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meandthebean

24 karma · joined February 20, 2012

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meandthebean··on Stabilizing the Obra Dinn 1-bit dithering process (2017)
> Sennaar didn't gel with me, because language-based deduction imply an "arbitrariness" ("wobbliness"?) and mis-interpretations

After not too far in, you eventually start confirming the meanings of words. Eventually you confirm the meaning of every word of every language. So, while learning a language can be a challenge of interpretation, eventually you do get concrete meanings.

Edit: I'd also recommend The Sexy Brutale for your list, it's a time loop detective game.

meandthebean··on A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece
I've switched to Weather Underground 10-day view: https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/md/baltimore

I used the customize button to remove everything but temp, chance of rain and wind.

It's no Dark Sky, but it's something.

meandthebean··on Ask HN: Have any of you switched to Bash on Windows?
You can't apt-get in cygwin, but you can apt-cyg:

https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg

meandthebean··on A Puzzle Book That Drove England to Madness
http://ken-jennings.com/blog/archives/99

There was a winner.

"MW: Again, I can’t recall who won. Interestingly the winner was the one who identified the least number of false words. I think there was some scoring system where an incorrectly identified word attracted a minus penalty. I seem to remember that the contest was expanded with the paperback edition to include extra prizes for a younger age group."

meandthebean··on David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish
> Having an armed citizenry serves as a protective measure of last resort and was based on the model of Switzerland. The intent is not to allow people to run around shooting people up as a form of protest against lawful government action; but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny.

From the article:

> It used to be said — correctly — that the patrolman on the beat on any American police force was the last perfect tyranny. Absent a herd of reliable witnesses, there were things he could do to deny you your freedom or kick your ass that were between him, you, and the street. The smartphone with its small, digital camera, is a revolution in civil liberties.

Unlawful government tyranny, in the form of cops doing whatever they want, is exactly what the riots are about.

meandthebean··on Don't soak your dried beans
The salt thing is mentioned in the article. According to the author it's better to add salt before cooking.
meandthebean··on Show HN: zzzz.io, a free DynDNS replacement I created on the weekend
Here's an email I got from FreeDNS last year:

Your account at freedns.afraid.org has not been visited in at least 5 1/2 months.

User: Xxxxx Xxxxx (xxxxxxx) Last visited: 2013-09-21 (169 days ago)

Unless you visit the site anytime in the next 2 weeks, your account will be considered dormant. "Dormant" consists of unloading any stale DNS records from memory which you may have set up in the past.

This stale entries optimization will free up several gigabytes of memory, making it available for active users. This will allow a DNS server to do a cold configuration boot, and load in new zones in a fraction of the time and space.

Users supporting freedns.afraid.org with a premium plan of any kind (even the smallest) will not be affected.

meandthebean··on Babun – A new Windows shell
Going down the list of Babun features, it doesn't look like much more than repackaged cygwin. I thought pact was the biggest innovation, but as a clone of an existing project it seems misleading to call this "a new Windows shell."

It isn't without value, as others have said cygwin could be made more usable out-of-the-box, but a little more credit should be given where credit is due.

meandthebean··on NASA Open Sources Apollo 11 Code (2009)
Trashy Little Subroutines is going to be my new band's name.

https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Lum...

meandthebean··on Fan remake gives Super Mario 64 a fresh look [video]
It doesn't work like an analog stick, though, it works like a d-pad. It just maps to up, up-left, left, down-left, etc of the d-pad, like in any other DS game played on the 3DS.
meandthebean··on Google Video Quality Report
Maybe they used that imagery because a series of tubes is an apt metaphor for internet bandwidth.
meandthebean··on PHP is as secure as any other major language
I think the point of the article is that most of the arguments made against PHP can be made toward any other language as well (i.e. you can write insecure code with it), so the defences can be made for any language as well.

It's unfair to say that a vague defense to a vague accusation is invalid. If I said you were the worst ping-pong player in the world because you lose some games I think the arguments you listed would be a valid defense.

meandthebean··on Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth
Here's a weird case: https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=43.047565,-123.758926&...

Zoom in one and out one. The patchwork brown flops in some of the grid.

meandthebean··on HTML5 Genetic Cars
I recommend a smaller mutation rate. You see the inheritance of the previous winner a lot better.
meandthebean··on Futurama Canceled Again
Corrected link: http://theinfosphere.org/Nibbler%27s_shadow
meandthebean··on White House Response to “Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal”
Same reason it's not illegal to sell a closed padlock without a key.
meandthebean··on When to Sell Your Company
Aside: when did 20px become an acceptable font size for content text?
meandthebean··on Adobe Edge Web Fonts
The dropdown was broken for me on Windows 7/Chrome.