HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

elviejo79

98 karma · joined March 5, 2007

submissionscomments
elviejo79··on Ask HN: What's your biggest pain point when reading scientific papers?
1000 upvotes.

I wish papers were written in html or markdown... and the beautiful typography applied later with latex.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: What's your biggest pain point when reading scientific papers?
In this regard I find medical papers much better than CS ones. The ones in medicine in the abstract write the methodology, the results the CI (confidence interval) and the conclusions.

Very good abstracts.

elviejo79··on Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder
What is unacceptable for "some of us" is that rich corporations are parasites of the commons.

ANd give very little back. Like Apple on top of BSD or AWS on top Riak.

For people like me that find that unacceptable exist the GPL licenses.

elviejo79··on Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder
The rendering engine: Chromium had to be kept "libre", because khtml/Webkit was LGPL.

The browser: Chrome. could be kept closed because the LGPL allow the integration of libre libraries in closed products as long as the library itself remains "libre". In this case the library is the renering engine: Chromium.

As a counter example MacOS was built on top of decades of work on the BSD operating system and Apple is under no obligation to give the code back to the BSD project... and it doesn't.

So the most valuable company in the planet took from the community and it doesn't bother to give back.

For some of us that is unacceptabme.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: If an existing language had browser support, which is the best fit?
Smalltalk, then each tab would be its own image (vm). Web Apps would be a natural derivation of tje VM.
elviejo79··on Allan McDonald refused to approve Challenger launch, exposed cover-up (2021)
Thank you.
elviejo79··on Allan McDonald refused to approve Challenger launch, exposed cover-up (2021)
It happens extremely frequently because there is almost no downside for management to override the engineers decision.

Even in the case of the Challenger, no single article say WHO was the executive that finally approved the launch. No body was jailed for gross negligence. Even Ricahrd Feynman felt that the investigative comission was biased from the start.

So, since there is no "price to pay" to make this bad calls they are continuously made.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: What are some products that you use that give you joy?
Emacs... it's likean extension of my brain ar this point. It allows me to record my thoughts org-mode, draw (plantuml), take notes of whay I learn (org-roam) and program.

My silent Bosch dishwasher... everytine I don't do the dishes... a say a little prayer for the engineers that built it.

elviejo79··on Jq – open-source implementation of q programming language
I was confused too.
elviejo79··on Ask HN: Whats your ideal PhD workflow
It was a long tine ago that I was in academia, but the advice that I would hibe an student today would be: use beeminder.com to set a bet to yourself to write 500 words daily... on anything... just the habit of writing is extremely important. Try to use the 5 paragraph esssay or the a logical tree exposition.

Use org-roam for a zettlekastem notes (that count to the 500 word limit)

And trying to use Literate programming (org-babel) to make your articles reproducible.

Use nixos in your personal computer so that you can control exactly what dependencies and libraries your papers need.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Forming a Consultancy Cooperative
Congratulations... I think a cooperative is the right property model for a business were knowledge is more important than capital.

some resources to get you started are

Book: Ours to own and operate and Platform Cooperative Consortium

elviejo79··on Why Hypercard Had to Die (2011)
> Why did FileMaker die?

IDK, but 80% of web apps were during the 2000s so so interfaces on top of a relational database...

And FileMaker was so superior...

Seems that in computer we try end to think that "worst is better".

elviejo79··on Uncap - Map Caps Lock to Escape on Windows, Linux, and macOS
Inverse: question you have a big key, in the home row. That is a very valuable keyboard position.

What is a function in your programs deserve such a prominent position??

In my case as an emacs user bloq mayus, get's remaped to CTRL.

Vin users need ESC.

elviejo79··on Alan Turing to feature on new £50 note
Tangem cards with a color eink display? Sounds about right.

https://tangem.com

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Bootcamp or Computer Science University Degree?
It's not are "either or" question. You can and probably should do both. Formal education will give you the insights to understand the mathematical principles on which the profession is based.

And a couple of bootcamps will give the currently in demand techniques and tools.

