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sovande

693 karma · joined March 2, 2008

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sovande··on Magic Work Cycle
I am not aware of any specific studies that focus on a 30/30 cycle, but there's plenty of research that suggests taking regular breaks is good for you.

The ideal work-break routine is about the work you do, if you control your own time and, of course, what suits you best. For me, I’ve discovered that routine tasks, like writing documentation, do well with a 30-30 cycle. However, when I’m working on problem definition, such as programming and especially debugging, I need more focused time, but I do make sure to take a regular break every hour.

sovande··on Magic Work Cycle
The most important tool for AI-assisted coding isn't an agent framework. It's a timer that forces you to take regular breaks.

Back in 2010 Chetan Surpur introduced the Magic Work Cycle productivity technique. The idea: 30 min focused work, 30 min genuine break.

https://chetansurpur.com/blog/2010/11/magic-work-cycle.html

Regular breaks trigger diffused mode thinking, where the brain subconsciously makes connections that lead to "aha!" moments.

I built a completely free iOS and Apple Watch app for this. Maybe others find it useful too.

sovande··on Show HN: C discrete event SIM w stackful coroutines runs 45x faster than SimPy
Didn’t read the code yet, but stuff like this tend to be brittle. Do you do something clever around stack overflow, function return overwrite or would that just mess up all coroutines using the same stack?
sovande··on What's up with all those equals signs anyway?
Not only the manual, but Gnus itself. I remember this guy from the university (UiO) when he started working on Gnus. He was a small celebrity among us informatics students, and we all used Emacs and Gnus, of course.
sovande··on PostgreSQL deserves better than libpq
By mistake, I used a link to an insignificant commit while I was attempting to link to this comment block with more context.

https://bitbucket.org/tildeslash/libzdb/src/master/src/db/po...

sovande··on PostgreSQL deserves better than libpq
Background https://bitbucket.org/tildeslash/libzdb/src/b38570e6190312d9...
sovande··on Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants
The effect of globalization is that the west is bringing the rest of the world over the poverty line at the cost of deteriorating ourselves. Hard to say how this will end.
sovande··on New UK record for wind power set today – 21.81 GW between 0900-0930 GMT
Really cold weather doesn’t have much wind. It’s metrology. Without long term storage, wind power during the winter in the northern hemisphere is just meh. Same with any variable renewable energy source. Instead of celebrating the few times renewable energy actually produces energy when it’s needed we should celebrate every time a new Nuclear power plant comes online.
sovande··on My personal C coding style as of late 2023
> Long Long is ridiculous and often confusing

It might be ridiculous, but it’s hardly confusing for a C programmer. But, yeah in and ideal world ‘long’ should just be defined as 64 bits

sovande··on My personal C coding style as of late 2023
Exactly this (plus floating point types and unsigned qualifier) and done. It’s standard C, there is no need to invent yet another unnecessary “type” system for standard C native types. I do like bool though.
sovande··on CheatGPT
Isn’t this the whole point of John Searl’s “the Chinese room” thought experiment? But does it matter what is actually going on inside the room, if the effect and function is indistinguishable? Edit: after conferring with ChatGPT, Searle’s point like yours is that the man in the room doesn’t understand Chinese, he is just manipulating symbols, but from the outside, the man in the room seems to speak fluent Chinese.
sovande··on CheatGPT
> they can't do math, work through basic logic problems

ChatGPT begs to differ:

Me: How do I measure 4 liters when I have a 3 liter bottle and a 5 liter bottle?

ChatGPT: Here are the steps to measure 4 liters using a 3 liter and a 5 liter bottle:

Fill the 5 liter bottle completely with water. Pour 3 liters from the 5 liter bottle into the 3 liter bottle, leaving 2 liters in the 5 liter bottle. Now you have 3 liters of water in the 3 liter bottle, and 2 liters of water in the 5 liter bottle. Empty the 3 liter bottle, and pour the 2 liters from the 5 liter bottle into the 3 liter bottle. Fill the 5 liter bottle again with water, and pour 1 liter from the 5 liter bottle into the 3 liter bottle, which already has 2 liters of water. You will be left with 4 liters of water in the 5 liter bottle, which is the desired amount.

sovande··on Alien Truth
Somethings in mathematics are constant, both here and on alpha centauri, like the circumference of a circle divide by its diameter is Π or the hypotenuse squared is the sum of each leg squared in a right triangle etc.
sovande··on Mendon, Missouri
On a larger scale, the US Marshall Plan to help Europe back on its feet after WW2 was immensely important for Europe and for individuals. My uncle got help funding a successful garment factory in Bergen, Norway. He could employ over a hundred women, many widows. Those who still remember are forever grateful to the US. The same uncle also told me about how the Flesland airport outside Bergen was constructed. For years there had been bikesheeding about building an airport outside Bergen. After the war, it was finally constructed when NATO needed an airport. The US army came in with large bulldozers, shaved off the hilltops and put it into the valleys between the hills and in short time a large airstrip was made.
sovande··on 1.5-Inch Hand-Carved Agate from 1500 B.C. Shows Sub-Millimeter Details (2017)
Both have the same loincloth design and short hair.
sovande··on Daylight saving time is 'not helpful' and has 'no upsides,' experts say
DST must go! It’s giving whole countries jet lag two times per year. It’s like leaded gasoline for the collective mind, which BTW was introduced around the same time and also considered a good idea. Except there is no scientific reasoning behind DST. It’s purely for convenience for some. The astronomer who seriously proposed it wanted more daylight hours to devote to collecting and examining insects… Arghh
sovande··on CatMeows: A Publicly-Available Dataset of Cat Vocalizations (2020)
Cats & dogs mostly communicate with body language so this is of limited use. A translator model would need video for training. I can’t wait for the day when I can point my iPhone camera at a dog and learn what it tries to communicate. In the meantime we can learn the fascinating language of dogs, http://en.turid-rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survi...
sovande··on Disney Claims Trademark over Loki
>Thor for example at least has been pretty popular from before

