<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: hf</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hf</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2026 04:32:50 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=hf" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Awk in 20 Minutes (2015)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One particularly mnemonic collection of switches is 'plane':<p><pre><code>    perl -plane 'my $script' 
</code></pre>
which iterates over all files given on the command-line (or stdin) and<p><pre><code>  + (p)rints every processed line back out
  + deals with (l)ine endings, in and out
  + (a)utosplits every line into @F
</code></pre>
I am aware that -n and -p are mutually exclusive, but as -p overrides -n, it's seems simpler to just keep 'plane' in mind and remove the 'p' if necessary.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2020 08:21:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23050283</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23050283</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23050283</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "SICP in Python"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>[Late reply -- forgot to hit the button. ;]<p>Thank you for the pointer and, more so, your contributions.<p>That screenshot of SICP in Emacs -- running side-by-side with the built-in Guile interpreter -- induces peculiar sensations.  An echo of how things could've been and possibly still are in some obscure(d) corners of the Net.  An interactive learning environment that at least points in the right direction.  It certainly looks elegant and somewhat inspirational to me (though my inner Alan Kay is voicing some profound objections ;).<p>In any case: you carried that torch for a while, don't be hesitant accepting apparently undue credit -- there's too little, in any case, to warrant worry.  ;)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:45:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012502</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012502</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012502</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "SICP in Python"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you wanted to delve into the original 1984 LISP/Scheme version by Abelson and Sussman, I recommend you take a look at<p><a href="https://opendocs.github.io/sicp/sicp.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://opendocs.github.io/sicp/sicp.pdf</a><p>which is based on the MITPress HTML version, released under a permissive CC-by-SA license.<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html</a><p>(nb. The pdf starts out with a curious little 'texinfo foreword'.  Being able to type `info sicp` in one's shell?  I wonder ...)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2020 11:21:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005866</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005866</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005866</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Vimperator: a Vim-like Firefox"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What?  Do the docs on the page really say that[0]?<p>':back' is mapped to 'H' -- in correspondence to the usual Vi/Vim paradigm to move the cursor with the home-row keys, hjkl.  ':open' is naturally mapped to 'o' and drops you into a tab-completable shell.  ':tabopen' -> 't' and so on.<p>The key part, as in Vim, are /not/ the mnemonic, highly effective shortcuts.
Rather, it's the <i>modal</i> workflow that Vim and it's spritual descendants bring to the table.
I'll leave it at that (sounding like a damn preacher already).<p>[0] Now that I've looked at it, it becomes clear that they're selling rather directly to Vim-acolytes.  Pity, perhaps.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 15 Jan 2017 17:30:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13405102</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13405102</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13405102</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "After 1 minute on my modem (2016)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Neat, thanks.  Works identically with the slightly smaller fork called Pentadactyl (<a href="http://5digits.org/pentadactyl/" rel="nofollow">http://5digits.org/pentadactyl/</a>).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Jan 2017 09:21:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13397656</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13397656</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13397656</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "MacOS FileVault2 Password Retrieval"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>FDE: Full Disk Encryption.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2016 20:11:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196341</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196341</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196341</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Spaced repetition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Sure, I'll try to elaborate.<p>Suppose you're reading a biography of Huygens.  You may find yourself
inspired to memorize a few of the basic facts therein.  Dutifully, you
feed his life's dates, his major acquaintances and maybe a few places 
of importance into the SR system of your choice.  You are committed
and keep repeating those facts in ever-increasing intervals.<p>After a few years a random conversation touches upon the very subject.  
To your <i>delight</i> you discover that you are able to hold forth on
Huygens, the man and his time.<p>To your surprise (and this is my contention [and experience]), you
<i>also</i> find yourself able to speak with some level of accuracy about
tangential matter -- eg. the theories he worked on -- without ever
having either added related facts to the database or dealt with the
subject matter in the intervening years.<p>In other words: recall of a whole web of interconnected pieces of
knowledge may be strengthened considerably by spaced repetition of
just a few of the central facts.<p>In my experience there's no specific 'encoding' procedure necessary.
