smartmic

Leah Neukirchen is active member of the Void Linux community, I expect a lot of cross-pollination here. It would be really great if she could write up something how to use it for Void.

Today, I read the following in the concluding sentence of Frederik P. Brooks' essay “No Silver Bullets, Refired"[0]. I am quoting the entire chapter in full because it is so apt and ends with a truly positive message.

> Net on Bullets - Position Unchanged

> So we come back to fundamentals. Complexity is the business we are in, and complexity is what limits us. R. L. Glass, writing in 1988, accurately summarizes my 1995 views:

>> So what, in retrospect, have Parnas and Brooks said to us? That software development is a conceptually tough business. That magic solutions are not just around the corner. That it is time for the practitioner to examine evolutionary improvements rather than to wait—or hope—for revolutionary ones.

>> Some in the software field find this to be a discouraging picture. They are the ones who still thought breakthroughs were near at hand.

>> But some of us—those of us crusty enough to think that we are realists—see this as a breath of fresh air. At last, we can focus on something a little more viable than pie in the sky. Now, perhaps, we can get on with the incremental improvements to software productivity that are possible, rather than waiting for the breakthroughs that are not likely to ever come.[1]

[0]: Brooks, Frederick P.,Jr, The mythical man-month: essays on software engineering (1995), p. 226

[1]: Glass, R. L., "Glass"(column), System Development, (January 1988), pp. 4-5.

I wrote about my reaction to the AI flood yesterday[0]. In short: I'm not participating, but waiting to see what happens. Your abilities will remain intact, so make sure that your mind remains intact as well.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892946

Nzxt.

I also tried Nyxt, but I never stuck with it. I believe there are different UI contexts depending on the goal. For example, browsing the web is a different task and experience than editing text. That's why it comes naturally to me to use a mouse- and keyboard-driven application, Firefox in my case, for browsing and Emacs for anything text-related.

In other words, using the purely text-driven Emacs interface to browse multimedia web pages does not feel natural to me.

I'll throw my favourite into the ring, mtPaint: https://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/

The needle now presses a little deeper into the bubble.

Just look at this submission. It's highly critical of AI and made it algorithmically to the HN front page, but was censored within minutes by our HN moderators and downranked into oblivion. This happens regularly with articles that are highly critical of AI. The moderators have the final say here. HN is not a fully egalitarian platform.

Yes, and now we have come full circle back to capitalism. As soon as a gap forms between capital and untapped resources, the capitalist engine keeps running: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is difficult or impossible to break out of this on a large scale.

In my opinion, an important detail is missing here. The Amiga 2000 was my first computer, and what made it special was that it had a PC bridgeboard with an 8088 CPU[0]. I remember it never worked properly, but being able to access MS-DOS and program in GW-BASIC was amazing to me. At least I could convice my parents at the time that I would use the computer not only for gaming but for also for school homework ( we had a class for learning programming/informatics )

[0]: https://dfarq.homeip.net/amiga-bridgeboard-the-pc-compatibil...

Exactly. And I wonder why Paul Graham is jumping on such a statement. Of everything I've read by him so far, this has the least substance.

That's a good approach, there's definitely a gap in the market there. But where can I find the repository? The homepage is missing a lot of meta information, such as links to the repository, licence, etc.

Also for Windows download, a standalone (portable) zip version (without installer) would be great.

This is because AI-generated code will always be mediocre. There is so much poor-quality code in the training base that it will dilute the high-quality sources. AI is not a craftsman who builds on his own high standards, but rather a token grinder tool calibrated to your prompts. Even if you describe your problem (prompt) to a high standard, there is no way it can deliver a solution of the same standard. This will be true in 2025 as it was in 2023 and probably always will be.

This goes hand in hand with the Lindy effect[0]. Some of the examples given in the article are a testament to it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

If I understood correctly, the rule is dependent on web server features and/or configuration. In that case, an overview of web servers which have or have not implemented the slow start algorithm would be interesting.

