Hacker News: HerbManic

New comment by HerbManic in "The end of my AArch64 desktop experiment"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:45:26 +0000

I'm not surprised at the outcome. These Ampere system single core/thread performance is pretty low and that is where you feel it. The OS/software simply cannot allocate the threads across enough cores effectively to make up for this difference.

This is why things like the Apple M Series feels so fast, because while they don't win the multi core performance especially when going up against a 80 core beast like this, they have single thread performance exactly were it is needed.

Maybe we will need 80 cores in future, that is cool but for daily home use it is still just way too much for what we need.

New comment by HerbManic in "Old Computer Challenge"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:35:28 +0000

That sounds like it should be good for many years to come. Maybe if there is an uptake in AV2 once that is out then issues will come up. I'm not a shill but the one thing Intel have done well with their ARC cards is the media decoder. If their GPU space doesn't work out at least they have that and that could be a decent upgrade path in future.

New comment by HerbManic in "Linux for the Sega MegaDrive"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:25:29 +0000

Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done.

I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM.

New comment by HerbManic in "Old Computer Challenge"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:19:50 +0000

Pretty much. Don't take it all too seriously.

New comment by HerbManic in "Old Computer Challenge"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:17:57 +0000

I ended up getting a second hand Optiplex Micro for this. Tiny unit, low power usable, never even heard the fan switch on. Even with the slow frequency (2ghz) the Intel media decoders are brilliant at handling this stuff.

New comment by HerbManic in "Old Computer Challenge"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:00:46 +0000

I mean, I guess I daily run an old computer. Lenovo T400 from 2009, 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. So far I haven't really had any issues. That said today I picked up a Carbon X1 4th gen for $100, that might be become my new Old computer. Also in the process of refurbishing an IBM Aptiva from 1996. Pentium 166Mhz with 64MB RAM, that one is a little beauty.

I do like this years challenge, 'hand-make something' as that is always a good thing to do.

New comment by HerbManic in "I built a free I Ching oracle web app"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 02:36:23 +0000

A counter point is that if you are stuck in a 50/50 position, out sourcing the decision to some random other thing can break the dead lock. Like flipping to a random page on a book and going with the first word you see that is positive or negative (Bibliomancy).

The occult language can make it sound mysterious but it can also sometimes just be a cover for a delegation of decisions.

New comment by HerbManic in "South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:52:21 +0000

This is the path that Japan tried to go down and it hasn't worked out yet, but we have also solved a lot more of the technical issues since they began. going to be interesting to see if we pull it off this time.

New comment by HerbManic in ".self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting"

HerbManic — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:50:05 +0000

Dreamweaver was cool as a beginner because it took a lot of the troublesome parts out of the equation. But it did end up being more of a hindrance than a benefit the further you went in.

New comment by HerbManic in "Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech"

HerbManic — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 07:01:56 +0000

I have wondered that. I have this one and a very VERY bland Facebook that I post something stupid on every 12 months or so. So in a strange way I have accidentally shielded myself.

New comment by HerbManic in "Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech"

HerbManic — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:58:29 +0000

The argument usually is that it is a slippery slope. Something that is introduced in the name of virtue ends up being co-opted into a system of control as those in power and peoples attitudes change with subsequent layers of normalization.

New comment by HerbManic in "Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech"

HerbManic — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:55:52 +0000

Same. In my mid 40's and probably in the top 20% of my age group.

Absolutely hate running!

New comment by HerbManic in "Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech"

HerbManic — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:54:23 +0000

And those that are keen to make some noise about it are labelled as being conspiracy minded or against the safety of children.

It causes a situation where because of the potential backlash, even if they are right, few people will come to the defense for fear of being ostracized as well.

New comment by HerbManic in "Librepods: AirPods liberated"

HerbManic — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:30:14 +0000

This is my big conundrum with Apple. Their hardware is absolutely brilliant, but their combative nature against the users freedom on their hardware means I will never use it.

Even if you can hack around it, it is the culture that treats the users as someone to be controlled and coddled that bothers me.

New comment by HerbManic in "Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 03:16:52 +0000

On one of my machines I run Trisquel Linux (one of the FSF approved distros). In part is because in order to running fully FSF approved hardware, a Lenovo T400 is the top end. It is a Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. With that, it is still a very functional unit as a lot of the bloat hasn't crept in outside of the browser.

New comment by HerbManic in "Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 03:14:32 +0000

I think it was Jeff Geerling who brought back an Apple G5 server, very cool. But someone pointed out you could twice the performance out of a Raspberry Pi 5 and only use 5 watts doing it.

Even with these prices, we are still getting a lot of bang for our buck.

New comment by HerbManic in "IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:55:08 +0000

And some of those i and z systems have some obscene engineering in them. I cannot find it now but i remember seeing a cross section of their 40 layer PCB simply so they could get more memory/IO performance to the CPU. POWER may have dropped out of the consumer space but it still has a vital place in servers.

New comment by HerbManic in "IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:51:53 +0000

This is why I suspect we will be neat the upper limits of this around the late 2030's. We are just running too close to the fundamental limits. And so far there isn't anything really radical even on the horizon as a solution for this.

New comment by HerbManic in "The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:35:17 +0000

Never underestimate the resolve of a teenager who is being kept from something they want. And once they solve it, they will spread the word for clout.

New comment by HerbManic in "The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy"

HerbManic — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:28:03 +0000

Here in Australia we already have the first part of 1 then most of 3,4,5. We are almost there. And you thought our wildlife was the torment nexus.