzel··on Euphemisation of Taboo Areas (2023) [pdf]
This is fun to read, but there are some odd quirks to the text that I would hope wouldn't slip past an editor, and the way some of the Christian aspects are talked about feels bizarrely partisan for an academic text (it gives the impression the author might be Catholic). I wonder if it is just clumsiness.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat
The EU is responsible for a lot more than that once you factor in emissions in other countries producing goods bought by people and businesses in EU countries.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal
The person I'm replying to doesn't seem to think so. I'm imagining this concept of addiction requires some level of craving, which I don't believe you get with SSRIs.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Get your Windows license refund
Because the quoted price for their laptops always includes Windows, the option to configure and remove the Windows license is effectively a discount for alternative OS users. :)
TazeTSchnitzel··on Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal
> It's not right to call it withdrawal. These drugs are not addictive like benzos or alcohol are.

What does “not addictive” matter? Clearly, SSRIs are something that induce a dependency, because the withdrawal symptoms are horrific. A drug doesn't need to give you a high to create a dependency problem.

> If any symptom reappears it's just that the mental disease most usually changed form after so long time.

How do you know that? This is a problem with some other kinds of psychiatric medications too (certain antipsychotics for example), the reckless assumption that anything that happens after cessation of the drug was just an underlying symptom that the drug had suppressed. That could be the case, but you mustn't just take it for granted.

I think most worrying is the cases where a drug has only a placebo effect until the point of withdrawal. If your underlying bias is towards assuming the drug is effective, then the disaster following withdrawal might make you think the drug was holding it back this whole time. But in fact, the drug may have caused the entire harm.

TazeTSchnitzel··on U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
That's not a renewal. It's fairly standard for EU countries to require being outside the country to apply for a visa or residence permit when it is your first one, or (in some cases) when changing the type of visa or permit. But renewals never need you to leave.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2
I know those from growing up with QBASIC and EDIT.COM, but I think the only software I've used that actually supports them is the Windows conhost (the default UI for command-line apps).
TazeTSchnitzel··on Windows 95 released August 24, 1995
The way Windows 95 could use DOS device drivers despite being 32-bit was fairly incredible. I think that fooled a lot of people into thinking it really was running on top of DOS, when in reality, once it has booted, the reverse is the case. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24...
TazeTSchnitzel··on Show HN: Built my 15-year-old game idea
Speculative comment about the subject from user who has not clicked the link
TazeTSchnitzel··on Frustrated GP patients hang up as Yorkshire accent baffles AI receptionist
GP surgeries in the UK are privately owned, their relationship with the NHS is contractual. It would not be surprising if they can buy whatever B2B SaaS they feel like.
TazeTSchnitzel··on Incident with Github.com
Twitter is a shadow of what it once was. The design of the site has shifted very very hard in favour of being an algorithmic content soup rather than a social network in the traditional sense. This has juiced the engagement numbers but there's a lot less meaning to them now. (I can say all this because I am a bitter holdout who still tries to use the site to have conversations with people and form personal connections. Tragically it still offers something that Bluesky and the Fediverse do not, even if that thing is slowly but surely being smothered out.)
TazeTSchnitzel··on I built a browser-native SysEx librarian for 80s/90s synthesizers
So have many other people. What makes yours special? The vibecoding? The sloppy marketing site is really off-putting.

I'd honestly be curious what those “83+ vintage & modern synths” are but you don't even provide a list…

Also, what the hell is a “Hex-to-ASCII Parser”…

TazeTSchnitzel··on Why MySpace fans want it back as relaunch hinted
They can try to bring back something resembling the MySpace experience, but they can't bring back the millions of songs they deleted in 2018 with no backup. That was a great crime against modern music history.
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