TIL, 30ish years after I first read it, how Jack Tramiel's last name is pronounced.

It's not Traymiul, it's Tramielle.

#commodore #atari #JackTramiel

"Commodore History Part 5 - The C128"

youtube.com/watch?v=wzMsgnnDIR…

For a while, I was under the impression that all spiciness, or burning sensation in food flavoring, would come from capsaicin, the compound that causes it in chili peppers. Then I realized that Sichuan peppers are a quite different kind of heat. Wasabi (horseradish) is different yet again.

How many hot-flavored compounds are there? At least five!

Kalsec: "The Elements of Heat"

kalsec.com/insights/crafting-t…

The boys put out the fire after one hour and got back to the tent, which woke me up, then the wind woke me up after one hour, then the wind woke me up one hour later again. Then they got up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise.

In the end, I probably got 4 h of sleep and they got 2 h. 😃

Kid and I both crashed on the sofa after getting back home.

Kid and friends suddenly decided they wanted to go camping, so now I'm the token adult in a tent in the countryside, and three boys are outside by the fire pit, mesmerized.

The sun will wake me up in six hours. I wonder if I will have the tent for myself all night. 😁

Tonight is probably the first night since April that sleeping outside is cool enough to be tolerable.

#hongkong #camping

Rolling dice
Builds

Character

#TShirtSpotting

Hy docs compare them too:

hylang.org/hy/doc/v1.1.0/whyhy…

Hy isn't minimal or elegant. Hy is big and ugly and proud of it; it's an unopinionated big-tent language that lets you do what you want. [ . . . ] If you're interested in a more small-and-beautiful approach to Lisp, in the style of Scheme, check out Hissp, another Lisp embedded in Python that was created by a Hy developer.

- Hy hylang.org/
- Hissp hissp.readthedocs.io/
- Hebigo github.com/gilch/hebigo#hebigo

Oh look, the FAQ has a comparison:
hissp.readthedocs.io/en/v0.2.0…

When I say "exotic" I mean to Pythonistas and Lispers alike.

Hissp has a bunch of special literals and object types for generating and passing around Python imports, running Python at read time, etc. So it looks different from both Python and Lisp.

It has its own Lisp reader Lissp, but also offers a syntax that allows you to express Hissp with Python tuples (so, within native Python code), called readerless mode. The Lissp syntax also has constructs for inlining literal Python.

Quite interestingly a sister package Hebigo offers a reader an indentation-sensitive syntax, bringing the whole thing full circle. It's not similar to Wisp or Sweet Expressions, but rather something that looks more Python-shaped.

TIL #hy is not the only lisp-on-python, there's also #hissp.

Hy is older (first commit in 2012), has the larger community (hosted on the hylang org on github, not an individual account) and releases more frequently (latest pypi 3 months ago).

Hissp had its first commit in 2019, is hosted on an individual github account, and last released to pypi two years ago. On the other hand the repo is lively, had its latest commit 3 months ago, and that commit was not by the repo owner.

They are difficult to compare in a brief statement, but calling hissp more experimental seems fair.

#python #lisp

The #HongKong payment app #PayMe now includes a wallet for the HKD stablecoin #HSBC #RedCoin.

There's a long FAQ, but the most obvious question is not there: Why?

#HSBCRedCoin

@ACM that’s part one of the book. The rest explains that 0 and 1 are the discrete endpoints of a probability and expands a mathematical basis for combining probabilities that, unfortunately, computer scientists didn’t pick up on.

I've re-written this post four times, because I can't work out how to say the thing I want to say. I've given up and I'm just going to ramble until I think I'm done.

While learning #Blender sometimes I'd get stuck with a particular aspect of the project I'm working on. When this happens, I’d look for some kind of guide or tutorial by searching for "(thing I'm having trouble with) Blender Tutorial". I found this sometimes limited my progress, because often the "thing I'm having trouble with" is actually unrelated to Blender entirely.

With Blender you're often able to apply the skills and knowledge from disciplines you have learned in the real world. If you have some experience in Film or Television, then you have a head start in knowing how to frame a camera and properly light a scene. If you have experience in architecture, you might have a much easier time when designing a house or building in a Blender scene. If you have a background in animation, a lot of the animating tools will make sense to you. If you can code, then the nodes system might be easier for you than it is for me.

So when you're stuck, try looking up a guide on the discipline without specifically looking for a "Blender Tutorial" on that subject. If you're struggling with animation, look up "How to Animate" or "The 12 Principles of Animation", because that base knowledge will transfer to the tools in Blender.

The things that took me the most time when making my Space Pop music video, which was my first major Blender project, were sculpting a face, and styling hair. I have never done anything with sculpting or hairdressing, but the most helpful learning materials were the ones that were made by sculptors who make physical sculptures, and real-life hairdressers. I lost weeks trying to make hair that didn't look awful. Actually, that probably had more to do with the particle simulation system than my inexperience with hair-dressing, but they both played a part!

Because once you have the hang of basic 3d modelling, you end up being drawn into these simulation systems. They promise to make things easier. Want a field of grass where every blade waves slightly in the breeze? Well, you can hand place each piece of grass in the field, and then animate each one by hand - or you can use a particle simulation to scatter the grass across the whole field in one step, and then simulate a breeze blowing them all. Well, simulations sound like a great idea!! Unfortunately, it's a whole new level of complexity with confusing attributes and settings, and if you get anything wrong, nothing works. What should have saved you time, ends up costing days of banging your head on a wall. Perhaps hand placement and individual animation of each blade wan't so bad after all...

I recommend learning Blender. It's amazingly powerful, and completely free. Be warned though, it has a reputation for breaking people. If you can persevere though, it's totally worth it.

Ramble ends. 🫶

Space Pop
~ #Dgar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztqPhHmA2YY

#B3D #music

Sitting in on a meeting of radio astronomers and learning that the FCC is gradually auctioning off the radio frequency bands we need for weather forecasts. Fantastic.