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spiderxxxx

111 karma · joined October 7, 2016

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spiderxxxx··on No One Knows What Universities Are For
Nalanda university was the first, not Bologna, having predated it by more than 600 years.
spiderxxxx··on Cost of developing new drugs may be lower than industry claims: trial
They've been marketed better. I wouldn't say they are more effective. Still, if you have a problem and your doctor prescribes you a drug, you should ask if it's the most tested, reliable drug, or just the latest.
spiderxxxx··on AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them
I agree, most people watch the movie for the story that unfolds. Few are looking at things like framing the subject, the pull of the focus, subtle lighting differences between scenes, they are interested in the story, not the art of filmmaking. The people offended by this are the ones that are crying about the art being taken out of it.
spiderxxxx··on Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament for my PhD
could it detect a twist instead of a bend?
spiderxxxx··on macOS Finder is still bad at network file copies
Ok, step back a bit... I have a file selected, I have a key called 'enter' - if I press 'enter' what would you expect to happen? I'd expect to 'enter' the file - by opening it or 'entering' the file. I wouldn't expect it to 'enter a new name', because that's an editing function.

Now, my mac has enter marked as 'return'. Let's follow the same logic, assume I have a file selected, what should 'return' on a file do? Return it to where?

spiderxxxx··on Ask HN: Should Banks Phish Their Own Customers
No, you do phishing of your own employees to identify employees who need more training. What would be the outcome of doing it to your customers?
spiderxxxx··on Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
I stopped using ad blockers and just don't visit sites that have intrusive ads. The number of ads that a single page has now is ridiculous. I can't believe people make their pages look this way. Try disabling your ad blocker on some of your favorite sites, you'll be surprised.
spiderxxxx··on Ask HN: Why can't image generation models spell?
The asker didn't ask for a very scientific answer. They've come across a limitation and are asking why. Any answer is still an answer, sorry if it didn't match your criteria.
spiderxxxx··on Ask HN: Why can't image generation models spell?
What is spelling but putting into letters what is heard? If you can give it the text, then it's not spelling is it, it would be copying! I think you want to give it ideas, that will translate into words, which is certainly not spelling. It's creating. SD models start with simply static, and it's asked to find some pattern and expand upon it until it matches the pattern better. Letters on a sign for example are not right or wrong by their placement, but upon judgement by someone who has the knowledge of the language. Sale might mean 'salt' if you speak italian, but it might mean there's a discount for a short period of time if you speak english. Sensibel might seem like a misspelling if sensible if you speak english, but it's perfectly correct spelling in German.

My suggestion is to use Image to Image, start with the text of your son's name, and give it some gaussian noise background, and then paint out the parts you want to keep.

spiderxxxx··on Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure
Ice can do that too. And engine failure.
spiderxxxx··on The Epson HX-20 – A Contrarian's View (2021)
This thing was pretty solid. The circuitboard is silk screened on both sides with labels for everything, test points, and a trademark Epson thick technical manual. Repair is fairly easy except for the self destructing batteries that take out the FFCs inside. Still, if you can get your hands on one, you can probably repair it. The technical manual even goes into detail on how to install the capacitors, recommending about 1mm below the capacitor for the legs to come up and connect, so in the future if you have to replace them, you just cut the legs off and remove the remnants.
spiderxxxx··on The Epson HX-20 – A Contrarian's View (2021)
If there was a devterm with a 80% keyboard I'd gladly buy it, but that tiny keyboard on it makes it a no from me.
spiderxxxx··on The Epson HX-20 – A Contrarian's View (2021)
You'd think so, but I can't find anyone had actually been using it as such. Since it can read and write tapes, it seems it would be perfectly suited to running a retail store's day to day business. The barcode scanner and some basic database software would have probably sold like hotcakes as a portable POS system.
spiderxxxx··on The Epson HX-20 – A Contrarian's View (2021)
True. DOS wasn't better, it's just the first OS I've used, but CP/M works just fine and is easy to learn. Not that that's relevant to this machine, it has no real OS, just a basic system for managing the hardware.
spiderxxxx··on Boeing 737 MAX suffers landing gear failure, rolls off runway
Speculation is what we do, doesn't harm anyone, and is good to prime the brain for more detailed technical information. I'm fine with it. In fact, I think I learn more about how these systems interoperate by the speculation.
spiderxxxx··on Nissan drops app support for the original Leaf
They didn't upgrade the modems in the old 2014 leafs, I was able to purchase the 3G upgrade, but then a year later they discontinued service anyway.
spiderxxxx··on Nissan drops app support for the original Leaf
Replacing the batteries on a leaf is now possible, even the earliest ones. People can buy an aftermarket battery and install it. Far from being disposable, the components of the batteries after replacement are reused, sometimes the battery itself lost some large percentage of its capacity, but it is useful enough. The issue with the replacement batteries is that the computer in those old leafs doesn't account for larger batteries, so the range calculations are all wrong.
spiderxxxx··on Why South Korean women aren't having babies
It's not though, if you have a baby in SK, you get a lot of perks, FTA:

>Couples who have children are showered with cash, from monthly handouts to subsidised housing and free taxis. Hospital bills and even IVF treatments are covered, though only for those who are married.

