Hacker News: Tyrannosaur

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?"

Tyrannosaur — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:48:12 +0000

No, you are correct.

Dr Geoff Lindsey on youtube:

short version: https://youtube.com/shorts/GF1gIaxnULc?si=d4jFC-rLOC5dww-8

long version: https://youtu.be/GNpbv7hJf6c?si=xNz1UjeLY0Ch9eDv&t=366

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "How the Turner twins are mythbusting modern technical apparel"

Tyrannosaur — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:47:53 +0000

No it doesn't. The absolute difference[1] of 1.8°C is the same as 1.8K; they have the same scale. The subtraction of values cancels out the offset.

A relative difference[2], usually given in percent change, has problems with a unit that has an offset zero like Celcius, but that isn't what anybody is using here. It's more than simple subtraction; you have to divide by the reference value.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_difference#Applicatio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_difference

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act"

Tyrannosaur — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:07:47 +0000

Why can't they?

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "The Problem of Teaching Physics in Latin America (1963)"

Tyrannosaur — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:12:57 +0000

Hot water recirculation is a thing I have heard of done in the United States. I don't know how common it is, but a simple Home Depot search brought up a bunch of results for options.

https://www.plumbingsupply.com/recirculating-systems-explain...

https://www.homedepot.com/s/hot%20recirculation?NCNI-5

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "All the Way Down"

Tyrannosaur — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:46:40 +0000

basically: "life, uh, finds a way"

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "SmartTube Compromised"

Tyrannosaur — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:14:14 +0000

You can install it on Roku?

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)"

Tyrannosaur — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 18:33:58 +0000

Start with the simple. Don't be a bystander. "Next time I see somebody berating a retail worker, I will defend them"

Although it usually needs to start more introspectively: "Next time I am about to lose my temper, I will take a deep breath and consider if yelling is the best course of action or rather something less aggressive."

With children, there's something to be said about them learning to stand up for themselves; tattletales aren't something to admire. But at some point it is actually the correct course of action to interfere with children-raising, especially when it affects my children.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)"

Tyrannosaur — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 15:53:30 +0000

On the other hand, every effort each of us makes to eliminate bullying from this world is another effort toward making this world a better place.

The trick is to have those thoughts, plans, and actions actually lead to results rather than just anxieties about the past.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest"

Tyrannosaur — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 15:44:44 +0000

For what it's worth, my reaction to the word "bloodline" used in this way is exactly what it would have been to the word "dynasty".

"Bloodline", as in, the line of inheritance for an extremely wealthy and powerful family, like Medieval monarchs.

Perhaps we should be a tad more careful about our language use, but I see far too much outright bigotry to be worried about something obviously not used as a dogwhistle.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "How ancient people saw themselves"

Tyrannosaur — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 02:42:37 +0000

> "Collapse" is maybe hyperbole in this case, if it's building on our own history to extrapolate forward.

In the story, "at some point" generally involved technologies we are currently incapable of; the greater technology actually facilitating the greater collapse. Which at the most obvious included nuclear catastrophe.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition"

Tyrannosaur — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:06:09 +0000

I was initially a little confused at your comment. I had thought the decision was against Oracle being able to sue for use of the Java API.

Reading a little closer, the decision was that even assuming the API copyright claim was valid, Google's use of the API was fair use.

> In April 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–2 decision that Google's use of the Java APIs served an organizing function and fell within the four factors of fair use, bypassing the question on the copyrightability of the APIs. The decision reversed the Federal Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further review.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "How ancient people saw themselves"

Tyrannosaur — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:55:27 +0000

It reminds me of Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought trilogy, especially the observation the traders make in the second book that all planet-bound civilizations are doomed to collapse at some point. They are usually able to restore technological progress more quickly the more records they have, but without leaving the planet are still doomed to repeat the cycle. IIRC there is even more-or-less standardized "uplift" protocols - series of technological reveals for less-developed civilizations to rapidly advance/restore their capabilities.

I wonder if there is academic study comparing past-focused, future-focused, and cyclical views of human progress in literature.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "How Silica Gel Took Over the World"

Tyrannosaur — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:59:44 +0000

I don't know where you are in Europe, but from my experience basketball is popular in France and courts are everywhere.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Bending Spacetime in the Basement (1997)"

Tyrannosaur — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:14:54 +0000

Do you remember how accurately you were able to measure the gravitational constant?

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Undergraduate shows that searches within hash tables can be much faster"

Tyrannosaur — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:34:32 +0000

asymptotically close as you add 9s, but 9 repeating means you DO add an infinity of 9s, so it equals 1.

The reasoning that persuaded me initially was 1/3 is .333 repeating, 2/3 is .666 repeating, and 3/3 is .999 repeating.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor"

Tyrannosaur — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:06:24 +0000

> That hasn't been "sensible corporate practice" since American civil rights were instated.

About that... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-equal-employment-opportun...

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Why it took a long time to build that tiny link preview on Wikipedia (2018)"

Tyrannosaur — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 05:55:06 +0000

Your tone comes across as sarcastic, yet I cannot believe you haven't met at least several people who have used computers for 34+ years who didn't know you can change some basic setting.

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Romanian court annuls result of presidential election first round"

Tyrannosaur — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 04:40:37 +0000

Slight correction- Maine and Nebraska do not have proportional systems; they both use the Congressional District Method. Each congressional district votes plurality for an elector, and the 2 remaining electors go to the statewide plurality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Rust in Linux lead retires rather than deal with more "nontechnical nonsense""

Tyrannosaur — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 23:22:31 +0000

Pretty sure I can get close to mapping that to solving the halting problem

New comment by Tyrannosaur in "Resource burden of electric vehicles set to triple by 2050"

Tyrannosaur — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 16:28:50 +0000

The key word is "decimated", as in, "decreased by 10%"