Hacker News: zuminator

New comment by zuminator in "Python 3.15: features that didn't make the headlines"

zuminator — Fri, 22 May 2026 08:53:52 +0000

I noticed that as well. Per the docs:

  Several mathematical operations are provided for combining Counter objects to produce multisets (counters that have counts greater than zero). Addition and subtraction combine counters by adding or subtracting the counts of corresponding elements. Intersection and union return the minimum and maximum of corresponding counts. Equality and inclusion compare corresponding counts. Each operation can accept inputs with signed counts, but the output will exclude results with counts of zero or less.

Anyway, nice Counter-example ;-)

New comment by zuminator in "If AI writes your code, why use Python?"

zuminator — Tue, 12 May 2026 03:57:13 +0000

If the training data is basically irrelevant, then an LLM should be able to iteratively improve the programming language it uses, resulting in a custom language optimally designed to maximize its own coding ability. The source code might not even be human readable natively, just translated into pseudocode on an as-needed basis.

New comment by zuminator in "New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag"

zuminator — Sun, 03 May 2026 21:25:57 +0000

There's a lot wrong with the world, but it seems not unreasonable for people to more strongly critique things 1) they feel they have some responsibility for or 2) that directly impact them or 3) where their criticisms are more likely to result in positive change.

New comment by zuminator in "California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws"

zuminator — Sat, 02 May 2026 21:56:10 +0000

Evidence is, generally speaking, anecdotal.

New comment by zuminator in "Is my blue your blue? (2024)"

zuminator — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 21:55:49 +0000

When the final threshold image was displayed, I felt that the boundary was too far over to the left and I had a fair amount of green on the blue side.

I think this would work better if the hues jumped around a bit instead of blatantly triangulating, so that you wouldn't be biased by your prior semection.

New comment by zuminator in "Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons"

zuminator — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:16:59 +0000

And regardless of whether the US government is a democracy or not, the frequent claim that it is a republic and (therefore) not a democracy is a non sequitur. It's like saying my suitcase is black and therefore not tall; the first has no bearing on the second.

It's just a thought-stopping meme. Thought-stopping because it ends up derailing conversations about policy or governance with dictionary definition arguments. A meme because the eye-rolling implication is that if our country is a republic and not a democracy, then naturally it's Republican and not Democrat(ic).

Furthermore, the fact that there are some anti-democratic elements in the US Constitution doesn't preclude democracy on the whole. Much in the way we consider our economic system to be capitalist despite there being many anti-capitalist components.

New comment by zuminator in "Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?"

zuminator — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 03:25:22 +0000

It's not just the photos that you take going forward, but all the photos you already have stored on the device.

New comment by zuminator in "EFF is leaving X"

zuminator — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 22:00:25 +0000

Where's the dishonesty? Low engagement matters when you have to pay for it. It doesn't cost them anything to maintain an active Threads account.

New comment by zuminator in "Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division"

zuminator — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:45:43 +0000

I happen to be in the middle of this book right now, so I only lightly skimmed tfa, but my copy is about Marie Quinn, not as Diehl says, Marion Wheeler. I do recall that name from an older, less cohesive 2020 ebook version that I had started reading years ago but set aside. Are there different protagonists in different markets? Or different perceived realities?

New comment by zuminator in "How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'?"

zuminator — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 09:20:40 +0000

The problem for Microsoft is that branding only works if it's built off a solid, widespread product with a good repuation. Github Copilot might be solid but it's a niche product that most people have never heard of. So people wind up associating the entire Copilot brand with the mediocre to bad Copilot experiences they are exposed to on a daily basis, such as the useless Copilot button on Copilot+ PC keyboards.

New comment by zuminator in "Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events"

zuminator — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:11:18 +0000

White straight men aren't being barred from the Olympics.

New comment by zuminator in "Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill"

zuminator — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:18:58 +0000

This poem should be updated for modern sensibilities:

First they came for the Communists

And I was like fuck those Commies

Because I was not a Communist

ditto

Then they came for me

And what the fuck bro this is totally not what I voted for

New comment by zuminator in "Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill"

zuminator — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:09:34 +0000

There's a couple of ways that could go down.

One way is that you log in under a guest account and the guest account requires you to indicate your age. After your session is over, guest account logs out.

Another way is that the library has two sets of computers, ones set for adults, ones set for minors. You need access card to use computer and the librarian will give you the age-appropriate access card.

Another way is computers are set for restrictive (child) account by default. If you need adult access you have to ask librarian to unlock it.

New comment by zuminator in "Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs"

zuminator — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:50:32 +0000

All this fuckery makes it hard to keep track of financial inflows and outflows, which in turn makes it easy to commit graft and corruption. Especially coupled with the forced retirement of those principled people formerly in bureaucratic positions, and the lack of consequences for lying and scheming on behalf of the kleptocracy.

New comment by zuminator in "10% of Firefox crashes are caused by bitflips"

zuminator — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:38:15 +0000

Naively, the more stable a piece of software is, the more likely that its failures can be attributed to hardware error.

New comment by zuminator in "The whole thing was a scam"

zuminator — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:30:55 +0000

The scam part is the fiction perpetrated on the American public that there was a bona fide dispute with Anthropic.

New comment by zuminator in "15 years later, Microsoft morged my diagram"

zuminator — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:33:32 +0000

*post morgem ti൬.

New comment by zuminator in "Microsoft's Copilot chatbot is running into problems"

zuminator — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 06:16:15 +0000

100% agree. Office and Windows were hugely successful because they did things that users (and corporations) wanted them to do. The functionality led to brand recognition and that led to increased sales. Now Microsoft is putting the horse before the cart and attempting to force brand recognition before the product has earned it. And that just leads to resentment.

They should make Copilot/AI features globally and granularly toggleable. Only refer to the chatbots as "Copilot," other use cases should be primarily identified on a user-facing basis by their functionality. Search Assistant. Sketching Aid. Writing Aid. If they're any good at what they do, people will gravitate to them without being coerced.

And as far as Copilot goes, if they are serious as me it as a product, there should be a concerted effort to leapfrog it to the top of the AI rankings. Every few weeks we're reading that Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, or DeepSeek has broken some coding or problem-solving score. That drives interest. You almost never hear anything similar about Copilot. It comes off as a cut-rate store brand knockoff of ChatGPT at best. Pass.

New comment by zuminator in "FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled"

zuminator — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 15:32:23 +0000

In this case I think "valid concerns about locked down computing" is referring to the owner's use of the phone being restricted, so that they can't download applications they want to use, they don't have unrestricted access to the filesystem, they are forced to pay an Apple commission to engage in certain forms aloft commerce, etc. These may be acceptable tradeoffs but they're valid concerns nonetheless.

New comment by zuminator in "Dell UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor"

zuminator — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 03:52:00 +0000

What is going on here? Why is everyone in this thread using 'pixels" to mean ppi? It seems unnecessarily confusing or even misleading. I mean blatantly a 6K monitor has more pixels than a 5K or 4K one, regardless of the pixel density.