Hacker News Reader

keeglinon Development of the MOS Technology 6502: A Historical Perspective (2022)

I much prefer Chuck Peddle's telling of the story of surrounding MOS's acquisition by Commodore and the history of the 6502 at VCF East: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBnmJhEOdC8

keeglinon 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

The Daily Show, during all those classic Jon Stewart years.

And sure enough, it's gone.

My first try, the classic interview between Jon and Joe Biden in 2015, where Biden admits he unwittingly politically used a story about a family coal miner that didn't exist. Interviews with Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice. Their 2000 and 2004 coverage of the RNC and DNC conventions, all gone.

https://www.cc.com/video/j6f55l/the-daily-show-with-jon-stew... https://www.cc.com/video/kqe9tb/the-daily-show-with-jon-stew...

Yeah, I think I have a feeling about that, but I think really this is just a loss of some of our common story.

keeglinon The KDE desktop gets an overhaul with Plasma 6

I recently started using a Mac at work and Gnome aping MacOS is the only thing that makes sense.

The applications selector, the settings drop-downs... spatial Nautilus... it didn't just start with Gnome 3. These are all poorly-implemented, half-baked versions of MacOS features. It has been going on for years.

I mean, the thin scroll bars for $deity's sake! On MacOS this makes sense because the trackpad and trackpad/mouse work, and work very well. On Gnome, it makes no sense at all since you can't hit them with the mouse pointer.

The pain is very real with Gnome.

It's a very, very poor ape of MacOS.

keeglinon I built a plane spotter for my son in minutes

I'm constantly ill at-ease with how LLMs have been trained on, well, just about everyone's data, and spit out really creative responses that were wholly inspired by someone else's most likely copyrighted works. With no attribution.

This response in particular.

I immediately thought of this project (that hit the front page of HN):

https://skybot.cam/about

keeglinon Thunderbird 115 “Supernova”

It's client-side, and works very well for email. It used to be that email notifications through Thunderbird waited until your next email refresh interval, but I noticed they are coming in at the same rate as the Outlook clients after the last update to Owl.

Calendaring through Lightning is incomplete and experimental.

In the "spaces" vertical toolbar on the left, Owl has added a Teams button recently, as well. It opens the Teams O365 app in a tab in Thunderbird, which I really like. I haven't had a chance to check if any meeting or audio features work there.

keeglinon Olive.c: a simple graphics library that does not have any dependencies

Uh, right? The demo page renders fine on this decade old core i5-3337u, with all the vulnerabilities patched.

keeglinon Albini pitching Nirvana: “I would like to be paid like a plumber” (1992)

I agree with this, but I like the Albini version. My first listen to this track (in a long time since hearing the other version) the vocal is centered with good imaging, and is much less boomy than the original CD version.

Very much like it's a person in a room, instead of processed.

It is far less "in your face", and arguably, teenagers then might not have thought it cool. Like a band from the 70's or 80's.

keeglinon Albini pitching Nirvana: “I would like to be paid like a plumber” (1992)

Thank you for this! That just brightened my evening. It's sounding _incredible_.

keeglinon What Is Tokenization?

Credit card tokenization is a thing, and commonly used in retail. It leaves the last four digits of the number intact to allow searching for transactions from the POS; but other numbers are scrambled. Credit card data is otherwise stored in the POS systems tokenized. It takes all teeth out of credit card data for PCI requirements.

In this case, the tokenization is the measure itself.

keeglinon A Small Ode to the CRT

Saying that modern monitors are more color accurate that CRTs really undersells the difference. Having been a professional photographer before a button presser, I feel I have a need to step in here. This narrative is so, so horribly wrong.

Nearly any given color CRT (in the 90's era) has a far flatter visual spectral response than modern ubiquitous displays. Each color has meaningful contrast; whereas the typical blue-LED is heavily weighted towards blue.

Even if a new display measures better, your brain interprets color from a tube better.

The only established displays today that approach that flatness (exceed them) are genuine three-color OLED displays, which are prohibitively expensive as packaged as a computer monitor.

I have some mild hope for new display technologies that I'm hearing about. I'm betting we are five years, at a minimum, before displays with that color quality are common.

keeglinon A Unix System Implementation for System/370 (1984) [pdf]

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/

This might be it.

keeglinon All sound recordings prior to 1923 will enter the US public domain in 2022

I was going to go with 10 years. I mean, nobody cared about Madonna's "Ray Of Light" beyond 1999.

On the other hand, artists - like Dolly Parton - have made long careers out of songwriting that have carried them into their senior years, so it's a balance.

Clearly 99 years is absurd. Maybe 20 years is the balance to strike. Dolly would still be doing just fine with that term.

keeglinon Vinyl records are now outselling CDs

Your first claim I think is better stated that older CDs cut in their time from original sources sound better than similar music with modern processes. For pop, especially.

I seek out early 80's - early 90's CD (with sprinklings in pop to the early 00's).

keeglinon Facebook banned me for life because I help people use it less

As long as a computer decides where your time and energy is going as conduit for communication, it has become a moral arbiter. Facebook is harmful. Computers can't do this; they don't breathe.

Unfollowing everything restores a user's agency when using the service, which is where it should be.

keeglinon Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

This is one of those moments to remind everyone that computers and computer algorithms do not, and can not, replace human empathy.

keeglinon Oklahoma woman charged with felony for not returning VHS tape 21 years ago

I would think, more importantly, how many more people were charged for felony embezzlement for failing to return a video rental in Norman, Oklahoma, 20 years ago without their awareness? What motivated that chain of events?

This whole story needs some gravity, and more than what the local news station is giving it.

keeglinon The Parity of Zero

My first comment on HN; I have strong feelings on this topic.

I was specifically taught as a child that zero is neither even nor odd, because zero has no value. I don't think it was confusion or misunderstanding.

Understanding the value of "nothing" or "the opposite of something" is what separates us from most other brained-animals, correct?

I understand there are patterns that can be applied. However, I never once was misserved by that understanding, either through academics or physical life.

Ultimately, it's more upsetting today to try to reset that thought process in my mind. So to me, zero is neither even or odd, and I'm happy with that.