Posts by CRConrad

Bun posts Rust porting guide, says rewrite is still half-baked

On the contrary: More calculator maths, please.

I'm still baffled as to why “AIs” — actually, LLMs — still refuse to ”use a calculator”, i.e. call a pre-compiled arithmetics subroutine whenever they encounter an arithmetics problem, but insist on doing the maths “in their head”; their hallucinating “head”.

Like, apparently they're able to recognise that something _is_ arithmetic, since they know to paste in an arithmetic-sounding answer. And they're a program running on a computer, sometimes able to call external programs, and in any case able to have a deterministic callable arithmetics subroutine built-in by their creators. Any science fiction AI anyone has ever heard of, from Star Trek (at least TNG) to The Culture and beyond, does it that way.

So how moronic are the people who build these things — and so often profess to be huge SF fans since childhood — not to build them that way? Sure seems we aren't going to see “AGI” any time soon: As long as these things don't know when to reach for a “calculator”, the “I” will continue to stand not for “Intelligence”, but rather its opposite.

I think you assume wrong.

I'm fairly sure they meant “like the original AC’s comment”.

Zig creator calls Bun’s Claude Rust rewrite ‘unreviewed slop’

Re: Thousand monkeys?

Naah, not quite yet. We’re still at "A Thousand Lizards at a Thousand Baby Typewriter Toys".

Translation from one language to another is, per se, just a matter of syntax. And syntax is, per definition, just a regular pattern that your code has to conform to, in order to be syntactically correct.

Hmm, les’see, where have I heard that before — “regular ... pattern”. You can come up with, and apply, quite a few good regexes in eleven days.

Re: Strange

Strangest of all is how you are apparently juxtaposing “a high level language“ with “natively compiled equivalents”.

That would work, if they were opposites. But they aren't.

Re: Rewrite in Rust, source code size doubles to 1000000 lines

And it will get just as much better every time.

Re: For great justice

All your...

Re: “Nobody just sits down to write...”

A young guy in Helsinki sat down one day[1] to write some code... I think they're at fourteen million lines now, or something.

[1]: Admittedly, one day somewhere around the cusp between the 1990s and ’90s...

Re: “name another noteworthy zig project”

So name us any “noteworthy” SQL project. Or a bash one.

That is, I think maybe the downvotes are because of the implied assumption that there must be “noteworthy projects” — i.e, presumably, open-source projects —for a language to be any good. There are probably billions of lines of company-internal, often business-critical, SQL and bash code. But no “noteworthy projects” that I know of. Still doesn't mean that bash and SQL suck; on the contrary.

So what exactly does it mean that you know of “only” two “noteworthy projects” in Zig?

A: Nothing. It means absolutely nothing.

HTTP gets a QUERY method so complex searches can stop pretending to be POST

Re: Idempotent

“now[a]days”?!?

We've been reading the Vulture since... Uh, was it the nineties, or did it only come around in the early aughties?

“Nowadays”... Sheesh.

SerenityOS: Remarkable project with its own JS-capable web browser

Re: "Just for fun"

...was actually the title of Linus Torvalds’ (ghost-written) autobiography[1], released back in 2001.

So yeah, you never know what doing something "just for fun" can lead to, now do you...?

___

[1]: ISBN 0-06-662072-4.

The big FOSS vendors don't eat their own dogfood – they pay for proprietary groupware

ISWYDT

It imitates what they do, improves on it, and incorporates it

Felt a new identi-TLA was needed, didja? (I think I'l stick with E³, at least for now.)

Don't underestimate pro-Russia hacktivists, warns UK's cyber crew

Re: "3-week special military operation"

Three-DAY "SMO", actually.

Even fantasy money can buy a lot of power – just ask Larry Ellison

You missed the point.

Yes, that's how the stock market works.

A Linux alternative? Debian/Hurd shows microkernel Unix dream is alive

Re: I If Minix had been GPLd...

If Minix had been GPLd it might have taken a life of its own. But that's the pragmatic approach and I don't think pragmatism has ever been in GNU / FSF's DNA.

So you're blaming GNU / FSF for Minix not being GPL...?

