HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

zimmund

143 karma · joined February 15, 2014

https://github.com/elamperti/
submissionscomments
zimmund··on iPhone Duo
The purpose of the og razr clamshell was to extend the small device into something that reached both your ear and your mouth; not so much to have an increased screen surface/working space. Now we're trying to fold the phablets into something that still fits in our pockets.
zimmund··on Codex Micro
Not sure if the mechanical keyboards community would agree...
zimmund··on Exapunks (2018)
Why is this relevant to HN? (especially since it's nothing new?)
zimmund··on The time the x86 emulator team found code so bad they fixed it during emulation
I can't stop thinking about all the unoptimized code we have around. As processors (and memory) over the last 2-3 decades improved faster than we needed to fix the inefficiencies we created, we silently accepted that we don't need efficiency everywhere. So maybe a compiler, an emulator or some critical piece of code were created with this in mind, but the average app or website just waste resources left and right and pray for the best.

With more and more code being written with AI (which has notoriously inefficient solutions to simple problems), I expect this issue to become more prevalent. I just hope we optimize at the source of the problem (AI and humans using it) and not on platforms (compiler and engine/kernel heuristics)

zimmund··on Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time
they'll run out of countries to invade (or to sell oil to) at some point, so green alternatives will -eventually- prevail...
zimmund··on macOS needs its grid back
The window (miss)management of MacOS is what's holding me from switching to Mac. I've already tried Aerospace and similar solutions, but I can't replicate the fast and unobstructed experience I have with i3wm.

Sadly wm in MacOS is like notifications on iOS: with enough time you get used to the unproductive mess they are, but you'll be missing out on better solutions. And since probably all MacOS devs are using Mac, they won't see/understand other (better) approaches.

zimmund··on Vivaldi 8.0
> I frequently encounter sites that do not work well or they do not work at all

What kind of sites do you visit frequently? Because as a Firefox user, I rarely see issues like this and it's usually related to either chrome-specific things they didn't bother to implement in a compatible way or very cutting-edge features that are not fully available in browsers yet.

I know Firefox had issues in the past (I suffered them myself) but I don't remember having issues with it over the last bunch of years, and it's my main (only) browser.

zimmund··on AI has a multiplying effect on existing technical skills
Came here to comment this. I've already saw another article by this author and it all leads towards the course. Not cool :/
zimmund··on Ask HN: We just had an actual UUID v4 collision...
That's because of tokens (and temperature). You could piece back the tokens to parts of existing tokens in public data. And given enough iterations, GPT will probably start showing noticeable patterns (since it's not actually random).
zimmund··on I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it
Considering I have most of my friends living abroad and how little I get to see other people (especially the ones that would use this app), I won't even bother downloading it. I don't need an app to feel lonely...
zimmund··on Our commitment to Windows quality
Honestly, it feels like McDonald's commiting to food quality. At the end of the day it's still a bland burger.
zimmund··on Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues
Given that a lot of things happen in the browser, I think it wouldn't be too crazy. There are even distros that look like Windows if you're after that. What part of it do you think isn't ready for this scenario? (honestly curious)
zimmund··on Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?
They've been crippling the free tier for a long time. And a few years ago they were about to restrict it completely (they've backed out last moment), to a point where many of us migrated to other platforms and never looked back.
zimmund··on Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
> As long as an app is easy to use, people prefer a single look

No, people are used to an UI language, which in the case of iOS is quite consistent across applications. You expect certain things to work (e.g. flicking in from the left edge means "go back"). There are platform-specific patterns and I'd rather have the app behave accordingly rather than being consistent with other OS' version. The real 0.1% here are probably the users of your app with active devices in both Android and iOS!

zimmund··on The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch
> Institute a government agency that is tasked with enforcement.

