Hacker News: JasonFruit

New comment by JasonFruit in "Introduction to Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995 (2001)"

JasonFruit — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 22:57:15 +0000

He should. His work has political and cultural significance, and only that: no literary value. I say that as someone who put too much time into reading Bloom County when I was younger.

New comment by JasonFruit in "I was at the clapperboard for Orson Welles' drunk wine commercial (2021)"

JasonFruit — Sat, 11 May 2024 11:43:19 +0000

That's generally agreed to be once so far, so maybe not the highest bar in resurrections? Even JR Ewing matches it.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Bartók's Monster – Stalking the dead composer through Transylvania (2013)"

JasonFruit — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 12:40:16 +0000

I'm baffled by all the people saying this is good writing. This is self-indulgent, showoff writing by someone who cannot maintain a consistent voice. If you liked it, give the credit to Béla Bartók, who provided the topic that held your interest, and to the Transylvanians who have conserved and preserved an ethnic culture that provides endless fascination.

New comment by JasonFruit in "A lavish lifestyle strains credibility (1985)"

JasonFruit — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 14:44:13 +0000

My immediate reaction is to doubt some of this: isn't it what you'd expect to read about someone who agrees to testify against a well-funded, well-connected defense contractor? It was a time when the press was the undisputed king of information. But then I read that the case against General Dynamics fizzled and the one against Veliotis did not; maybe I should look at it as a caution against excessive skepticism.

New comment by JasonFruit in "I'm So Old: Web Edition"

JasonFruit — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 19:01:38 +0000

I'm old enough to have thought, "Hey, this Visual SourceSafe is a pretty great idea!"

New comment by JasonFruit in "ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood"

JasonFruit — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 13:17:54 +0000

Or a fundamental difference in billionaire tendencies, don't forget that possibility.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Stonelifting Etiquette"

JasonFruit — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:26:32 +0000

I love to see people doing things I've never even thought of that embrace history and culture, and that they take pride in doing. This is exemplary of the respectful attitude we ought to have toward more of our activities.

New comment by JasonFruit in "SPAD: Spatially Aware Multiview Diffusers"

JasonFruit — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 05:08:42 +0000

Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés

New comment by JasonFruit in "Show HN: Aldi Price Map"

JasonFruit — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 17:56:11 +0000

LEGOs makes sense; a LEGO is an indivisible entity, of which you can have a certain number. Calling the material simply LEGO makes it sound like an undifferentiated mass, like sludge, or cheese.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Unicomp's "New" Model M Keyboard"

JasonFruit — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 01:56:11 +0000

That sounds like a you problem, not a keyboard problem. A good mechanical keyboard should last better than that. Excessive force doesn't code faster.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Schoenberg: Why He Matters"

JasonFruit — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 13:16:30 +0000

> Unless I want that effect, I should avoid that.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Schoenberg: Why He Matters"

JasonFruit — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 03:18:15 +0000

> You can make exactly the same case about tonal voice leading rules too.

You really can't. They aren't laws of nature, but they are based on observation: "When I have two voices proceed in parallel fifths, it's as though one voice ceased to have an independent character. Unless I want that effect, I should avoid that." "When I frustrate a leading tone, it makes the harmonic effect less clear."

Schoenberg's system starts with the arbitrary: pick a tone row and use it! But there are rules based on observation there, too: if you use tonal constructions in atonal music, it frustrates the listener's expectations, so don't do that. The ear can recognize the rows when transposed, reversed, and altered by other techniques, so those are good. Serialism is less fully-developed and lacks the deep cultural background of tonal music, but it's not entirely arbitrary either.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Forbes built hall of shame for the questionable people on its 30 Under 30 lists"

JasonFruit — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:56:04 +0000

James O'Keefe's minor infractions seem out of place on this list. It sounds to me like Forbes might be disappointed in him for other, more philosophical reasons.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909) [video]"

JasonFruit — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 23:10:10 +0000

Mark Twain, for all his qualities, was a humorist.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909) [video]"

JasonFruit — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 23:08:13 +0000

But if that ML tool is trained on modern video, depending on its capabilities it may subtly modernize aspects of the video in ways that lessen the "past is a foreign country" effect, leading us to believe that the past was more like the present than it in truth was. It's a trade-off between removing technological barriers between us and the person, so we can connect to their recorded legacy, and removing sociological barriers, which we probably want to preserve.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Chez Scheme: Lisp with native code speed"

JasonFruit — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:35:07 +0000

From the title: "Lisp with native code speed".

New comment by JasonFruit in "The End of Scantron Tests"

JasonFruit — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:50:15 +0000

That's an amazing test, if what you want to evaluate is the candidate's immersion in the wellspring of Western culture (and some math). I'm struck by how little fluency the Greek test requires, though: it looks to me (with my "small Latine and lesse Greeke") like it's mostly grammar work, since the difficult words are all supplied.

I would have loved living among people whose elites valued Western culture so highly.

New comment by JasonFruit in "The End of Scantron Tests"

JasonFruit — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 03:19:12 +0000

I wonder how much the actual average level of education has changed, though the topics may be different. Could those 4th-grade dropouts read and understand a newspaper, calculate how many pounds of barley it takes to plant the south field now that we cleared that new area, and work out a 1-in-10 slope for the new shed roof? I bet most of them could, and that a lot of the time the average person spends in school now is not as well-directed toward their likely life needs — which may be less easily ascertained.

New comment by JasonFruit in "So let’s talk about this Wayland thing"

JasonFruit — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 04:08:17 +0000

The fractious minority is here, yes, but also a large number of people like me who don't care about display quality, "desktop interaction semantics," or surface consistency at all, but care deeply about being able to use their computer as they please.

New comment by JasonFruit in "Johnny Cash Has Been Everywhere (Man)"

JasonFruit — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 12:28:49 +0000

I think the final picture adequately expresses Cash's response to your suggestion.