Hacker News: K0nserv

New comment by K0nserv in ""No way to prevent this" say users of only language where this regularly happens"

K0nserv — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:17:20 +0000

The critique is more that the average, or at least loud, C programmer is resistant to fixing these problems (for example via Rust) and often arrogantly claim it's just a skill issue.

New comment by K0nserv in ""No way to prevent this" say users of only language where this regularly happens"

K0nserv — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:58:42 +0000

With the exception of the C++ case, these all seem to result in DDOS which, while bad, are barely security issues. It speaks to the difference between C and these other languages (Go, Python, Rust).

New comment by K0nserv in "US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects"

K0nserv — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:27:03 +0000

It's because everything Republicans say is projection. They want to cheat, so accuse the Democrats of doing it first. In actuality it's the current admin that's laying gound-work for election fraud in November.

New comment by K0nserv in "Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard"

K0nserv — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:50:08 +0000

Looks beautiful, congrats on the launch! I've been looking for a replacement for my Apple Magic keyboard. I would love to buy one, but ISO layout is a must for me, also would like blank or swappable keycaps.

New comment by K0nserv in "Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code"

K0nserv — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:43:11 +0000

I'm taking a slightly different approach. I've started a project where I intentionally don't use agentic coding. I use LLMs for researcher and to learn, but write all the code by hand.

The goal is to maintain the taste, for lack of a better word, that I've developed over decades of programming.

Claude put me on to the concept "Étude", so I've taken to calling it my Étude project.

New comment by K0nserv in "Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year"

K0nserv — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:42:50 +0000

Who is in charge of certifying implementers? What happens when I provide an implementation and don't verify anything at all?

New comment by K0nserv in "Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year"

K0nserv — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:08:13 +0000

How does this work if you use Linux or Graphene OS?

New comment by K0nserv in "Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year"

K0nserv — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:51:22 +0000

I don't want the market solving this. If we are going to do age checks it should be based on public key cryptography, be open source, and handled by the government. You verify with the government (or don't since they already know your age), you get some form of cryptographic attestation, present said attestation to websites/apps.

I'm not a fan of age verification in the first place, but I am extremely not a fan of random third parties doing the verifying.

New comment by K0nserv in "PostgreSQL's MVCC is bad. So is everyone else's"

K0nserv — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 16:25:25 +0000

Do all the writing yourself, use LLMs for research and as an editor only. When using an LLM as an editor never copy its verbatim suggestion into your prose.

New comment by K0nserv in "Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History"

K0nserv — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:00:29 +0000

> One sufficient policy would be to price everything in money + co2 equivalent currency. Every person in a country gets a certain co2 currency budget per year. Pretty simple actually (yeah yeah, the small print will still be long but the gist is simple).

Just having a carbon tax, that accurately prices the cost of carbon, is enough. It's one of the few taxes that has broad support among economists. However in a democracy like the US I don't see how it ever gets implemented and even if it does, it will get ripped up 2-4 years later.

New comment by K0nserv in "Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History"

K0nserv — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:19:17 +0000

Even if you are correct, in practice there's no way to put this particularly genie back in the bottle. It's the same as trying to argue that we should solve our energy problems by asking people to consume less energy. Outside of some climate dictatorship, it's not happening.

Also, on travel, I think there's a lot to be said for the value of travel and being exposed to other cultures and societies. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness[..]" and all that.

New comment by K0nserv in "Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History"

K0nserv — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:16:23 +0000

Yeah fair, having experienced Japanese trains I fully agree about the comfort. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't build high speed rail and try to shift more travel to trains instead of aviation either to be clear. I love trains and I especially love Shinkansen style trains, but aviation still has a big edge in big parts of the world and on some journey lengths.

New comment by K0nserv in "Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History"

K0nserv — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:27:02 +0000

I was saying a bit of both. megablast is correct that there are alternatives, but I'd maybe quibble with "viable". For example you can get from Stockholm to Umeå with a 1 hour flight or a 6-8 hour train journey, is the train a viable alternative? For aviation there aren't alternative fuels and on many journeys even the alternative transport options aren't in the same ballpark.

New comment by K0nserv in "Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History"

K0nserv — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:03:04 +0000

Flying is a bit unique in that there aren't really viable alternatives. It also accounts for a fairly small portion of emissions. Land transport (cars and trucks), power generation, and heating are where the big wins exist with viable alternatives.

New comment by K0nserv in "Claude Opus 5"

K0nserv — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:50:05 +0000

7+ years ago GPT2 couldn’t be released because it was deemed too dangerous[0]. It was, of course, eventually released.

0: https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/

New comment by K0nserv in "Codeberg bans vibe coded projects"

K0nserv — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:25:20 +0000

I don't usually check in compiled artifacts myself.

New comment by K0nserv in "Codeberg bans vibe coded projects"

K0nserv — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:19:55 +0000

I feel it's a faux pas to pass off work entirely or partially done with AI as your own. I make sure I leave those lines in specifically for that reason.

New comment by K0nserv in "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"

K0nserv — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:02:43 +0000

I'm not saying "never use C". The thing I dislike is the false dichotomy between "(Zig|C|Go) is simple unlike Rust, which is complex". A statement like that makes it sound like writing correct code in the former is easier when it's, in fact harder.

New comment by K0nserv in "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"

K0nserv — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:00:18 +0000

Of course Rust has a few footguns too, that's not my point.

New comment by K0nserv in "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"

K0nserv — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:41:03 +0000

> There is no sense pretending anymore that languages with as many gotchas as C and Zig are "simple". Quite simply, they are not. The complexities lie in what's left unspoken, unaddressed, and of course undefined; failure to comprehend these completely can be catastrophic.

This is where I’ve arrived too. After nearly 20 years of programming I feel done with leaving foot guns lying around. Languages that are full of them, but “fine” as long as you take extreme care are not interesting to me. I’ve started calling this “simple as long as you avoid all the foot guns” idea the sword juggling fallacy[0].

It’s too bad about Zig because it has many nice ideas, in particular allocators, that I hope Rust or some future language will adopt.

0: https://hugotunius.se/2026/06/15/the-sword-juggling-fallacy....