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We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source
A framework for reasoning about AI-based changes you encounter or create.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 49,208 posts.
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Xfce switches to GitLab
Starting today, May 1, we’re switching from our cgit/gitolite setup to GitLab. Our old server, git.xfce.org, is now a ready-only in-sync mirror (so you can still pull code). Our new server is gitlab.xfce.org.
11224
Cognition: A new antisyntax language redefining metaprogramming
Other languages are inflexible and broken. Let's fix that.
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Clojure on the Desktop
With cljfx and Java 14 it’s finally here
11227
Making my own wedding rings
I’m getting married pretty soon, and I figured it’d be fun to make my own rings. I’d seen a Nile Red video where he made purple gold, and the process seemed simple enough: Make a mold, pour some mol…
11228
Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS
Are there any other hardcoded folder names in macOS? Where would I even start looking?
11229
Chasing RFI Waves – Part Seven
Here is part seven (the final part) of my non-fiction work about the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia. You can also read parts one, two, three, four, five an…
11230
Knuth changes his mind on Bernoulli number B_1
(I thank Yoshiyuki Kotani for this identity. We'll be able to use the same idea again in 2024 and 2027!)
11231
Y Combinator's Xerox Alto: restoring the legendary 1970s GUI computer
Alan Kay recently gave his 1970's Xerox Alto to Y Combinator and I'm helping with the restoration of this legendary system. The Alto was t...
11232
Scream cipher
You've probably heard of stream ciphers, but what about a scream cipher 😱? Today I learned there are more “Latin capital letter A” Unicode characters than there are letters in the English alphabet....
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11234
Dynamic Progamming: First Principles
Many problems of todays world require multiple decisions made throughout the lifetime of the problem. Choices are made based upon information, including previous decisions made in the problem. This article looks at how Dynamic Programming can be applied to help solve these problems in an efficient manner.
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PostgreSQL community impact of 2nd Quadrant purchase
This blog is about my work on the Postgres open source database, and is published on Planet PostgreSQL. PgLife allows monitoring of all Postgres community activity.
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Components of a Coding Agent
How coding agents use tools, memory, and repo context to make LLMs work better in practice
11238
Why isn't the <html> element 100% supported on caniuse.com?
I saw a Mastodon post that made me laugh this morning. It seemed sort of crazy that the html element wouldn’t have 100% support on CanIUse.com. Heck, I’ve been using it since 1994 and it worked just fine back then! This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole.
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What happened to Vivaldi Social?
A deep dive into the events of Saturday 8 July 2023, when user accounts started disappearing from the Vivaldi Social Mastodon instance.
11241
The game of life emulated in the game of life
Conway's Game of Life, emulated in Conway's Game of Life: The life simulator used is Golly which has a built-in script to generate these metapixel grids (select a pattern, and choose "metafier.py" from the scripts list). Outer Totalistic Cellular Automata Meta-Pixel: The metacell uses a period 184 tractor beam, which…
11242
“WarGames” Magazine Identified
As per Jargon File [1] definition number seven of Hacker [2] : "7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.", I have performed a real world hack of the movie "WarGames [3] [4] ." Through the use of my knowledge of computer magazines, my sharp eyes, and other…
11243
"Attention", "Transformers", in Neural Network "Large Language Models"
I find this literature irritating and opaque. This is at least somewhat because I do not yet understand it well, and there's too much of it. But clearly I need to wrap my head around it, before I become technically obsolete. My scare quotes in the title of these notes thus derive in part from jealousy and fear. But…
11244
How to build a windmill
Windmills have always fascinated me and for a long time I was dreaming of one day building my own. Where I live there are still machines from the 1600’s that are just as magnificent today as when they were first built. When you see one standing in a field rotating and converting passing air into usable energy they…
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TurboQuant: A first-principles walkthrough
Each mini-demo below covers one concept used later. Skip the ones you already know.
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Machines are better referees than humans but we’ll be sued if we use them
Andy Howlett and Mark Williamson in our group have been developing fantastic software. It can read the whole scientific literature and analyse it in minute detail. One of the things we are starting with is chemistry. ChemVisitor (part of AMI2) can read chemical structure diagrams and chemical names and work out what…
11250
Dear Postgres
Dear Postgres, I’ve always felt an affinity for you in my 9 years of working with you. I know others have known you longer, but that doesn’t mean they love you more. Years ago when others complained about your rigidness or that you weren’t as accommodating as others I found solace in your steadfast values: Don’t lose…