Hacker News: greglindahl

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sun, 17 May 2020 01:54:33 +0000

Thank you! I have the same amount of snark now as the top comment, i.e. none that I can tell. It would be nice to have a conversation about this topic that didn't involve me being downvoted.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sun, 17 May 2020 01:30:50 +0000

Thanks for pointing out that the other choice is perhaps technically more accurate -- I'm getting a lot of downvotes for pointing that out.

The Internet is often more like a bar brawl than a reasoned conversation.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sun, 17 May 2020 01:09:00 +0000

I'm glad you're not trying to be a confrontational jerk. I'm all for disagreeing politely.

The project in which I worked on a C++-to-C translator didn't call it a compiler, it called it a source-to-source translator. It was a CS project in a CS department funded by the NSF. I have read the Dragon Book, and would be surprised if the authors would consider an interpreter, assembler, or a linker to be a compiler.

So yeah. I don't expect you to agree with my opinion, but I do appreciate it that you're trying to avoid being confrontational jerk.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sun, 17 May 2020 00:45:40 +0000

I once worked on a source-to-source translator from C++ to C. In that era, that was the common term for that kind of software. I think that's more clear than "transpiler".

However, what we're talking about here is closer to TeX than cfront-to-c or even TypeScript-to-Javascript.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sun, 17 May 2020 00:18:37 +0000

CS history has a long history of similar pieces of software being not called compilers.

Normal CS jargon has "assemblers" and "linkers", both of which might appear to be compilers according to this dictionary definition.

CS history also includes things like TeX, which formats text for a variety of outputs, and was rarely called a compiler.

Web browsers often include a JIT compiler for Javascript, but their text formatting system isn't usually called a compiler.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 22:42:34 +0000

Thank you for posting the non-computer definition of the word. I was aware of that before I posted.

A large fraction of the words I use in physics and math are not used the same way, within the field, as the generic dictionary definition.

New comment by greglindahl in "Getting started with Rust by building a tiny Markdown compiler"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 22:01:28 +0000

I'm a bit confused by the use of the word "compiler" to refer to something that turns markdown into html.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 22:00:10 +0000

I expect the ministry of food science and the ministry of drug science to be scientific. That's quite different from what you're talking about.

I have noticed that your comment is quite typical for people who want to say that we live in a post-truth world. There are certainly problems, but one solution is to double down on science.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 21:10:17 +0000

Pointing out that someone is using silly language with pointless effect is not an "ad hominem attack": can you point out anyone who might be confused by what I said?

Your use of "my friend" is similar to the thing you're complaining about. I got what you mean. Bringing up "ad hominem" is dodging the real issue.

Another comment of yours: "utterly stupid bureaucracy"

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 20:10:51 +0000

The quote said "significant levels" -- before dismissing it as "doesn't really sound like a problem", you might want to look a little harder.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 20:06:19 +0000

Thank you for elevating the discourse with phrases like "fucking global pandemic over this pointless red tape". A global pandemic is exactly when we should be thinking hard instead of trading insults.

New comment by greglindahl in "Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 19:50:18 +0000

If the question is "Is there a commercially-viable search engine that supports this feature", then the answer is "probably not".

Implementing this properly involves having your own search index. And that's pretty expensive.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 19:42:47 +0000

It's entirely reasonable to assume that tests with high error rates cause problems for everyone, not just "groups of individuals who you know are going to make ..."

For example, a PhD biologist friend of mine agonized for months before she was willing to look at her personal 23-and-me results, after the FDA certified them as accurate enough to show to consumers.

It's a real problem for everyone.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 19:32:11 +0000

I'm not sure why this comment is downvoted -- it's definitely true, and the FDA does care about stuff that people ingest even if they aren't supposed to.

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 18:27:30 +0000

[0] includes text like:

> In one case, the FDA said it had found significant levels of the carcinogen acetaldehyde in ethanol supplied by a company for use in hand sanitizer, according to a recent email exchange seen by Reuters.

Is anyone surprised that using fuel ethanol might not be a good idea for hand sanitizer?

New comment by greglindahl in "FDA halts coronavirus testing program backed by Bill Gates"

greglindahl — Sat, 16 May 2020 18:25:35 +0000

There is harm to a patient if you tell them an incorrect test result.

New comment by greglindahl in "Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap"

greglindahl — Fri, 15 May 2020 04:15:22 +0000

California has a lot of storage just like that already. The problem is that it can't be scaled up.

New comment by greglindahl in "Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap"

greglindahl — Fri, 15 May 2020 04:14:15 +0000

It's all up to the charging algorithm. If your grid access is priced according to energy transferred, you pay a positive retail price no matter how negative the wholesale price is. If your grid access is a fixed charge, you could directly take advantage of the negative wholesale price.

In some places, industrial users have the second algorithm.

New comment by greglindahl in "Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap"

greglindahl — Fri, 15 May 2020 04:04:52 +0000

How is that a solution when it's difficult to build more of it?

New comment by greglindahl in "Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap"

greglindahl — Fri, 15 May 2020 03:48:30 +0000

> Water does not have the capability to store much energy.

Systems that make ice at night and use it for A/C during the day date back to the 1950s.

The general class of these facilities is phase-change materials. Water is pretty amazing, both for ice and for steam.