Hoots | Library of Trantor 2021-04-11T09:41:15-05:00 Shimmy Xu https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/ https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1618152075/ <![CDATA[Videos of Wendy Carlos playing were mesmerizing to…]]>2021-04-11T09:41:15-05:00 Videos of Wendy Carlos playing were mesmerizing to watch. Electronic musicians of the analog age looked seriously cool with all the huge synthesizers, VU meters, and reel-to-reel tape recorders.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1618067431/ <![CDATA[I really like the weather today. It was raining,…]]>2021-04-10T10:10:31-05:00 I really like the weather today. It was raining, but not the cold and gloomy kind.

It's the kind that would discourage the early morning dog-walkers, but still managable without a umbrella. The occational refreshing splashes on ankles, the lack of pedestrians or cars, and the bright yet blurred sky all seem to signal that something big, mysterious, and out of the ordinary is waiting for you down the road.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1618067381/ <![CDATA[Using 2 curved 49-inch ultrawide monitors felt…]]>2021-04-10T10:09:41-05:00 Using 2 curved 49-inch ultrawide monitors felt great. They are a bit taller than I initially expected and I position them column-wise with the upper monitor tilted downwards. I kinda wish they were curved a bit more, but then the upper monitor would have its corners cut off by the lower monitor. It does feel pretty good to be able to sit as upstraight as I can and still be able to see everything.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1617238866/ <![CDATA[Pasta with fractal shapes and infinite surface…]]>2021-03-31T20:01:06-05:00 Pasta with fractal shapes and infinite surface area when?

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1616890976/ <![CDATA[Never thought I'd see some of the most unique…]]>2021-03-27T19:22:56-05:00 Never thought I'd see some of the most unique software/hardware user interfaces in musical instruments. It does makes sense in that forcing sounds out of what is frequently a digital device beneth the cover using our fleshy human fingers is such a niche combination in itself (compared to what computers are first designed for) that there is simply no "general" way to do it, allowing for tons of experimentation and specialization.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1615165853/ <![CDATA[Did Back Arrow just pulled a Euphemia on us? ]]>2021-03-07T19:10:53-06:00 Did Back Arrow just pulled a Euphemia on us?

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1614738734/ <![CDATA[Oh, you are saying Rust's const generics is…]]>2021-03-02T20:32:14-06:00 Oh, you are saying Rust's const generics is basically C++'s non-type template parameters? I should have got that from their names, silly me!

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1614647340/ <![CDATA[Re: @niconiconi@cybre.space I got into NetHack…]]>2021-03-01T19:09:00-06:00 Re: @niconiconi@cybre.space

I got into NetHack mostly by watching YouTube let's plays - around 10 hours into the playlist and 20+ odd games, I feel relatively comfortable navigating the early game now (clearing sokoban + minetown).

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1614528170/ <![CDATA[Total internal reflection is like light doing 全集中.…]]>2021-02-28T10:02:50-06:00 Total internal reflection is like light doing 全集中.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1614391838/ <![CDATA[The weather has finally warmed up. Snow on the…]]>2021-02-26T20:10:38-06:00 The weather has finally warmed up. Snow on the streets are starting to melt away. No more worrying about slipping off while cycling. Makes you want to write some neat borrow-checked auto-formatted Rust doesn't it!

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1613248576/ <![CDATA[They do make motorcycle helments with shark fins! ]]>2021-02-13T14:36:16-06:00 They do make motorcycle helments with shark fins!

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1611795115/ <![CDATA[TIL unlike concrete, steel bridge surfaces will…]]>2021-01-27T18:51:55-06:00 TIL unlike concrete, steel bridge surfaces will turn piled-up snow into ice, so don't attempt to challenge them with your bicycle. Ouch.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1611105598/ <![CDATA[As sketchy as Brave can seem at times, it has…]]>2021-01-19T19:19:58-06:00 As sketchy as Brave can seem at times, it has built-in support for IPFS now! The fact that we end up relying on ipfs:// or ipns:// URI schemes is a bit funny, but hey, this is still great news.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1610849111/ <![CDATA[Reading through the latest Go generic proposal, I…]]>2021-01-16T20:05:11-06:00 Reading through the latest Go generic proposal, I felt ok at the beginning, but increasingly uneasy as I scroll along to find the long list of restrictions and edge cases. It's clear that the dev team is actually painstakingly trying to fit a generics implementation (almost exactly as people have asked for) into the language. Perhaps because Go seemed like such an opinionated language, I was not actually expecting such an serious attempt at all: I would have expected Go generics to simply involve a handful of special interface types from standard library that are somehow unboxed (have one less layer of pointer redirection) and we still write for-loops instead of map-reduces.

It's one of those cases where I applaud the effort, but I'm not convinced that a suitable solution can be achieved (like The Rise of Skywalker). The proposed generics system eats into Go's originally quite orthogonal feature set and reading through all the caveats of how it would interact with other parts of Go already feels similar in length as the entire Go spec. On the other hand, generics and interface types obviously overlap in functionality and while there are restrictions in place to discourage a Go version of "almost always auto" from happening, having to think about which one to (not) use takes away some of Go's appeal for me.

Ugh, this is such an arduous yet unrewarding path to go down. Maybe Go team's .async moment would eventually come and we would all love the solution, but then again, I really don't mind writing generics-free Go that much.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1610498227/ <![CDATA[twixter -&gt; twoxter -&gt; twixt3r -&gt; twIVter…]]>2021-01-12T18:37:07-06:00 twixter -> twoxter -> twixt3r -> twIVter -> twixter (in typical movie sequal naming fashion).

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1608254487/ <![CDATA[It snowed yesterday. I noticed those salt-sized…]]>2020-12-17T19:21:27-06:00 It snowed yesterday. I noticed those salt-sized ice flakes occationally making tiny marks on my foggy glasses caused by wearing face mask. Even more interesting are the thin layer of frosting found on bridge surfaces made from steel: my bicycle left behind it a double-helix-shaped trail.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1608254143/ <![CDATA[It's the 17th day of AoC! I've tied my 2019…]]>2020-12-17T19:15:43-06:00 It's the 17th day of AoC! I've tied my 2019 records! The problems do feel easier this year though.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1606960831/ <![CDATA[Apparently Apple has a bunch of heuristics to…]]>2020-12-02T20:00:31-06:00 Apparently Apple has a bunch of heuristics to determine which Siri to activate when there are multiple iDevices listening (and a non-zero amount of the world population is trying to figure out what they are). I really hope they make "Hey iPhone Siri, stop the alarm" just work so that I don't have to yell at a confused iPad twice every morning. Support for "Hey Siri #31174" or "Hey Lord Sirious" would have been nice too.

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]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1606957080/ <![CDATA[Re: Site Update: WebMention Support It's exciting…]]>2020-12-02T18:58:00-06:00 Re: Site Update: WebMention Support

It's exciting to see another website supporting WebMention (and return of the CSS snow)!

My primary motif of using WebMention is to ultimately centralize all my comments/replies/posts on blogs/forums/Fediverse back to my website (and allowing commenters on my site to do the same). This subsequently prompted me to add a short note/title-less post section here.

Do you plan on displaying contents of the WebMentions you get or sending WebMentions from your website?

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I will display the webmentions I get and I am working on sending them from my site.

]]> https://www.shimmy1996.com/en/hoots/1606872296/ <![CDATA[Never thought the day would come where I hesitate…]]>2020-12-01T19:24:56-06:00 Never thought the day would come where I hesitate about which combination of 4K and ultrawide monitors to go for.

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