Hacker News Reader

parabylon XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

I was looking at South Africa's biggest annual developer survey today, and lo and behold some are using it for coding work.

I would assume it's people who pay for Twitter pro or whatever it's called getting Grok as part of the bundle and not wanting to sign up for another subscription.

parabylon Middle-aged man trading cards go viral in rural Japan town

Although I think "pure" is alright to use in this context, I would probably have gone with "beautifully simple".

parabylon IBM pauses advertising on X after ads show up next to antisemitic content

I'm from SA and I knew about IBM and the Holocaust, but not Apartheid. Thanks for putting me onto that.

parabylon Morocco earthquake kills more than 1,000

I heard a very small one somewhere that really isn't meant to get them, through a TV show in earbuds. Perhaps the volume has something to do with what's happening beneath the surface vs magnitude? In our case, as far as I know, the epicentre was a ~5h drive away (and out at sea), but it sounded about the same as loud subs at a concert to me.

parabylon What’s the world’s oldest language?

Blanking on a source right now, but I recall reading about a study on the 'oldness' of languages and found that the unique sort of phonetics in !Kung and other Khoe or San languages appeared to reduce over time, and simpler hard consonants would emerge in their place - implying that they are indeed some of the oldest languages still around.

Interstingly, there are a number of words from these languages that are still widely used in South African slang: Dagga for Marijuana, Eina for "Ouch!", Gogga for Bug or Insect, and Kerrie for Stick, usually used as the neologism Knobkerrie. Very possibly some of the oldest slang in the world!

parabylon Rust vs. Go in 2023

Spent a few months writing a pretty hefty Cqrs app in Go last year, had a fun but pretty unintuitive experience with rustlingss, and V really does seem like a cool in between! I look forward to taking it for a spin

parabylon Show HN: Pip Imports in Deno

Super cool! Fun, useful and slightly cursed indeed

parabylon Sixto Rodriguez has died

Segerman's recordshop is still running and an icon in the Cape Town music scene! https://mabuvinyl.wordpress.com/

parabylon A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

I had always assumed it was due to Brendan Eich being the face of the project. Or the built-in adblocking. It's my preference for these reasons as a chromium default - I don't know anyone using Brave who touches the crypto stuff.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

maybe give it another shot? I wasn't able to replicate the issue but haven't seen anyone else have it

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

yeah this is what I was referring to, thanks

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

This is very cool, hadn't heard of it before. Thanks.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

Glad you're enjoying it, always open to nitpicky feedback. I'll put all of these suggestions on the backlog and see how they play together - thanks!

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

Thank you! That's super cool - I'm not nearly as familiar with data science as it sounds you are, I've just made some choice placements in building a UI around the Spotify API. They're hiding the nuts and bolts of turning a set of music feature parameters into a list of recommendations.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

If I understand correctly, what I'm getting back from their API is basically what lies between, but without any of the interesting data they're using the do the calculation. One can hope, but I'd imagine that data is priceless to them and won't ever be available to us.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

Hey, thanks for the feedback. Sign-in and saving to a profile was the most requested feature across the board when I previously launched Selecta, and as such it needs access to enable features that were requested by those who enjoyed using it.

I'd be more than happy to share what each of those datapoints is used for (and, in some cases where I only need an auth scope for one permission, but they're grouped together). Selecta is strictly open-source and anonymous analytics.

You can find the auth scopes I use in this file: https://github.com/knightspore/selecta/blob/main/src/app/api...

and the related access they provide here: https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/concepts...

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

If you still want to give it a shot, you shouldn't need an active subscription for it to work. But I do totally get moving away from the streaming world. Even bandcamp is losing its ground as a safe a haven for making sure artists are paid their worth.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

Thanks for giving it a try - I'll take a shot at that one.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

They really can be terrible sometimes. I loved last.fm too - still sporadically scrobbling at https://www.last.fm/user/Knightspore. But today my profile mostly serves as a record of music I had come across more 'organically' prior to mainly consuming via streaming services.

parabylon Show HN: Selecta – Tune Your Own Spotify Recommendation Algorithm

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it :)

parabylon Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’

I don't think a brand change can make anything better or worse. It's just a lick of paint. Sure, the changes that come along with a brand change may change things for the better - but I'm sure we can all agree with that involving actualy changes to the product, aside from literal branding-only (and not even all of it).

Why not? Maybe, just maybe, if you're re-launching a brand it's best to do so when there's actually something to change aside from (one of the) logos and (one of the) copyright marks. It's like if Reddit bought HN, said "We're going to change this into a platform similar to Reddit", and simply changed the logo from Y -> Snoo without any of the other changes or promised features ready to go.

While the change isn't set-in-stone BAD for users, I don't see how it's good or useful at all conversely.

parabylon Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’

How exactly does changing a logo (in one, messy looking place not to mention - not anywhere else yet) lead even in the slightest to "making twitter better than he found it"?

parabylon Ask HN: How could I safely contact drug cartels?

