bradrn

7 ms·

1.
by bradrn 5d ago
Yes! I know it! (And I’m not old at all.) I saw it at, as I recall, a model train exhibition when I was very young, and I found it so hilarious I’ve never forgotten it. In fact I was quite surprised when I eventually learned it was a well-k
2.
by bradrn 15d ago
I’ve been using https://the-saurus.org/ lately to get access to the hierarchy, since reading https://blog.plover.com/2026/08/02/ on its use a couple of weeks ago.
3.
by bradrn 28d ago
Reminds me of this classic: https://web.archive.org/web/20010803131841/http://www.lemis.... > ``Pardon us, ma'am. Mind if we ask you a question?'' > Well, people keep telling me that
4.
by bradrn 1mo ago
Speaking as a Jew, I don’t read GP as being ‘anti-Jewish hate’ — it seems to be at least vaguely positive in claiming the weekend as a Jewish invention, albeit with very muddled phrasing. (For one thing, Zionism didn’t exist 2000 years ago…
5.
by bradrn 1mo ago
> Is there a name for a light source which has a constant emission intensity across a given range of wavelengths? The issue with this is that you can’t necessarily define ‘constant’ in a meaningful way. Being a density function rather th
6.
by bradrn 1mo ago
I tried working on this idea at one point. My conclusion is that doing it sensibly ends up removing all the advantages of spreadsheets which makes them so widespread (as the beginning of this article discusses so well).
7.
by bradrn 1mo ago
> the origins of Fraktur, that typeface having been commissioned by Maximilian I It’s interesting to learn that Fraktur itself only dates back to the 16th century — the broader blackletter family of scripts goes back 400 years earlier th
8.
by bradrn 1mo ago
Ah, whoops, thanks!
9.
by bradrn 1mo ago
In fact, I believe that the article is describing a reinvention of this technique! Just with a plotter on oil rather than a compass on plastic.
10.
by bradrn 2mo ago
> also many of the characters in the language are believed to be derived from hieroglyphs This is true insofar as all Western writing systems are ultimately descended from Egyptian Hieroglyphics, via the Phoenician script. In the case
11.
by bradrn 2mo ago
Hah, I had the same thought on seeing the title!
12.
by bradrn 2mo ago
Personally I’ve found this article a much more approachable overview to the question in the title: https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2019/09/the_riemann_hyp...
13.
by bradrn 2mo ago
It’s presumably named after Henry Bigelow (like several other things in oceanography), so my guess would be /bɪɡəˈlə͡ʊwi.a͡ɪ/.
14.
by bradrn 2mo ago
Reminds me of Haskell’s monad-bayes: https://monad-bayes.netlify.app/
15.
by bradrn 2mo ago
> lots of unexplained grandiose thinking like “ k and q made the vector the unit of thought.” That much makes sense in context: K is an array language, like APL, J, etc. From what little experience I have with J, ‘vector as a unit of tho
16.
by bradrn 3mo ago
This point in the comments made me think twice: > People in Western countries don't realize how bad the situation on the ground actually is; random Ukrainian flags showing up on your work monitor can result in severe problems for yo
17.
by bradrn 3mo ago
Yep, that’s what I meant; thanks for clarifying the point. (Though that said, a sibling post linked this interesting talk on limitations in OpenType itself: https://www.tiro.com/John/TypeCon2014_Hudson_DECK.pdf )
18.
by bradrn 3mo ago
In Naskh, each letter has only four forms (for the most part — there are a few ligatures etc. but I think ‘only four forms’ remains basically true). The choice between forms is determined almost entirely by position within a word (initial&#
19.
by bradrn 3mo ago
Just reread the post — it’s much more pleasant to read now! Thank you! (For what it’s worth, I think your own writing style is quite nice, now that I can see it.)
20.
by bradrn 3mo ago
I like wl-kbptr myself: https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr
21.
by bradrn 3mo ago
Yes, that would help considerably. (Also, I suggest clearly acknowledging where AI was/wasn’t used. I like CuriosityC’s suggestion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48411968 )
22.
by bradrn 4mo ago
It’s slightly confusingly phrased, but the full sentence is: > The trombone is the only brass instrument in a classical orchestra […] where the main mode of pitch control is by moving the tuning slide. Which is correct.
23.
by bradrn 4mo ago
Or, as Terry Pratchett so eloquently put it in The Fifth Elephant : > “Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favor of unnatural things.” > Vetinari looked perplexed. “You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?”
24.
by bradrn 4mo ago
Typotheque’s Dash has a very similar variable axis, though they call it ‘Speed’: https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/dash-casual . (For some reason you need to click on the ‘Variable’ box in order to see the full variable
25.
by bradrn 4mo ago
Odd, I’ve had the opposite experience… back home in Australia the boxes came with metal edges, but here in the UK (Scotland) they all seem to be plain cardboard. If the metal ones are sold somewhere I’d be very interested to know where I co
26.
by bradrn 4mo ago
It looks like that never occurs for Helvetica (A316600) due to the absence of kerning. However, with Arial (A316599) the description notes: > a(29368) = 111111 is a first notable anomaly, because its bounding box width of 2675 lies betwe
27.
by bradrn 4mo ago
I am immediately reminded of my favourite quote from the Jewish book Pirkei Avot (‘Ethics of the Fathers’): > It is not your duty to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. [ https:&#x
28.
by bradrn 4mo ago
Or, for that matter, what if you happened to be in a spot which had been occupied by a person at the time at which it resets?
29.
by bradrn 4mo ago
I found this comment pretty convincing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48247413
30.
by bradrn 4mo ago
Also known as ‘boolean blindness‘: e.g. https://cs-syd.eu/posts/2016-07-24-overcoming-boolean-blindn...

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