I never put any thought into carefully selecting facts for the spaced
repetition treatment, yet the effect usually manifested itself.  So,
yes, I <i>would</i> say it's a 'recall' phenomenon inasmuch as the brain
does all the heavy lifting.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 11 Dec 2016 20:43:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153077</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153077</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153077</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Spaced repetition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I wrote a program I fancifully called 'Human Unit Tests' to aid me in my studies (learning a diverse set of constants for biophysics).  I can very much attest to the effectiveness of spaced repetition.<p>But, /boy/, do you need to stay on the ball.  You can't really afford a cavalier, let's-see attitude with this (given any non-trivial amount of items-to-be-memorized).
The review process needs to be as much part of a daily routine as workouts ... Yeah.<p>On the other hand, there's one reward that doesn't usually get mentioned (as in the fine article re-submitted here[0]): the strengthening of corollary knowledge (or coordinate terms, for the linguistically inclined).<p>[0]  Previous submission: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5809762" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5809762</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 11 Dec 2016 18:02:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13152184</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13152184</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13152184</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "How I added 6 characters to Unicode (and you can too)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I simply cannot wrap my head around the direction of the Unicode discourse.<p>We're discussing the appropriate code-point for different smiley faces,
obscure electrical symbols[0] or, in the present case, half stars to express
film or book ratings, yet we have <i>no</i> complete set of sub- and superscripts!<p>Am I mistaken in thinking it odd, that there's a complete Klingon alphabet but no
representation whatsoever for most Greek or Latin subscripts?  Or what if, heaven forbid,
I'd want to use a 'b' index/subscript?  Tough!  Not even the "phonetic extensions",
where subscript-i comes from, provides it.<p>Refer to
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_superscripts#Latin_and_Greek_tables" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_supersc...</a>
or look for SUBSCRIPT in 
<a href="http://ftp.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt" rel="nofollow">http://ftp.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt</a><p>Surely there's the one or two actual scientists on the Unicode consortium?
Or even the one odd soul still sporting a notion of consistency who finds it
only logical to provide a "subscript b" if there's a "subscript a"?<p>How am I wrong?<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11958682" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11958682</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 04 Oct 2016 20:06:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12638950</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12638950</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12638950</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Dunning-Kruger and Other Memes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The author states, as regards the interpretation of the
Dunning-Kruger diagrams, that<p><pre><code>  [i]n two of the four cases, there’s an obvious positive correlation between
  perceived skill and actual skill, which is the opposite of the pop-sci 
  conception of Dunning-Kruger.
</code></pre>
In my corner of the universe, you don't get to cherry-pick which pieces
of data (ie "what instances of two sets of random variables") you bestow
the golden twig of correlation upon.  If I'm not entirely mistaken, 
correlation is very much a global feature, not a measure of proximity of
two points on a chart.<p>So, yes, Dunning-Kruger (as evinced from the diagrams sported here) indeed seems to make a weaker claim: that there's <i>no</i>
correlation between “perceived ability” and “actual ability”.  As such,
this claim is as far from the "pop-sci conception" of Dunning-Kruger as
it is from the author's.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:39:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9288669</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9288669</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9288669</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Breast Milk Becomes a Commodity, with Mothers Caught Up in Debate"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The word seems entirely appropriate.<p>As a European, I have not been able to convince family members or friends
that aren't intimately acquainted with the US-American situation that there
is <i>no</i> universal, legislative framework for paid or <i>unpaid</i> maternity leave.<p>They usually respond with a variation of 
"this can't be right; you must be misinformed; 
it would be horrible if that were the case."<p>And you (as a populace) aren't even fighting for it!  Not visibly, at least.  So, honestly, you
seem to be the one hurting all sorts of causes with this misdirected
attitude of apologism.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 21 Mar 2015 15:30:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9242985</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9242985</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9242985</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Thomas Edison's 146 question interview for prospective employees"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It is astonishing to me, how widespread fisher-wife's-tale-level
conceptions about fundamental aspects of our existence are.<p>I devoutly hope that you are not, upon contemplation, equate a well-versedness in general knowledge with mindless memorization.
Is emergent behaviour of neural networks really that alien a concept?
Is it possible to believe, in all earnestness, that factoids such as these remain
isolated and inactive in your memory until recalled?<p>These questions aren't there to test your ability to learn atomic
facts without rhyme or reason.  These questions, pitiful as they
may seem, try to probe <i>the breadth of your mental landscape</i>.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2015 08:58:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216877</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216877</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216877</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "An Introduction to Unix (2014)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The author tells me to 'Please enable Javascript!'<p>I counter: 'Please enable HTML!'<p>In all seriousness, it's text, images, links.
