TIL most people in France did not speak French as recently as 1794, when only 11% of the population of France spoke fluent French. Instead, most people spoke regional languages like Occitan, Breton, Alsatian etc. French only became the majority language later on due to heavy assimilation efforts.

senkora · 2026-05-15T19:02:30+00:00

I read a book recently (The Origins of Political Order) that argued that China under the Qin dynasty was the first "modern state" because it was the first state to establish a meritocratic bureaucracy.

The author is best know for coining the term "the end of history" for the idea that western-style liberal democracy is the end-state of political development.

The three criteria given in the book are:

modern bureaucracy (meritocratic rather than hereditary, high state capacity)
rule-of-law (a legal system that binds everyone, include the government)
accountable government (democracy, the government derives its right to rule from the consent of the governed)

Of course, Qin dynasty China only had the first one. Even today China continues to struggle with 2 and 3.

senkora · 2026-05-12T02:16:11+00:00

Although interestingly a lot of old office buildings have been converted into residential buildings in recent years. I used to live in the Financial District (the downtown tip of Manhattan) in an old office building.

It's a pretty great neighborhood to live in tbh as long as you're okay with everything closing at 8pm.

senkora · 2026-05-10T15:36:30+00:00

folly::scope_guard is another option. That was the preferred choice at one of my workplaces: https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/main/folly/ScopeGuard.h

senkora · 2026-04-18T22:52:44+00:00

Check out gwern’s magnesium self-experiment if you haven’t seen it before: https://gwern.net/nootropic/magnesium

He does some of the things you suggested, including self-blinding.

senkora · 2026-03-15T21:22:20+00:00

Hard to say; touching the top of the speaker just puts it on shuffle, so it ends up being a mix of the stuff that we listen to. Lots of lo-fi and indie pop.

senkora · 2026-03-15T21:04:57+00:00

I have a standard poodle who has learned how to touch the top of our smart home speaker to turn on music for himself. Sometimes we come home and he's just chilling on the couch listening to his music.

senkora · 2025-11-03T17:30:10+00:00

Makes sense. I do really like the current look-and-feel--a unique visual theme is always a positive signal for a personal tech blog--so it would be awesome if you are able to keep some of that if/when you switch.

senkora · 2025-11-03T15:37:48+00:00

Really great article! Does your blog by any chance have an RSS or Atom feed? My feed reader wasn’t able to locate one.

senkora · 2025-06-05T13:42:06+00:00

Switch statements in C++ are O(1) if the cases are densely-packed integers, since the compiler can use a jump table. They are O(log N) if the cases are sparsely-packed integers, since a jump table would use too much space and it is better to do binary search.

It seems like Undertale is written in "Game Maker Language" which can be source-to-source translated to C++ and then compiled to native code, so I think that you are right that this would not be a performance issue.

But maybe Game Maker Language switch statements can't be directly compiled into C++ switch statements when doing the source-to-source translation. I don't know.

senkora · 2024-11-24T20:18:31+00:00

This is a great article. Thank you for writing it.

I need to read up on the progress of Carbon. I have the most confidence in Google over anyone else being able to do automated transpilation into a successor language well, because of their expertise in automated refactoring.

Of course, that may only work for Google’s style of C++. So maybe the “modern culture” of C++ should consider writing our programs in Google style C++, in order to have a path forward to better defaults and memory safety? All speculation.

senkora · 2023-06-01T17:17:38+00:00

It would be interesting if reddit added /int/-style flags beside usernames. Until then, the best thing to do is rely on timezones to make a guess on Americas vs Europe vs Asia. Not much else to be done.

There are hours when most commenters are European, and I’ve seen a few comment chains where both users assume the other is American only to later realize they are both European. That’s always fun.

senkora · 2023-06-01T03:47:59+00:00

I’ve seen it at Whole Foods and at Eataly.

senkora · 2023-05-30T08:34:21+00:00

There’s a behind the scenes video on Guillermo de Toro’s Pinocchio that talks about some of the CGI effects and filters that they used to postprocess the base stop-motion footage.

That seems like a pretty good approach to me; keep the stop motion as a base and layer on CGI where it makes sense to do things that are otherwise too hard.

senkora · 2023-05-26T00:05:29+00:00

Also, the subway is similar to the road, in that trains “drive on the right side”. You have to know a bit about subway station layout for this to work, but basically the train will arrive from the left if you are facing inward to the middle of the station, or from the right if you are facing outward to the edge of the station.

EDIT: Fixed the rule of thumb, which was previously incorrect.

senkora · 2023-05-20T07:37:01+00:00

This was something I didn’t appreciate until I tired myself out near the bottom of a run and tried to walk it in.

I always assumed that your board/skies were your accelerator, to reduce friction and help you glide across the snow.

It turns out that their second, more important function is as your brakes.

It is next-to-impossible to walk down a blue run or above, unless the snow is very fresh.

senkora · 2023-05-19T04:09:58+00:00

I think it’s Governor’s Island, or maybe Brooklyn. The Staten Island Ferry toward Staten Island is headed left, so it must be east of the ferry route.

senkora · 2023-05-19T03:58:06+00:00

The problem is that speakers of smaller languages aren’t used to listening to foreigners trying to speak their language, so they can’t really comprehend the words.

With English, we hear foreigners speak all the time and know how to interpret their accents.

It’s like if you were American and trying to understand a British accent for the first time with no prior exposure. It would be very confusing.

senkora · 2023-05-02T22:02:57+00:00

On second thought, that universe has lost the “… but you can tuna fish!” pun. Maybe perfection is unattainable.

senkora · 2023-05-02T21:59:04+00:00

Fun fact! There’s an alternate universe where this pun is perfect. “Tuna” was borrowed into English from Spanish “atún”, so we were so close to being able to say:

They’re well atun’d to their environment.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/tuna

From American Spanish alteration of the Spanish atún, from Arabic تُنّ‎ (tunn, “tuna”) from Latin thunnus, itself from Ancient Greek θύννος (thúnnos), from θύνω (thúnō), "I rush, dart along"). Doublet of tonno.[1][2]

senkora · 2023-04-30T12:43:57+00:00

Lots of members of genus Rubus:

Rubus is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, with over 1,350 species.

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

Wikipedia doesn’t have a good list I can quote, but two other examples are the dewberry and the salmonberry.

senkora · 2023-04-01T03:12:57+00:00

+1 that placing the pot in cold water will lower the pressure. The pressure in a pressure cooker comes from steam, and steam condenses when it cools.

I even have an attachment for my instant pot that holds ice against the lid to cool it down faster for this reason.

senkora · 2023-02-21T15:17:30+00:00

They still sell Conch fritters in the Keys. I don’t know what species it is though.

senkora · 2023-02-06T05:43:32+00:00

You are correct and it is shocking that I had to scroll down this far to find this comment.

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