Hacker News: howLongHowLong

New comment by howLongHowLong in "CS 6120: Advanced Compilers: The Self-Guided Online Course (2020)"

howLongHowLong — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:41:22 +0000

There are dozens. Search "mooc". Also some professors will release their lectures and homework outside of a "mooc" framework. I've even had professors respond to questions in the comments. The Internet can still be pretty cool.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:23:07 +0000

Or the responsibility of the city government not to permit a project which exceeds the capacity of the system to handle

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 27 May 2026 08:49:44 +0000

https://hellawater.com/why-is-my-water-brown-causes-solution... Here's one link amongst many a quick Google search that explains how low system pressure from increased demand can cause discolored water. (Check out the section on municipal water supply disruptions) I live in new orleans and entire neighborhoods need to boil water in periods of high demand.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:19:26 +0000

In New Orleans, I've seen it advertised as "cash discount." So I guess technically its not a fee on card transactions - it's a discount on cash ones.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:17:16 +0000

Very common, in small, independent shops, though it often seems to be as much about avoiding taxes as avoiding the fee for the credit machine

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Performing folk music found in the archives"

howLongHowLong — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 10:38:51 +0000

We get something like this in Appalachian ballads and other isolated (Anglo)American folk musics recorded in the 20s. Little attention was payed to American folk music until the early students of English ballads discovered 100+ year old tunes (thought dead to oral tradition) in tact due to the isolation of the mountain valleys. They were the most preserved versions of those songs in existence.Their singers had no concept of them being passed down from anywhere but their home but they likely had melodies and rhythms in common with the broadsides of their grandparents homeland. https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/articles-an...

I've noticed a similar thing where blues music fans are unaware a tune they consider "traditional" is actually a version of a published minstrel show tune. It seems pop music doesn't die, we just forget where it came from until it becomes folk music. Then I guess we forget that happened and try and make it up the melodies from scratch.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Are you a late bloomer in work or love? Maybe you’re right on time"

howLongHowLong — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 23:26:50 +0000

For one, because if there are enough people to pay higher prices, the market will reflect that and the locals will have to deal with the new costs despite the fact that there are no local jobs paying enough to afford these things. So yeah for people who are already merchants (likely a minority) it's great; everyone else gets poorer. Thus, inequality increases. This is already playing out in US cities.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Show HN: I created a game to memorize the fretboard"

howLongHowLong — Sat, 27 May 2023 14:57:25 +0000

This very much! I wasted so much time trying to "memorize" the fretboard. It comes naturally by practicing music. Almost all of it began from knowing just the low E string and applying first octave patterns, then other intervals as I understood what they were. Without musical context, it's not really all that useful to know how to instantly name a note on a fret. Maybe finding octaves quickly, given a starting note, could be useful in the time-based game realm.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Half of vinyl buyers in the U.S. don’t have a record player: study"

howLongHowLong — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:02:05 +0000

I'm a professional musician who makes a good portion of my "living" selling recorded music. You use the same mix for all mediums but need to master differently for vinyl. (Mix refers to levels of individual microphones, mastering is the frequency levels of the finished mix) I'm sure some people master different for digital outlets, but we don't. Regarding profitability,it's so much easier to sell vinyl than cds it's a challenge keeping them in stock, and pretty much every vinyl plant on earth is backlogged right now. Also the return of an lp vs. spotify is orders of magnitude higher; our Spotify income is barely quantifiable. (maybe bc we didn't specially master for it ha?)

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Why SAT Is Hard"

howLongHowLong — Sun, 26 Feb 2023 12:45:53 +0000

Totally agree with your comment. Just came in to leave for others: I believe "TTY" stands for "Teletype"(writer). Learned fun facts I didn't know when I hit google to double check: the original teletypes are descendants of a morse-code printing device called the "teleprinter" (from the 1830s!") One of the early popular devices for encoding and printing typographic characters was patented by Emile Baudot(for whom "Baud rate" is named) in 1879! This means that the commercial mechanical typewriter barely predates the teletype.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "An AI porn industry is emerging through Stable Diffusion"

howLongHowLong — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 13:33:49 +0000

It's almost a central theme of "Brave New World." I've always wondered why 1984 gets so much credit for prescience when Brave New World and Vonnegut's "Player Piano" seem to have (from this vantage point) got our nail on the head a little better. If you haven't read "Player Piano" its about a future where, as all jobs have been automated, society is divided into engineers and non-engineers on the dole who are basically assigned busy work (either fake road crew, or fake soldier) so they can get money to buy the stuff the engineers are making.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Logic Gate Simulator"

howLongHowLong — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 19:56:00 +0000

Just wanted to chime in to say that it seems like all the puzzles are still solveable without the shift key. (I'm mid-way through the flip-flop section, perhaps there's moments you need it in the final level?) edit: I take it back, foiled by delay

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Music theory for nerds (2016)"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 17:29:16 +0000

Music theory is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Its purpose is not to tell you what sounds good, but to have a common language to describe what you've heard.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?"

howLongHowLong — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:10:25 +0000

Truth! Im a professional musician and in my experience, "naturally talented" generally means "enjoys practicing". No one produces moving music without practice.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:36:33 +0000

Neither will you read the article, which is certainly not about water reclamation. (Other than the water saved by peeing into freshwater less.) Surely if it seems natural not to shit where we eat, it's reasonable to think about strategies not to piss where we drink - you seem eager enough to keep the two separate.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car"

howLongHowLong — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 14:50:10 +0000

I'm assuming you've never tried to maintain a nutritious diet through dollar stores and food banks before. It's very difficult. Additionally, when you take into account special packaging made for dollar stores, some of the trash food is actually more expensive than healthy items available at the "rich" store.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Ask HN: Should I publish my research code?"

howLongHowLong — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 15:26:50 +0000

It's sort of funny when the pro list includes "better for science" and there's still a need for a con list. There should be a scientific equivalent to the hypocratic oath; a lot of us laypeople imagine that scientist default to "good for science" and "ease and possibility of replicatability."

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Using the wrong dictionary (2014)"

howLongHowLong — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 15:30:42 +0000

Sorry, just saw this. You're absolutely right about the etymology, but generally the suffix "-ity" in English serves to make an abstract noun out of an adjective. So it seems more likely to me that "facility" is derived from the English "facile" than developing alongside it. All that said, its just speculation, and facultas->facility/facilitas->facile would explain the subtle difference in meaning.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Evidence for a mouse origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant"

howLongHowLong — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:53:16 +0000

I just want to comment to reject the equivalency of lab-leak hypothesis with absurd conspiracies. Humans make mistakes; it's known that contagions have escaped from labs. How does acknowledging these uncontroversial facts cause one to jump to intentional engineering, or not understanding how 5G works? I suspect that the majority of people who think "lab leak" is among the set of reasonable origin hypotheses are looking for better transparency and safety protocols in labs, not trying to end virology research.

New comment by howLongHowLong in "Evidence for a mouse origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant"

howLongHowLong — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:42:35 +0000

Is there stronger evidence than correlation==causation to point to the market instead? I think that's what sends most people down the conspiracy kick. You have two seemingly reasonable explanations for a thing, yet one is considered ridiculous.