Hacker News: badpun

New comment by badpun in "LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent"

badpun — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 20:22:59 +0000

I’m no longer sure about their quality though. Out of four Logitech mice I bought recently (four different models), two died within a year. At least their warranty repair/replace process was decent.

New comment by badpun in "How Ukraine Built a War Fighting State"

badpun — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 19:47:25 +0000

It's actually pretty hard. The most expected scenario after pumping hundreds of billions into a cleptocracy would be for most of that money to get stolen with little to show for it. Not to build a machine that stopped Russia. What Ukraine authorities managed to do, given the country's state (the coruption is truly mindboggling), is remarkable.

New comment by badpun in "Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera"

badpun — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 19:18:23 +0000

Public transport in communist Poland was horrible because it was severely underfunded. Remember that Poland bankrupted in the 1981 (when the West put sanctions on the country after the Jaruzelski's "coup", and sanctions kiled the economy) the whole decade was kind of surreal in terms of state's lack of funds and decrease of living standards.

New comment by badpun in "Doing a masters while working in Spain"

badpun — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:16:45 +0000

Poland.

New comment by badpun in "Doing a masters while working in Spain"

badpun — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:53:17 +0000

In my country studies are free, which means humanities (like "world literature") are full of young people who had no idea what to do with themselves, so they chose a major in something vaguely interesting and not very demanding, mostly so that they get to extend their youth by a couple of years (as parents will often support them while they get their degree, which means not having to work).

New comment by badpun in "The disappearance of Japan's animators"

badpun — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:34:55 +0000

Big chain stores have their profit margins at below 5%.

New comment by badpun in "45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero"

badpun — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:42:46 +0000

European cities are doing it already.

New comment by badpun in "Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?"

badpun — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:35:17 +0000

You don't need a lot of land to do that. Just 0.25 acres is enough to feed a single person. You can do it basically in a city.

New comment by badpun in "Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?"

badpun — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:32:05 +0000

Due to population distribution, you're most likely to be born in a poor country. And, in those countries, you're way better off being born in 2026 than in 1970s (to be able to watch when the Internet was starting). Chances are, if you were born in China, India, Nigeria, Malasya etc. you wouldn't even hear about the Internet anyway.

New comment by badpun in "Your brain was never designed for this much bad news"

badpun — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:35:35 +0000

No, not boycotts.

The influencial youtubers I think of actually can shape political debate and thus policy - what they say, if it gains enough popularity, sometimes seeps into the political agenda of the ruling party (which is always looking to "score points" with the voters and has its ears to the ground listening which issues and points people are currently responding to). It's basically like being a columnist of an influential newspaper, except you don't need to have the right connections to become one.

New comment by badpun in "The brain was not designed for this much bad news"

badpun — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:23:05 +0000

Legally, you can do a lot more than ignoring. If you have any talent for it, becoming an activist (say a youtuber) rallying people against whatever you believe is bad, can be pretty powerful. A single person (again, with some talent for public speaking etc.) has a real chance of making meaningful change this way.

New comment by badpun in "15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test"

badpun — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:19:57 +0000

> I’ve been battling unexplained anxiety, fatigue, poor sleep and cognitive decline throughout my 30s.

If it's not severe, it may be simply getting older.

New comment by badpun in "How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)"

badpun — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:05:46 +0000

SF Bay Area (land) has population density of a third of New York metro area or an eight of Tokyo metro area. The population density does not justify a world class public transit system. Not to mention there's a large body of water in the middle, which precludes building a lot of connections.

New comment by badpun in "Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity"

badpun — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:11:32 +0000

> but if I created a lovable comic character and someone offered me a dumptruck full of money

> would like to think I have integrity, and I think I do to some extent (there are certain types of companies I will not work for e.g. casinos)

What if a casino offered you a dumptruck full of money?

New comment by badpun in "India's surprise baby bust"

badpun — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:39:47 +0000

Women in Poland in 1980s (when I was born) mostly worked full-time jobs and mostly had children.

New comment by badpun in "India's surprise baby bust"

badpun — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 17:53:20 +0000

Germany, Italy and Japan already had a fertility crash in the seventies, way before the social media dopamine maxxing.

New comment by badpun in "Voxel Space (2017)"

badpun — Sun, 31 May 2026 11:36:47 +0000

Voxel below topmost were not „ignored completely”. They were absolutely rendered in e.g. steep cliffs.

New comment by badpun in "Spain has become one of Europe’s cheapest power markets"

badpun — Sun, 10 May 2026 18:45:08 +0000

How much would it cost to build out batteries which cover entire continent's electricy needs for say three weeks (as there can be 2-3 week lulls of no wind and no sun in Europe in the winter)? Cause that sounds like a lot of batteries. Not to mention, if a freak 4 week lull occurs, we'll go back to Middle Ages for a week.

New comment by badpun in "Poland is now among the 20 largest economies"

badpun — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:29:01 +0000

Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month, which translates to $65k-$100k per year (gross). Also, a lot of devs do a little bit of tax avoidance that is currently not persecuted, which allows them to pay total taxes below 20% on that amount. So, your take-home pay is $50k-$80k.

New comment by badpun in "BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets"

badpun — Wed, 06 May 2026 20:01:00 +0000

I'd say it's a country that builds a ton of infrastructure, at the expense of living standards of common people. The money from infra has to come from anywhere, and an all-powerful central government can just redirect the stream from consumer spending into building out infrastructure. Whether Chinese are happy about it, you'd have to ask them.