<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: alex_young</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alex_young</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 21:06:09 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=alex_young" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I live in a town of fewer than 8k people.  Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community.<p>People would rather shop there than go online.  Why?  Because they are a part of the community.<p>At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, and help out in the store.<p>This isn’t a unique concept. Going the extra mile and doing seemingly unreasonably nice things wins you customers and loyalty.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 02:24:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48231248</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48231248</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48231248</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Fisker went bankrupt and owners built an open source car company from the ashes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is the second time Fisker has burned car owners and gone out of business.  How many more times will it happen?  Shouldn’t stuff be allowed to die?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2026 06:37:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166542</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166542</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166542</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Clusters become personal (like PCs did)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Clusters are almost never the right answer for most problems:  <a href="https://yourdatafitsinram.net/" rel="nofollow">https://yourdatafitsinram.net/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 16 May 2026 19:44:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163142</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163142</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163142</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Doesn’t say one way or the other, but probably suspended with pay. That’s typical.  It’s like a free vacation day.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 16:43:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48097365</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48097365</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48097365</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Isn't this really about "protecting" minors using Instagram?<p>If they allow E2E encryption, they can't scan for CSAM or do other monitoring stuff effectively, so they can't provide a "safe" place for minors.<p>Obviously the right answer is kids shouldn't be exposed to social media at all, but more eyeballs is more important than our kids.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2026 00:17:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070387</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070387</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070387</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Higher usage limits for Claude and a compute deal with SpaceX]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/higher-limits-spacex?id=19234">https://www.anthropic.com/news/higher-limits-spacex?id=19234</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058343">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058343</a></p>
<p>Points: 3</p>
<p># Comments: 1</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 03:52:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://www.anthropic.com/news/higher-limits-spacex?id=19234</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058343</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058343</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Why TUIs are back"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think that’s what we used to call a program.  Things like vi and wordstar seem like they’d qualify.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 13:21:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48008403</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48008403</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48008403</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Why TUIs are back"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>CLI.  Wtf is a TUI?  LLMs say it has some to do with interactivity in a menu or something, but believe me, we had this all in the 80’s.  Nothing new here, but the truth is the CLI is better faster and cheaper.   Pick all three.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 04:41:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48004717</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48004717</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48004717</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "NetHack 5.0.0"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think I got my hands on Hack when I was 8, so I've been doing the same for, uh, 39 years.  Damn.  At least I was learning VI keys unintentionally, so it was somewhat educational. :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 22:20:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47991170</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47991170</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47991170</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "What can we gain by losing infinity?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Does half of something have a limit?  Not by its definition.  Same thing with addition or multiplication.  All of these only work with some concept of infinity.<p>We could redefine "half" to mean "half of whatever you're talking about until you get to some arbitrary limit", but doing that to all of arithmetic is going to wind up in a very odd place.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:53:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47965980</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47965980</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47965980</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "What can we gain by losing infinity?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Create an infinity?  What does that mean?  Why would you need to do that?<p>Is there a limit to how many times something can be logically divided?  If not, then there’s your infinity.  It doesn’t require you to continue brute forcing it, just reason about it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 13:31:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47962159</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47962159</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47962159</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "What can we gain by losing infinity?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Time has nothing to do with it.  There are an infinite number of ways to divide anything.  You don’t need time to prove that.  Whatever number you think of you can divide by a larger number.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:08:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47958369</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47958369</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47958369</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "What can we gain by losing infinity?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And no discussion of Zeno?  Pish.<p>The idea that nothing is demonstrative of infinity is clearly incorrect.<p>Take the screen you're reading this on.  One pixel is composed of a bunch of different atoms, and once you get down to one of them, that atom subdivides into a bunch of subatomic particles, some of which even have mass.  Let's take one of those for argument's sake.  Split that, and you get some quarks.<p>Now let's imagine that's the smallest you can go.  We can still talk about half of a down quark, or half of that, etc.  Say, uh, infinitely so.  There you go, everything is infinite.  That wasn't so hard was it?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:42:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957083</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957083</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957083</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Claude.ai Down Again?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You're holding us all hostage then.  Pay them :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:24:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47956922</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47956922</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47956922</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are laws typically enacted to compel companies to follow consumer demand?  I think that’s what the market itself is best at.<p>Instead this law is designed to provide the public with a good everyone can benefit from - less waste of valuable electronic components polluting our environment.<p>And even if those same consumers would choose a thinner phone over a replaceable battery, they will probably also enjoy being able to fully charge it more often for less money.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:19:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47837510</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47837510</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47837510</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Qwen3.6-Max-Preview: Smarter, Sharper, Still Evolving"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Quite some time is a little over 2 months.  I understand this is actually true right now, but it’s still a bit hard to accept.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:42:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835098</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835098</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835098</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Surely there's a middle ground?  Get some old wordstar capable 86 class clones and leave the GUI off.  It's typing on a keyboard without the confusion of the internet or clicking on glowing icons.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:32:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825501</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825501</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825501</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "AI cybersecurity is not proof of work"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A bit uncharitable no?<p>I’m not denying that LLMs can be used to improve security research, suggesting that their use is wrong or anything like that.<p>Humans have used software to research security for a long time.  AI driven SAST is clearly going to help improve productivity.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:03:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47794197</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47794197</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47794197</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "AI cybersecurity is not proof of work"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The whole framing is kind of uninteresting imo.  If you spend more time researching code you can find more bugs to exploit / patch is not an earthshaking observation.<p>Adding the words “by Claude” to it doesn’t materially change it.  One could also pay a few humans to do the same thing.  People have done that for decades.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:42:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792832</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792832</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792832</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by alex_young in "Stop Flock"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That’s cool.<p>The precogs over at flock say you drive too close to the criminals though, and you know what that means.  Stay loyal, stay safe citizens.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:33:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775805</link><dc:creator>alex_young</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775805</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775805</guid></item></channel></rss>