Hacker News: fellInchoate

New comment by fellInchoate in "23words.com"

fellInchoate — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 17:41:10 +0000

If we're doing self promotion, I'll mention a game I made based on Levenshtein's distance, https://wordistance.com --

(hints enabled by default, but the real game is without them!)

New comment by fellInchoate in "ChatGPT web and mobile UIs unavailable"

fellInchoate — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:50:48 +0000

> Not really. To do advanced stuff you have to understand the basics.

Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of these abstractions? Can you read the machine code that your C compiler produces? How much of electrical engineering do you need to know to write a bash script? The physics of how a NAND gate is implemented?

It's obviously in the early stages, and I don't disagree with you completely today -- but this will just be one more layer on top of an already deep stack of abstractions that underlie all of computing.

New comment by fellInchoate in "Bing Image Creator"

fellInchoate — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 17:14:02 +0000

Honestly, I'm okay with some caution here - but it does seem overly restrictive.

I got the blocked message for both of the following prompts:

Can you create an image of the Easter bunny in the style of Francis Bacon?

Can you create an image of a bunny in the style of Francis Bacon?

The second one in particular surprised me, though maybe it detected it as a likely attempt to circumvent the block of the first.

New comment by fellInchoate in "How I use Notion to manage everything"

fellInchoate — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 01:07:54 +0000

... as long as those coworkers don't use Linux. I was going to give Notion a try, but not having a native Linux app sunk any interest. I understand Linux has a smaller base, but if you're making team software it only takes one member to have an unsupported system to force you to look elsewhere.

New comment by fellInchoate in "What Goodreads could have been"

fellInchoate — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 22:56:20 +0000

Interesting that you see things that way. I think the biggest hurdle to any Goodreads competitor for me is that it would be without GR's massive amount of user-content.

My reading loop is like this:

I start a book on my kindle ; it's automatically added to my GR collection.

I highlight as I read, on my kindle ; those highlights are transferred automatically to my GR account.

I finish the book, give it a lame 5-star rating ; its status and rating updated automatically on my GR account.

I write my own notes & thoughts about the book (pen and paper style in my own journal).

I go to GR to read what others have thought about the book. There are always a couple decent commentaries (and I read a lot of somewhat obscure translated fiction, sometimes only 100 or so other readers of it).

I just don't see any other service pulling me away, no matter how slick the interface.

New comment by fellInchoate in "Why the US military usually punishes misconduct but police often close ranks"

fellInchoate — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 21:23:25 +0000

Wouldn't a federal body less reliant on a favorable disposition from the police be the answer here?

Few are going to welcome more oversight of themselves, but it seems more and more like what's required. That oversight doesn't seem to work when it's locally based, for all the reasons you've outlined.

New comment by fellInchoate in "You will become who you choose to be around"

fellInchoate — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:22:54 +0000

Interesting. Do you happen to remember the actual moral choice they had to make? It seems to me a belief in free will encourages (potentially amoral) reprisals and vigilantism in a way that a belief in determinism doesn't necessarily encourage.

New comment by fellInchoate in "Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal"

fellInchoate — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 22:39:46 +0000

Wouldn't those numbers only be useful if you understood the impact of x% differences? Does a 10% increase in left-right connectivity make you 10 times better at some task or 1000 times better?

I think we (or at least I!) know too little for any of this to be truly meaningful. But it's still interesting.

New comment by fellInchoate in "Prince of Persia – HTML5"

fellInchoate — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:41:31 +0000

"This project is meant as a tribute to the original game by Jordan Mechner, which was my first introduction to computers."

(Perhaps it was added after your comment, not sure.)

New comment by fellInchoate in "Reddit will not ban 'distasteful' content, chief executive says"

fellInchoate — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:54:44 +0000

I think you should be more embarrassed by this incredible overreaction than by any association with reddit, which has been responsible for huge fundraising events, record-breaking gift exchanges, AMAs from the POTUS, etc., etc.

If you're worried about your internet reputation, I feel like comments like this aren't helping.