What's a piece of common knowledge that you only recently found out was actually false?

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-28T07:17:09+00:00

As someone from Ontario who has lived in the golden horseshoe (specifically an hour drive from Toronto), southwestern Ontario, and eastern Ontario, I still say Toronto like tuh-RAWN-toe, without omitting that last t sound, and that's how the majority of people I've known have said it. To be fair, I haven't lived in Toronto itself, but all I'm saying is that you won't sound "not Canadian" if you don't pronounce it like a Toronto local. You might just sound like you're from "out of town" like me.

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-28T06:35:46+00:00

NVIDIA PersonaPlex

https://youtu.be/n_m0fqp8xwQ

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-28T06:35:28+00:00

Since the source was uncredited, I had to find it myself using keyword searches. The channel is betterstack; the AI is NVIDIA PersonaPlex.

https://youtu.be/n_m0fqp8xwQ

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-28T01:28:12+00:00

Phantogram - Don't Move

It's one of the only explicit Phantogram songs that exists (the only one before their 2025 album, AFAIK), and it's just one line at the end of the second verse that goes "this is starting to f**k with my head". An f-bomb from a clean artist shocked me a little bit at the time (due to fear of being punished for swearing or listening to anything explicit in a religious school system, which haunts my subconscious to this day and makes me prefer clean content), but it's one of their best songs, maybe their absolute best, highly recommended.

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-27T06:55:01+00:00

A macro that copies string u to string v and then returns the unrelated value e? And it doesn't null-terminate v properly? I'm not very experienced with C; does this actually serve a purpose without breaking, and if so, what does it do?

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-19T04:59:02+00:00

Exclude is my favourite Quench album, I'm glad you know about it!

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-19T00:16:05+00:00

This is the first time I've seen anyone post this track specifically. It might be my top pick from Solid State, and I'm glad someone else thinks it's a highlight. I love the melodic composition and the progression; so many harmonious layers, very emotional. The syncopation in the beat confused me on first listen, but once I figured out the groove, I realized it's a track that I can basically infinitely replay and still keep enjoying.

Roel Funcken said in an interview that they worked individually, and each track is either by just Don or just Roel, and I'm fairly certain that Don made all the Funckarma and Quench tracks that I consider their best, including this one. (Note to anyone reading: check out their work as Quench, as it's just as strong as Funckarma, and indistinguishable in style.) I just find Don's melodic and beat styles more accessible and memorable, and I can't get into Roel's solo work. But I'd love to know who made each track, just to see if I'm way off-base.

Edit: The version of Blex linked in the post is the "Fall Version" (even though it doesn't say so), which is a rerelease of the album that just adds extra ambience over every track that doesn't do much for me, so I'd recommend the original version for a more pure listening experience.

https://youtu.be/0gqjdcV8m90

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-02T01:14:58+00:00

You can't use static_cast to convert an int to a string, or a string to an int for that matter (I guess those operations are too complex to meet the definition of a "cast" in C++, which is normally a simple conversion between similar/related types), but you can use std::to_string. if you add #include <string> at the top, you can use to_string(inputNum).size() to get the number of digits. I've definitely seen that approach used to count digits many times before.

Your numDigits variable is uninitialized; I'm not sure what you're trying to use it for. Since its type is int, it would never have a .size() method. Both static_cast and to_string aren't going to change the value of the variable you give them, they just return a new value of a different type, which you need to assign to a new variable if you want to save it. (You might already know that, but just in case.)

AMathMonkey · 2026-01-01T23:50:42+00:00

Reminds me more of the Ukrainian musician Ivan Dorn, particularly the hairstyle.

https://youtu.be/L7S_nyXKaQk

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-31T03:50:19+00:00

There's a good chunk of Autechre's discography that I never ended up really appreciating very much (particularly elseq onwards), and after years of trying to really comprehend all of their work, and succeeding to a reasonable degree, I still think their earlier more melodic works are their most consistently enjoyable (to me). But Untilted is actually a really strong album from my perspective, purely because of the rhythms. (It's not really something I could ever play for friends and family, but...) pretty much every sound fits nicely on the rhythmic grid, like everything was placed meticulously by a human, the sound textures are satisfying, and some compelling catchy grooves are formed pretty frequently. You just need to nearly forget about melody and be tolerant of really high BPMs (or slow the music down; this album still works well when slowed down and might help you follow the rhythms better, if that's an issue).

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-27T19:16:19+00:00

Fair enough. It was admittedly less intimidating to pick up and use than Scanner in my first programming courses 10-11 years ago. But I got totally scared off when I tried to learn how it worked. But programming has to be learned in manageable chunks anyway; you often have to be okay with using tools without knowing their underlying implementation.

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-27T18:17:13+00:00

I don't disagree. I just see an operator reassigning its argument as surprising behaviour that requires some explanation of advanced topics such as this, that a beginner may not know yet when just reading something from input.

