Hacker News: andrewl

New comment by andrewl in "Executable Is a SQLite Database"

andrewl — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:46:02 +0000

I like a hierarchy, too. Presumably the underlying engine could be a database but it would at least appear to the user as a tree. But with the option to find files with SQL or a SQL-like language. I would love to be able to find files based on all kinds of metadata that was available for searching with the OS’s file system, and not using any special tools. I’m thinking things like EXIF data, audio file metadata, text file line count, and so on.

New comment by andrewl in "Executable Is a SQLite Database"

andrewl — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:58:38 +0000

Yes. In this interview Michael Stonebreaker, one of the original developers of PostgreSQL, discusses (among other topics) replacing the file system with a database :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPObBOwIrHk

New comment by andrewl in "388 years ago, Galileo worked out why human giants can't exist"

andrewl — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:30:35 +0000

J. B. S. Haldane discussed this in his essay On Being the Right Size:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Being_the_Right_Size

New comment by andrewl in "Folding Paper Globes"

andrewl — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:12:23 +0000

The site doesn't give you printouts you can fold into a globe, but it is very informative. You highlight countries, drag them around, and their size adjusts to whatever degree of distortion you'd get for any land mass at the given longitude. So you can, say, highlight Greenland and drag it on top of Brazil and see how they compare. You can highlight and drag countries, US states, Canadian provinces, and Australian states. Hovering over an entity shows you area and population.

New comment by andrewl in "A shell colon does nothing. Use it anyway"

andrewl — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:54:09 +0000

I think Bash won as Bityard says above, in the sense that COBOL won, which was because it was everywhere (approximately) and then when another system was being built to do something in COBOL’s niche COBOL was the obvious choice. Once it was sufficiently established it won by inertia and absolutely not because it was the better language. Or maybe it was the better language in its time, but it certainly is not now. And note I’m only talking about COBOL’s niche, of mainframe-based processing in the banking, insurance, state and federal payroll and similar areas.

OpenAI Acknowledges GPT-5.6 May Accidentally Delete Files

andrewl — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:53:39 +0000

Article URL: https://www.infoworld.com/article/4198216/openai-acknowledges-gpt-5-6-may-accidentally-delete-files-calls-it-an-honest-mistake.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969718

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

This Factory was severely short on workers. Then it offered flexible work

andrewl — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 14:50:29 +0000

Article URL: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/08/nx-s1-5876084/manufacturing-flexible-part-time-work

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881636

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

New comment by andrewl in "Vint Cerf, “father of the Internet”, is retiring"

andrewl — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:20:59 +0000

Quoting from an earlier comment in this discussion:

There's always some nincompoop who brings that up. Al Gore deserves credit for what he did as a senator and vice president. He helped to pass legislation that enabled the NSFNET backbone to grow and to permit commercial traffic to flow on the government-sponsored backbones in the US. Had he not done that, it's pretty likely that the commercial sector would not have seen an opportunity to create a commercial internet that all of us can enjoy, so he does deserve some credit for what he's done.

— Vint Cerf, Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A>

New comment by andrewl in "The vintage beauty of Soviet control rooms (2018)"

andrewl — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:26:39 +0000

To me they look oppressive and bleak. They are interesting, to be sure. But I don’t find them beautiful. And aesthetics are subjective, of course. I can well believe others find them beautiful.

New comment by andrewl in "Footage Shows Cop Stalking Woman After Surveilling Her with a LPR"

andrewl — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:43:29 +0000

The linked article does not say what happened to him, but if you Google his name there are lots of hits. This one says he was fired:

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/monroe-county-deputy-arr...

New comment by andrewl in "Reducing tick density along recreational trails in Ottawa, Canada"

andrewl — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 23:49:39 +0000

I think it's that they need humidity or else they dry out. So hot and humid is fine. Hot and arid is what they have a problem with.

New comment by andrewl in "Reducing tick density along recreational trails in Ottawa, Canada"

andrewl — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 23:46:34 +0000

Can you give us some more detail on the nematodes, or point us to an article?

New comment by andrewl in "How to corrupt an SQLite database file"

andrewl — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:01:26 +0000

It’s impressive. To admit fallibility is to be honest. It represents confidence.

New comment by andrewl in "How to corrupt an SQLite database file"

andrewl — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 13:57:36 +0000

Your link to the security page is broken because of the capital H in your URL. It should be: https://www.sqlite.org/security.html

New comment by andrewl in "How to corrupt an SQLite database file"

andrewl — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 13:54:38 +0000

The January 6, 2022 date at the bottom of the page is not the date the page was last updated. It is the date problem 8.9 (Boundary value error in the secondary journals used by nested transactions) directly above it was fixed. The date at the very bottom of the screen in the middle says the page itself was last updated on 2026-04-13.

Debugging: Google requests permission to release 32M mosquitoes in CA and FL

andrewl — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:37:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/01/google-permission-release-mosquitoes-california-florida

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372587

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

MIT president: Why so many optimistic scientists are losing heart

andrewl — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:08:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/26/opinion/science-funding-cuts-mit/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48304379

Points: 53

# Comments: 6

New comment by andrewl in "Where are all the UK red telephone kiosks?"

andrewl — Fri, 22 May 2026 01:12:35 +0000

“They have phones in booths now? Finally! I don’t have to lug this cell phone around.”

Hermes Conrad, Futurama Season 6, Episode 6: Lethal Inspection

New comment by andrewl in "Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments"

andrewl — Wed, 20 May 2026 03:39:47 +0000

Then there is the tromboon, created by P.D.Q. Bach, which is a real instrument but should not be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Q._Bach#Tromboon

New comment by andrewl in "Math Jokes in Alice in Wonderland"

andrewl — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:09:12 +0000

Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice explains the subtleties, mathematical and otherwise, of both Alice books in engaging detail. It explained things I never understood, and showed me things I missed (and then explained them). Besides the mathematics there are references to politicians and events of the era, and jokes that would be known only to people at Oxford.