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stephth

1,140 karma · joined December 8, 2010

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stephth··on Vibe Coder vs. Software Engineer
> dismissing the possibilites of agentic coding as inherently non-SWE is rather short-sighted

The author does not. I recommend reading the whole article, IMO it shows rare (but growing) maturity about software development during this current age of AI tools (I mean in terms of practical day to day use, eg. ignoring (like everybody in tech) the environmental costs). But you might have been misled by how many people have adopted “vibe coding” to mean any use of ai in software dev.

From the article:

> A vibe coder gives the model a goal, but a software engineer gives the model a bounded task. The bounded task is where the engineering happens. Use this interface. Do not touch this layer. And so on. A good prompt is not magic here. It is usually evidence that the engineer already understands the boundary.

stephth··on More Older Couples Stay Together Because They Live Apart
You actually proved it’s a story: for some people it’s news that couples can live in different houses and have any other type of romantic relationship than dating.
stephth··on Why Read the Classics? (1986)
This is amazing. Thank you.

In your experience what’s the most convenient e-ink device for free ebooks? Ie Kindle is optimized for amazon so probably not the most convenient for this.

stephth··on Godot gets a brand new animation editor with cinematic support
How did Unreal compare regarding that issue?
stephth··on Launch HN: SafetyWing (YC W18) – A Global Safety Net for Digital Nomads
Interesting, best of luck! What are your closest competitors? And do you intend to provide other tiers for above 39, or are “digital nomads” above that age too few?
stephth··on React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook
Was just reading about yoga. Since you’re familiar with it, do you know if there are plans to support css grid?
stephth··on A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
The question here may not be face to face vs remotely, but a person vs a rudimentary AI. Can one feel acceptance and support from a chatbot that has no sense of self?
stephth··on Quiet
The plot context overview on Wikipedia is chilling just by itself...
stephth··on Keybase launches encrypted Git
> I want to bet on your company without feeling dependent on worst case restore scenarios

If you’re worried about Keybase disappearing with all your data, doesn’t backing up your computer cover that scenario?

stephth··on The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election
They survived the Judith Miller controversy. What is it about the HRC-NYT emails that ends their credibility in ways that Judith Miller didn't?

edit: I can't think of a good reason to downvote this question (please do explain), but I'll rephrase: the Judith Miller Iraq reporting was bad to say the least, and they got rid of her. In this case I am under the impression that the problem is a few isolated cases, but I'm not well educated and am possibly missing something. What about these emails makes this a sweeping issue over the whole organization, as opposed to a few reporters having abused their welcome?

stephth··on Travels From The Monk That Lives in My Phone
It wasn't stolen, it was lost and found. [1]

And for the credentials part, you're assuming a certain amount of technical knowledge and interest for iPod features beyond the basics.

[1] Relevant, from this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10247974

stephth··on Show HN: Initial release of H2O, and why HTTPD performance will matter in 2015
Interesting article. And congratulations for the release!

Sorry this is a bit off-topic (and doesn't apply to H2O as it's been in the works for a while looking at the commits), but I wonder, today, with a language like Rust (1.0 is at the door [1]), as performant as its safe C equivalent but modern and safe by design (and with an escape hatch to C/C++ if needed), what would be the advantages of starting a long term project of this type in C today?

[1] http://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/12/12/1.0-Timeline.html

Edit: why the downvotes?

stephth··on How Sleep Clears the Brain
I used to behave like this, would go to bed between 2 and 5, despite not liking the consequences (shortened daylight time, city noise while I slept in, being out of sync with others). I think I've gradually fixed it. Still working on being more regular, but these days I'm able to fall asleep at 10h30. Here's what I think helped me personally:

- learning about mindfulness (useful to stop/slow down the intense flow of thoughts. I recommend reading/listening to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle)

- 500 mcg of melatonin at the end of dinner. (the chewable ones sold at Trader Joe's work for me) Required read: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

During the transition, some days I may have forced myself to get up a little earlier so that I would go to bed earlier, it helped but I avoided doing this too often because it could affect my abilities for days. You want to sleep as much as you need but still go to bed at a reasonable time, not sleep deprive yourself to sleep. Setting your clock is a gradual thing. Maybe you can try to go to bed 15 min earlier every day.

EDIT: I'm not a doctor, and I didn't get help from a doctor for this. Take this advice at your own risk. But if you do get help from a doctor and you're offered a prescription for sleeping pills, please remember there may be healthier alternatives.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I think exercising helped me too. If you're not exercising because you can't find the time, you could - like me - start here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-mi...

stephth··on First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
Please forgive my ignorance. What makes Europa more likely to contain life than other moons thought to contain oceans like Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus ... ? [1]

[1] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18lqil4sqeremjpg/original.jp... [2]

[2] http://io9.com/5827649/a-map-of-all-the-water-in-the-solar-s...

stephth··on Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute to kill snakes
You've opened a new HN dimension to me. Not that I'll use this often, but it's good to know it's there.
stephth··on Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute to kill snakes
It's not in any way about the article.

