Hacker News: Jenz

New comment by Jenz in "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, What Is the Best Topology of Them All?"

Jenz — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 15:20:48 +0000

What if… the indiscrete topology {ø, X}.

New comment by Jenz in "AI Crap"

Jenz — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:17:19 +0000

> it's impossible to do anything not en masse at 8b population

you are missing some simple arithmetic here. yes, x times y can get arbitrarily big if x does (and y is non-negative), but then changes in y would just have even more of an impact. take x to be population and y to be emission per person and you should see your mistake.

New comment by Jenz in "AI Crap"

Jenz — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 10:32:17 +0000

yes.

New comment by Jenz in "A scalar triple product identity"

Jenz — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 10:02:49 +0000

Time to give Julia a shot! It has this amazing package [1] for geometric algebras in up to a very high number of dimensions.

[1]: https://github.com/chakravala/Grassmann.jl

New comment by Jenz in "A scalar triple product identity"

Jenz — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:52:56 +0000

…and in turn “geometric algebra” is the physicist’s name for a subset of the even more general mathematicians Clifford algebra (which of course is a subspace of the tensor algebra over the underlying vector space…)

New comment by Jenz in "Virtualizing Uxn"

Jenz — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 00:11:23 +0000

I love everything about the artist collective 100R.

New comment by Jenz in "Homo sapiens declared extinct (1999)"

Jenz — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:38:31 +0000

I've never seen any convincing argument that Bach is somehow, as frequently claimed, the epitome of baroque music. It seems to be a largely romantic sentiment, that arose moreso to Mendelssohn's circumstances than to anything unique in Bach's music— Mendelssohn simply did not have the access to many other high baroque composers' music to draw from. Aside from how surprisingly late he is, there are many comparable figures to Bach.

I am tired and will content myself with simply mentioning some early baroque composers that, for anyone curious, sadly do not get the spotlight they deserve: Ascanio Mayone (c.1565–1627), Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643), Tarquinio Merula (1595-1665), Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667), Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi (1624-1687), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (c.1644-1704).

New comment by Jenz in "Homo sapiens declared extinct (1999)"

Jenz — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:19:53 +0000

Would your current 20$ still be a meaningful value in 2380?

New comment by Jenz in "Val, a high-level systems programming language"

Jenz — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 23:32:49 +0000

> The result of `longer_of` is a projection of the longer argument, so the mutation of `z` by `emphasize` occurs directly on the value of `y`. The value is neither copied, nor moved, and yet it is not being passed by reference to `emphasize`. The body of `emphasize` owns `z` in exactly the same way as it owns `strength`, which is passed by value: `z` is an independent value that can only be touched by `emphasize`.

This evasive phrasing, which continuoes after this excerpt too, has me highly skeptical of their good intentions… Any good reason they are not more explicit?

New comment by Jenz in "Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Perpetual Provocateur"

Jenz — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:00:40 +0000

Marked: https://pasteboard.co/dxNBtyjqas5f.jpg

New comment by Jenz in "Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Perpetual Provocateur"

Jenz — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 22:58:21 +0000

I returned many times to the Piranesi exhibition in my town showing, among other things, his imaginary prisons. It took me embarassingly many hours to realize the staircase together with the colums in number XIV forms an impossible object / optical illusion. I wonder how much else I missed.

New comment by Jenz in "ChatGPT-Linux-Assistant"

Jenz — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 12:45:41 +0000

This seems like a spectacularily bad idea.

New comment by Jenz in "An X11 apologist tries Wayland"

Jenz — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 09:01:28 +0000

I’m sure this goes for a lot of people, me as well for some time; but in the end, the problems simply became too much for me— so I’m curious, how long have you been using Gnome?

New comment by Jenz in "How Did Elevators Lose Their Music?"

Jenz — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 12:09:43 +0000

Obligatory mention of music intended for the elevators of the french ministry of culture [1].

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_a_French_Elevator_...

New comment by Jenz in "Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)"

Jenz — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 16:51:35 +0000

The author of this has clearly not read much of Tolkien's legendarium beoynd the LoTR... This is a whole lot of speculation that does not at all fit into Eä, the World that is. Though indeed one might say the same of Bombadil, it is far from clear what role he has to play in Arda, and Tolkien took his cosmology very seriously, so there is every reason to think this mystery of who the hell is Tom Bombadil? is intentional. But the reasonings of this article is exactly those of conspiracy theorists, not those of any serious Tolkien scholar. Seemingly relying on “No hobbit has ever heard of him,” “Elrond, the greatest lore-master of the Third Age, has never heard of Tom Bombadil” as implicitly implying “therefore there must be some great dark secret,” Gandalf's explanations he simply dismisses as not “the true one.” Tolkien was a philologist, familiar with and directly inspired by many different mythologies, for example Väinämöinen, a hero and demigod of songs and poetry from finnish folklore has been pointed out as a possible inspiration for Bombadil. Though from his close connection to nature one would rather expect him to be a sort of demiurge than a hero, neither evil nor good, and indeed as opposed to Väinämöinen whose adventuring is due to his seeking a wife, Tom has a wife and makes a big point out of this, he is content, and has no desire for evil. If I may continue my rant I'll add that the very creation of Arda is by music, taught by Eru Ilúvatar, the One, to the Ainur. There is little doubt that Bombadil is among the Ainur, one of the Maia on par with Gandalf and Sauron. It seems entirely plausible to me, that Bombadil indeed is as he says, the oldest, of special significance to Ilúvatar, prior to Arda and whatever may be happening in it.

I'll also add that I have never heard of any Tolkien enthusiast not liking Bombadil before this. I suspect the author of this article is among the minority who thinks that abruptly breaking into song is lame, mistakenly of course, hehe.

New comment by Jenz in "Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?"

Jenz — Sat, 25 Jun 2022 13:46:06 +0000

A rare actually tasteful “technically…,” thank you.

New comment by Jenz in "The Typography of Legal Opinions"

Jenz — Sat, 25 Jun 2022 08:23:08 +0000

False.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/explanatory-notes/dict-...

New comment by Jenz in "The biggest project in modern mathematics [video]"

Jenz — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 23:05:39 +0000

Noteworthy to me, is that it seems foundational work is to a significant degree, not considered mathematics or something people calling themselves “mathematicians” would spend much of their time on; but it’s left for logicians and more philosophically inclined people.

New comment by Jenz in "Norway to track all supermarket purchases?"

Jenz — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 18:45:44 +0000

I am confounded as to why I have not heard of this. I'd appreciate it if someone could link me the official statement.

New comment by Jenz in "People hated shopping carts when they first came out"

Jenz — Sun, 22 May 2022 21:40:33 +0000

Both. Which it seems people have a problem with, seeing the downvotes. I had a simple point and a personal opinion, what is the problem?