Hacker News Reader

plainOldTexton Show HN: Evryca – fractal thinking tool to brainstorm and organize thoughts

> Does "levels" mean "depth"? To give the feel how deep in the subject you are?

Yes! Level means depth.

> Don't stacked "parents" give that feel?

No! The stack doesn't give me that feel, because visually, it doesn't look like a stack. My brain perceives a series of plain text lines as a block of information. There's a reason we add symbols (numbers, discs) to checklists. We want them differentiated from normal text blocks. Of course you don't necessarily need to use symbols, you could also make use of relative positioning (between levels) or color (varying the intensity of the same color as you move up and down the levels, or use a color theme), etc.

Regards!

plainOldTexton Show HN: Evryca – fractal thinking tool to brainstorm and organize thoughts

I think it needs a better visual representation of the levels. I personally find the visual representation currently utilized to represent the fractal structure, incomprehensible.

plainOldTexton Nim: Curated Packages

I'd say just try it out for yourself with these simple examples: https://nim-by-example.github.io/

Here's a nice link comparing memory safety of C, Zig, Rust and Nim – https://uploads.peterme.net/nimsafe.html – which was inspired by this post: https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/how-safe-is-zig/

plainOldTexton The New OCaml Website

I know these languages are both members of the ML language, but why would one pick OCaml over F#?

I've toyed a bit with both and F# seems a bit more ergonomic: pipes, computation expressions, a more concise syntax, etc. I do like how fast the OCaml compiler is though.

plainOldTexton Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

To see the whole psyche of human kind projected into public view, and the accompanying apoplectic, impotent outrage.

Brilliant!

Can’t help but wonder if over time – having the ability to peek into our collective psyche – this would trigger a significant divergence from the present evolutionary trajectory of our unexamined collective mind; maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.

plainOldTexton Tell HN: Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

I – like other people have reported – have grown tremendously intellectually by reading HN through the years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

plainOldTexton Nim 1.6

Well, I wanted to try Nimler (as an alternative to Rustler) but I couldn’t get it to compile on my Mac. Something about some missing symbols if I remember correctly.

I’ll have to investigate deeper when I have the time, as it seems quite appealing to be able to rewrite the slower Elixir parts in Nim.

plainOldTexton Nim 1.6

I wrote my first Nim app recently (an agent for reporting server data) and I must say, I like the language. It was a quick and painless learning experience. As of now my binary is about 400KB and uses about 1.3MB in memory consumption.

Indeed – as others have reported – Nim feels very much like Python, while the superfast compilation time means I can test code changes quickly during the development cycle.

For reference, I mostly write web apps in Elixir, but I needed another language in my toolbox that is statically compiled and lightweight.

I looked at Rust, Nim and Crystal. I ended up choosing Nim, because Rust is too complex for my taste, and Crystal’s syntax resembles Elixir (they both drew inspiration from Ruby) and it would be confusing when switching between the two languages.

Ultimately, they’re all cool, modern languages, so pick whatever fits your brain and helps you reach your objectives easier, while engaging in this social (or solitary) activity called programming.

plainOldTexton Show HN: Tape It – iOS recording app for musicians

I like the minimalism and thoughtfulness of the interface.

Something is not clear however. Where do recordings get stored? On device, iCloud?

I think it would be nice to know where your data gets stored, and maybe have a choice or two.

plainOldTexton Good and Bad Elixir

Yeah, it wasn’t obvious why one should avoid |> case.

I also think it looks pleasing, plus it’s easy to read and it avoids allocating a new variable compared to the alternative example given.

plainOldTexton A Pattern Language (1977) [pdf]

I have have been introduced to many of Alexander’s ideas through this series of lectures on architecture and urbanism by Nikos Salingaros [1]. Mind bending stuff.

[1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLre1SQJb-jSXex1MlLFlGrsRj...

plainOldTexton How the Hell Do You Govern in a Complex World

Too bad HN doesn’t have double votes.

Also, self organization is an important feature of a complex system.

plainOldTexton Big Sur 11.1 External Display Issues

In case it helps anyone:

I remember when I upgraded to Catalina, macOS wouldn’t allow me to vertically rotate my two external displays anymore (as per my pre-upgrade setup). Then I remembered Apple introduced Sidecar, which I decided to turn off (using ‘defaults’); issue gone.

plainOldTexton Celebrate Woz's 70th

That was a good read. Thanks for sharing!

plainOldTexton Linear – A fast issue tracker

I haven’t tried Linear, but while browsing the site I couldn’t help but notice what an exquisite job the designer did with the Linear site.

It’s consistent, lightweight, it has pleasant proportions, a nice color theme, etc. It’s also sprinkled with all kinds of little details that show care, attention and craftsmanship.

I wish I’d see more sites like this.

plainOldTexton Friedrich Hayek on Evolution and Spontaneous Order (1983) [video]

I love Thomas Sowell. It’s extraordinarily impressive that while Dr. Sowell is 90 years old, he’s still sharp as an arrow. As a matter of fact he’s about to release a new book.

Also, from what I could gather from Twitter, it appears that recently more and more people are following his unofficial Twitter account. I’ve counted thousand new followers by the day.

plainOldTexton Framework Benchmarks Round 19

Absolute numbers vary with each machine, to the point they’re irrelevant in isolation.

