Hacker News: sdrothrock

New comment by sdrothrock in "Magic: The Gathering took me from N2 to Japanese fluency"

sdrothrock — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:22:01 +0000

Two human editors. I'm one of them and I absolutely do not use AI tools when I edit.

If you're going off the use of emdashes and endashes, I've been using them for over 25 years.

New comment by sdrothrock in "Jurassic Park - Tablet device on Nedry's desk? (2012)"

sdrothrock — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:53:10 +0000

Pretty high on the RPF, actually! Especially in the early days, a lot of film, prop, and design industry professionals would congregate there and exchange information or big shop folklore. It was a pretty cool place (not saying it hasn't continued to be one, but I haven't been a regular in probably 20 years).

New comment by sdrothrock in "The forgotten meaning of "jerk""

sdrothrock — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 23:01:12 +0000

The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot.

https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...

New comment by sdrothrock in "What went wrong for Yahoo"

sdrothrock — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:33:20 +0000

I wonder what went right with Yahoo Japan, and how it was so successful here that it's still a mainstay for many to this day

Related post I saw an hour after writing this: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/edmund-ho-1277b2125_yahoo-jap...

New comment by sdrothrock in "Ask HN: What Pocket alternatives did you move to?"

sdrothrock — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 03:36:14 +0000

Thank you for answering! I'll be giving this a shot sometime :)

New comment by sdrothrock in "Ask HN: What Pocket alternatives did you move to?"

sdrothrock — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 01:51:05 +0000

Does Folio actually copy the content (i.e. if the original article is removed, Folio still has it) or does it function as a collection of bookmarks that it changes the presentation of?

New comment by sdrothrock in "The Miyawaki Method of micro-forestry"

sdrothrock — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:33:04 +0000

Separate from the forestry philosophy in the headlines article, Japan also famously made a decision in the 1960s that resulted in monoculturing the country into seasonal allergies for the timber industry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan

New comment by sdrothrock in "Terpstra Keyboard"

sdrothrock — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:26:35 +0000

Have you seen Electones?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electone

New comment by sdrothrock in "Mac Themes Garden"

sdrothrock — Thu, 08 May 2025 03:08:53 +0000

In the 00s, I remember leaning on LiteStep and Stardock (I think?) for theming rather than anything specific to windows

New comment by sdrothrock in "Don't force your kids to do math"

sdrothrock — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 04:54:40 +0000

I read this as remembering to set aside time specifically for play and not just for day-to-day parenting and discipline

New comment by sdrothrock in "Adobe deletes Bluesky posts after backlash"

sdrothrock — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 03:32:36 +0000

> Adobe is the one major company trying to be ethical with its AI training data

I was actually contacted by someone at Adobe for a chat about disability representation and sensitivity in Japan because they were doing research to gauge the atmosphere here and ensure that people with disabilities were represented, and how those representations would be appropriate for Japanese culture. It really blew my mind.

New comment by sdrothrock in "I Paid $70 for an AI Boyfriend. It Was So Worth It"

sdrothrock — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 08:33:40 +0000

> When that problem was mainly contained to just some drugs, overeating and laziness it was a less pressing issue. Don't do drugs, basically. Exercise sometimes. But once it starts to link itself into the economy like AI does

I'm a little confused here -- we have entire economies around drugs (uppers, downers, enhancers, etc.), eating (eat more, eat less, want to eat more, want to eat less, gorge, fast, ultranutritious), and vanity (clothes, makeup, surgical procedures, gyms, etc.) and have shown that we're willing to build up and support industries to chase the impulses to "the full spectrum of options" in any of these areas.

I think most people are dissatisfied or easily made to be dissatisfied with the state of their affairs, and this is something that's gone on for a long time and will likely never stop. What makes AI psychological companionship different from under/overindulging in these other aspects?

New comment by sdrothrock in "Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki"

sdrothrock — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:25:47 +0000

Just dropped in my email to try out the Japanese. I'll let you know.

I'm not really sure what to do with this -- I thought you wanted someone to take a look at some Japanese content, but I can't find any in the app/tutorial.

New comment by sdrothrock in "New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats'"

sdrothrock — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 03:40:27 +0000

Many businesses and residences typically bag their trash and leave it on the street curb.

The main exception is when a building has a managed trash facility, which is a room that people leave their bags in instead of on the curb.

New comment by sdrothrock in "Show HN: Counting Tap Toy"

sdrothrock — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 22:56:28 +0000

This is fantastic and just the kind of thing my nephew enjoys! Thank you for sharing. :)

New comment by sdrothrock in "Slouch: Posture panic in modern America"

sdrothrock — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:43:32 +0000

the showers here especially have always made me slouch and I'm not especially tall at 175 cm! It was only after getting a shower where I could stand straight that I realized how much I'd been slouching over the last 17 years due to low shower heads.

New comment by sdrothrock in "The English Paradox: Four decades of life and language in Japan"

sdrothrock — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 03:30:44 +0000

They'll look for external options whether they're paid lessons somewhere, English-related events, or online chances to talk to native speakers. Many will also go on to look for jobs in companies that involve English.

It's also worth noting that most public schools have (short) study abroad programs that will allow excellent students to apply for a few weeks in Australia or New Zealand as well.

One other interesting part of the uniformity is that perhaps because of the English focus, there's no real exposure to other foreign languages in public schools before the high school level (and sometimes not even then). Whereas in the US, I think most people have the option to study something from middle school or junior high.

I'm excluding Mandarin from this discussion, which is sometimes touched on superficially in Classical Japanese.

New comment by sdrothrock in "Things to know about the Great Wave"

sdrothrock — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:36:50 +0000

Novels are often written vertically as well, so it's fairly common still.

New comment by sdrothrock in "Python’s Preprocessor"

sdrothrock — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 03:26:05 +0000

Literally: it's difficult to avoid pain, but suffering is optional

New comment by sdrothrock in "Our Founder – Momofuku Ando"

sdrothrock — Sun, 11 Aug 2024 04:24:35 +0000

The best part of the museum is the chicken ramen factory, which you need to make a reservation for in advance. It is NOT the cup noodle factory.

Cup noodle factory: no reservations, draw on your cup, specify what toppings to put in

Chicken ramen factory: make ramen noodles from SCRATCH, send them off to be fried in front of you, draw the packaging

It's really worth the price of admission (1000 yen, maybe $6 USD) for the experience of making ramen noodles from scratch