That's a Minus, for many people.

“Which in turn protects YOU.”

Well, not everywhere. In many places it's more that it protects the police and security forces FROM “you”. Places like North Korea, China, Russia, and nowadays the USA.

Not all of them.

Not all of the authors, that is; pretty much only mr. Proven, AFAICR.

And I wouldn't swear that even he reads all of the comments.

Notepad++ update service hijacked in targeted state-linked attack

Oh, STFU...

...and piss off, you wanker.

Re: defenêstrées

So only female ones?

We all know...

...who is the "dopey" here.

pearOS is a Linux that falls rather close to the Apple tree

Google Plus...

...was where many people went when they, long before it became fashionable among the masses, began to be suspicious of Facebook.

HTH!

Core Python developer suspended for three months

Re: Bad geography.

This being America, I presume

Yeah no, don’t presume. It’s not only presumptuous, but foolish: What “this” is it that you think is America? The global Internet we’re all reading (and commenting on) this upon, or this British computing news site specifically?

(Sheesh... Yet another Yank suffering from “There Is Only America” syndrome.)

Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't want – here's what we actually need

Re: “my taskbars are vertical”

Well, not any more they're not.

Thank you, Microsoft. :-(

Re: restoring off-screen application windows

> Still that's better than the acrobat windows which can decide their location is miles off the screen and which makes it hard to move them back to somewhere I can see.

Alt-Tab to focus the offscreen window, Alt-Spacebar to get its system menu, X to maximize it. From there, if you click the "restore" (overlapping windows, upper-right corner, next to the red X to close) titlebar icon, it scoots back offscreen -- but if you grab the title bar while maximized and move it a bit down, it goes to non-maximized with the titlebar where you released it.

At least that usually works for me, with the apps that do that shit. Dunno if it works for all apps, but HTH!

That's actually the default, AFAIK.

>> Also I think it would be helpful if the taskbar on each screen showed just the applications that are open on that screen instead of showing all of them.

At least on Windows 10 I have to explicitly set it to show all apps on all taskbars[*].

If the taskbar's behaviour is something that bothers you... Have you ever looked into Taskbar Settings?

---

[*]: Which is how I prefer it; I hate only seeing some of my open programs, never mind which screen I'm looking at. But then, my taskbars are vertical, autohiding, show labels, and are rather wide. Like, you know, sensible people would want them to behave.

Re: Copilot rabbit hole not suitable for work

Maybe, by allowing tht to be installed on your computer, your employer was trying to tell you something...

Show Desktop" button in the taskbar...?

If you've set your taskbar to autohide like a normal person who wants to, you know, see their desktop... Then that button wouldn't be visible / clickable until you move your mouse to the taskbar.

And why faff about with the mouse in the first place -- is there something wrong with the Windows or D keys on your keyboard?

Launch_multiple_webpages

> But for STARTERS, we just need the ability to LAUNCH_MULTIPLE_WEBPAGES all at a time.

Bookmark them all into a "folder", then "Open All" from your bookmarks menu. HTH!

Re: Some suggestions

This article is about Windows. I don't want Teams to be part of Windows installation.

Yeah no, who would. But you're missing two things:

1) Some people might.

2) And whether it comes with Windows or not, it's just an example: The OP (or someone else) might want to do stuff like that with any application, and what they're lamenting is the removal of the facilities for doing that from the OS.

Sadly it is in current Win11...

Yet another reason to avoid W11 like the plague... Easy enough at home, but at work, it's coming soon. Sigh... :-(

Your clipboard text switch is easy to implement into a keyboard shortcut.

Yeah, but that disregards the (rather obvious, IMO) fact that stuff you want to copy from Teams isn't just firstname-lastname pairs; it's the text the people behind those names sent, too. What's that script going to do, "every switch of pair around words"?

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

Re: There is no need for fuckwit conspiracy theories either.

No, it appears I've been downvoted by at least one (but likely several) anonymous cowards.

Which is kind of the same thing, as it shows my opinion is non-despicable: That's why the despicable don't like it.

> Catamarans and trimarans are usually positively buoyant, ie. their overall density is less than the water they float in as they have no keel.

