Hacker News: PyWoody

New comment by PyWoody in "Tracking down a Zsh history data loss bug"

PyWoody — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 01:45:28 +0000

I'm always curious what people get out of their terminal history. About 98% of mine is embarrassing and made for the ether.

Have you ever looked back on your history?

New comment by PyWoody in "Choose Boring Technology (2015)"

PyWoody — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:14:36 +0000

Not what you're after, but your talk of beans reminded me of Taco Bell Programming. [0]

[0] https://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-progr...

New comment by PyWoody in "The Bit Player: My Father with Steve Zissou"

PyWoody — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:39:54 +0000

The artist, Seu Jorge, did a dedication performance to Bowie and the movie recently, in case you haven't seen it. [0]

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eIaESzQ1X9w

New comment by PyWoody in "U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’"

PyWoody — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:41:47 +0000

No one is forcing them to do this. This is all self-incflicted.

New comment by PyWoody in "Greenland issues "strong warning" as American oil firm illegally drills wells"

PyWoody — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:24:13 +0000

  Greenland Energy has retained Phil McGraw, better known as Dr Phil, a prominent rightwing former chatshow host who served on Trump’s religious freedom commission, to make a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters”.

Beyond parody.

EDIT: To clarify, Greenland Energy is a Texas based company.

New comment by PyWoody in "Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don't"

PyWoody — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 02:16:46 +0000

No, but it cures me ennui every time. 10/10. Would recommended if in tailspin.

New comment by PyWoody in "Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don't"

PyWoody — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 01:48:04 +0000

Wings of Desire is a beautiful movie. It's probably my all time favorite. Bruno Ganz is sensational in it and Peter Falk has some great scenes, too.

New comment by PyWoody in "Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don't"

PyWoody — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 01:41:29 +0000

I'll bite: How is a movie about an angel falling in love with a trapeze artist pro state surveillance?

New comment by PyWoody in "Python string literals are kinda funny"

PyWoody — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 20:37:27 +0000

Whenever I read people's takes about Python on HN, I always feel like I'm using an entirely different language.

New comment by PyWoody in "Python string literals are kinda funny"

PyWoody — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 20:34:52 +0000

Instead of 10 PEPs, you could read one helpful cheatsheet: https://www.pythonmorsels.com/string-formatting/#cheat-sheet....

New comment by PyWoody in "Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak"

PyWoody — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 01:25:00 +0000

My dad's reply to that was always, "We? What, do you have a mouse in your pocket?"

New comment by PyWoody in "Less Coffee, Better Sleep"

PyWoody — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:44:46 +0000

This is great advice. I'm going to start doing it tonight. Thanks!

New comment by PyWoody in "Less Coffee, Better Sleep"

PyWoody — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:41:51 +0000

  - Exercise, exercise, exercise! I am quite willing to bet that a lot of people with sleep issues don't really exercise properly. Exhaust yourself here.

I do at least an hour of cardio a day just for that. I'm in great shape but still have terrible sleep lol

  - Magnesium and melatonin while trying to get the sleep habit started.

I've been thinking about trying melatonin. I'm always afraid of becoming dependent on anything related to sleep. I should really give it a go, though.

  - Audiobooks. Not podcasts. An actual story, like someone is reading you to sleep when you were young (if you sleep next to someone, you might need particular band headphones, or lower the volume and put a slim tablet under your pillow).

I do exactly the tablet-under-the-pillow trick but for sitcom reruns, e.g., Frasier, 30 Rock, Cheers, Parks and Rec, etc. I'll give audio books another try. I found they can be distracting instead of relaxing.

New comment by PyWoody in "Less Coffee, Better Sleep"

PyWoody — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:43:24 +0000

  - a bad nights sleep will happen, often a few nights in a row. Be ok with that (easier said than done, I did CBT for this). Instead of lying in bed restless get up and watch TV, or read.

This is the hardest one for me. I'm currently working on about 20 minutes of sleep and I know tonight will probably be the same. I'll lie in bed knowing I should get up and do something to shake the cobwebs out but I'm stuck in a purgatory between exhaustion and restlessness.

Do you have any advice for getting over the initial hump?

New comment by PyWoody in "Harvesting SSH Credentials: Insights from My Honeypot Network"

PyWoody — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 19:19:53 +0000

It was the default password for the root user in Kali Linux for a while.

New comment by PyWoody in "The Absurdity of Albert Camus"

PyWoody — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:20:30 +0000

The SEP article on Camus will answer most questions wrt Camus, absurdity[0].

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/

New comment by PyWoody in "Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns"

PyWoody — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:53:18 +0000

I knew someone that actually got a degree in like letterprinting with a minor in menu design. She went from town-to-town creating these beautiful chalk menu designs and lived a pretty modest life.

One day a tattoo parlor asked her to make a sign. She did. They asked if she had ever thought about getting into tattooing. She hadn't. They gave her an apprenticeship.

After completing her apprenticeship, she's now booked so far into advance that she closed her book to the public.

I think about her all the time now, what with software engineering going the way that it is. What lateral like passion could I transition to, as she did?

New comment by PyWoody in "Moist Towelette Museum"

PyWoody — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:48:30 +0000

Wow, almost unchanged from 2005[0]. Impressive. I miss the weird web.

EDIT: Here's an Atlas Obscura article about the museum itself[1].

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20050613084710/https://moisttowe...

[1] https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/moist-towelette-museum

New comment by PyWoody in "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"

PyWoody — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:59:05 +0000

Scottish Elevator - Voice Recognition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8

New comment by PyWoody in "Mystery behind Moana: After 1,700 years, why did Polynesians suddenly sail east?"

PyWoody — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:10:40 +0000

  But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

  - JKF, 1962