Are the effects of snakes in Guam not close enough for you? :)

Anyway being tangential or meta doesn't seem to be an unpopular thing in HN. Also, you can't flag comments. (Edit: Yes you can.)

stephth··on Tsunami advisory in northern Japan after 7.1 magnitude earthquake off coast
"A U.S. Pacific tsunami warning center said there was no destructive widespread tsunami threat following the quake."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/25/us-japan-quake-idU...

"It was 6.2 miles deep, officials said, and hit at 3:10 a.m. Saturday local time and was felt 300 miles away in Tokyo.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a "yellow" warning Saturday morning, meaning a small tsunami could reach the coast at Fukushima, site of the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster.

There were no immediate reports of damage from the temblor, which Japanese authorities classified as a magnitude 6.8, Reuters reported. No irregularities were reported at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

A yellow warning is issued when a tsunami is not expected to exceed three feet, significantly smaller than the tsunami that hit the energy plant in March 2011. Residents in the coastal region of Fukushima Prefecture were being advised to move to higher ground.

No warning for the rest of the Pacific was posted by the U.S. Tsunami Warning Center after the quake."

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/25/21150222-73-ma...

stephth··on Paul Graham Thinks You Should Exercise
That's not a good excuse. There are plenty of hours in the day from which to choose an 8 minutes window.
stephth··on Paul Graham Thinks You Should Exercise
With the 7 minute workout, you have no excuse not to exercise daily. All you need is a wall, a chair, a mat if the floor doesn't have carpet, and about 8 minutes. You get a full body endurance workout with all its long term and short term benefits - makes you feel more awake right away and helps you sleep better at the end of the day - and just 8 minutes later you can be back on your keyboard.

You can exercise more if you want to, but unless you have an impeding health problem, you have no excuse not to do this much.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-mi...

I used this iOS app to learn the exercises (I started by learning 6 exercises and then evolved from there, in less than two weeks I was doing the full workout), and I use it every day to guide me: http://www.uovo.dk/apps/7minute.html (There's plenty of others similar apps out there which I haven't tried but this one works for me)

stephth··on What Neil and Buzz Left on the Moon
Thanks for the link, I appreciated the short but informative explanation.

Today I learned the moon is spinning away from the Earth while the Earth's rotation is slowing down, and by the time this dance movement ends, a day on the Earth will last a month!

stephth··on Cancer: A Computational Disease that AI Can Cure [video]
Link to the company he founded: http://www.cancercommons.org
stephth··on Why I’m Never Going Back to Penny Arcade Expo
Seems like this post is being either flagged or modded into oblivion. (As of writing, 1h old, 44 points, and already in page 2).
stephth··on I’m Thinking. Please. Be Quiet.
I would work for the rest of my life to pay for a device that turns my ears off temporarily. YC2020?
stephth··on I’m Thinking. Please. Be Quiet.
Being sensitive to useless noise, I want to make love to this article.

But most people I know seem uncomfortable with silence, and sleep through any noise. There are exceptions, but that's what they are, exceptions (in my anecdotal experience). If the science mentioned in the article is right, does it mean most people I know are what: either out of touch with themselves, or trying to cope with the fear of the noise by burying it under a stream of constant sound?

stephth··on A 97-Year-Old Man Who Draws Using Microsoft Paint from Windows ’95
Has anyone found any of his paintings in native resolution? I'd agree if you said that was a requirement to fully appreciate pixel art.
stephth··on On Distributing Command Line Applications: Why I Switched From Ruby to Go
What is the DSL used in the Ruby example?
stephth··on Logic Pro X
Exciting addition, almost missed it:

Scripter

Extensible plug-in that can process or generate MIDI data using standard JavaScript.

stephth··on Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ
MyFonts does too. 83k web fonts according to:

http://www.myfonts.com/info/webfonts/

stephth··on Repository Next
The new design looks stunning next to the older one - which already looked good.

Am I the only one wishing the readme was above the file list? In my case, I often read the readme and rarely look at the files, and as a landing page standpoint it seems logical that the readme would be front facing instead of hidden at the bottom. I'm curious what's the reasoning behind that order, since it's been that way forever and GitHub seems to be fairly dedicated to elegant and thoughtful design while being open to change, I imagine there must be a good explanation.

stephth··on Ć Programming Language - Compile C# subset to C, Java, C#, JS, AS, Perl and D
Right, from the documentation (albeit hidden in the Arrays section):

Since there is no garbage collection in C, you must free the dynamically allocated array with delete. delete translates to C as free and nothing in other (garbage-collecting) languages.

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