Hacker News: aptly_yclept

New comment by aptly_yclept in "Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure"

aptly_yclept — Sun, 17 May 2026 18:43:56 +0000

To expand on what the previous said, here's a link to a seminal paper on pixels - "A pixel is not a little square" by Alvy Ray Smith. https://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf

New comment by aptly_yclept in "The Rise and Fall of the Powdered Wig (2020)"

aptly_yclept — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 05:07:35 +0000

It would be practical in strong wind.

New comment by aptly_yclept in "Show HN: The text disappears when you screenshot it"

aptly_yclept — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:30:19 +0000

There's an analogue method too - just do a very long exposure of a busy street. There is so little reflected light from people (relatively speaking) that it barely registers on the film/sensor, hence they are 'invisible' in the final shot. That's why old street photos are sometimes empty of people, because both lenses and film were slow, leading to long exposures.

New comment by aptly_yclept in "The history of 'OK' (2023)"

aptly_yclept — Fri, 10 May 2024 04:52:21 +0000

That's interesting to me, for I (a non-native speaker) am well familiar with the word 'cagey' from more contemporary movies and books. The dictionaries I checked list etymology as unknown, however. I'll see if I can't ask one about the "K.G." hypothesis.