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cout

1,389 karma · joined December 11, 2009

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cout··on PipePipe: NewPipe hard fork implementing SponsorBlock
I don't find ads tedious at all. In fact, since I grew up with ads on tv, I miss them. The commercial break was a scheduled time to get a snack, go to the bathroom, get a snack, etc. Today's platforms put the ad breaks in such awkward spots that doing those things is a lot less natural. IMO, it's not the ads that after the problem; it's the way they are used.
cout··on Lotus Notes and the dangers of starting from scratch
What? F3 should be help and F7 is exit. That's what the WP keyboard template says and I'm sticking to it.
cout··on How I use LLMs to learn complex topics
I use the LLM to point me at relevant books and papers. But there is still a trust problem: I am trusting the LLM to point me at reliable, trustworthy sources.

I'm not sure I'm better off with humans though -- I'm not qualified to judge whether a source is a proper authority, not an I qualified to judge whether someone knows enough to point me to a reliable source.

It seems this is a fundamental epistemological problem to which there may never be an answer.

cout··on Show HN: I simulated closing the Strait of Hormuz on real oil trade data
Can you explain the France paradox?
cout··on My thoughts on the Bun Rust rewrite
I got the opposite impression from reading the post. Perhaps this is a Goldilocks situation?
cout··on Semiclassical Gravity Efficiently Solves NP-Complete Problems
I agree. To me it's more interesting that there exists a physical process that performs a Fourier transform than that there could exist such a process. If it can be done on pen and paper, it's already proven that it can be done in a physical system, since the pen and paper are physical.
cout··on The back cover of C++: The Language raises questions not answered by front cover
Yes.
cout··on The back cover of C++: The Language raises questions not answered by front cover
Occasionally there are some real treats in those snippets. I remember being floored when Trinity exploited a real ssh v1 bug in Matrix Reloaded.
cout··on U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse
I think that attitude may change if there is ever an EV that could be competitive in a NASCAR event. For now, the closest we are likely to see is a hybrid, because EVs don't have enough range.
cout··on Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground
Are you sure you aren't underestimating human capacity for stupidity?
cout··on Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang
Would it be sufficient to have a second stream of tokens that becomes the model's equivalent of "internal dialogue"? Would that satisfy the requirement of a boundary line?

Related, is a human "thinking out loud" still thinking, even though the internal reasoning is "immediately dumped into the external environment"?

cout··on Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang
How would someone know whether one has a soul or not? Is there any sort of introspection that can reveal the presence of a soul or any of its properties?
cout··on Chuwi Minibook X
Sounds like you got a lemon. I also have an X1 carbon, and it's been a great upgrade for me. My biggest complaint is the eraser isn't as easy to use as my old toshiba. The eraser is important to me -- my hand gets numb using a trackpad.
cout··on Chuwi Minibook X
I feel the same way. I had a eee and later a Samsung netbook, but eventually ordinary laptops got light enough that a netbook is now just a laptop with a smaller screen. I'll always have a soft spot for them, but I doubt I'll use one again as a daily driver.
cout··on IXI's autofocusing lenses are almost ready to replace multifocal glasses
I don't need to be able to read my dash. I only need to see where the needle is pointing.
cout··on Anthropic forms $200M partnership with the Gates Foundation
Blame Rush Limbaugh and others for conflating them in the 90s.

I don't know if people generally know the difference before that, but personally it's only been recently that I've been exposed to sources that distinguish between left and liberal.

cout··on Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes
There is the 16-bit Geoworks Ensemble (PC/GEOS), at least.
cout··on What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
When I hear the word bloke I think of Andy Capp. Not sure if he ever used it in the comic strip though.
cout··on Nuclear receptor 4A1 linked to health effects of coffee: study
While what you say is true, people carrying extra weight are often prediabetic and should be watching sugar/carb intake in the morning when blood glucose levels are already rising without food. That also happens to be one of the most popular times of day to consume fruit, which is why choosing a fruit with a lower glycemic index (or load) at breakfast is importance.
cout··on Nuclear receptor 4A1 linked to health effects of coffee: study
Yep, every method brings out a different nuance of coffee flavor, and any true coffee snob will likely own half a dozen or more items for brewing coffee.
cout··on Nuclear receptor 4A1 linked to health effects of coffee: study
Are you saying that non-Parkinson's patients are taking L-DOPA as a supplement? If so, that's nuts.

Also dopamine is a precursor to noradrenaline, and serotonin levels are affected by numerous drugs, the most popular of which are antidepressants. That "supplements" for these neurotransmitters has more to do with how effectively they cross the blood-brain barrier and how they might disrupt the gut, since many chemicals in the brain do double duty through functions in both brain and gut.

cout··on Ghostty is leaving GitHub
I have the same complaint about lastpass. With lastpass it's doable, but I have to keep looking up how to configure a site to never site and never ask.
cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
The situation today is at least better than it used to be before OBDII. I much prefer using a scanner to get codes then having to count flashing lights. And back then you'd still have to pay a lot for the manufacturer's code reader. The only advantage was the ROM was small enough to disassemble and reflash with new features. I would not want to do that on a car made in 2026.
cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
While I agree in principle, we went two or more decades with cars powered by microcontrollers, and I don't recall any manufacturers trying to charge for licenses until more recently. There is something fundamentally different about the economy we are now in, I suspect.
cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
Lawnmowers are usually four-stroke, with two-stroke engines reserved for lighter tools like string trimmers and chainsaws.

I would still guess that lawnmowers produce more emissions overall, given that there are so many more mowers than tractors. But they get used less often than tractors, so who knows? Either way, I agree with your thinking process, that the most economical way to reduce overall emissions is to focus on what are actually producing the bulk of emissions.

I don't know how much better cars and trucks can get, and for mowers maybe electric is the answer. Mine is gas-powered, and I know it runs rich. I would love to come inside after mowing and not smell like fuel, so I'm in favor of better emissions controls on mowers.

cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
I wonder if this notion comes from the 80s, when engines with turbos had lower compression ratios for reliability. Today's turbocharged motors have higher compression ratios than in the malaise era, and the turbos have a lot less lag. Turbos no longer mean you have to sacrifice fuel economy for performance (unless you have a lead foot).
cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
Compare the number of tractors to the number of gas-powered lawnmowers. Which do you think gets better emissions?
cout··on Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
How do you define "electronics" and "computers"? Is a general-purpose computer running Java in the same category as a microcontroller running a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel and spark?
cout··on PgQue: Zero-Bloat Postgres Queue
I think it's great that projects like this exist where people are building middleware in different ways than others. Still, as someone who routinely uses shared memory queues, the idea of considering a queue built inside a database to be "zero bloat" leaves me scratching my head a bit. I can see why someone would want that, but once person's feature is bloat to someone else.
cout··on Traders placed over $1B in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war
In theory that is part of what was supposed to have been solved by CAT.
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