Hacker News: Varriount

New comment by Varriount in "HTTP/3 is everywhere but nowhere"

Varriount — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 19:45:10 +0000

I really have to agree with the "easier to debug" part. I one time had to debug a particularly nasty networking issue that was causing HTTP connections to just "stop" midway through sending data. Turned out to be a confusion mismatch between routers and allowed packet sizes. It would have been so much worse with a non-plaintext protocol.

New comment by Varriount in "Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting"

Varriount — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 06:32:32 +0000

That assumes that any amount of capitulation would have persuaded Trump to support Ukraine, and that any reasonable deal could have been reached. I obviously can't say what could have been, but every sign Trump (and those in his administration!) has given up to this point indicate that there's only one outcome they support, and that's Ukraine surrendering all or some of its land to Russia, along with a deal barring Ukraine from NATO.

New comment by Varriount in "The practical (Unix) problems with .cache and its friends"

Varriount — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 14:39:54 +0000

What software should be doing is using XDG_CACHE_HOME, if it is set (along with the other XDG environment variables). That way cache directories will be where the user expects.

New comment by Varriount in "VSCode's SSH agent is bananas"

Varriount — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 09:44:52 +0000

I get what a regular expression like that does, but what leads to it being executed?

New comment by Varriount in "Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed"

Varriount — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 08:09:01 +0000

Ad Fontes' media bias chart [1] and it's methodology [2] are about as objective as you can be with something as subjective as bias and factuality.

1 - https://adfontesmedia.com/

2 - https://adfontesmedia.com/methodology/

There are a couple other groups out there too:

- https://www.allsides.com/media-bias

- https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

New comment by Varriount in "Questions censored by DeepSeek"

Varriount — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 23:21:30 +0000

Could anyone explain this sentence in the article?

  It will matter less once models similar to R1 are reproduced without these restrictions (which will probably be in a week or so).

Is this talking about training a completely different model, modifying the existing model, or something else?

New comment by Varriount in "Accessing a DRM Framebuffer to display an image"

Varriount — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 08:39:24 +0000

I've always wondered why the name "Direct Rendering Manager" was chosen, given the existing definition of DRM. It could have just as easily been "Direct Rendering Layer" or some other alternative.

New comment by Varriount in "Fun with Go Iterators"

Varriount — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 17:38:25 +0000

It always bugs me when I see that pattern in JavaScript, because each `map`, etc. call is an array allocation. Yeah, yeah, I know that the VM's memory allocators are likely optimized for fast allocation, but that doesn't make the allocation completely free.

New comment by Varriount in "The expected value of the game is positive regardless of Ballmer’s strategy"

Varriount — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 07:24:29 +0000

Oof, that does not sound like a strategy that culminates a positive work atmosphere.

New comment by Varriount in "They don't make 'em like that any more: Borland Turbo Pascal 7"

Varriount — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 12:43:06 +0000

At least with Java you can select a GC which is more aggressive in giving memory back to the system (Shenandoah and ZGC). With Electron/Node you don't even get that (not to mention the fact Electron apps always spawn multiple processes).

New comment by Varriount in "Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults"

Varriount — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:48:09 +0000

This matches a number of the new apartment complexes in my area - no walking trails, amenities, or anything else accessible from the complex itself. Often you can't actually go to _anywhere_ from the complex, as the roads from it don't even have sidewalks.

New comment by Varriount in "1970 Clean Air Act was intended to cover carbon dioxide"

Varriount — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 08:08:01 +0000

I do agree that the hyperbole often seem in the media ("the most important decision", etc.) is quite ridiculous. That being said, keep in mind the assumptions you make when thinking long-term.

For example, I've had it argued to me that that homosexual individuals shouldn't be allowed civil unions, as doing so would lead to the bankruptcy of the federal government. The "long-term thinking" here was that allowing unions between homosexual individuals would, at some future point, lead to allowing unions between polygamous groups*, which would then lead to people joining in unions for tax purposes, which would then lead to a disruptive loss of income for the government.

New comment by Varriount in "1970 Clean Air Act was intended to cover carbon dioxide"

Varriount — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 07:41:25 +0000

Does everyone in that supermajority have equal influence on their respective representatives?

New comment by Varriount in "1970 Clean Air Act was intended to cover carbon dioxide"

Varriount — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 07:31:51 +0000

Which decisions have you read?

New comment by Varriount in "Prevention of HIV"

Varriount — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 07:14:51 +0000

My sympathies for your situation - it's difficult to have to see such terrible diseases take away those we love.

That being said, are all individuals in a position to take preventative measures against HIV? And does research of a disease (and ways to treat it) only benefit development of drugs that treat that disease?

New comment by Varriount in "Prevention of HIV"

Varriount — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 07:01:55 +0000

What the significance of using a neurodegenerative disease as an example?

New comment by Varriount in "Show HN: Trayce – Network tab for Docker containers"

Varriount — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 07:15:40 +0000

Huh, is TLS being handled in the kernel these days? I thought most systems still used usermode libraries.

New comment by Varriount in "The Eristics Test: The Scariest Personality Quiz You'll Ever Take"

Varriount — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 15:07:13 +0000

Even if it isn't scientifically rigorous, I feel it's ( slightly) better than a horoscope in that it at least provides an opportunity for self reflection.

On the whole, one of the difficulties with tests like these is that we tend to have multiple "roles" we take on in different situations (there's a psychological term for this that I can't recall). We might be analytical and impartial at work, but emotion-driven when interacting with friends and family. It's difficult for tests like this to take into account the fact that we might feel differently about a question depending on the role we are currently in.

New comment by Varriount in "The US fiscal mess: Some unpleasant fiscal simulations"

Varriount — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:07:57 +0000

As far as I know, Ukraine doesn't have any leader like that. Could you provide more information?

Also, according to https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... and https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine , the amount spent on Ukraine as a percentage of total government spending seems to be around 3%, not taking into account the fact that some of that might have been spent anyway (for example, old munitions that would have otherwise been replaced were sent to Ukraine).

New comment by Varriount in "Fusion – A hobby OS implemented in Nim"

Varriount — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 07:54:23 +0000

I agree that it's unusual (and likely scares off some), however it's not entirely case insensitive. First, dashes/hyphens (`-`) can't be part of identifiers. Second, the first character of an identifier is not case insensitive.

So:

FooBar != fooBar

FooBar == Foobar

Most of the developers in the community are ambivalent about it, because it rarely ever causes problems. If you end up misspelling an identifier, you're nearly always going to get a compile-time error due to static typing anyway.