It's the difference between being an "<X> programer" where X is your flavor of the month technology. And a "Software Engineer"

elviejo79··on Ask HN: What's a small language feature you've grown to love?
Elm's package management. In elm if you change your API you must change the version of your package following Semantic versioning.

1.1.2 Major.minor.patch.

Or better: Break.feature.fix

And that comes from the language and package manager.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Remote Headhunters
I'm interested too.
elviejo79··on Self-Driving Cars Have a Problem: Safer Human-Driven Ones
Your proposal is exactly how self-driving cars were created:

"Back in 1995 the goals for self-driving cars were more modest than they are today. They weren’t called autonomous, but self-driving. And there was no plan to have cars drive themselves on city streets, just on freeways and highways — on the Interstate. The plan was to bury cables in the pavement over which all the cars would drive and communicate with each other and with the road, itself. The goal was to fill the road with cars driving at the speed limit, spaced precisely one meter apart" [0]

[0] https://www.cringely.com/2016/08/25/self-driving-car-old-eno...

elviejo79··on Ask HN: What to read after “Thinking in Systems”?
The Fifth Discipline by Senge. Also a great introduction to systems thinking.

Also everything written by Goldratt.

In particular: The Goal and It's not luck Both are business novels, they read lightly but the lessons are profound.

elviejo79··on Web Programming with Continuations (2002) [pdf]
A framework that works with continuations is Seaside in smalltalk, it is a delight to work with it. https://seaside.st
elviejo79··on Show HN: Switch from Medium to your own blog
you and I hate the same companies, and as you explain making things that people hate are profitable in the short and medium term.

I still cannot forgive Micro$oft for their past behavior, even if they seem cool now.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: What does one look for in a non-technical co-founder?
For me a partner should have: 1. We share the vision. ie we want to create the same company. 2. we share ethical values. 3. has skills that I don't have.

you are focusing only on the skills, but shared vision and values is even more important.

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Is there a better way to document complex software architectures?
Currently my Favorite tool to Diagram Sofware Architectures is the C4-Model [1]. For the static view and use a normal Sequence Diagram for the Dynamic View. In both cases I like to use Plant UML, so that the text get's converted to the diagram[2]. That way the diagram can be stored together with the code.

[1] https://www.infoq.com/articles/C4-architecture-model [2] http://plantuml.com/sequence-diagram

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Is there a shorthand equivalent for taking notes digitally?
Stenography

Look at this video introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62l64Acfidc&t=80s

And this is a developer using steno, to program https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBBiri3CD6w

elviejo79··on Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (December 2011)
I think is a reference... to an ad written in the same way. but it was to recruite people to go the first expedition that was going to cross the south pole... I think they all died by the way.
elviejo79··on Ask HN: What is your best concentration aid while programming?
Pair programming. when you keep discussing what you are doing with a collegue, your mind keeps the flow.
elviejo79··on Khan Academy: Computer Science
What other languages have you used? Im starting to teach an intro cs course n highschool next semester and would love to hear some real experiences on this.

have you looked at: etoys scratch starlogo alice or scheme ?

elviejo79··on Khan Academy: Computer Science
My point is that there are good tools to learn programming. I think that there are languages in which difficult concepts befome easier to explain. logo being the prime example of such a teaching language.
elviejo79··on Khan Academy: Computer Science
This goes to prove that java is a pretty bad language to teach pogramming.

in logo this is how you draw a square forward 100 Right 90 Forward 100 Right 90 Forward 100 Right 90 Forward 100 Right 90

Then in the second lesson you introduce loops repeat 4 Forward 100 Right 90 End

then you ask kids to draw hexagons octagons etc. and they will never forget what a for loop does.

Edit changed repeat 8 to repeat 4. Thank you.

elviejo79··on Top Myths of Popular Psychology
Exactly this is the middle path of Zen and Buddhism is the path that is in the middle and above the dualistic notions of expression / repression or anger / joy....
Page 1 of 2Next →