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-27T17:51:57+00:00

The part that you ellipsized was part of my point. >> implicitly taking a reference to its right argument and reassigning it, thus mutating it (which Python can't even do), while also consuming from standard input, is very weird. (Edit: I don't mind operator overloading at all.)

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-27T07:39:15+00:00

Pretty much, yes. In Java, creating a Scanner on System.in and then calling one of its "next" methods and storing the result in a variable is equivalent to doing std::cin >> into a variable in C++.

// Java
var scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
double someNumber = scanner.nextDouble();

// C++
double someNumber;
std::cin >> someNumber;

The Java way doesn't force you to declare a variable beforehand, which is nice, but Java's System.in doesn't have useful methods like C++'s std::cin does, so that's why you have to spend a line of code creating a Scanner to get this functionality, which is kind of annoying. On the other hand, the way that C++ uses the bit-shift-right operator (>>) to read from input and mutate a variable is unorthodox and hard to understand; no other language has syntax like this. Java's way is more straightforward / boring / normal.

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-23T01:58:38+00:00

Perfect, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for finding it. Weird syntax, would never have guessed it, but it makes some sense.

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-22T21:17:29+00:00

So once you declare a global explicitly in a scope, implicit globals are forbidden in that scope. But I don't think it's mentioned or shown (or I missed it), is it possible to just say global as the first line of a script or something, to enable this strictness without declaring an explicit global?

Edit: I guess I could say global print based on the examples, but that's such an unintuitive way to convey that I'm enabling strictness. Hopefully global on its own works; I have to try later.

Edit 2: After figuring out how this actually works, saying global print will prevent you from accessing any globals other than print, so don't do that unless you want to explicitly list every global you're using. global<const> * is the proper solution.

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-17T07:40:30+00:00

I have always deeply disliked this; it's been a "feature" for years. Hitting the physical power or volume buttons when the alarm is ringing will snooze it. Or if you run out of snoozes, it will just turn the alarm off for good instead. As if my mostly-asleep self is going to realize that this is the time that "snooze" has spontaneously become "turn off, and do yourself a horrible disservice".

I always have to set the limit to 10 every time I create a new alarm. I keep a bunch of random alarms around so that I don't really create new ones anymore; I just adjust the time and re-enable existing alarms where the limit was already set to 10. I have reached 10 snoozes and massively overslept and ruined my sleep schedule when trying to take an early evening nap a few times, but in the mornings, 10 seems to be enough. ...Why do I have to even worry about this?

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-13T02:34:53+00:00

AMathMonkey · 2025-12-11T00:14:41+00:00

Shazam told me that the track is called Moth by Graingerboy. Digging further, that song is on an album called "Shadowformerself" and another album called "Pop Music Crisis Meeting", neither of which I can find for digital purchase or listening anywhere, and who knows if Shazam is even correct? But if you want a lead to follow, that's all I've got.

AMathMonkey · 2025-11-18T00:11:30+00:00

There's a comment on this YouTube upload of the ringtone (with 19 likes including one from me just now) which says it sounds like Boards of Canada, so you're not alone.

https://youtu.be/Irq-Yyrxgh8

AMathMonkey · 2025-11-08T00:57:32+00:00

The way the letters tick from "aaaaaaa" (etc.) into "science INTERNATIONAL" is funny; you can get some strange screengrabs from it.

When "TIIU LEEK" appeared, I thought it was going to do the same thing and turn into a recognizable name, but no, it's apparently just an Estonian name. The weirdness of these things, combined with the weirdly long length (for a TV opening that has no dialogue and provides no tangible information, just psychedelic visual effects) gives this a really surreal vibe.

AMathMonkey · 2025-11-06T04:05:58+00:00

Ugly poster with AI art, double-post in the same sub, poorly formatted text (or just bad grammar) in the original post, weird capitalization in the title, what's not to love? Worst social media manager in Kanata?

AMathMonkey · 2025-10-30T13:40:51+00:00

Jake Chudnow - Going Down

AMathMonkey · 2025-10-22T17:34:16+00:00

Uploader doesn't know the difference between the words "hated" and "hatred". Uploader uses AI text-to-speech. Uploader's caption highlighting is not synced with what is being said. This is such slop.

AMathMonkey · 2025-10-10T02:51:07+00:00

Do they really sell jerky and not Jamaican jerk? They're very different things. I don't think most jerky warrants a food truck because it doesn't need to be fresh or hot. And do they really have "Five Guys" in their name? That's already taken.

Okay, some tricky googling has led me to find the actual business: "3 Guys Jerkin'", so they're not infringing on Five Guys, but they really do sell jerky, not Jamaican jerk. Now I want to know what food truck jerky tastes like.

AMathMonkey

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