However, in terms of relative performance the async version was 10x to 20x better. Bear in mind it was a simple hello world benchmark. I also disabled keep-alive. Reusing a connection gets you even better performance.

Rocket is a well designed framework, so I’d expect it to perform similarly to other rust frameworks once the async version hits master.

plainOldTexton Framework Benchmarks Round 19

I actually benchmarked it yesterday and I would like to point out that the async branch of Rocket will get you improved performance, as the current stable implementation v0.4.4 appears to be synchronous. I think Rocket v0.5 will change that.

plainOldTexton The Changing World Order

I beg to differ. The comment was perfectly reasonable in my view. I also learned about someone new, namely George Friedman.

plainOldTexton The Changing World Order

I'm currently reading Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World by Peter Zeihan. [1]

The book discusses the upcoming world order from a geopolitical perspective and gives original insight into potential developments. For example, I wasn't aware the US Navy has been securing the maritime shipping lanes, thus boosting global trade; and if that stops, well, you can imagine the implications.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Disunited-Nations-Scramble-Power-Ungo...

plainOldTexton Show HN: I made a macOS app to let me draw on the screen while on video calls

I have auto-hiding menu bar turn on, thus I cannot click on it once Presentify is activated. I was thinking of an exit button next to the eraser/color picker.

plainOldTexton Show HN: I made a macOS app to let me draw on the screen while on video calls

Nice presentation website. I've also just tried your app. I think it needs an exit button. It's not obvious how to exit it (unless you know the shortcut) once you activate it.

plainOldTexton New iPhone SE

It could be. I don't know who designs the iPhones these days, although Jony Ive is claimed to still count Apple as a client of his new company. I don't know if his heart is.

One thing is certain to me, the black front makes the white version incomplete, and noticeably so, as if someone was inching towards "perfection", but then gave up.

I'm still sporting the white iPhone 7, btw.

plainOldTexton New iPhone SE

I was wondering the same thing. I’m glad I’m not the only one.

Plus, the white front would have made it look much more elegant IMO.

plainOldTexton Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says

> On the flip side, decentralizing makes coordination harder.

Perhaps technology could help in this regard, at least to some degree. Bitcoin has proven coordination in a low trust environment is possible. Imagine if we could make coordination easier in other industries too.

> I'm not arguing that one kind of organization is always better or worse. To me it just seems complicated.

I agree, it is indeed complicated. But we need to start seriously considering concepts such as scale, systems thinking with its centralization/decentralization paradigms, and incomplete knowledge/risks if we want to design better institutions. Then we can thinker with turning the knobs one way or the other.

plainOldTexton Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says

I guess it depends on who you follow on Twitter.

plainOldTexton Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says

> It’s not like every local organization can marshal expertise on every issue.

In order to be efficient decision makers, local organizations should be concerned with acquiring expertise related to local issues, and then, through cooperation, global expertise becomes an emergent property. It's not like every central institution can marshal expertise on every local issue.

One reason you want to avoid centralization is due to the fact that decision making occurs under imperfect and incomplete knowledge, or bounded-rationality as Herbert Simon called it.

By decentralizing the process of decision making, you mitigate the risks, since you are allowing entities to tackle a problem in parallel, and if one of them turns out to be wrong, the fallout is localized. Whereas in a centralized system, one bad decision can spell trouble for everyone.

plainOldTexton Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says

Anyone following the social media and the news would’ve called the pandemic weeks ago.

I hope this will make people realize that we need to abolish centralized institutions in our highly complex world. They are single points of failure which introduce significant systemic risks.

CDC also dropped the ball on this one. In Washington state local authorities discovered the outbreak only because they defied federal regulators.

We need better organization at the local level, and we need it now.

plainOldTexton Trader Joe's founder Joe Coulombe has died

Trader Joe’s is my favorite grocery store.

Its size is not too small as to feel claustrophobic, nor too big as to feel overwhelming.

But most important, they have a great selection of high quality and reasonably priced items.

I wish more companies would be like this.

plainOldTexton Elixir v1.10

If you really want to learn Elixir, you should learn enough Erlang prior, to get a better understanding of how Erlang/OTP all fits together. Thus, I would recommend the following structure:

1. Read Joe Armstrong's Book: Programming Erlang to learn the basics and the philosophy behind Erlang from one of its creators. [1]

2. Read Erlang and OTP in Action to learn more about the OTP (Open Telecom Platform), applications and gen_servers (which btw, you will find them all over).

3. Learn Elixir, perhaps from one of the books Elixir in Action [3] or Programming Elixir. [4]

4. Finally, start implementing your cool personal project.

Ah, one more thing: Elixir School is also a wonderful resource with tons of information and examples [5] and of course the official Elixir website with its excellent docs. [6]

–––

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Erlang-Concurrent-Pragmat...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Erlang-OTP-Action-Martin-Logan/dp/193...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Elixir-Action-Sa%C5%A1a-Juri-cacute/d...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Elixir-1-6-Functional-Con...

[5] https://elixirschool.com/

[6] https://elixir-lang.org/