Worth to mention as another alternative: Harper[0]

[0]: https://writewithharper.com/

Correct (and already done by now). Just a few days ago, there was the remarkable example that Cloudflare wants to use the code 402 (payment required) to keep AI crawlers away or ask them to pay. I still think it's a great idea, hopefully something will come of it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432385

If you mean the financial power to pay for such power plants, then I agree. But the technical capabilities to quickly provide stationary or mobile power plants can be purchased from a few large, international companies; noteworthy suppliers can be found in the USA, Europe and Asia. And they will build it for you in almost any country in the world, as I said, provided you pay accordingly. Of course, the delivery time of turbines is often a bottleneck, but this applies more to the very large ones than the smaller ones that should actually be installed here (and it also applies equally to all manufacturers).

Interesting to see a tool written in V in the wild. I will try it out just for that reason.

I'm also more concerned about depreciation risk. However, you can still do a lot with XSLT 1.0. There is also SaxonJS, which allows you to run XSLT 3.0. However, embedding JavaScript to use XSLT defeats the purpose of this exercise.

Are you saying this was written by an LLM? Can you give examples for your assertion?

I learned vi a long time ago and use it when no other editor is at hand. In fact, I am using several editors simultaneously, depending on the task at hand and what is availabe. I stumbled over dte because I like to try out new things. And because dte hits many sweet spots for me, I installed it on machines where I often need a terminal editor. Binding myself to only one tool just because I learned to use it at some point in time is not my philosophy. Thankfully, the open source world offers so many alternatives and innovations, so that there is something for almost all tastes and habits. It comes with no costs besides building muscle memory to switch as needed and wanted.

There is also dte[1]. It hits exactly the same notch and offers an extremely lean editor with Unicode support, CUA key bindings and much more. It has replaced nano as my terminal editor.

[1]: https://craigbarnes.gitlab.io/dte/

None that has come with the flood of LLM-based tools. I only use one language translator [1], but it was already of such good quality before the LLM wave that I didn't even notice the change under the bonnet (if there was one at all).

[1] https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

> As the educational impact of LLM use only begins to settle with the general population, in this study we demonstrate the pressing matter of a likely decrease in learning skills based on the results of our study.

Fast forward 500 years (about 20 generations), and the dumbing down of the population has advanced so much that films like 'Idiocracy" should no longer be described as science fiction but as reality shows. If anyone can still read history books at that point, the pre-LLM era will seem like an intellectual paradise by comparison.

Put another way: There are about 38 generations in one thousand years. So, yes, it doesn't seem that long!

https://howmanygenerations.com/

Unfortunately, the setup instructions for "Linux" on the homepage only consider "systemd." Of course, every GNU/Linux user — or rather, administrator — who doesn't use systemd knows how to set it up the "old" UNIX way. However, assuming that Linux equals systemd is kind of offensive to a small group of systemd avoiders (such as myself).

Austria is special. Using an academic title is customary, and job titles are still common. Many foreigners think Austria and Germany are similar in terms of culture, but there are notable differences between the two countries that can be traced back to their history. I have an Austrian mother and a German father, so I experienced both cultures.

It's a generational thing. There has definitely been a change in recent years, especially the younger generation can no longer do much with the formal “Sie”, but of course they know it. I am 46 years old and have grown up with and been familiar with the “Du/Sie” dichotomy from the very beginning. It also has many advantages and offers clear relationships: There is no ambiguity as to which pronouns I use to address someone, older people and superiors always use “Sie”. With younger people/peers of the same age, you can quickly agree on a “Du”. These days, it's unclear to me who I can address as “Du”. I'm a friend of clarifying this before starting, but it's always a meta conversation, which can hinder the flow of conversation. Besides, it's a kind of badge of honor and a sign of trust when you're offered a “Du”. When I address anyone of our management team as “Du” these days, it irritates me - I'm not “best friends” with them, nor do I feel closer or more connected. For me, the distinction is/was never an expression of whether you are on an equal footing or not.

I'm not any the wiser from the article - who did what and why doesn't Microsoft want to have done anything?