Hacker News: PlunderBunny

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Worlds more habitable than Earth?"

PlunderBunny — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 05:06:39 +0000

A significant part of the plot for the excellent science-fiction novel Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(novel)

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died"

PlunderBunny — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 08:41:03 +0000

Everyone should read the above. Cringely had so many stories where he seemed to be part of, or present to witness, significant events in the computer industry - after a while you become suspicious that one person could really do/see all these things. Like he was a 'Forrest Gump' of technology.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "UK military jamming other nations' satellites to defend itself, BBC told"

PlunderBunny — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 03:32:18 +0000

Didn’t Apple do something with triangulation of known WiFi hotspots in the days before the iPhone had GPS?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Apple Music to open concert venue in Battersea Power Station"

PlunderBunny — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:29:26 +0000

“If your Naomi is Klein, then it’s green…”

New comment by PlunderBunny in "A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W"

PlunderBunny — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:01:02 +0000

It’s (slightly) easier to type www than web.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "You can defeat the Dream Devourer from Chrono Trigger using an int overflow"

PlunderBunny — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:02:30 +0000

I figured out that, in the early versions of Realmz for the Mac, there was an enchanted item (a helm?) that added a few points to the wearer’s stats when equipped, but when removed it took away more than it added (i.e. left you worse off). It only took a few seconds for my programmer brain to start me furiously equipping and then un-equipping it, and sure enough, when that stat went to -127, one more equip-and-unequip was sufficient to give me a +128 bonus for that stat.

I never understood how that particular bit of logic could have been coded that way - it seemed so unnatural.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"

PlunderBunny — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 02:42:05 +0000

Sounds like a third-party keyboard opportunity: “Just like the standard Apple keyboard but not ML”.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "AirPods 5"

PlunderBunny — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:58:55 +0000

I’m sure I’m not the only programmer that developed a habit of resting my finger on the F5 key at a certain point in my workflow, and then had to unlearn it just because of the stupid touch-bar (Still using my 2019 Intel MBP with stupid touch-bar).

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Lotus Notes and the dangers of starting from scratch"

PlunderBunny — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:41:28 +0000

Haha - the number of times I’ve accidentally hit F1 and ended up looking at some variation of ‘page not found’ in Edge…

New comment by PlunderBunny in "TiVo to charge money for skipping commercials in your own recordings"

PlunderBunny — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:16:04 +0000

The only winning move is not to play.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "They're Made Out of Meat"

PlunderBunny — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:23:42 +0000

I wonder why it has 'photomaxmix' just sitting at the end of the 11th paragraph?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Highlighting My Code Based on How Much I Care"

PlunderBunny — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 22:21:55 +0000

In a shared source, I wonder if it would be useful to make a theme that used brighter colours for segments of code that were more ‘contentious’, I.e. had a lot of changes? I guess it doesn’t work because a lot of contentious code is re-written (deleted and re-created).

Or maybe newer code could be brighter, and older code (not touched for a long time) could fade?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "“It works better in the app”"

PlunderBunny — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:27:09 +0000

Maybe you can two-finger pinch to shrink the web page to the grid view, then close the page from there?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Two German airport workers die of malaria after 'mosquito arrives on plane'"

PlunderBunny — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 20:22:42 +0000

Sure, but I can imagine the more expensive airlines worrying that the ‘optics’ of spraying your passengers down aren’t great (to be clear - I’m not objecting and I’d rather they do it). I wasn’t suggesting they retrofit to existing aircraft of the period, but rather just build it in as they design the next generation airflow system. Or do you think it would still be way too expensive even then?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Two German airport workers die of malaria after 'mosquito arrives on plane'"

PlunderBunny — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:46:44 +0000

As a kid (in the early 70s) I remember the air hostesses walking down the isles with a spray can. They don’t do that any more, but I wonder if or why they don’t add lower concentrations of the aerosol to the air conditioning at the end of the flight.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Japan tried to build an operating system for the world, the US intervened"

PlunderBunny — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 07:26:35 +0000

Some of the ideas for BTRON sound (to my naive understanding) like OpenDoc. Can anyone familiar with OpenDoc comment?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI"

PlunderBunny — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 01:58:43 +0000

Yes, and I imagine that’s why - in the minds of their lawyers - doing anything with the book (other than destroying it) is arguably less safe than destroying it

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI"

PlunderBunny — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:28:12 +0000

I don’t think it’s a sure thing that training a model on a work is considered a duplication in the sense that ripping a CD might be for example - unless I’ve missed something, that’s what hasn’t been decided in court. I think they see destroying the book as the safest course of action for them.

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI"

PlunderBunny — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 21:20:37 +0000

I wouldn't characterise it as 'undercover cop...' but perhaps it might be fairer to say that until it's tested in court, no-one knows, so they (Amazon etc) are taking the 'safe' path of destroying the books?

New comment by PlunderBunny in "Eclipse: The Xiaomi 17 Ultra Confuses the Moon and the Sun"

PlunderBunny — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:01:29 +0000

There was a post on HN a few months ago showing the stages of post-processing on a photo of a Christmas tree in a room - the original photo was unrecognisable.

I would find the link, but I’m balancing my phone on my knee while trying to eat dinner and pretend I’m not playing with my phone while eating dinner…