1. Is my vision that bad? No, it’s just a bug in Apple’s Calculator
Total comment counts : 50
Summary
The author of this article noticed some misplacement of digits in the binary display section of Apple’s Calculator app on their Mac. They speculate that it could be due to a rounding error or a design concept they don’t understand. They mention wanting to contact Apple about the issue but unable to find a feedback option. Later, they discover the Feedback Assistant tool and suggest others to use it to provide feedback to Apple. They also mention experiencing a similar glitch with the MacOS top menu. The article concludes by mentioning that Apple does read and track feedback submitted through the Feedback Assistant.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author finds Apple’s Calculator app on mobile devices to be frustrating. They mention that pressing buttons quickly often does not register, questioning whether the app prioritizes visual animation over actual functionality. The author states that this is surprising coming from a company known for its focus on user interaction.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a bug in the Calculator app on either Leopard or Snow Leopard, where it produced negative values when raising a negative number to an even power. The bug was found to be in CFNumber, a component of Core Foundation, which had an incorrect optimization for exponentiation. Despite this bug not being discovered by tests or causing issues in other apps, it was eventually found by a person who noticed the incorrect output and investigated it critically.
2. Crows are even smarter than we thought
Total comment counts : 57
Summary
New evidence suggests that crows belonging to the corvid family have surprising mental abilities. In a recent study, researchers from Lomonosov Moscow State University and the University of Bristol found that a species of crow called the hooded crow can memorize the shape and size of an object and reproduce it later, even after the object has been taken away. This ability, known as forming “mental templates,” was previously thought to be unique to humans. Mental templates allow animals to create tools, learn from other members of their species, and pass along improvements in tool making over time. The researchers found that young crows learn how to make tools by stealing their parents’ tools and reproducing them. The ability to create and use mental templates may be more widespread among bird species and possibly across the animal kingdom as a whole.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author recalls shooting a crow with a BB gun as a child and being surprised by the bird’s resilience. However, when they accidentally killed a crow by shooting it in the neck, the crows in the area became agitated and began circling the author’s house, making a lot of noise. Frightened, the author jumped over a fence to retrieve the dead crow, but was then dive-bombed by the other crows. The author buried the dead crow and the crows continued to make noise around the house until evening. This experience had a profound impact on the author, who empathized with the crow’s family and has not shot another bird since.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a study on Hooded crows, which have been found to demonstrate similar abilities to New Caledonian crows, including tool manufacturing and selection. The study highlights that these abilities are more widespread among crows than previously believed. The article title may mischaracterize the findings and overshadow the significance of the study. The actual paper can be found at the provided link.
3. Rediscovering the Small Web (2020)
Total comment counts : 16
Summary
The article discusses two types of websites: commercial websites designed by professionals to attract a large audience and generate conversions, and smaller, more personal websites created by regular individuals to share their interests and hobbies. The author expresses nostalgia for the web of the late 90s and early 2000s and argues that the modern web has become restrictive and commoditized. The author highlights the importance of small, independent websites and shares their own experience of redesigning their website using plain HTML and CSS, which they found to be enjoyable and fulfilling. They also discuss the benefits of this approach for small websites. The author concludes by expressing hope for the continued existence of the creative, personal web.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses a contribution to the small web called Kagi Small Web. The site and list of blogs are open source and are steadily growing by about 10 each day, reaching almost 15,000. Recent posts from these sites are indexed and given preference in Kagi Search results. The article also mentions that the project recently reached its one thousandth commit.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author discusses their experience with Gemini pages during the Covid pandemic. Although they initially engaged with Gemini pages, they found limitations in terms of formatting and cross-linking articles. They provide a link to a collaborative directory of Geminispace but note that a Gemini reader is required to access it.
4. The Great Vic Gravel Route: Crossing Victoria on Unsealed Roads (2022)
Total comment counts : 8
Summary
The article discusses the possibility of riding a bike across Victoria, Australia, while avoiding paved roads. Using data from OpenStreetMap, it is determined that it is not possible to completely avoid paved roads but it is possible to cross the state from west to east with minimal pavement. The article also highlights the presence of “gravel islands,” which are disconnected stretches of unpaved roads surrounded by paved roads. Ultimately, it is suggested that short sections of paved roads may need to be traversed in order to access more gravel roads. The largest gravel zone in Victoria is found in northwest Victoria, allowing for a long ride through the state.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a curated route for dirt and gravel roads in the United States. The author mentions that maps can be purchased on a specific website. They also provide a link to another article that discusses various curated routes in the country.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author reminisces about their love for gravel roads in Australia when they first came in 1987. They mention their enjoyment of a privately maintained gravel road called Lyons road, which has now been sealed. They express a sense of nostalgia for gravel roads, but also acknowledge that they can still be found in certain areas like Queensland’s Granite Belt and the outback. However, they note that gravel roads are becoming rarer in more urban areas like South East Queensland.
5. Expect – Linux tool for automating interactive programs
Total comment counts : 32
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article discusses their positive experience using the tool Expect for a specific problem they encountered as a test engineer. They worked on testing raid controllers and needed to change configuration variables accessible only through a text menu system over a serial connection. Instead of manually reconfiguring each controller, they wrote an expect script that efficiently made the appropriate changes and validated settings on multiple controllers. This saved them considerable time and effort, earning them recognition from their superiors. The author expresses a desire to use Expect again due to its effectiveness.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article is written by Don Libes, the author of Expect, and it discusses how to use Expect to automate system administration tasks. The paper was published in 1990, before the existence of Linux, and provides instructions on utilizing Expect effectively. The article can be found at the given link.
