nick_g's comments

On: What P vs. NP is about

[nick_g]

Despite being mentioned throughout the post, I don't see a link to the video in question. I saw it when it was posted a few weeks back and really enjoyed it. I would highly recommend giving it a watch, especially if the ramifications of P vs NP are new to you [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OPsH8PK7xM

On: Porffor: A from-scratch experimental ahead-of-time...

[nick_g]

I'm a bit suspicious of the versioning scheme described here[0]

If some change were required which introduced a regression on some Test262 tests, it could cause the version number to regress as well. This means Porffor cannot have both a version number which increases monotonically and the ability to introduce necessary changes which cause Test262 regressions

[0] https://github.com/CanadaHonk/porffor?tab=readme-ov-file#ver...

[derdi → nick_g]

Presumably the idea is that any work that causes Test262 regressions is temporary, takes place in a separate branch, and is only merged to main once the branch also contains all the necessary fixes to make the regressions go away again. A new version number would only be used once that merge happens.

[canadahonk → derdi]

Exactly. The versioning system is definitely unique and controversial, but I think it fits for a fast moving project like this, so I don't have to really consider versioning which could slow development. When it becomes more stable, I'll likely move to a more traditional semver scheme from 1.0.

[apgwoz → canadahonk]

What happens if there’s a regression in coverage, maybe due to a large sweeping change, and you go from 0.40 -> 0.35 ?

[astrobe_ → apgwoz]

There's the commit hash. Basically the "version number" is the commit hash, the human-generated (version) numbers added to it are merely progress indicators, which might be randomly useful. But for a project that has 1 branch, 0 tags and nearly 2000 commits, that's not really important.

[apgwoz → astrobe_]

yes, the entire exercise isn’t important. It just breaks the monotonicity that version numbers typically have. At that point, just call your version <progress>.sha

On: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be ge...

[nick_g]

I'm not aware of one, but if you can insert custom css rules it should be simple with something like

    tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]),
    tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]) + tr,
    tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href\*="twitter.com"]) + tr + tr
    {
        display: none;
    }

This selects for any `tr` which has an anchor to a url with twitter.com somewhere in it (with some layers in between) and the two `tr` which follow. Note that this is pretty naive and could have some false positives with links such as https://example.com/blog/a-post-about-twitter.com and such, you could be more careful with the attribute selector if you'd like

This will leave "holes" in the numbering of the list of items as the numbers are not calculated based on the structure of the document but are rather hardcoded. You could definitely fix this with some more funky css rules if needed.

[sixstringtheory → nick_g]

I would think you could automatically load the first match's "hide" URL until no more matches appear in the page, but it might trip some kind of rate limiter.

[2024throwaway → nick_g]

Perfect thank you.

On: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

[nick_g]

I don't use it too often, but it can be really helpful for getting a perfect crop of a specific element. With firefox's screenshot tool you can select the visible window, page or a specific element which has advantages over my os's tool. If I want a clean crop of an element with the os tool, I either have to open my rough shot in an image editor to get the crop right, or be very precise with my selection rectangle. I'll often use the os screenshot if I'm just sending a quick image to friends, but if I want it to look nice the browser tool is easier and faster

On: You use more open source software than you think

[nick_g]

I wasn't a fan of it as well. While I find sticky headers common enough to not be too surprised at their presence, the strange link symbols next to repositories on GitHub especially bothered me during my reading of the (otherwise solid) article

On: Calc.exe is now open source; there’s surprising de...

[nick_g]

I also often use the browser console for this as well. Just as a quick tip, you can use ** for exponentiation (e.g. 3**2 === 9)

On: Ask HN: Who's looking for a co-founder?

[nick_g]

It appears as though the repository that you've linked is private

On: Sherbet: An Ergonomic Gaming Keypad

[nick_g]

Just a heads up, it looks like the link to your article "Customizing the Logitech G13" in the first paragraph is broken

On: Thousand year-old windmills in Iran (2017)

[nick_g]

Yes, wheat into flour for naan. In this video[0] linked by twic you can see them in operation

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv3Pn2DFkDw

On: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but ...

[nick_g]

I would expect that paying people for unused vacation would incentivize employees overworking themselves leading to reduced quality of output. In a sense, I expect that it would magnify the existing issues with unlimited PTO. It seems like this would be neither good for employee or employer.

[acomjean → nick_g]

Most companies only let you bank so many pto (Paid Time Off) hours and carry them over year to year. I think this came about because of accounting change where employee hours are considered a liability (Hours/Money owed for nothing in return), but I might be wrong on that.

As a result employees can't just bank their vacation hours and get a big payday when they leave. It tends to only take a couple years to get up to the max, and you end up with "use it or loose it" pto.

[ghaff → acomjean]

It's been accounting rules for a very long time. It's pretty much Accounting 101. If you accrue liabilities that you're obligated to provide (either in the form of employee time off or pay-out upon departure), that's a textbook liability.

Which is why employers almost always cap in some form or another; the exact mechanism is partially determined by state law.

I worked for a company once that, during a bad spell, eliminated an accrual cap to encourage people to bank vacation. The result was that a not small number of people who weren't really into taking vacation just let their balances balloon. The company eventually forced people to work down their balances.

[NullPrefix → acomjean]

>Hours/Money owed for nothing in return

From the business perspectice services rendered previously is "nothing", because you can't get any more value from that

[miranda_rights → nick_g]

People are technically already paid for their unused PTO when they leave a company with an allocated PTO/year (although this may vary between states). That was one of the reasons why I chose my current company, because I figured I'd make a little 'extra' money leaving after a year without taking any PTO. Personally, I did end up feeling a little burned out so I opted to actually start using my PTO, but it's nice to have the freedom either way.