Hacker News: cwnyth

New comment by cwnyth in "Meta won't let you block its AI account on Threads"

cwnyth — Thu, 14 May 2026 02:48:50 +0000

Maybe I'm just too old for the kinds of activities you're looking to get into, but I haven't had a Facebook since 2014, and had an IG account for just a month or two during the pandemic, and I've had zero qualms finding out information about what I wanted to do or see.

It's definitely not the size of the city that matters, as I was in NYC and only recently relocated to a smaller (but still major) city.

New comment by cwnyth in "The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization"

cwnyth — Thu, 14 May 2026 02:19:36 +0000

Did the title get updated? It says 'race', not 'war'.

New comment by cwnyth in "Who Trusts Sam Altman?"

cwnyth — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:49:45 +0000

I suspect this might be a case of Poe's Law.

New comment by cwnyth in "If AI writes your code, why use Python?"

cwnyth — Tue, 12 May 2026 03:10:59 +0000

But it's not talking about people like you. It's like getting mad at someone suggesting selling their car for a self-driving car, but you ride a bike everywhere. Take a breather and recognize that not every article is personally meant for you or your situation.

And this isn't even a defense of the premise. I'm not using AI to generate assembly code, because I don't know assembly.

New comment by cwnyth in "If AI writes your code, why use Python?"

cwnyth — Tue, 12 May 2026 02:58:27 +0000

Did you read the article? I think you're arguing against a strawman.

New comment by cwnyth in "What causes lightning? The answer keeps getting more interesting"

cwnyth — Sat, 09 May 2026 16:44:59 +0000

Here's an em-dash in an article from 2013.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/biology-confronts-data-comple...

The presence of an em-dash is not a smoking gun.

New comment by cwnyth in "Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found"

cwnyth — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:16:33 +0000

That's not relevant to this particular case, but sure, it's hard to disagree with that general statement.

New comment by cwnyth in "Two Home Affairs officials suspended after AI 'hallucinations' found"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:20:40 +0000

God forbid people actually have to do work and fact-check the hallucination machines!

New comment by cwnyth in "Show HN: TRUST – Coding Rust like it's 1989"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 21:16:11 +0000

Heck, some of us haven't even given up on Perl.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:44:16 +0000

The kind of work Latinists do also require a high degree of expertise in grammatical nuances. Latin isn't taught for the sake of reading modern works translated into Latin.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:42:41 +0000

Sure, Ørberg coupled with other books is fine enough. I do think his basic idea (a text that gets progressively more grammatically complex) is important and good, but not without exercises, grammatical elucidation, drills, etc.

Also, you're much better off reading The Hobbit in English. The Latin translation is known to be less than superb.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:38:44 +0000

For Classical works, TheLatinLibrary is serviceable, but it's better to use PHI's database, which has the added benefit of being searchable:

https://latin.packhum.org/

There are more Christian and Medieval works on TheLatinLibrary though.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:36:56 +0000

I think the direct method is essential for speaking fluency, but in that case, you're thrown into a living language. There are more constraints with dead languages.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:35:03 +0000

I've considered picking up a class here or there, but no, I left academia years ago. I have tutored in Latin afterwards, and I also answer questions on StackExchange's Latin site.

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 03:36:32 +0000

Do avoid.[1]

1: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/11413/is-duolingo-...

New comment by cwnyth in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

cwnyth — Thu, 07 May 2026 03:35:11 +0000

As a former Latin instructor with literally decades of experience, I strongly recommend not relying solely on Ørberg. The outcomes of those who refused to supplement it with a proper grammar and dictionary were far, far behind those who used Wheelock alone.

It's very popular online, but it's methodologically bunk.

New comment by cwnyth in "A desktop made for one"

cwnyth — Mon, 04 May 2026 05:20:30 +0000

Yep! Time was the biggest factor. I could have created that one tool I had for years been wanting to make, but tech moves fast, and I have a job and a family and a passion for music and yadda yadda yadda. AI has been a game changer for actually accomplishing big dreams I just didn't have the time to bring about to fruition.

New comment by cwnyth in "Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)"

cwnyth — Sun, 03 May 2026 03:58:23 +0000

Precisely why is this hard to square away?

New comment by cwnyth in "Ask.com has closed"

cwnyth — Sat, 02 May 2026 06:11:37 +0000

I'd love to see a write-up of this if you ever get the chance.

New comment by cwnyth in "HERMES.md in commit messages causes requests to route to extra usage billing"

cwnyth — Sat, 02 May 2026 03:41:49 +0000

I went a-looking and found a very old website of mine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060328114842/http://neonostalg...

You can see all the C fora I frequented. A later snapshot of this website pointed to EFNet. Good times.