6. Iron as an inexpensive storage medium for hydrogen
Total comment counts : 19
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses an idea for energy storage using hydrogen and iron oxide. It explains that it takes a certain amount of energy to split iron oxide and water into their respective components. By using hydrogen to strip the oxygen from iron oxide, an exothermic reaction occurs, resulting in a small net energy gain. However, the article points out that this method is not practical for large-scale energy storage due to the inefficiency and cost of the process. It compares the storage tanks for compressed hydrogen, which are more efficient and cost-effective. Overall, the article questions the viability of this idea for practical implementation.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a cheap and stable energy storage solution using hydrocarbons, specifically synfuel hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons have similar properties to fossil fuels and can be used as a long-term storage option for energy. The technology has been tested in various experimental trials and is comparable to processes used in Germany and South Africa. The main obstacle to widespread adoption is the low prices of fossil fuels. The author has been aware of this technology for about a decade and has written about it multiple times.
7. Building Bubbletea Programs
Total comment counts : 13
Summary
The article discusses Bubble Tea, a TUI framework for Go, and provides tips and tricks for its development, debugging, and testing. It explains how Bubble Tea processes messages in an event loop, and emphasizes the importance of fast Update() and View() methods to maintain a responsive UI. The author suggests offloading expensive operations to a tea.Cmd for better performance and recommends using a debugging technique to see the messages received by the model. They also suggest implementing live reload functionality for the TUI using separate scripts. The article discusses the use of pointer receivers in Bubble Tea models and clarifies that making changes to the model should be done within the normal message flow. It also mentions the need to be cautious when using channels in Go as the order of sends and receives is unspecified. Lastly, the article highlights that user input messages in Bubble Tea are sent in order to ensure proper functionality.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author shares their experience with a TUI (Text User Interface) app workflow and makes three key points. Firstly, they recommend using the entr tool for livereloading and suggest wrapping livereload scripts in a Makefile. Secondly, they highlight the difficulty of managing layout arithmetic and suggest using a widget abstraction like Bubbletea’s. They also caution against potential issues with weird Unicode characters breaking width calculations. Lastly, they discuss the importance of data structure and state management, drawing parallels with the Elm architecture. They suggest storing data in one big, flat Model rather than splitting it among submodels, as it can lead to complexity.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article expresses their admiration for the aesthetics of Bubbletea. However, they find it extremely challenging to go beyond the provided examples.
8. Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews
Total comment counts : 27
Summary
In this article, the author discusses the importance of asking questions during a job interview to gather valuable information about the company and role. They emphasize the need for candidates to have a standard set of questions that they ask every interviewer at every stage of the interview process. The author also mentions that the interview is an opportunity for candidates to assess their skills and determine if joining the organization is the right move for them.
Top 1 Comment Summary
I’m sorry, but I am unable to summarize articles from external sources. However, if you provide me with the main points or specific sections of the article, I would be happy to help summarize those for you.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses three questions that can help understand the process and impact of new ideas, major migrations, and hiring in a company.
9. BaseX – a highly W3C compliant XQuery processor
Total comment counts : 2
Summary
BaseX is a versatile XML database and XQuery processor that can handle large amounts of textual and binary resources. It supports various file formats such as XML, HTML, JSON, and CSV. It comes with a user-friendly GUI that includes an IDE for writing complex applications and visualizations for data exploration. BaseX is platform-independent and licensed under BSD. Additionally, it supports web application development with RESTXQ and complies with W3C’s Update and Full-Text extensions.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the benefits of using BaseX, a software tool developed by a single developer over many years. The author praises BaseX for its ability to generate well-formed XML output, which eliminates the possibility of nesting errors caused by typos. They also highlight the simplicity of reasoning about code in BaseX, as variables are immutable in its functional language, XQuery. However, the author suggests that an area for improvement in BaseX is the implementation of type checking. While XQuery allows for defining types via XML Schema, there is currently no mature open source implementation that can check the types on each function. BaseX does support ad-hoc validation by calling a validation function explicitly.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author used a tool in the past to convert XML into JSON data. The tool also has the ability to render JSON. The author finds the tool to be flexible and user-friendly, although it has some unconventional aspects.
10. Bresenham’s Circle Drawing Algorithm (2021)
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses the problem of drawing a circle with a given radius using a programming language. The author explores different solutions, ultimately arriving at Bresenham’s algorithm. The article includes code examples in Rust and Python, and also explains the concept of a circle and its coordinates. The author also mentions the use of symmetry to simplify the problem and discusses a brute force approach for solving it.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the calculation of distances from a circle using a function F(x, y). If F(x, y) = 0, then the point (x, y) is exactly on the circle. If F(x, y) > 0, the point is outside the circle, and if F(x, y) < 0, the point is inside it. However, the article points out that the exact distance from the circle, G(x, y), is not just the square root of F(x, y) and does not behave monotonically with respect to F(x, y). Despite this, Bresenham’s algorithm is still exact and always chooses the next point based on which is truly closest to the circle, even though it uses an approximation error function.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article highlights that Bresenham’s family of algorithms, which were widely used in computer graphics, were developed during a time when computers could only execute one instruction per cycle without pipelining or prediction. Nowadays, processors prefer to draw shapes by first selecting tiles of interest and then evaluating each pixel in each tile independently. This approach aims to maximize pipelined parallelism and reduce unnecessary work.