For example, it's pretty easy to use CSS counters to create as many automatically incrementing counters as you need. Page number, section number, theorem number, etc. But (a) you can't do this in raw HTML, which means you can't rely on this working in any user agent that has poor support for CSS; and (b) you can't refer to the values of those counters outside of CSS. Thus, there's no way for you, as an author, to write the write the equivalent of LaTeX's "See Theorem~\ref{thm:foo}" in HTML and rely on having it auto-numbered and rendered correctly wherever your readers are. So the number has to already be there as text in the HTML, and you need a separate, document-unique id attribute coordinated with the number to use for linking. This means you need a separate compilation step to produce the HTML, so you've lost pretty much the only advantage that HTML had over LaTeX.

But fundamentally, the problem is that citation practices assume that the reading format is controlled by the author/publisher, so that all readers are looking at a common view of the document, whereas the Web assumes that the reading format is controlled by the user agent, and user agents vary widely. Thus, on the Web, you need formatting-independent citation practices, which have not yet evolved, or at least not become widely used, because it's too hard compared to page-based media, which have been working for centuries.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48531716

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

I wouldn't necessarily mind a dedicated piece of hardware, but if it's dedicated hardware, I feel like the bank ought to provide it, not make me pay for it. And I'd much rather it be a generic piece of hardware that can also be used as a second authentication factor for other things, like a Yubikey. I've looked around but have not found any banks that offer this. The only one I had heard of no longer offers it.

I'm sure most research mathematicians would like more freedom from some of the drudgery of their work (grading, admin, etc.), just like the rest of us. But we should be aiming for a world that allows more people to become mathematicians, not fewer.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674065

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2025-11/msg0...

This will add an iCalendar library to GNU Emacs, allowing packages in core and third-party packages to work with the format. More on the decisions I made and what I learned here:

https://recursewithless.net/emacs/index.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793036

Points: 29

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45665228

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

This makes second order languages, including the language of arithmetic, much more expressive: they can distinguish models that first order languages can't. Those infinitely many non-isomorphic models of arithmetic expressed in a first order language can be distinguished, and excluded, as models of arithmetic expressed in a second order language. That's why second order arithmetic is categorical: all of its models are isomorphic.

Yes, a model of second order arithmetic contains a model of first order arithmetic, but within the second order language, you can say "which model it is" (up to isomorphism). It's only if you restrict yourself to a first order language that you can no longer say anything which will be true in that model, but false in any non-isomorphic one.

This completely agrees with my own experience. But if these things are true when viewing a "dispersed content" site on a desktop browser, shouldn't they be just as true on mobile? It seems to me that this is a big problem with mobile-first design in general: it's just not the right format for actually conveying conceptual information to users.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37513950

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Earlier this year I came across this study with very promising results:

Sirh, Soo Ji, So Woon Sirh, Hah Yong Mun, and Heon Man Sirh. 2022. “Integrative Treatment for Tinnitus Combining Repeated Facial and Auriculotemporal Nerve Blocks With Stimulation of Auditory and Non-Auditory Nerves.” Frontiers in Neuroscience 16. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2022.75857....

They found an acupuncture-based treatment which eliminates or significantly reduces tinnitus in more than 87% of cases (n=55). I'm hoping to be able to get this at some point. The study is out of South Korea though; it might be a while before the technique is available in the west.