There are no user accounts,
no dynamically updated database of 'favourited' sections,
no per-paragraph instant chat,
the page is remarkably atrocity-free!<p>Hence, this page seems very much un-Unix-y:
Solve problems at the lowest level of complexity, what?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 21 Feb 2015 12:26:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085366</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085366</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085366</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The counter on the kindly linked donation page went from
EUR 49.470 to EUR 65.126 in the last 60 minutes (precisely).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 18:58:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9005110</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9005110</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9005110</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The point isn't easily settled, it seems:<p>I am having a hard time to find financial statements from Debian.<p>Ubuntu, or rather Canonical, being a private company, doesn't seem to release financial information.
The Ubuntu main page  doesn't even provide a 'donate' link anymore.<p>Which leaves RedHat, at last.  A public company, of course[0]:<p><pre><code>   Operating profit 2014: $ 1.3e9
   Net total income 2014: $ 178.3e6
</code></pre>
[0] <a href="http://investors.redhat.com/financials-statements.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://investors.redhat.com/financials-statements.cfm</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 18:38:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004967</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004967</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004967</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Those are some rather interesting documents, thanks!<p>In 2013 FSF paid $ 689,239 in salaries and, astoundingly!,
$ 48,995 in credit card fees.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 18:12:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004789</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004789</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004789</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I freely confess to being flabbergasted by these displays
of less-than-rigorous thought processes.<p>How would a free software project 'pay it forward'?<p>They are in a very similar position, aren't they?<p>Edit: For some reason, I can't reply to child comments (probably a cool-off time-out at work?).<p>Just a short note here, then: $1.25e6 for the FSF translates
to 10 developers like Koch being paid (the donation page quotes "120000 EUR").<p>That's ten.  For the whole FSF.  As an example of a <i>well-funded project</i>.
I'm not going to comment on that.  HN would rightly give me months of cool-off time.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 17:46:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004619</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004619</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004619</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You are using Ubuntu, I see from your profile.
How much have you paid them?<p>This is how the stories goes: we haven't figured out
how to make good work worthwhile.<p>Perhaps we can learn something from our vast experience in profitably peddling shit?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 17:40:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004585</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004585</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004585</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "Screw motivation, what you need is discipline"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah, but what is discipline?
Shifting the vocabulary burden around doesn't accomplish much.
Discipline easily translates to will power
(to <i>do</i> even in the face of adverse circumstances).<p>But haven't we learned recently to consider will power a finite resource?
Something that cannot be switched on at will arbitrarily[0]?<p>The author himself escapes this accusation only by the skin of his teeth in
the next-to-last paragraph:<p><pre><code>   How do you cultivate discipline? 
   By building habits – [...]
</code></pre>
Habit.  This word, comparatively unprepossessing as it may sound, sits really 
at the core of the discourse[1].<p>Whenever my thoughts stray to punishing myself for lack of discipline,
I try to remember to leave that martial outlook towards life 
to the Spartans[2] and reflect peacefully on my habits instead.<p>[0] Except, tongue-in-cheek, if you add sugar.<p>[1] Lest I leave an opening: It already is in Covey's seminal 1989
'Seven Habits', 
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Eff...</a><p>[2] In this way, trying to <i>force</i> discipline may easily lead to results that are as
devastating as those that the author foresees for motivational strategies.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2015 12:07:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976521</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976521</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976521</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by hf in "PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A monitor like this would be the end-all-be-all for my
scientific workflow woes.  The paper du jour on the e-ink and the journal and ipython on what I call "the lightbulb" (read: TFT).<p>I have already been fantasising about and doing 
a spot of research into building one on my own by using an
Arduino (I wouldn't need as high a refresh rate as this little marvel) and one of PervasiveDisplays'[0].<p>I gave up convinced there was no sane way to actually
connect this contraption to my laptop, and the USB solutions
mentioned below do not instill hope.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/</a><p>They seem to be doing a bit of open-source advocacy, too:
<a href="http://repaper.org" rel="nofollow">http://repaper.org</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:55:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8946075</link><dc:creator>hf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8946075</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8946075</guid></item></channel></rss>