fenomas

5 ms·

1.
by fenomas 5d ago
In some cases, but note that (a) this is only true for a tiny handful of homophones, and (b) the distinguishing accent varies by region. E.g. "hashi" famously can mean bridge/edge/chopsticks depending on accent, but whic
2.
by fenomas 5d ago
Agreed, I think that's a close analogy and it's wild to me how recently Korean dropped kanji. But I imagine having a lot more vowel sounds made it a lot easier. I've wondered whether the two interacted - e.g. if there were wo
3.
by fenomas 5d ago
Sure - it's probably safe to say that any language can he written in any writing system, if one is willing to change both the language and the writing system :)
4.
by fenomas 5d ago
I mean, do you want to know or are you venting? If the former: No, spoken Japanese is not constantly confusing, because (a) some words are distinguished by intonation, (b) Japanese speakers know what the homophones are, and either avoid the
5.
by fenomas 5d ago
Japanese as it currently exists is just really hard to read when written without kanji. A couple reasons: it has TONS of homophones, and it doesn't use spaces, and also it has lots of common words that are only 1 or 2 characters long.
6.
by fenomas 10d ago
When you find yourself with a choice between "either this person doesn't understand the experience of being human or I'm not following what they mean" the latter is probably a sound choice.
7.
by fenomas 22d ago
> I think there's such a strong difference between remigration and ethnic cleansing. First sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration : Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethni
8.
by fenomas 27d ago
More and more I feel like anti-AI is a bigger bubble than AI. It seems like every week it expands into a new dimension - anti-Flock protesters tearing down years-old traffic cameras that were used for research into auto accidents, etc. Like
9.
by fenomas 27d ago
Not under US copyright law. The Bartz case ruled that if you scan a book and destroy the original it's considered format-shifting and you're likely fine. But not so for keeping the original and using the scan in its place - Intern
10.
by fenomas 1mo ago
I can add that the original anecdote here wasn't in the US. It happened to me in Japan, I think in 2009. (The CEO doing the testing wasn't Japanese though - maybe Russian at a guess.)
11.
by fenomas 1mo ago
What am amazing premise for a story, thanks for the tip!
12.
by fenomas 1mo ago
Bowling balls aren't hollow, they're solid spheres with finger holes drilled in. The varying weights comes from having weighted cores inside.
13.
by fenomas 1mo ago
This reminds me of the weirdest interview I ever had (boutique software agency, maybe 30 devs). I walk in, and the CEO's secretary hands me an IQ test and says I have one hour. I do the test, then I meet the CEO and we chat about gener
14.
by fenomas 2mo ago
Related, I read Lovecraft for the first time a while back and the xenophobia was so overt it was almost humorous. The story was basically a police detective uncovering ritual cult activity by immigrants (from some unspecified place) in a NY
15.
by fenomas 2mo ago
> The site is not about solving your problem. The site is about answering your question. The point stands either way, reread my comment. When you ask a question on SO and somebody posts a regular answer, you the asker decide whether th
16.
by fenomas 2mo ago
> So ideally that question should have answers that apply to the new question as well. The point is who decides. If you ask a question and I flag it as a dupe, I might think the answers on the other question apply to yours, but only yo
17.
by fenomas 2mo ago
I still think SO was done in by the weird way they handled similar questions. They encouraged veteran users to flag new questions as dupes, even if the "original" question was years old and unanswered. Who does that even help? Ima
18.
by fenomas 2mo ago
I always find it strange how many HN commenters appear to have unconsciously added "exclusively" or "without exception" to the text of the comment they're replying to.
19.
by fenomas 3mo ago
Related, Raymond Chandler says in his letters that he taught himself to write a novelette by copying one (by Erle Stanley Gardner). He took the original story and wrote a detailed synopsis, then wrote a novelette from the synopsis, compared
20.
by fenomas 3mo ago
(fist bump)
21.
by fenomas 3mo ago
I disagree! It's easy to check that an AI program meets its specification, which is to process input tokens and generate output tokens. :) If you're talking about verifying whether it produces the correct tokens, that's not
22.
by fenomas 3mo ago
I see what you're getting at, but I think you're focusing on the incidental. An animation is good if it's clear and intuitive in motion. It may often be the case that good animations also look nice in a screenshot halfway t
23.
by fenomas 3mo ago
That's not what TFA is about though. Look at the youtube example - it has two pieces of UI animating from from a start point to an end point, and the paths are such that they momentarily overlap. There's nothing buggy or janky abo
24.
by fenomas 4mo ago
Nice work, just gave a quick pass but seems to work well! (Also: vouched, your comment was dead FYI)
25.
by fenomas 4mo ago
> Placing an undue emphasis on civility is how bad actors control the conversation. The load-bearing word in that claim is "undue", and it's not justified here. I'm not doing arcane rules-lawyering, I'm just sayi
26.
by fenomas 4mo ago
If you think the guidelines should be changed you can mail dang, but unless they change the civil thing would be to follow them.
27.
by fenomas 4mo ago
Please read what the HN guidelines say about insinuations of astroturfing, because it very much applies here.
28.
by fenomas 5mo ago
(vouched - just fyi this comment was dead, no idea why)
29.
by fenomas 5mo ago
I'm fond of linguistic bugbears, and have actually sent that same article to people before :D But what you're missing is that the less/fewer debate is over their use as adjectives, and TFA's title uses "less" a
30.
by fenomas 5mo ago
(The aside was for you - TFA's title is not a case where either word works.)

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