aravindet

The idea came out of an attempt to represent numbers without having to choose an arbitrary base, i.e. an alternative to the place value system.

Just to be clear, this is an art project with no practical use that I can think of. It's hard to count using these numbers, but factoring them is trivial.

aravindet

2년 전discuss

Is there anything in judgement that limits this to cryptocurrency?

I could see this precedent being used to shut down open source projects in end-to-end encryption, BitTorrent, etc.

While I have no knowledge of Tornado Cash itself, I hope an organization like the EFF would help appeal this to mitigate the larger danger. I believe there are precedents that publishing source code is protected under the first amendment (code is writing).

This is distinct from operating a service.

aravindet

2년 전discuss

The terms Global South and North have been around since the 1960s, and they denote the country's socioeconomic position, not geographic location. It's jargon used by organizations working on developmental economics, and as with any jargon it is more precisely defined than "poor country".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_Sout...

While it's jargon, I'd have thought it was a fairly common and well understood jargon. Even if you haven't encountered these terms before, I'm not sure why you find them offensive. Are you opposed to fields of study adopting jargon to aid communication?

aravindet

2년 전discuss

The simple and unsatisfying answer is that the board is responsible for these decisions, and the board should be constituted in accordance with each company's articles.

My point is that there is nothing inevitable about the board representing the interests of shareholders alone. A typical company where the shareholders appoint most or all of the directors is not the only way to set up a board, and I'd argue that there are legitimate reasons to set up a company where other stakeholders (e.g. employees [1][2] or customers [3]) appoint directors.

Also, consider this: There is a risk/return continuum between bondholders and shareholders (through holders of various other convertible and preferred securities). It is always an arbitrary decision as to where to draw the line separating investors who get a say and those who don't.

So my view in all this is that as long as Figma’s board was appointed in accordance with its constitution, and the board members weren’t acting corruptly (e.g. bribery, conflicts of interest) or exceeding their authority under the company's constitution, shareholders should NOT get to challenge that board’s decisions. (IANAL; this is my view, not necessarily what the law says.)

p.s. A stock exchange may require that boards be primarily represent shareholders as a condition for listing; but this should not affect privately held companies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_co-operative

aravindet

3년 전discuss

Nice! I'd built something similar to make fonts for the Adafruit GFX library. http://aravind.rs/fruitfont/

Its export format is C code that defines GFXGlyph and GFXFont structs.

Doesn't work well on mobile and multiple size/style variants doesn't work yet. This was mostly the result of yak shaving after I set out to make a watch face for my SQFMI Watchy.

aravindet

3년 전discuss

> To master it, you have to learn their unique command line in each cell, R1 notation, pandas, some linux. And if you’re using Microsoft, you have to learn their suite and VBA.

Huh? Was this written by ChatGPT?

aravindet

4년 전discuss

The 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400 is an approximation, not an exact value. The best value* is 365.24217. 46,751 / 128 is actually a better approximation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_year

* This is the ratio of the mean tropical year to the mean solar day; We use means because both the length of the day and the length of the year vary.

The period of rotation (day) of the planet varies due to tidal friction (the moon "drags" oceans against the earth's rotation) and other shifts in mass (e.g. earthquakes) that change the moment of inertia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second#Slowing_rotation_o...

The period of revolution (year) varies mainly due to precession of the equinoxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

aravindet

4년 전discuss

Internet Time is what sent me down the decimal time and calendar reform rabbit holes!

One idea I wrote up was to divide the year and the day in a consistent way, rather than having separate reform proposals for the clock and the calendar.

https://aravind.rs/clock

(It relies on the coincidence that the ratio of the length of the year to day, 365.2422, can be very, very closely approximated by the fraction 46,751 / 128.)

aravindet

4년 전discuss

This is relevant information. IMO the secondary consequences of buying a product are important to discussions of that product: e.g. effects on the environment, climate, labor conditions, human rights and society.

Closer to this thread: Any discussion of a MyPillow product is incomplete without a mention that part of the purchase price might go into undermining democracy in the US.

The parent's argument seems similar: the founder/owner participates a hindu-supremacist organization known as the RSS, which has been implicated in religious violence; part of what you pay for a Zoho subscription may therefore go into funding these activities.

p.s. perhaps the parent could explain it better: the link is broken for me on Firerox, perhaps use a non-AMP URL?

aravindet

5년 전discuss

Perhaps it was posted here because it seems to have a remarkably broad scope going well beyond what might be considered railway-related? Just guessing, not the OP.

I am curious though, what part of the title indicated to you that there was something humorous in it?

aravindet

5년 전discuss

I think the solution is for historical emitters to pay the rest to forgo fossil-fuel based economic growth.

Obviously, this would not happen: historical emitters also have the most political power.

The US and EU's success at killing the "loss and damages" mechanism is an example of this dynamic at play. (This was supported by countries representing 85% of the world's population.)

aravindet

5년 전discuss

There is a valid discussion to be had about whether the Node.js ecosystem disruption of moving from CJS to ESM is worth the benefits, but the assertion that it's technically worse isn't accurate. A few things ESM does better in Node.js:

1. Asynchronous dynamic import() vs. blocking require(): allows the program to continue while a module is being dynamically loaded.

2. Circular dependencies: ESM correctly resolves most of them, while CJS does not. [example below] I believe this is possible because ESM top-level imports and exports are resolved before JS execution begins, while require() is resolved when called (while JS is already executing.)

3. Reserved keywords `import` and `export` vs. ordinary identifiers require, exports and module: Allows tooling to be simpler and not have to analyze variable scope and shadowing to identify dependencies.

I haven't really encountered #3, but I can say I've benefited from #1 and #2 in real-world Node.js projects using ESM.

----

Circular dependencies example:

   // a.js
   const b = require('./b.js');
   module.exports = () => b();

   // b.js
   const a = require('./a.js');
   module.exports = () => console.log('Works!');
   a();

Running this with "node b.js" gives "TypeError: b is not a function" inside a.js, while the equivalent ESM code correctly prints 'Works!'. To solve this in CJS, we have to always use "named exports" (exports.a = ... rather than module.exports = ...) and avoid destructuring in the top-level require (i.e. always do const a = require(...) and call it as a.a() elsewhere)

aravindet

5년 전discuss

Am I the only one that misses the honesty and heart of Antirez's blog posts from back in the day?

This is basically a low-quality ad for Redis Enterprise, focusing on the shortcomings of their main competitor: open source Redis. Except the folks trying to benefit from Redis' shortcomings is also in control of that project... what could go wrong?

aravindet

5년 전discuss

Yes, and that guess would be a lot more accurate* if all market participants had access to full information.

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