It's not pay after you have a baby that makes people want to have a baby, it's job stability, decent pay and working hours that makes people want to have children.

spiderxxxx··on Why South Korean women aren't having babies
The culture exacerbates the issues, but they're the same issues that's affecting families everywhere. If I'm making minimum wage, or close to it, and I don't have stability in my job, then I'm not having kids. The only less wealthy people left having kids are those that don't use birth control and don't condone abortion. I had decided that the time was right to have a child after I'd been employed for 6 years in a decent paying job and I wasn't concerned about being laid off. Employers now are preferring younger candidates, those fresh out of college, ones who don't have kids that they have to pick up / drop off from school. They want you connected 100% of the time, checking your email/chat on your time off. That leaves people with offspring feeling like they don't belong. Until that changes, there's going to be less births.
spiderxxxx··on AI PR adds auto generated comments to whole Spring Boot Project
> /* > * Determines the GitHub tag for the given project. > * @param project the project for which to determine the GitHub tag > * @return the GitHub tag for the project > */ > private String determineGitHubTag(Project project) {

Here's a sample of the crap you get, for 3000+ files, multiple comments per file, all this inane, that anyone with two brain cells could figure out just by reading the name of the function. If the project didn't already have these sort of comments, then adding them now is a choice that the maintainer of standards would have to make, not some random contributor.

spiderxxxx··on Getting rid of bed bugs: trickier than ever
Yes I'm not saying it's going to cause long term damage to your lungs, it's probably pretty safe, but it doesn't feel great if you inhale it, and it's easy to avoid if you just put on a mask or spray and move away.
spiderxxxx··on His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to Kill Him
My great grandad was a pig farmer, until one day he had cut his hand or something, the pigs upon smelling blood felt like they wanted a taste of him, and he ended up climbing a tree until the neighbors found him and were able to get him out of there. After that he grew peaches, sold off all the pigs.
spiderxxxx··on Getting rid of bed bugs: trickier than ever
I can confirm, DE works. Just don't breathe the stuff, which you're supposed to puff onto surfaces. Once it's there, the bugs have to crawl across it so it'll cut them up like little razor blades, or a thousand paper cuts. So satisfying.
spiderxxxx··on The world’s most responsible AI model
Reminds me of when I'm trying to use ChatGPT to fix up my grandad's war stories - the first few pages of each story come through nicely edited, but when it gets to the meat and potatoes of the war, well all of a sudden it says 'this might violate...'. It's a story my grandfather wrote, I'm trying to edit it because though he was a decent writer, he wasn't great. But if I mention any of the slang in the story, or sometimes the subject or actions, well, that's a bridge too far.
spiderxxxx··on Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America
If you look at the 'studio' size comparison, the "American" one has a closet that the others don't have, actually two closets, and some sort of sitting/dining designated area that the others also don't have. Their whole reasoning is that the wall would be <10ft meaning it would be "quite dark". Electric lights exist. This is nonsense.
spiderxxxx··on Somewhere along the way we forgot about software craftsmanship
I always tell new developers, take pride in your work, and take the time to do it right, because your manager will not care at all about the quality, but it'll bite you in the ass if you don't. The only person who is going to care about craftsmanship of your code is you.
spiderxxxx··on Thou shalt follow these vintage computing commandments
Same. Recap if you can, it doesn't cost much, and they'll eventually have to be replaced anyway. If you don't have a lot of experience, then recap a system that's easy to replace like a Sega Genesis or something. You'll gain a lot of experience and probably grow your toolset.

Also I'd add another commandment there, if you want to make your equipment last the longest, store them in a constant temperature without moisture.

spiderxxxx··on You Shouldn't Start with an SPA
I make mine such that the first load includes the data needed in the first load of the page. If you're going to populate a grid on the first load, just have the backend include that in the page itself inside a dynamically inserted javascript block. For something like paged search results, you can preload the first page, and preload the second page a short while after that.
spiderxxxx··on Neanderthals and humans lived side by side in Northern Europe 45,000 years ago
Mitochondrial DNA is one way they could tell neanderthals were a distinct species. Teeth shape as well. It's not just looking at the DNA itself, but the behavior as well, such as isolated reproduction, different adaptations, and ancestors as well. Modern humans can be traced back to a particular ancestor, and Neanderthals can be traced back to the same ancestor, where they branched off from. Neanderthals diverged from homo heidelbergensis around half a million years ago, and modern humans did as well, though later. It's not just about looks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#/media/File:Ho...

I think this image explains it pretty well. You can see they branch off, and then kind of get absorbed.

spiderxxxx··on On a Tesla: Don't
I just got a new car (not a tesla), it has it has controls that have dedicated buttons, it does have a touchscreen, and turn signal stalk, check. gear stalk? that's been gone ages ago. I have a/c control buttons, radio dials, volume knob. Don't have a spare, but that's standard. They used to pack a real full size tire before they started with that extra small spare tire crap, then finally they just give you a kit that can repair your tire. The touchscreen is not small, and no there's not a lot of tiny targets crowded too close together. They're fairly spread out and all the controls are about 3 finger widths apart. Not everyone gets a tesla.
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