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grewil2

141 karma · joined July 5, 2016

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grewil2··on Pi's Minimalism Is Its Advantage
Are all of you pi users paying Anthropic and OpenAI for API usage? Or can you combine pi with a subscription?

So far API usage is a lot more expensive than subscription and if you need better models than Deepseek and Kimi, and you are not wealthy, I don’t see a way around this.

grewil2··on Pruning RAG context down to what the answer actually needs
"Three knobs matter:"

I can't help reading articles with the radar on for signs of AI-generation nowadays. I have noticed that Claude sometimes uses the word knob for parameter, so here I get suspicious.

grewil2··on Learn Claude Code by doing, not reading
Side note: I don’t know what Anthropic changed but now Claude Code consumes the quota incredibly fast. I have the Max5 plan, and it just consumed about 10% of the session quota in 10 minutes on a single prompt. For $100/month, I have higher expectations.
grewil2··on Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition
Since it’s an 1.44M image I assume they use 3.5” diskettes. The terms floppy and diskette are used as synonyms today, but the different names make sense since floppies are flexible and “floppy”. Diskettinux?
grewil2··on Bubblewrap: A nimble way to prevent agents from accessing your .env files
Docker won’t save you from prompt injektions that attack your network.
grewil2··on Bubblewrap: A nimble way to prevent agents from accessing your .env files
It won’t save you from prompt injektions that attack your network.
grewil2··on The curious case of the Unix workstation layout
Let’s not forget Amiga 3000UX - a workstation released with Amiga Unix, a full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4). Notable users include Free Software Foundation staff programmers who used it at MIT to help further some early development of the GNU operating system.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_3000UX

grewil2··on YouTube will show a blank page if watch history is off
This is very annoying - I get this too now, and there is no way to make it go away (except for enabling watch history I assume). Very bad!
grewil2··on Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
Very good idea!
grewil2··on Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
Good idea!
grewil2··on Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
> - What is a belief you had as a child that you no longer have? ...

Hm, the type of some of these questions resemble the type of the personal questions used for password recovery by some companies. As a paranoid person, I am reluctant to disclose this information to unknown people.

grewil2··on Ask HN: Any job boards and age-friendly companies for older developers?
Have you tried applying for a position in a public sector IT-department? The public sector should not age-discriminate, at least in theory.
grewil2··on Max Von Sydow has died
I think he was great in The Emigrants and The New Land.
grewil2··on Python Eats the World
Sounds more like an index of beginner languages.

"The PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language Index is created by analyzing how often language tutorials are searched on Google."

grewil2··on Neovim Configuration and Plugins in Fennel Lisp
Interesting to see. The Vim people at work are constantly harrasing us two Emacs users, claiming that lisp is old and silly, and that vimscript is good. Maybe change is acoming.
grewil2··on How to Run Great Product Team Meetings
How to Run Greatly from Product Team Meetings
grewil2··on An on-going conversion of Scoopex's Amiga Hardware coding tutorials into C
Scoopex's Mental Hangover was a great demo at the time. I still like its soundtrack by Uncle Tom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZETBFv6zWs
grewil2··on Pure Bash Bible
Yes, Python is the Cobol of script languages.
grewil2··on Neuralink Live Stream [video]
The everlasting conflict between descriptive and normative linguists.
grewil2··on Neuralink Live Stream [video]
My collegue once managed to fry a computer through the USB-port. I wonder what would happen if you accidently fed too much power to this brain USB-port.
grewil2··on Chomsky on the arrest of Julian Assange [video]
I mention this, as in his speech, Chomsky mentions Sweden in the same gang as UK and the US, without making the distinction why Sweden is interested in Assange - which made me quite disappointed in Chomsky. It is true that the preliminary rape investigation was dropped in 2017, but it may now be activated again. According to associate professor in international law Karl Jigland, this will happen if a prosecutor orders Assange arrested in absence. In accord with the regular process, Assange may then appeal against this accusation.
grewil2··on Chomsky on the arrest of Julian Assange [video]
Assange is accused of sexual assault in Sweden. Sexual assault victims have the right to trial and justice, no matter who the accused is. No one is above the law, not even a famous journalist.
grewil2··on Should you be concerned about LastPass uploading your passwords to its server?
I am using pass - the standard unix password manager. It's simple and just works. It's built on gpg and git, and resides on any disk you like.

https://www.passwordstore.org/

grewil2··on Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands
I bought a plain, no turbo Volvo 940 for $1000 ten years ago. It's 25 years old now, and still is very reliable. Newer Volvos seem a lot more complex, and I can't help thinking that there's a lot more electronics and mechanisms that can break than in the old construction. Edit: ugh, I just realised I have become a grumpy old man.
grewil2··on A packaging tutorial for Guix
Recently I have gotten very interested in Guix, after 16 years of only Debian. Guix keeps surprising me, most recently its container system. This page is exactly what I was looking for to get started with my own packages.
grewil2··on Redshift – A better flux program for Linux (2014)
I use this in my .xinitrc, and keep redshift running all day. It automatically fades to red when the evening comes, and back again in the morning.

nice redshift -l <YOUR-LAT>:<YOUR-LON> -b 0.6 -t 5500:1900

grewil2··on Hyperpolyglot: Lisp
I only know a bit of elisp and thought the other ones would seem more different and therefore more demanding for me to learn, but after looking through this comparison I feel I could well give one or two of the other a shot without too much work.
grewil2··on Web Prolog and the Programmable Prolog Web [pdf]
Prof. Torbjörn Lager was my teacher in a few courses back in around 2005, I even had a beer or two with him. He is a very smart and funny guy - I can say with 100% certainty that he means it as a joke.
grewil2··on Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update
Shouldn't it be called Windows Subsystem for GNU? There's a boatload of GNU-tools in there, but does it include a Linux kernel too?
grewil2··on It’s COBOL all the way down
I think the (governmental) department treated them alright, and they made good money too. They were not the types that liked to blend with the younger devs, even for a cup of coffee. I approached them two years ago and asked if I could work with them for some time to exchange knowledge, but I only got a one line email response "not interested". It's not unlikely that they were annoyed that the applications they had developed over the years, which they kept pointing out were superior, were being phased out.
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