bloak

23 ms·

301.
by bloak 3y ago
There seem to be a lot of trees in the category "other". Is there more detailed data for species and variety in another database somewhere, or is there a need for a massive wiki-style tree-spotting data-gathering exercise? Could s
302.
by bloak 3y ago
> Shouldn't it be "she'd" past tense? Yes, probably (I don't know the context), but it seems to me that in colloquial US English the traditional complex tense system has been somewhat simplified: perhaps another
303.
Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote(theguardian.com)
3 points by bloak 3y ago|0 comments
304.
by bloak 3y ago
I thought it was common knowledge that John le Carré's "The looking-glass war" (I agree with your recommendation of it) was inspired by the story of Lionel Crabb ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Crab
305.
by bloak 3y ago
If a message is automatically generated I'd rather it address me as "Dear Customer" or whatever. In general, perhaps it's better to have something nicely written in the manner of a circular than a badly faked personal me
306.
by bloak 3y ago
You seem to be mixing two things there, or it's unclear what you mean. It's possible to mention someone by name and arrange for the image to be found under their name without claiming that the image is really of that person. For e
307.
by bloak 3y ago
I don't see much to be frightened of. It has always been possible to create convincing fake photographs, at a price, while a photograph on its own (without proper provenance) has not usually been treated as important evidence (though t
308.
by bloak 3y ago
Yes, it's U+2665, which is considered to be an emoji according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji#In_Unicode , though U+2661 ("white heart suit", ♡) isn't. Probably HN treats ♥ and ♡ the same way
309.
by bloak 3y ago
> looks like Mongolia and the Caribbean are optimal places to organize conferences The colour scheme of that map is attrocious, but perhaps you have a better monitor or better colour vision than me? I think Mongolia is "Visa availab
310.
by bloak 3y ago
I've used printf (or equivalent) more often than I've used a debugger but sometimes a debugger is the right way to find a problem. For example, you mention an "error message", but I've occasionally had situations in
311.
by bloak 3y ago
Other good books by Robert Harris: The Ghost; The Fear Index; The Second Sleep.
312.
by bloak 3y ago
There are several giant warehouses near Milton Keynes (GB) that have blue horizontal stripes. Perhaps these links will work for a bit: https://www.halsall-electrical.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021... https:/&
313.
by bloak 3y ago
The humble earthworm? There are thousands of species of them! (Wikipedia says: "Currently, over 6,000 species of terrestrial earthworms are named, as provided in a species name database, but the number of synonyms is unknown." C
314.
by bloak 3y ago
I didn't immediately understand the point you're making there because I don't think you'd ever need to use Wikipedia or a list of sex offenders as a source, but I think I see your point now: if for 98% of people the spec
315.
by bloak 3y ago
I met a blind person studying computer science. I asked him why he used a speech synthesiser instead of a Braille display and he replied that he'd love to have a Braille display but they are far too expensive for a mere student. (The s
316.
by bloak 3y ago
In the UK when there are parking spaces next to a building with windows that may be open then there is often a notice telling people not to reverse-park because of the exhaust fumes. (So presumably there is an implicit exception for electri
317.
by bloak 3y ago
It totally makes sense with the steering mechanics (assuming you have a normal car that is steered using its front wheels) but if there is a low wall or bollards at the back of the parking space and you don't have sensors or cameras or
318.
by bloak 3y ago
> non-vegetarian mice pie Nice!
319.
by bloak 3y ago
At some point you might want to consider "pivoting" to a gigantic database of all dead humans: there would be fewer data protection and privacy issues! I have sometimes wanted to trace people's ancestry, or, more often, the
320.
by bloak 3y ago
But what if the bus is even more dangerous? :-)
321.
by bloak 3y ago
> "take ownership" Where's that quoted from? Legislation? How do you think that consumer rights apply to electricity supply and phone contracts, for example? I have no knowledge of whether consumer rights apply to Hive but
322.
by bloak 3y ago
A minor point of pedantry (sorry, I can't help my obsession with textual criticism): these are not transcripts; they are translations. I think I read somewhere that transcripts were made, but they were lost. I find it odd that the intr
323.
by bloak 3y ago
That's right! He explicitly says at one point: "denn es ist ja nur ein Verfahren, wenn ich es als solches anerkenne" (for it is only a trial if I recognise it as such). Shortly afterwards he walks out, but the following week
324.
by bloak 3y ago
Kafka has a prose style that is relatively easy to read, because he tends to describe concrete things rather than abstractions and does not use many unusual words or idioms, but hard to translate because he exploits the relatively free word
325.
by bloak 3y ago
> Other languages such as French, Russian, and Spanish also seems to assign genders to objects. Those languages assign gender to words, I think, not objects. A car in German can be "der Wagen", "die Karre" or "da
326.
by bloak 3y ago
Even Greenland usually counts as North America unless you explicitly exclude it, as the cited Wikipedia article does: "L'Anse aux Meadows is the only undisputed site of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact of Europeans with the Ame
327.
by bloak 3y ago
Only because it's a different country using English! Before Austria joined the EU (in 1995) there used to be significant differences in the rules on food labelling between Austria and Germany, to the extent that sometimes a product wou
328.
by bloak 3y ago
I mentioned Ireland because Ireland is in the EU and uses English officially so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the use of "alcohol-free" in Ireland corresponds to the use of "alkoholfrei" in Germany rather than t
329.
by bloak 3y ago
See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-alcohol-descr... (as mentioned by darrenf elsewhere in this thread): "Alcohol free – this should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has been e
330.
by bloak 3y ago
> Indeed a 0.5% ABV drink can be branded alcohol free (at least in the UK). Er, no! Perhaps in Ireland? In the UK the term "alcohol-free" can only be used if the drink has no more than 0.05% alcohol. However apparently it'

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