You're forgetting about the first W in WWW...

zimmund··on GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation
I hope GitHub keeps autonomy somehow and stays away from the dumpster fire that is Azure.
zimmund··on I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)
so... VoIP?
zimmund··on Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"
It got 80% of the problem solved for OP, and the remaining 20% can be fixed by humans afterwards. Prompt early, prompt often (?)
zimmund··on First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV
Well, in that case could we call them Statians or Unitians?
zimmund··on Ghost artists on Spotify
And before this: self-playing pianos using perforated rolls, reducing the cost of hiring live pianists in saloons.
zimmund··on Show HN: Banan-OS, an Unix-like operating system written from scratch
Joining these courses may be enriching for everyone though. You may learn something new or a different approach to a problem you've solved. Other students will appreciate your actual experience with the subject. And the professor may learn a thing or two (and appreciate your contributions) if you can add to the subject. That said, I'm not good managing my time and I don't have the guts to code an OS from scratch, so what do I know?
zimmund··on GPT-4.5 or GPT-5 being tested on LMSYS?
The site seems to use gradio (which from what I've experienced in the past is quite slow).

All those domains can be avoided just using an ad blocker, I suggest ublock origin.

zimmund··on Show HN: Sonauto – A more controllable AI music creator
Well, it's a starting point for songwriters. We won't get amazing solos and clever mind-bending lyrics (yet?). One thing I love about these AI music generators is that you can take the exact same lyrics and hear them in a lot of different styles and melodies. That's something that I'd struggle with. Can you easily imagine the happy birthday song with different melodies and rythms? These tools won't create the next bop, but they can seed back ideas to musicians, while people without music skills can have fun creating songs about the things they like.
zimmund··on Show HN: Online database diagram editor
Looks very nice! A few things I'd like to see to make it more useful:

- Let me pick a database when I start so the data types are restricted to that particular database. This can help down the line with other quirks and particularities of each db.

- I'd love to be able to use this and convert it to a model for my ORM (I'm currently using Prisma, but depending on your vision this could expand to other languages and ORMs such as, for example, Django). This would be helpful because I'd be able to jump from design to implementation without rewriting everything as models in my ORM.

- The nodes to establish relationships are difficult to click, and several times I ended up dragging the table instead. Consider making them easier to grab.

- If I delete a property from the table (in the grid) there's no quick way to undo. A toast message with an undo link would be helpful.

- The "delete diagram" option didn't ask me for confirmation and even if I saved my diagram before, it's gone. And this option is dangerously close to "Rename"!

zimmund··on IrfanView
For Linux users looking for something similar to IrfanView, nomacs is the closest I found to IrfanView since I moved away from Windows:

https://nomacs.org/

zimmund··on NotepadNext – a cross-platform reimplementation of Notepad++
Using VS Code: select whatever you want to match, then Ctrl+Shift+L
zimmund··on Difftastic, a structural diff tool that understands syntax
The diff itself is impressive, but in terms of styling I still prefer diff-so-fancy[1]. It's easier to read at a glance.

[1]: https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy/

zimmund··on Google to remove Location History, use device-based timelines
Since the data shown on your Timeline will come directly from your device, it won’t be available on Maps on your computer after your data is moved to your phone.

You can request a backup of your data from https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

zimmund··on I quit my job to work full time on my open source project
I got fired with severance, and took the opportunity to do this. It feels so rewarding to work on your own project, waking up and just deciding what you want to do next with it. There were also periods where anxiety got to me, because it's not giving me enough money to live from it (it barely supports its own costs). But all in all I'm enjoying it and learning a lot in the process. If anything, it makes me want to keep trying to find financial independence and new ideas.
zimmund··on JC converts the output of popular command-line tools to JSON
> Not to mention using `--<CMD>`

If you read further down in the documentation, you can just prefix your command with `jc` (e.g. `jc ls`). The `--cmd` param is actually a good idea, since it allows you to mangle the data before converting it (e.g. you want to grep a list before converting it).

Regarding maintenance, most of the basic unix commands' output shouldn't change too much (they'd be breaking not only this tool but a lot of scripts). I wouldn't expect it to break as often as you imagine, at least not because of other binaries being updated.

Page 1 of 4Next →