<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: ColonelBlimp</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ColonelBlimp</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 20 Sep 2026 08:45:51 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=ColonelBlimp" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My intention is not to dismiss the blog's argument about using Linux but my experience running an Ubuntu LTS in my main computer has been straightforward, easy and as problem-free as one could expect. I'm sure other Linux distros offer a similar experience.<p>I get that every person is different, so what works for someone might be dysfunctional for someone else. But I wonder if there's a growing tendency to over-emphasise things that aren't "perfect" or the perceived friction caused by different ways to approach or solve things.<p>Perhaps it's my own personal bias but the same way I like using Ubuntu, I think Windows is fine, as well as MacOs. They're fine the same way many other products I use are. Often, I struggle to find big differences between the stuff I use. I mean, I can see the differences (often small, rarely big), but I'm the same guy. I'm not that special.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 16 May 2026 12:01:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159412</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159412</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159412</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>While I agree with your suggestion (that's what I've doing for years), I'm not sure the "almost not effort" point is helpful or realistic when it comes to a huge majority of users.<p>Apart from people who are knowledgeable or at least curious enough to search for alternative options, I suspect many people don't even know what a domain is or that they could register one for them to use. The jump from "why pay for email if Gmail/Outlook is free?" to "register a personal domain and use it for your emails" is too big.<p>I don't have the ideal solution but what I've suggested to friends and relatives is they should consider paying for their personal email accounts. Most of them don't care but some do and, as a result, at least try to understand what they want or need and are willing to pay for.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 10:19:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106262</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106262</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106262</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You may want to read the Hacker News Guidelines <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 10:01:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106176</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106176</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106176</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Why Japan has such good railways"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not surprised that the article has that vibe and that you noticed it. Works in Progress, the magazine that published the article, is notorious for having a preference for market-oriented solutions, "laissez faire" policies and neoliberalism. They are open about it. Nothing wrong with that, of course.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 18:09:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47818082</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47818082</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47818082</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "No I don't want to turn on Windows Backup with One Drive"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As far as I know, this is the blog post that led to the backlash <a href="https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64" rel="nofollow">https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2025 19:03:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45560825</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45560825</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45560825</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Norway is member of the European Economic Area, not of the European Union, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 14:19:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44521407</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44521407</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44521407</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "I tried every top email marketing tool"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I thought that having your website/article on the frontpage of Hacker News was good news. I guess I was wrong.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 19 Nov 2024 16:20:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42185140</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42185140</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42185140</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The best book I've ever read isn't the best book I've read but one that connects me with a particular moment: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov.<p>It was the start of summer school holidays back in the late 1980s, in my teenage years. I went to my local library and, because I didn't know what I wanted to read, I decided to pick one book blindly from the fiction section. I didn't know what book I had borrowed until I got home. I had never heard about Bulgakov or that particular novel. I had no easy way to know who that writer was or if the book was good or not. I was tempted to return it. But I didn't.<p>I read the book over several weeks of a particularly boring (and lonely) summer. I enjoyed reading it although I didn't love it. Looking back, I suppose that book gave me something I needed in a completely random way.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Oct 2024 13:31:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41777194</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41777194</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41777194</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Ask HN: What happens to ".io" TLD after UK gives back the Chagos Islands?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The fact that, as you say, "it's just a military base" is the consequence of the forced eviction of the local population (around 1,500 people) in 1968 by the US and the UK.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2024 14:56:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41731384</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41731384</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41731384</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "US Bans Kaspersky Software"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>“Lately”.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 21 Jun 2024 21:31:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40754035</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40754035</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40754035</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Lucky you. Search for Travis Kelce unless you prefer to keep your exposure to useless information under control.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2024 12:50:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40297531</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40297531</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40297531</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "The KDE desktop gets an overhaul with Plasma 6"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I’m a happy Gnome user.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:33:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39556130</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39556130</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39556130</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>With providers like Addy and SimpleLogin it is possible to use your own domain.<p>> <a href="https://addy.io/" rel="nofollow">https://addy.io/</a>
> <a href="https://simplelogin.io/" rel="nofollow">https://simplelogin.io/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 06 Feb 2024 22:20:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39281589</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39281589</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39281589</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Flatpaks are a perfectly functional option <a href="https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox" rel="nofollow">https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:54:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39107868</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39107868</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39107868</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You didn’t have to wait for this new Firefox package to stop using snaps, did you?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 23 Jan 2024 17:10:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39106192</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39106192</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39106192</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/artificial-intelligence/">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/artificial-intelligence/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38914161">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38914161</a></p>
<p>Points: 2</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 16:16:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/artificial-intelligence/</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38914161</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38914161</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Eating fewer calories can ward off ageing"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not necessarily. I'm in my early fifties and I typically run 30 miles/50 km per week. I've been doing this for a couple of years and I reckon I consume less calories and eat less in general than during my sedentary phase.<p>I suppose feeling better overall (physically and mentally) makes it easier for me to have a more rational relationship with food.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jan 2024 10:39:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38840232</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38840232</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38840232</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "The Piccadilly line’s new air conditioned trains"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> and goes through Hounslow which is where the Indian population is in London.<p>According to the 2021 Census, 656,272 Indian British live in London. Hounslow total population is 288,200, 21% of them Indian or around 60,000.<p>British Indians are the second largest ethnic group in Hounslow (after "white"), but there are almost 600,000 more living in other parts of London.<p><a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/census" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ons.gov.uk/census</a>
<a href="https://stats.hounslow.gov.uk/population/#/view-report/63aeddf1d7fc44b8b4dffcd868e84eac/___iaFirstFeature/G3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://stats.hounslow.gov.uk/population/#/view-report/63aed...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2023 23:42:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372269</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372269</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372269</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "Flathub – The Linux App Store"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ubuntu uses Snaps by default. Flatpaks are an option in Ubuntu only if you install the application.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:28:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301311</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301311</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301311</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ColonelBlimp in "The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>>These guys just seem to want to talk. I find this beyond useless.<p>I'm not sure this is how George Monbiot defines himself, but for me he's an intelectual. There's a place and a value in what intelectuals do. They think, they talk, they discuss. Historically, good intelectuals have helped societies identify problems by asking questions and challenging common assumptions (something very difficult to do well).<p>And, of course, we need engineers and people with the right technical skills to develop solutions that improve life in practical ways.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Oct 2023 23:50:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38054564</link><dc:creator>ColonelBlimp</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38054564</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38054564</guid></item></channel></rss>