<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: alanh</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alanh</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 06 Jul 2026 23:56:44 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=alanh" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "The Beep at Meta"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Chesterton's Fence is the flip side of this</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:27:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628692</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628692</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628692</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Data has weight but only on SSDs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"Data has weight, but only on SSDs" - Not just SSDs! Unless you always hang the chad, surely writing data onto punchcards reduces the weight of that 'storage medium'!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 21:32:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254201</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254201</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254201</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Data has weight but only on SSDs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>10^–15 is not a negative number, just a small one. <a href="https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10%5E-15+" rel="nofollow">https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10%5E-15+</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 21:31:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254188</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254188</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254188</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Apparently I can’t attach a cover letter, but I think I might be a better fit than might be obvious from my résumé. I do tend to "think like a product owner" (to quote the job desc) and love learning new tech on the job; I have been a React fan since 2014; and I know a dozen languages, so picking up Golang sounds fun. I am a design-thinking engineer who can also write: <a href="https://alanhogan.com/blog" rel="nofollow">https://alanhogan.com/blog</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 02:21:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46894837</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46894837</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46894837</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "A website to destroy all websites"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"Cars now provide zero benefit..."<p>"Gender-based discrimination..."<p>"Fuck Brendan Eich [for opposing gay marriage at a time that Obama did as well]..."<p>"As ever, unionize, free Palestine, trans rights are human rights, fix your heart or die."<p>Ugh. What if you could possibly focus on technology instead of woke virtue-signaling (and threatening to kill those who disagree)?<p>Anyway, 'write ur website by hand' is absolute garbage advice, sorry. No, you are not going to effortlessly syndicate it elsewhere when you are manually updating your index.html to point to your latest hand-coded plain html file. Surely you won't even have a sitemap.xml. Will you write the sharing-friendly meta tags by hand every time too? No.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:53:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46466709</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46466709</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46466709</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Scripts I wrote that I use all the time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The idea of changing what 'rm' does sets off all of my "foot-gun" alarm bells</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 04:06:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45742503</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45742503</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45742503</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "A laser pointer at 2B FPS [video]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Huh. I watched a lot, but not all, of the video, and I thought he made it clear early on that he was stitching together 1px videos & repeating the event for each pixel (about a million times for that 720p result)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 15:32:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45657058</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45657058</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45657058</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:18:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45522092</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45522092</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45522092</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Right? Google is dog caca now. Myself and everyone I know keep getting sent to AI-written garbage nonsense slop websites, or for some reason, to the Hindustan Times</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2025 02:31:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368668</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368668</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368668</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>See my reply to parent. Reply to sibling: Whoa, I've seen the Sopranos 3 times and never caught that reference.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2025 02:30:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368656</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368656</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368656</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Curious, I asked Grok:<p>> Is there controversy over the true inventor of the telephone?Yes, there is controversy over the true inventor of the telephone. While Alexander Graham Bell is widely credited, several inventors and researchers argue for recognition based on their contributions:<p>> Antonio Meucci: An Italian inventor who filed a patent caveat for a "voice communication apparatus" in 1871, five years before Bell's patent. Meucci's device, the "teletrofono," could transmit voice over a wire. Due to financial hardship, Meucci couldn't renew his caveat, and Bell was granted the patent in 1876. In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution (H.Res. 269) recognizing Meucci's contributions, stating he demonstrated a working device earlier, though it didn't officially credit him as the inventor. Some still argue Meucci deserves primary credit.<p>> Elisha Gray: An American engineer who filed a patent caveat for a telephone-like device on the same day as Bell, February 14, 1876. Bell's patent was filed hours earlier, leading to disputes. Some claim Bell may have had access to Gray’s ideas through patent office connections, though no definitive evidence supports this. Gray later challenged Bell’s patent but lost in court.<p>> Philipp Reis: A German inventor who developed a device called the "Reis telephone" in 1861, capable of transmitting music and some speech. While it was less practical for clear voice communication, some argue it was a precursor to the telephone.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2025 02:29:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368651</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368651</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368651</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Want to piss off your IT department? Are the links not malicious looking enough?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"The message format is not dangerous. It is the <i>message viewers</i> that are dangerous in this particular regard."<p>Ah, I see. We should allow HTML but display it as plain text.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 01:33:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45297012</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45297012</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45297012</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Teal – A statically-typed dialect of Lua"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Oh, clever name. Typed Lua → TL → "Tee Ell" → Teal<p>And the extension is .tl</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2025 01:11:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44000913</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44000913</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44000913</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Show HN: Clippy – 90s UI for local LLMs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That’s great! ... Where are the downloaded models so I can delete them or at least exclude them from Time Machine backups? (Mac)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2025 05:20:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43912495</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43912495</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43912495</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think you two are confusing Roko's Basilisk (a thought experiment which some take seriously) and Rococo Basilisk (a joke shared between Elon and Grimes e.g.)<p>Interesting theory... Just whatever you do, don’t become a Zizian :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Apr 2025 02:10:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43789523</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43789523</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43789523</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "How to win an argument with a toddler"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For a lot more specific suggestions on how to have actual arguments that can lead somewhere (not a tantrum) read “how to have impossible conversations” by Lindsay and Boghossian</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2025 07:12:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43702408</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43702408</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43702408</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "Why America now eats a crazy number of avocados"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"And the reason avocados have exploded in the U.S. is that most of them are no longer grown in the U.S.<p>"We have developed such a voracious appetite for this versatile fruit that the U.S. now annually brings in nearly 3 billion pounds of avocados."<p>These <i>consecutive</i> sentences each state as fact an <i>opposite</i> causality.<p>How can the <i>central thesis</i> of the article be so confused?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:09:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43543365</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43543365</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43543365</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "How to write blog posts that developers read"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I recently opined here that devs should really stop setting their blogs in monospaced fonts, and got downvoted to -4, which is very funny.<p>It’s TRUE!<p>Monospaced fonts are a thing for two reasons:<p>1. Historically, they were all computers did, because it is simpler to have fixed widths. (Remember Knuth's biggest contribution was typesetting -- it is complex). Do you know why the Macintosh changed this? Because Jobs was inspired by a calligraphy course he audited at college<p>2. Because lining up text is important for programming<p>Other than that, variable-width text is much easier to scan and read. Yes, even for people who spend a lot of time working with code.<p>You should also be setting a maximum line-width of about 40em, as it becomes hard to read text when the eye has so far to travel back to the left side.<p>You also shouldn't center paragraphs 99% of the time, because it’s better when your eye can 'seek' to a consistent left edge (assuming LTR languages!)<p>If you want to know more, please look it up or ask the nearest LLM!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:42:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43511607</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43511607</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43511607</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "HTTrack Website Copier"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>How does it compare to SiteSucker (<<a href="https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html</a>>)?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 18 Mar 2025 22:53:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43406146</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43406146</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43406146</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alanh in "The Lost Art of Logarithms"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>So interesting! The author doesn’t, I believe, yet cover how the first log tables were computed (by hand), so I asked ChatGPT. This may be of interest: <a href="https://chatgpt.com/share/67d3a64d-f8a8-8012-bde3-e80813b2b402" rel="nofollow">https://chatgpt.com/share/67d3a64d-f8a8-8012-bde3-e80813b2b4...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:46:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43359411</link><dc:creator>alanh</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43359411</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43359411</guid></item></channel></rss>