If your idea is truly something that could have such big effects, I'd say the ethical thing to do would be to document and share it widely, so that any individuals from cartels to lawmakers, agencies, drug research centre's etc. could do as they wish with the data. Again, if it's that revolutionary then it's very likely this open sharing will see it taking off. Not to mention that it's morally questionable to keep such a potentially beneficial harm reduction technique to oneself.

parabylon Tailwind is Bad (If you don't know how to use it)

Yeah I suppose that's the exact point I try to make in the article - tailwind isn't promising to make you skilled or a good designer (neither is css). It's simply offering a simpler way to work with componentized css

parabylon Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?

https://ciaran.co.za

some interesting projects I've worked on, and a few things I've written.

parabylon More than 75% of Steam games tested are playable or verified on the Steam Deck

Proton is really quite incredible as a compatibility layer, I've not seen any performance drops (if anything, only small performance gains, which I assume is due to fewer background processes in the OS), but most incredible is the frequency with which Proton is updated and worked on.

I'd tried gaming on linux before and gave up after a week or two of configuration attempts. I had put it off for ages and tried with proton on a dual boot system earlier this year, and instantly had access to everything installed on windows. It also means I can actually recommend linux to people with older machines trying to squeeze a little extra out of their lifespan, without having to tell them it's an uphill battle to get gaming working as expected.

parabylon Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

These sorts of ordeals (not that there have been many of them) truly fascinate me - especially with regard to the decisions on 'appropriate' retributive justice. As a student growing up in South Africa we were often asked to compare the objectives and results of the Nuremburg trials alongside the Truth and Reconciliation Comission at the fall of Apartheid. The TRC allowed those accused (on both sides), to come forward and provide an honest recounting of their crimes to the court and family of the victim, and receive amnesty in return.

Especially given that I'm of a generation born near the end of Apartheid, we grew up with the "badge of honour" mentality around the TRC. But almost 30 years later, many of the victims of these crimes are left feeling like the perpetrators got off scott-free, for an often half-recounting of the event and not much more. It's not uncommon to hear references to Nuremburg when discussing the more henoius crimes described - for example, a doctor performing the sorts of acts those at Nuremburg were tried for, who was recently discovered to be a family GP in one of the Nation's capitals, quietly continuing his life. However, it's not an opinion I would say is particularly strong in those who have it, nor too commonly discussed - but it's an interesting weighing up of "an appropriate justice which would please all participants was difficult, or impossible to decide", versus "it's incredible that the participants and organisers were able to come to a decision that did what it said on the box, mostly".

I was particularly interested to see suggestions of a TRC (based on South Africa's own) introduced to deal with the after-effects of the 'Troubles' in Ireland, England and Northern Ireland - and it appeared to be a strong "NO" from all sides, which I found fascinating as it did not seem driven only by a need for appropriate retributive justice, but rather (in my opinon) seemed driven by the belief that we have the ability to draw finer lines as a group, and need not polarize our decisions between harsh, message-sending retribution and amnesty for participation.

All that being said I couldn't tell you which pick given the choice, but it certainly feels hopeful reflecting on just how much care in group decision making and inclusive participation has been displayed in the past in such events.

parabylon UseHooks – A Collection of Server Component Safe React Hooks

I'm quite experienced with React itself (and have given RSC a spin more recently) - but I've been trying to understand, aside from using a top-level `await fetch` in a server component, is there a possible route to implementing this in client components themselves? Without using a useEffect to call the fetch and populate state with a DIY / ReactQuery style error/loading/component, that is.

My understand was previously that it wasn't really feasible, but seeing the RSC additions (as well as Next's own explorations into calling Server-side code from client components) I was wondering if it wasn't just avoided to go the route away from hooks since they're such a large 'caveat' already that it's only worth doubling down on them.

parabylon Why I Left Rust

An 'era long passed' perhaps? Can't quite figure that one out. I think I was looking for the term 'bygone era' but couldn't think of it.

parabylon Why I Left Rust

Yeah I'd tend to agree with the issues it being a homogenizing term as a whole (ie. often used awkwardly), however in this context where we're using it in order to refer to homogenization (that being, those who have had historically less power in white/male dominated industry), it seems a little softer of a homogenizing term as compared to 'non-white'.

Although, my perspective is of course informed by how I've internalized my local community use this language in certain ways. In South Africa, where white people are just 8% of the population, it seems stranger to make reference to the subject through that caveat rather than in, say, a US context the inverse may seem more uncontroversially worded.

Interestingly, as a side, I'm considered coloured in South Africa - a term taken on here by mixed race folks as a disambiguation of the American term, in a similar fashion to how you describe the origin of the PoC term.