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3 monitors: 2K laptop on a stand, 4K rotated, 2K rotated & sometimes scaled to 4K. Lots of screen space.

Windows in strategic positions, sized small to fit the content. I removed maximize. I never maximize. I full screen a single game or video to one of the monitors when desirable. I rarely minimize. A dock on the bottom of the laptop with windows grouped by program -- very manageable. Placement and size of windows. Being able to see everything at a glance. I wish XFCE could save window positions and sizes.

No tabs. My default is new window. When desirable, I only create new tabs in a web browser window. Programs get separate windows, no tabs. I have custom CSS to hide the tab bar when there is only one tab. No tab bar is my default. I manually save URLs if important and close web browser tabs if I've gone down a rabbit hole. Destroy all tabs. My browser clears all history. Starting the browser opens a single custom web page window, no tabs, with recent URLs that I saved.

No tabs.

mmphosison Why don't people use Git properly?

https://lobste.rs/s/4e3g9a/why_don_t_people_use_git_properly

mmphosison Ask HN: What are you working on (non-AI)?

I had only ever known ski lifts.

One day, way before the lifts had started, I hiked up the mountain, snowboard under my arm. Trudging, my breath heavy, lungs filling, oxygen, snow, blue sky, cold but my body warmed. There was not one track in the fresh powder. My snowboard was slower in the powder, and I felt safe in the knowledge. I had to work a little harder. Carving.

mmphosison Ask HN: What was it like in the era of BBS before the internet?

1) Apple II plus with pulse dial at 110 or 300 baud, once a week or less in 1984 and make sure nobody needs to use the phone, the program that came with the modem or my hacked up version with better throughput.

2) local phone numbers, that use of the word "server" would have been unknown to me

3) again, what's a server?

4) limited discussion, games was the focus, my memory is probably wrong

5) the abbreviated word "tech" would not appear until at least a decade later. Programming was offline in books, class and classmates; not online. It was limited, flaky chat, no "topics" except games

mmphosison Ask HN: Non AI-obsessed tech forums

the fediverse

mmphosison Ask HN: What is the most complicated Algorithm you came up with yourself?

diff in a text editor

mmphosison 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

The Commdore 64 has 64 kibibytes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#Multiple-byte_units

"the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes (65,536 bytes) of RAM"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

mmphosison Ask HN: Books to learn 6502 ASM and the Apple II

https://mmphosis.netlify.app/hires/

mmphosison Ask HN: Is Programming as a Profession Cooked?

Programming was "cooked" before the current Artificial Inference hype. I am not saying reducing the tedium is not beneficial. Where is the innovation, attribution and intelligence?

mmphosison Scientists Discover Oldest Poison, on 60k-Year-Old Arrows

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547962

mmphosison “Erdos problem #728 was solved more or less autonomously by AI”

This website was made by Thomas Bloom, a mathematician who likes to think about the problems Erdős posed. Technical assistance with setting up the code for the website was provided by ChatGPT -from the FAQ

mmphosison Ask HN: What do you use to manage your coding projects?

  P=project-name-0.0.0; mkdir $P; cd $P; b install

mmphosison Why xor eax, eax?

Try to keep the value 0 in the Y register.

  echo tya|asm|mondump -r|6502
                                A=AA X=00 Y=00 S=00 P=22 PC=0300  0
  0300- 98        TYA           A=00 X=00 Y=00 S=00 P=22 PC=0301  2

mmphosison Tell HN: It's now impossible to disable all AI features in Firefox 145 (latest)

It is either a fork or new software based on what a people really want or need. This is not an easy hill to climb.

Unfortunately, "configuration" is the survey. I detest both configuration and surveys. Modify the open source code and rip out the Artificial Inference code because Firefox is open source, or build software from scratch: servo, ladybird, your own web browser based on a survey.

mmphosison Ask HN: What open source projects are you grateful for?

GNU Linux BSD

  curl

mmphosison Ask HN: Why do people say LLMs create bad code "quality"?

Garbage in, garbage out. Beautiful code in, beautiful code out.

Code "quality" is a judgement call. Just like some LLMs, I'll repeat your question: What do you consider quality code?

I treat all code from LLM, search, stackoverflow, etc, as "sample code" that requires review and most likely modification, or writing the code from scratch. Your abilities and laziness may vary.

Also, there are reasons other than code quality not to trust LLMs.

mmphosison The Carry-on-Baggage Bubble Is About to Pop

Given that planes still have to have places for ashtrays, and that I predict battery-powered airbusses won't be a thing, I am okay with failing airlines. The Ushuaia/Cape Town railway can't come soon enough.

mmphosison Forth: The programming language that writes itself

Yes, Paul Lutus wrote GraForth.

As for vhtab, I don't know.

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/WqrpoPtxwoM/m/...

A customized figforth 79forth proforth or some other forth lost in a basement.

mmphosison Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

True is the default. False is what I set these to. I have these documented.

mmphosison Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

    browser.urlbar.trimURLs         false  to display http:// in the address bar
    browser.fixup.alternate.enabled false  to enable adding www. and .com to urls

* updated the descriptions

mmphosison Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

I think that windowing systems need to be way more flexible. I want to be able to drag fullscreens, workspaces, windows, tabs, MDI sub-windows, and other types of views from different programs into and out of each other. I think Serenity OS has this with windows and tabs.

mmphosison Ask HN: What is nowadays (opensource) way of converting HTML to PDF?

Can Firefox do this?

with an elaborate script that relies on xdotool

mmphosison Ask HN: How Do You Journal?

.html file and whatever Text Editor

mmphosison Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing

and yet the tools are still difficult to use. I could Read The Fine Manual, web search, stackoverflow, post a question on a Bulletin Board, or ask the Generative Artificial Inference robot. A lot of this seems like our user interface preferences. For example, my preference is that I just intuitively know that -i followed by a filepath is the input file but why can't I just drag the video icon onto ffmpeg? What might be obvious to me is not necessarily exposed functionality that someone else can see right away.

mmphosison How to create an OS from scratch

I'd say it depends on the purpose of the OS. The original Mac had graphics routines in ROM. It would be cool to have instant on devices.

mmphosison Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025)

installing Alpine Linux KDE Plasma

mmphosison Top Programming Languages 2025

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/24825595/embed

mmphosison How do you store and utilize knowledge?

I don't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning

I practice learning how to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

I write things down so that I can forget about them.

mmphosison In defence of swap: common misconceptions (2018)

TFA means The Fine Article