That’s safe to say. Thursday is literally Thor’s day

sovande··on The computer revolution hasn’t happened yet (1997)
Of course it has. Your smartphone is the manifestation. It replaces at least 40 functions and makes your life better. If you choose to use mostly the bad parts, that is on you. It’s like complaining about your car making your life worse, but you only drive in reverse and bump into things
sovande··on Libvirt: Adoption of GLib library to replace GNULIB and home grown code
There is one significant thing that C has and C++ has not; a stable ABI. This is particularly important if you want to create a library that can be shared and used by everyone. You cannot do that with C++ without a lot of caveats. Google, for instance, forbid creating libraries in C++ for good reasons. Creating a C++ library with a C ABI sounds stupid. I.e. if the library’s functions and types can be presented as simple C, you have already folded down to C and C++ is just an implementation detail and you will probably also have to static link libstdc++. That’s no longer a small, simple library anymore. The stable ABI makes C also famously easy to include and inter opt with other languages and frameworks. Swift for example can easily utilize C libraries and code but cannot inter opt with C++ (yet, apparently it’s wip)
sovande··on Distributing Mac apps outside the App Store, a quick start guide
It’s a failed code sign of some sort. E.g. and typically, the developer used an installer cert for an app.
sovande··on Looking Glass starts shipping its 8K holographic display
Hmm, this techcrunch URL redirects me to https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers which my little snitch ad-filter blocks. In fact https://techcrunch.com/ does the same. Not a good move by techcrunch, I can't be the only one running host blocking of ad-servers
sovande··on Stockholm to reach herd immunity in May?
Preparing for the previous war is a classic mistake. This is irresponsible by Sweden without more data on the virus. New reports indicate that we don’t develop enough antibodies for herd immunity to be an option and it is even worrisome w/r to developing a vaccine. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-immuni...
sovande··on Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned
> I would never voluntarily work with PayPal tech.

Really, for your company's sake I hope what matters is not what you like, but that your company has a payment solution that does not stop working when Stripe freezes your account. Yeah, Stripe is not an iota better than PayPal when it comes to freezing accounts. The only sane thing to do is to have a backend system that at minimum can use both PayPal and Stripe. With such a system it should be easy to change between PayPal and Stripe and I suggest that we all shutdown the Stripe part to show our discontent.

sovande··on Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned
No, this is infuriating, but we must not forget that they “built an ML engine to automatically optimize bla bla bla.” But really, pretense should be off. Stripe is nothing more than a PayPal clone. Even the refund policy is now perfectly cloned. Someone here said that the only way our discontent can be heard is for us to switch between platforms regularly. Right now, PayPal does not look so bad. Their API and documentation has also become pretty good. Of course, the better thing would be to just get a merchant account and drop all these middleman leeches. Apropos, don’t get me started on the AppStore were we only pay 30% for the privilege
sovande··on Fork Bomb
Replacing his automated process with 2-3 manual steps and with a dependency on you. Yeah, he probably said whatever popped into his mind to make you go away.
sovande··on China Missiles Could Overwhelm U.S. Military in Asia in ‘Hours’, Says Think Tank
> So China could wipe out America’s military presence in Asia. What then? Do we assume that somehow the rest of America’s military back home and abroad doesn’t respond?

Yes, consider the following scenario, Using some political pretence, China invade Taiwan in a blitzkrieg which is over in a few days. All US communications and GPS are wiped out before the attack begins. Total chaos. Allies are blind. Any US forces in the vicinity trying to prevent the attack are obliterated. Next days China issue the following decree, Taiwan has joined the motherland and all regrettable attacks on US forces have stopped and a ceasefire is in effect. Any attack on China and Taiwan will be meet with nuclear forces. What will US and Nato do? What did they do when Russia elbowed itself into the Syrian conflict? That's right, nothing.

The point is, any serious attack done by China will be over before US an allies can stop it or reply properly, unless there is a believable rapid response force on location.

sovande··on John Carmack on Parallel Implementations (2018)
Am I missing something? Isn't he just advocating VC feature branching?
sovande··on Ask HN: Today is 50 years since the moon-landing. Recommended sites?
10 years ago, this site was very popular http://www.wechoosethemoon.org I wish there was something similar but updated
sovande··on Soulver – Notepad, meet calculator
> I just don't want to bother with MAS, so it's much easier to automate all stuff.

That might sound good to you, but not to your users. Please put it in a sandbox and on the MAS. There is no reason for a calculator to _not_ run in a sandbox. Discoverability and sales will probably improve as well on the App Store. I for one, would purchase in an instance, whereas now the only purchase option is a paddle (sic) preorder button.

> Btw all recent updates are notarized.

That is nice.

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