Hacker News: arichard123

New comment by arichard123 in "Britannica11.org – a structured edition of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica"

arichard123 — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 20:47:42 +0000

This is good. I picked up a copy of the encyclopedia britannica from 1973 and quite enjoy browsing that rather than the internet. The articles seem well written, and as mentioned here, you have the fact and the history and everything all mixed in to some articles, and it's super interesting.

I highly recommend getting an old set of volumes.

New comment by arichard123 in "Children and Helical Time"

arichard123 — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:02:42 +0000

We were discussing this last night. The solution seems to be we need to do very boring things each day, like stare at paint, watch grapes grow, etc, but then do that with different people in different places. In this way, each day seems very long, and retrospectively the changing of place and boring thing means there's a lot to remember.

I think it does mean though that optimising for this is probably not the thing to do.

New comment by arichard123 in "Go ahead, self-host Postgres"

arichard123 — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:51:18 +0000

I've been self hosting it for 20 years. Best technical decision I ever made. Rock solid

New comment by arichard123 in "The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora"

arichard123 — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:15:03 +0000

Is this some kind of pre-AI crash long game? Does that make any sense?

New comment by arichard123 in "Ask HN: My family business runs on a 1993-era text-based-UI (TUI). Anybody else?"

arichard123 — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 15:51:22 +0000

I remember using a TUI for a Bank in the UK, and them switching to a web-based javascript system. Because the TUI forced keyboard interaction everyone was quick, and we could all fly through the screens finding what we wanted. One benefit was each screen was a fixed size and there was no scroll, so when you pressed the right incantation the answer you wanted appeared in the same portion of the screen every time. You didn't have to hunt for the right place to look. You pressed the keys, which were buffered, looked to the appropriate part of the screen and more often than not the information you required appeared as you looked.

Moving to a web based system meant we all had to use mice and spend our days moving them to the correct button on the page all the time. It added hours and hours to the processing.

Bring back the TUI!

New comment by arichard123 in "A visualization of the RGB space covered by named colors"

arichard123 — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 16:53:36 +0000

Xkcd Colour names based on a survey: https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/

New comment by arichard123 in "A classic graphic reveals nature's most efficient traveler"

arichard123 — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 11:50:06 +0000

I don't think the average horse is heavier than the average cow.

New comment by arichard123 in "The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain"

arichard123 — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:44:24 +0000

I'm on the octopus agile tariff that has 30 minute pricing and an API to query it. Prices for tomorrow published at 4pm today. So the pricing bit is sorted. Just need to make the devices understand it now.

New comment by arichard123 in "Bots are getting good at mimicking engagement"

arichard123 — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:21:54 +0000

But if you're the only one doing it because the competition haven't figured it out, then you win in until they do. You can outbid on each ad.

New comment by arichard123 in "What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?"

arichard123 — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:07:55 +0000

Airsoft is probably played in a private woodland.

New comment by arichard123 in "How can England possibly be running out of water?"

arichard123 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 12:54:38 +0000

But "investment" as the water companies define it is every penny not taken as profit. Staffing costs? Investment! Fixing leaks? Investment! So that figure sounds like money above and beyond, but I don't think it is.

New comment by arichard123 in "UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse"

arichard123 — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:29:29 +0000

The claim was a pub doesn't track your identity. I think I proved mine did.

New comment by arichard123 in "UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse"

arichard123 — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:13:05 +0000

My local knows exactly who I am, that I'm over 18, where I live, who my kids are, how old they are, what I like to drink etc.

New comment by arichard123 in "The $25k car is going extinct?"

arichard123 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 12:50:24 +0000

Americans have complex post tax rules. I think their normal is a pre-tax figure. Also, it helps if you are comparing across territories I guess.

New comment by arichard123 in "Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo"

arichard123 — Tue, 13 May 2025 09:30:37 +0000

Hang on. If they are deterred, then by definition they are not valuable contributors. They have not contributed. If they have contributed, they were not deterred.

New comment by arichard123 in "My sourdough starter has twins"

arichard123 — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:36:04 +0000

How surprising to find this here. I've just started making sourdough bread. It turns out that I can't make it like the local bakery, but actually, that's fine. I had to really think? Do I like open crumb? Actually no! I want sandwich bread.

I've been exploring what I can get away with. Leaving the bread to rise overnight on the counter? Yep. It's fine. Leaving the starter for 2 days instead of feeding every day when it lives on the counter. Sure - no problem. Knock it back or just quickly shape. Doesn't matter. Bake at 1.5 or 2 or 2.5 the size. It doesn't matter enough.

Things that are not fine, shaping the bread, leaving it to rise in the oven which is on a timer and then the oven turns off but I'm not back for an hour to take it out. Crust too dry!

Your mileage may vary of course. But sourdough just seems so much more forgiving than a fast acting yeast.

I've yet to see if I care about a difference between a proper knead after the first rise or just a quick shaping. It's quite fun trying the different possibilities.

New comment by arichard123 in "Git without a forge"

arichard123 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:32:55 +0000

I ran a ssh server for a while to store git repositories. We had some with secrets in and I didn't want them on github. I needed to provide read only access and read write access for only some of the repos. I ended up with a bash script that configure system users and groups and permissions to do the job. It's here:

https://github.com/artumi-richard/ssh-git-hosting

I stopped using it years ago. It had the additional advantage of no artificial limits (file sizes etc).

New comment by arichard123 in "Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad"

arichard123 — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 16:58:22 +0000

Ultra processed people by Dr Chris van tulliken and for for life by Dr Tim Spector are good reading on this. The first is more focused on this issue.

New comment by arichard123 in "Laptop Ports: Is USB-C only fine, or should I get HDMI,USB,Audio if I need them?"

arichard123 — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 06:27:44 +0000

I'm using the AMD version of the framework 13" laptop with a usb dock which cost £30. The dock has power display port usb A and c ports ethernet headphone jack and card readers. It all plugs into the framework laptop with one cable and it all works well. It's small and light. It gets warm to the touch.

New comment by arichard123 in "Sleep duration, chronotype, health and lifestyle factors affect cognition [pdf]"

arichard123 — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 13:40:13 +0000

I had a similar thing until I stopped eating a certain brand of muesli. A different brand with seemingly the same ingredients was fine. I think it's something to do with processing of dried fruit. I believe there was some reaction between that and the alcohol I consumed later in the day. I only realised it was breakfast related on holiday and my breakfast habits changed. I found drinking to be consequence free as opposed to 1/2 a pint causing a certain headache the next afternoon. I experimented when I got home and completely solved my problem.

I was also in my early 40s when this happened for what that's worth.