Viewing profile — MattConfluence

> There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what U+237C is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more biz…

I was recently at the kiosk at an Odeon cinema in Norway and I noticed that their popcorn buckets were helpfully labeled S, M, and L. Stor, Middels, Liten. No X-sizes in that case …

It's a fun read in a fan-fiction sense, but when you look at the out-of-universe story of the events of Tolkien's life and his writing process it becomes clear that Tom is not mean…

[1] is a video from a couple decades later (1914) that shows more of the urban middle or lower class folks of Kristiania (it wouldn't be called Oslo until 1925). [1] https://www.nb…

That's a neat observation, the cities do have a similar history. The medieval town called Oslo burned down in 1624, and a new city was founded on the other side of the bay. It was …

That street in particular has been closed for all traffic except buses and trams (and necessary service cars I guess, like the parked van on street view). On [1] you can see Storti…

The original photos are in the collection of Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology and can be viewed digitally at https://digitaltmuseum.no/search/?q=Carl%20St%C3%B8rmer&aq=t.…

One time I was using my laptop to remote desktop into a computer I was hundreds of km away from physically, I discovered that if I hit the power key on the laptop (yes, the laptop …

I rediscovered the joy of working with databases while working on an Elixir application with a Postgres/Timescale DB. Elixir's Ecto library (doesn't really fit the definition of an…

This looks very interesting! I only skimmed the abstract now, but I will look more closely tomorrow. Back in 2016-17 I did a master's thesis on a combination of (much simpler) cell…

Something that makes this extra interesting is that two of the major telcos of Myanmar are subsidiaries of companies from other countries: Telenor from Norway and Ooredoo from Qata…

This is a difficult problem indeed, but thankfully it is just as difficult for the malicious actors as it is for the "good guys". Since various bad guys have presumably been scanni…

I'd say it's not a very useful model on it's own, but it's a great teaching tool that illustrates emergence [1] well. It's easy to get started and it gets you into a mindset that y…

> SQL doesn't compose all that well. On that topic, I really enjoy working in Elixir because Ecto [1] lets you write "SQL" with Elixir's composable functional syntax. It sits somew…

This video by Captain Disillusion [1] and this bonus clip [2] seems worth mentioning in this thread. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO3JgPUJ6iQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/wat…

> How does someone moving schlep their furniture around the city center? It's still possible to get just about anywhere with a car, it's just made less convenient. The roads aren't…

"March 14th 2020" is perfectly fine both when spoken and written. It's not easy to sort lexicographic by programs, but that's not the most important aspect. The problem is that the…

Lately, Elixir has dethroned Python as the language that I get the most joy from using. Pattern matching in one of the big reasons. Great to see that Python core contributors (incl…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072748

> We removed any page that contained any word on the “List of Dirty, Naughty, Obscene or Otherwise Bad Words”. [ https://github.com/LDNOOBW/List-of-Dirty-Naughty-Obscene-and... ] L…

Yes, but if you are logging the IP for spam prevention, security tracking, etc , then you are in the clear per Article 6, section 1, point f [1]. However, you can't also use the IP…

A bit off topic, but I find it amusing that the two top posts on the HN front page right now are "Open Vim" and "How to Exit Vim".