Hacker News: nescioquid

New comment by nescioquid in "A recent study suggests that insects branched out from crustaceans"

nescioquid — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 01:36:05 +0000

As a lay-person who likes to read about bugs, I've come to expect the qualifier "true" to connote something special about bug's "mouth parts".

New comment by nescioquid in "Study finds solo music listening boosts social well-being"

nescioquid — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:52:13 +0000

>>I'm not a headphone person but always have music playing in the background on speakers — often at a fairly low volume so it is easily ignored...<<

Given the number of self-exonerating qualifications in that statement, I think that deep down you know that people who play their music aloud in the office should be shot.

New comment by nescioquid in "A web app to read Latin texts with inline translations"

nescioquid — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:58:48 +0000

Note how one opinion provides the warrant for the other.

New comment by nescioquid in "Discarded delights: The joy of ex-library books (2021)"

nescioquid — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:27:36 +0000

To add to your comments on travel, reading position, lighting, some books are just too large or heavy to lug around or even hold for long periods. There are a number of door-stopper books that I otherwise just wouldn't have read because of this.

If the medium makes the difference between me reading a text rather than not reading that text, I tend to think that makes it functionally "better".

New comment by nescioquid in "Discovering Roman Mosaics (2020)"

nescioquid — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 18:14:11 +0000

There is a story about an inventor who approached Trajan[0] with plans for new construction machinery that would require far fewer laborers. Trajan's response was incredulous: if he used the new construction equipment, how did he expect he would manage to pay everyone? I.e. the construction project was itself a beneficium to those it employed.

[0] Could be another emperor -- I just have an association of this story with Trajan's markets for some reason.

New comment by nescioquid in "Why does Lisp use cons cells? (1998)"

nescioquid — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 20:13:52 +0000

Consider that you may be eavesdropping on the sort of self-talk the author engages in. The clear reasoning mixed with vituperation makes me suspect he probably beats himself up. There is a lot of worry over being mistaken and stupid.

I'm unfamiliar with the author, so I could be way off base.

New comment by nescioquid in "I Am Tired of AI"

nescioquid — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 19:17:03 +0000

People often screw around over the piano keyboard, usually an octave or so about middle C until an idea occurs. Brahms likened this to a pair of hands combing over a garbage dump.

I think a creative person has no trouble generating interesting ideas without roving over the proverbial garbage heap. The hard (and artistic) part is developing those ideas into an interesting work.

New comment by nescioquid in "COSMIC Alpha Released"

nescioquid — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 19:45:11 +0000

Make it three. I'm on the third battery for my darter pro: twice so far, the battery has swelled up and made the keyboard buckle. System76 support consists in selling me replacement batteries at a serious markup.

I've decided not to install the third battery, so I have more of a desktop now.

New comment by nescioquid in "Maker Skill Trees"

nescioquid — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 18:57:20 +0000

My impression is that the term came from Make magazine marketing/PR/branding.

I think that we say "maker spaces" rather than "hacker spaces" probably has a lot to do with the success of Make's branding efforts.

New comment by nescioquid in "Peng – A minimal Rust-based quadrotor simulation pipeline"

nescioquid — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 18:02:18 +0000

It's also the sound a gun makes when it's fired (in German). There's a pipeline-related joke in there somewhere.

New comment by nescioquid in "We have reached OpenBSD of Theseus"

nescioquid — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 21:52:32 +0000

I would guess most people interested in the quiz would be familiar with betacode (which this looks like, sans diacritics).

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Code

New comment by nescioquid in "Code review antipatterns"

nescioquid — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 21:30:36 +0000

That sounds like a Fagan review. I haven't been involved with one either, but I think some of the forces that drove people to do them have been weakened.

When you are shipping code that you won't be able to update easily (i.e. cheaply), you try to remove as many defects as early in the process as possible. CI/CD and web delivery seem like they would blunt the motivation to go through a Fagan review for most software developed these days.

I would imagine that some form of this still happens in safety-critical systems (or more likely the state of the art has advanced from this).

New comment by nescioquid in "Uncovered Euripides fragments are 'kind of a big deal'"

nescioquid — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 14:20:35 +0000

Eumenides trousers?

New comment by nescioquid in "Zany ideas to slow polar melting are gathering momentum"

nescioquid — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 20:55:10 +0000

woosh

New comment by nescioquid in "Zany ideas to slow polar melting are gathering momentum"

nescioquid — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 20:02:26 +0000

In the early 20th century, arguments against eugenics included pointing out that natural selection works through environmental pressures. Selecting for traits we value currently may well paint us in a corner should the environmental pressures change in some way.

I guess that might hint at a fly in the ointment to drive the plot...

New comment by nescioquid in "Roman Roads (2017)"

nescioquid — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 15:17:48 +0000

My thought is that one didn't simply travel alone on horseback, but with a group and baggage, and I wouldn't expect servants to be mounted. The animals help with the baggage. You also would want a group since there are highwaymen and freebooters on the road.

I seem to recall oxen speed being about 12 miles per day.

New comment by nescioquid in "The Special Challenges of Attempting a New Translation of Kafka"

nescioquid — Fri, 31 May 2024 15:14:38 +0000

I recently reread the first few chapters of The Castle and was surprised find such a different novel than what I remembered as a teenager: it was funny.

My German is better now than when I first attempted the novel, but when I was younger I took everything so much more earnestly that I was immune to the humor. I think it was mainly that I regarded irony as a complaint, rather than a punch line.

New comment by nescioquid in "The Student Syndrome: Delaying until right before deadlines"

nescioquid — Fri, 24 May 2024 20:21:24 +0000

You're probably a conscientious person and from "the inside" it maybe feels like you're procrastinating. But taken on your own account, it just looks like you don't actually have a problem with procrastination and are able to prioritize and manage your tasks.

>> [Procrastination] certainly can cause negative outcomes, but I wouldn't say that's my default expectation.

I think that, by default, you have better results with more time, but that doesn't mean inadequate with less. On the other hand, there's a kernel of truth in the witticism: "If you wait until the last minute to do a thing, that thing will take one minute to do".

New comment by nescioquid in "Show HN: I built a website to create financial models for any stock online"

nescioquid — Sat, 18 May 2024 15:34:49 +0000

I'm not the one getting down-voted.

New comment by nescioquid in "Show HN: I built a website to create financial models for any stock online"

nescioquid — Fri, 17 May 2024 20:58:25 +0000

This caught out the current Show HN poster, so I imagine the comment could be useful to future Show HN posters.

Besides, the comment wasn't unkind to the present poster and is actually kind to future posters, so the admonishment and down-votes seem unwarranted.