Hacker News: ouija

New comment by ouija in "Spaced repetition systems have gotten better"

ouija — Sun, 18 May 2025 16:45:55 +0000

I think my problem is that I'm not using the system as intended. I learn new vocabulary mainly by reading texts or watching videos in the target language and use spaced repetition to keep track of my progress. If I can't remember a word (as indicated by SR), I'll reread the text/rewatch the video where I've first encountered it. I don't want to keep reviewing the same word in my spaced repetition program, especially not in the same session.

New comment by ouija in "Spaced repetition systems have gotten better"

ouija — Sun, 18 May 2025 16:13:23 +0000

Interesting. I was never really happy with any spaced repetition algorithm, so I recently implemented my own dumb system which simply asks you for the number of days after which the card shall be shown again: https://github.com/kldtz/vmn

Usually my intuition about how well I know something is not too far off. If you don't specify anything, it doubles the time since the last review.

Labor Omnia Vicit Improbus

ouija — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 08:31:59 +0000

Article URL: https://zeitbach.com/blog/2024/12/28/labor-omnia-vicit-improbus

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529500

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ouija in "Writing Python like it's Rust"

ouija — Sun, 21 May 2023 09:58:20 +0000

Yes, you can write Python code that runs with missing or wrong type hints. Not ideal, but you can add a static type checker (mypy) as a step in your CI pipeline and reject commits that fail this step. Not much discipline required.

New comment by ouija in "The World is Built on Probability (1984)"

ouija — Sun, 14 May 2023 13:00:32 +0000

Seems like a lot of effort went into typesetting this, wow!

I can recommend "Calculus: Basic Concepts for High Schools" by the same author (L.V. Tarasov) to anybody unfamiliar with calculus: https://archive.org/details/TarasovCalculus/page/n1/mode/2up. It's written as a dialogue between author and reader.

New comment by ouija in "Show HN: All-SVG websites with complex animation"

ouija — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 18:15:26 +0000

Just some test feedback: On my phone I have to scroll horizontally to read the text on the website. A part is always cut off. (Same problem on the linked example sites.)

New comment by ouija in "Why talent sorting in Germany is flawed"

ouija — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 09:45:47 +0000

The author gets the whole system backwards. Medicine is the most expensive thing you can study at a German university (~30K € per student per year). That's why the number of slots is very limited. Now the demand is higher than this limited number of slots, so universities need some criterion to reject applicants. The criterion happens to be mainly the GPA.

But I agree that the situation is suboptimal. Ideally, there should be more available slots. If we had too many physicians, we could pay them less and the demand would drop.

New comment by ouija in "How I survived a year in ‘the hole’ without losing my mind"

ouija — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 17:31:45 +0000

You sound like the banker in "The Bet" by Chekhov. I hope nobody makes a bet in this thread. :D

Trust the Science

ouija — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 08:29:47 +0000

Article URL: https://verzettelung.com/22/08/25/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33149112

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ouija in "Beyond Freedom and Dignity (B. F. Skinner)"

ouija — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 10:32:34 +0000

Thanks for the feedback! I agree, manipulating the social environment sounds evil and may lead down a dangerous path.

I was mainly thinking about what Skinner describes as bringing "the individual under the control of some remote consequences of his behavior". For example, the prospect of ultimately bringing about the extinction of humanity in a few hundred years is too remote to have an effect on anybody's decisions. It would be good to have a system that mediates the effect. I guess, "internalisation of external costs" sounds less threatening.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity (B. F. Skinner)

ouija — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 08:01:28 +0000

Article URL: https://verzettelung.com/22/10/01/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33092604

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

New comment by ouija in "“All data must be on the table” (German)"

ouija — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 05:32:11 +0000

I can't read the whole article because it's behind a paywall. From what I see, it's about the inaccessibility of primary data from mRNA-vaccine trials by Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna. Possibly related English source: https://ebm.bmj.com/content/27/4/199

New comment by ouija in "Freewrite Alpha is a smaller, cheaper distraction-free writing tool"

ouija — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 17:03:28 +0000

It's a charming idea, kind of whimsical. I like that. But the screen really seems too small, even for writing. I recently bought a used ThinkPad X220 for 180€ (typing on it right now). OK, the battery won't last 100 hours, but I'd take it any day over this.

New comment by ouija in "I argue that studying the history of philosophy is philosophically unhelpful"

ouija — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 04:51:13 +0000

I agree. It also seems wildly inefficient to ask every student to read all those originals instead of systematic modern introductions. History is accumulating, so this becomes an impossible task at some point. If the ideas expressed in a text cannot be separated from their "original presentation", maybe they aren't that good after all. Exactly what I had in mind when I wrote this recently: https://verzettelung.com/22/09/10/