Hacker News: GeoffKnauth

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go"

GeoffKnauth — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 16:34:18 +0000

Using brew, I got "Apple could not verify `whosthere' is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy." [Move to Trash] [Done]

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Racket v9.0"

GeoffKnauth — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 10:37:04 +0000

I just bought your book. Thanks for writing it. I look forward to reading it!

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Mathematics and Computation (2019) [pdf]"

GeoffKnauth — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 15:30:40 +0000

Looks like an interesting book. I wonder why I saw no references to Donald Knuth in the bibliography. He is mentioned once in the text.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Simulating 500M years of evolution with a language model"

GeoffKnauth — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:39:25 +0000

The proteins that exist today have developed into their present forms over the course of billions of years of natural evolution, passing through a vast evolutionary sieve.

Simulating 500M years of evolution with a language model

GeoffKnauth — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:39:25 +0000

Article URL: https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/21_february_2025/4253334/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43127271

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Northeastern's redesign of the CS curriculum"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:26:56 +0000

My son went to Northeastern ('19) and now designs programming languages and can program skillfully in ANY language. I'm glad he went to Northeastern before this announced change. I feel my money spent at Northeastern was well worth it, not because it made him employable (it did), but because it gave him critical thinking and research skills. It would be sad if too many future Northeastern grads were limited to programming in Python or whatever the mainstream language of the decade is. "Batteries included" Python is great for the workforce but it may weaken basic development skills of undergrads. I'm glad I grew up in an era (1970-80s) when what mattered was sitting down with a manual or book and picking up a language in a weekend and, working with your friends, mastering it in a few weeks or months. A favorite memory that still astonishes me: in 1983 Andy Sudduth, one of my roommates and soon Olympic rowing medalist, built his own computer (a Heathkit), and with a paper due the next day, I offered to lend him my Kaypro-II so he could use WordStar. He said, "Thanks, but I'm going to put my own operating system on it [which he developed in his OS course], then I'm going to use my own full-screen editor I wrote, and then I'm going to write my paper using that editor." "You're going to do all that by tomorrow?", I asked. "Yes." And HE DID IT.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Young Persons Guide to BCPL Programming on the Raspberry Pi [pdf]"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 14:43:19 +0000

BCPL--hadn't had my first coffee before I read this, I thought it was going to be SBCL.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "The $20 an hour Cessna 172 experiment (2020)"

GeoffKnauth — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 06:36:04 +0000

No, that is not true. I got treated for cancer two years ago (surgery and radiation), it was contained (not metastatic), I have twice since passed a Class 2 Medical. I talked to my Aeromedical Examiner, I talked with my treating doctors, they talked to each other, it worked out -- so far.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Poll: What's the best laptop for Linux these days?"

GeoffKnauth — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 15:32:39 +0000

I'm imagining someone in the US saying, "I've always wanted to go to Austria!", hopping on a plane, and arriving the next day.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "How Southwest Airlines melted down"

GeoffKnauth — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:27:20 +0000

I wonder if there's an accurate record (time series) of what got canceled when, why, in what order, along with an accurate starting state for the whole SWA system. Then, for Monday morning quarterbacking, modelers and scientists could step through the meltdown in slow motion, and see, at each step, what they think could have been done differently.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Zuo: A tiny Racket for scripting"

GeoffKnauth — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 15:52:38 +0000

I just set up scsh again (64 bit macos). First re-installed scheme48, then re-installed scsh. Took 5 minutes. Now I have to re-learn scsh.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Build yourself a weather station"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 19:06:01 +0000

No, I'm not especially knowledgeable, not more than others here. As a pilot, I have 42 years of experience flying through weather and helping get the word out w/r/t hurricanes, e.g., relaying info via ham radio in the West Indies from relays in Florida before getting hit by the storms, back in the 1970s when that was the way, so I have long interest in and appreciation of weather. But I do also have appreciation for my colleagues and their meteorological expertise. They have something called MinuteCast which in my experience has been very accurate in telling me when precipitation will begin or end (except when it is misty). Regarding my "forecasting actual rain is not very hard" remark, you are right that a "long in advance" forecast is hard, but I was talking about the short term. Specifically, a commenter had wanted to know if it was going to rain before going out to exercise, and for that example, I meant a forecast of precipitation was easy.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Build yourself a weather station"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:37:19 +0000

From talking with meteorologists, it seems forecasting actual rain is not very hard if you have enough current data on the state of the atmosphere. What can be difficult is mistiness that is just on the borderline between falling droplets and moisture just hanging in the air. Differences can be extremely local in nature. [I'm not a meteorologist, I program computers, but I'm a pilot so I have a pilot's appreciation of and contact with weather.]

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Build yourself a weather station"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:16:43 +0000

Thanks. I think the new app coming out next month has a better UX. As for comparison with the default Weather app, I think the underlying forecast is more accurate. [Note, I work not on the app, but in back-end data. I'm happy to forward feedback to the people who work on the app.]

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Build yourself a weather station"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:13:03 +0000

I think you will like the new app coming out next month better, especially with your use case.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Build yourself a weather station"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 08:59:00 +0000

I like that Kirill Dubovikov built a weather station and showed others how. The more people who do this, the better, not just for education and skills, but in terms of gathering weather information that can help forecasters. He wrote, "the Weather app on my iPhone is not very good at making accurate forecasts," and I thought, "he must have been using the wrong app." I hope in addition to building weather stations and inspiring others to do so, he'll also give the AccuWeather app a try. [I work at AccuWeather; I admire the work my colleagues do to make and deliver accurate forecasts.] Even if Kirill prefers his weather station, I hope he'll use good apps to cross-check his station. Kirill can help in other ways. I speak Russian, so I volunteered to help beta-test the upcoming new app in Russian. My whole iPhone is in Russian at the moment. But Kirill is a native speaker.

Hackers and HOSPITALS: How you can help

GeoffKnauth — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 20:19:05 +0000

Article URL: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/hackers-and-hospitals-how-you-can-help

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22742052

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Donald Knuth: Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and the Art of Programming [video]"

GeoffKnauth — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 17:46:19 +0000

I had the opposite reaction. I thought Fridman was a very good interviewer. I've talked with Donald Knuth a half dozen times over the last thirty years. I really enjoyed this interview. Knuth seemed relaxed and to be having a good time thinking about the questions and answering them. If Knuth is happy, I'm happy.

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Racket 7.3"

GeoffKnauth — Thu, 16 May 2019 15:39:48 +0000

Another way to learn about all this stuff from the experts themselves is Racket School: https://school.racket-lang.org/

New comment by GeoffKnauth in "Programming Books You Wish You Read Earlier"

GeoffKnauth — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:03:54 +0000

I also think the list is OK, not quite the list I would have picked, but close. But I'm puzzled how you would know it's a legit list if you have read none of the books?