Hacker News: CalRobert

New comment by CalRobert in "AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It"

CalRobert — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:03:38 +0000

Tbf many of them are nimbys who made it impossible to build more homes in or near that city

New comment by CalRobert in "France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins"

CalRobert — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:49:53 +0000

Perhaps! I’m not in the US for what it’s worth

New comment by CalRobert in "France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins"

CalRobert — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:16:05 +0000

European startups mostly.

New comment by CalRobert in "France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech"

CalRobert — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:15:17 +0000

But will they use azure?

New comment by CalRobert in "France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins"

CalRobert — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:08:12 +0000

I haven’t seen power point used professionally for over a decade. All google (though I’ve made the odd prezi)

New comment by CalRobert in "ML promises to be profoundly weird"

CalRobert — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:17:28 +0000

Interestingly, clearcutting is part of it but another part is just grazing. If you let sheep graze in a forest they will eat all the saplings, so after a century of this, the old trees die out without new ones to replace them. I agree with your point but thought that could be of interest - Whittled Away, by Padraic Fogarty, is a good book discussing this (and why Ireland, which really should be all forest, is an ecological wasteland more generally)

New comment by CalRobert in "Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones"

CalRobert — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:32:48 +0000

This may also be of interest to people - emulating a car horn for bikes https://loudbicycle.com/

(of course, there's also the locomotive horn, but the equipment required is a bit impractical - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTQSWtK65PE)

New comment by CalRobert in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

CalRobert — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 08:12:49 +0000

And then they successfully lobbied the EU to water down rules for transitioning to electric.

New comment by CalRobert in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

CalRobert — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 08:12:12 +0000

I think the reputation is fading. I know I’d take a Chinese car over a German one.

New comment by CalRobert in "Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure"

CalRobert — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:54:03 +0000

That's cool, but on a practical level, can I generate whatever the APK equivalent for iOS is and just give it to my friends with iPhones?

New comment by CalRobert in "Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer"

CalRobert — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:35:42 +0000

I have literally never met a competent person who takes MS or Oracle seriously.

I confess, I'm a little salty. It's just insane how widespread Azure is when there's no obvious reason to prefer it. Of course, having the whole market be dominated by 3 giant American companies (even in Europe) is annoying in its own right.

New comment by CalRobert in "Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer"

CalRobert — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:20:18 +0000

No idea but I think it's in half or more of the job ads I see in the Netherlands. I don't get it.

New comment by CalRobert in "Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer"

CalRobert — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 05:30:02 +0000

so does AWS and GCP... but pretty bad if that's the deciding criteria.

New comment by CalRobert in "Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer"

CalRobert — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 05:24:23 +0000

What makes anyone start a new project and think “I know, I’ll use Azure!”? I really don’t get it. Do they have a great sales org? Is it because a phb thinks “well they made Office so it must be good”?

I interviewed with a Dutch energy company migrating infra from AWS -to- Azure and I have no idea what would make them do that (aside from inertia, but then why use Azure in the first place?)

And for some reason Azure usage is rampant in Europe.

New comment by CalRobert in "Escaping the Ogallala Trap"

CalRobert — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:11:48 +0000

If you can sleep during your commute, why not live 2 hours (or more) away?

New comment by CalRobert in "Escaping the Ogallala Trap"

CalRobert — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:52:36 +0000

I do worry that autonomous vehicles will result in rules that further hinder walking and cycling because it makes it harder for AV’s to drive unimpeded

New comment by CalRobert in "Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle"

CalRobert — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:47:23 +0000

Small thing - I generally haven't seen tolled motorways called Freeways - but I haven't lived in the US in a long time. I'm familiar with turnpikes of course, and a tolled motorway in Orange County, CA.

New comment by CalRobert in "Bird brains (2023)"

CalRobert — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:58:09 +0000

Yeah but we’re not artificially inflating lynx populations because we think they’re cute…

New comment by CalRobert in "Bird brains (2023)"

CalRobert — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:02:09 +0000

They eat crickets funny enough. Anallergic. And as animal production goes the crickets seem happy enough.

New comment by CalRobert in "Bird brains (2023)"

CalRobert — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:01:35 +0000

Sure but housecats aren’t nature