All boats and ships are usually positively buoyant, regardless of how many hulls they have and whether they have a separate keel or not.

If they weren't positively buoyant they wouldn't be boats or ships, but submarines.

Librephone battles the proprietary binary blob

You're wrong on one point.

It's the *Free Software Foundation* - free software replacements is what the initiative intends to develop, not proprietary "FOSS".

The 'F' in “FOSS” is the first F in “FSF”: The acronym stands for “Free and Open Source Software”. It's an umbrella term that encompasses both “Free Software” and “Open Source Software”.

(Which, yes, proves that the introduction of the term “Open Source Software” as “just a synonym for Free Software that will be easier to sell to corporations” was either a deliberate subterfuge or, at least in retrospect, misguided: People obviously don't see them as synonyms any more.)

Way to show you're not getting it.

“...odds are the binary blob was compromised within the originating company.”

Whaddayamean, “compromised”?!? If the binary blob has malware / spyware, odds are it's working as designed within the originating company.

Want tech cred? Learn how to email like a pro

Re: “We are people of the past...

...loving a past that will never come back.”

Ah, but you still have the Quickening to look forward to, Kurgan.

Re: Oh boy

No, I'm not. No points for you; you have no point; you are pointless.

Ockham's Razor suggests...

... that in this case, the requirement was fulfilled.

Re: Wrapping at column 78

Typo: Should be "> ", not " >".

(And of course the"rwally", but that's obvious.)

Marks & Spencer swaps out TCS for fresh helpdesk deal

Re: Outsourced staff will just fix it over and over

Of course they will. That's how they make money. If they actually fixed it once and for all, then they cut off that cash flow. Of course they won't do that!

Who gets a Mac at work? Here's how companies decide

Hobbyist.

HTH!

Re: it ofc depends on what your job is...

So how much does a set of conference headphones cost?

Re: Cultural reference explainer.

Back when at least some people were actually at least somewhat cultured, that used to be called “the ship of Theseus”.

Re: Pedantry

Yes it is.

(And I further bet the “GNU” foofarah makes even the gerkettes stay away in droves.)

Explanation:

Did you notice the “Mac users are mainly execs, IT or creatives” bit?

Probably also explains the “MBP Only” policy.

Re: Macs are the least related to the nerd aesthetic

Different definitions of “nerd”. Sure, most any other OS is more in tune with one (perhaps the dominant) definition of the term, but for the not-quite-overlapping set of people defined by “the nerd _aesthetic”_ -- i.e, “aesthetics nerds” -- the primary association is definitely Macs.

Re: Once you go Mac, you never go back

I did. Used a MacBook Pro (two, actually; the latter with the horrible “strip” in stead of the function keys) at work 2014-18. It became _tolerable_ -- certainly not better than Windows, but perhaps not _much_ worse either -- after a couple months of getting used to it.

Except for the “walled garden” and “our way or the highway” aspects, which at that time were even worse than Windows. (TBF, that's comparing to W7, which was what I'd used prior to that. Microsoft may have caught up on that nowadays.)

Feeling lonely? Microsoft Copilot can now listen to your every word, watch your screen

Re: mAnus?

Let's hope you'll never have to read or write a manuscript, then.

Bots, bias, and bunk: How can you tell what's real on the net?

Re: Youtube as a tool...

to research aircraft of WW2:

1) IHYLS should be alright, I hope?

2) About that Mosquito: If it was in German hands, couldn't that glass dome have been shattered (or damaged) when they captured it, and therefore replaced with a German-style one? (Or if they just preferred them that way?)

It's STILL too early...

...for anyone to call themselves “Pharoah”.

(Fuck, that one annoys me.)

Baikonur's only crew-capable pad busted after Soyuz flight

They make bicycles...

Out of rebar for the frames, no doubt. And concrete for... The tyres?

Type-safe C-killer Delphi hits 30, but a replacement has risen

No.

No, saying that you failed to recognise what was intended as a courtesy from (the makers of) the IDE is not the same as saying that you failed to be courteous.

Or, IOW: Are you too stupid to realise that he was calling you stupid, not discourteus?