Hacker News: SpecialistK

New comment by SpecialistK in "I ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii"

SpecialistK — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:43:26 +0000

I saw console-only Wii Us in Book Off in Japan for ~US$30.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator"

SpecialistK — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 09:25:41 +0000

By releasing personal information which a reasonable person would expect to be private? I don't know the specifics of this case (only responding to the overly vague question) but information like address, private contact info, details about their families. Anything you would not immediately expect to become public knowledge simply by writing about topic(s).

New comment by SpecialistK in "Apple discontinues the Mac Pro"

SpecialistK — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:38:00 +0000

That's the crux, I think.

Apple even in 2017 had the money and engineering resources to update or replace their flagship computer - whether with a small update to Skylake & Polaris and/or a return to a cheesegrater design as they did in 2019.

But they chose not to. They let their flagship computer rot for over 2000 days.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Apple discontinues the Mac Pro"

SpecialistK — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 02:15:24 +0000

I'm in the Linux desktop / Mac laptop camp, and it works well for me. Prevents me getting too tied up in any one ecosystem so that I can jump ship if Apple start releasing duds again.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Apple discontinues the Mac Pro"

SpecialistK — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 02:13:32 +0000

I'll admit that while I've used the trash can but never taken it apart myself. But I can't imagine it would have been impossible to throw 2x Polaris 10 GPUs on the daughterboards in place of the FirePros.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Apple discontinues the Mac Pro"

SpecialistK — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:36:49 +0000

When it was introduced, Apple said the trash can was a revolution in cooling design.

Then they said they couldn't upgrade the components because of heat. Everyone knows that wasn't true.

By the time Apple said they had issues with it in 2017, AMD were offering 14nm GCN4 and 5 graphics (Polaris and Vega) compared to the 28nm GCN1 graphics in the FirePro range. Intel had moved from Ivy Bridge to Skylake for Xeons. And if they wanted to be really bold (doubtful, as the move to ARM was coming) then the 1st gen Epyc was on the market too.

Moore's Law didn't stop applying for 6 years. They had options and chose to abandon their flagship product (and most loyal customers) instead.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?"

SpecialistK — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 02:12:29 +0000

And to take the analogy even further, I'm sure there will be a subset of people who develop really strong opinions about a particular toolchain or workflow. Like how we have people who specialize in 70s diesel trucks or 90-00s JDM sports cars, there'll likely be programmers who are SMEs at updating COBAL to Rust using Claude.

New comment by SpecialistK in "A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)"

SpecialistK — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 22:02:28 +0000

> The one about which direction to NOT point the chopsticks in was new to me.

I suspect it mostly affects left handed people.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Our commitment to Windows quality"

SpecialistK — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:54:13 +0000

You mean Metro/Modern? I never see it anymore, and to be honest I prefer the 10 look over Aero, despite being a Millennial vaporwave fan. I haven't spun up 7 in years and years, and I don't miss it at all. But OS X 10.4's Aqua was the peak.

But also, why wouldn't UI changes be possible if the source was open? I remember WindowBlinds and patched uxTheme.dll in the XP days, and that was /without/ source being available. So in this hypothetical, what's stopping hackers from backporting the things they like about 7 to 10 or adding more rounded translucency?

New comment by SpecialistK in "Our commitment to Windows quality"

SpecialistK — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:06:18 +0000

What does 7 offer over a LTSC version of 10/11 that open source couldn't fix?

New comment by SpecialistK in "The 49MB web page"

SpecialistK — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:40:32 +0000

Not supported on OS X for some time.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine"

SpecialistK — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:54:05 +0000

You might be right. QEMU doesn't always make clear when you're running emulated or virtualized.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine"

SpecialistK — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:01:09 +0000

Because Windows isn't really an OS anymore, but a "platform" to deliver advertisements and lock you into Microsoft services. The OS core itself is fairly solid (and has been since Vista/7) but it's all of the crud shoved on top which really ruins everything.

The LTSC IoT releases are easy to find (wink-wink) and don't have 80% of the annoyances, including constant "feature upgrades" - still not Linux, but better than consumer Windows.

New comment by SpecialistK in "Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine"

SpecialistK — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:36:42 +0000

UTM seems to make VMs available on iOS (with App Store limitations) although I've only used it on Mac: https://docs.getutm.app/

New comment by SpecialistK in "Mother of All Grease Fires (1994)"

SpecialistK — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:23:39 +0000

> What will happen to their community if the pipeline doesn't go in? NOTHING.

Or a train derailment destroying the town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...

New comment by SpecialistK in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

SpecialistK — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:15:49 +0000

I was being tongue in cheek - sorry if it was lost in the text translation!

New comment by SpecialistK in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

SpecialistK — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 13:09:41 +0000

Please tell him I said hi and that I love the content!!

New comment by SpecialistK in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

SpecialistK — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 10:03:21 +0000

Touche. The rezoning policy is one of the very few things I can give credit for.

Since you're discussing BC housing policy, I assume you know of the amazing Uytae Lee?

New comment by SpecialistK in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

SpecialistK — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:41:30 +0000

I'll correct myself: it sounds good for about 5 seconds before you think about it and realize it's an unworkable idea which creates more problems than it solves.

New comment by SpecialistK in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

SpecialistK — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:40:26 +0000

I was being generous. Which wasn't really justified considering Eby's track record.