<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: bengillies</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bengillies</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:46:38 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=bengillies" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "ChatGPT Atlas"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What I would like is to be able to add a meta tag to my web app pointing to my mcp server and have this browser load it in automatically whenever I visit</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 19:47:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45660762</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45660762</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45660762</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Emacs agent-shell (powered by ACP)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Code Companion for neovim has supported ACP for a while now<p>See <a href="https://agentclientprotocol.com/overview/clients" rel="nofollow">https://agentclientprotocol.com/overview/clients</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2025 10:25:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566780</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566780</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566780</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "A murder that shook British India and toppled a king"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Nothing that anyone ever posts anywhere is completely free from bias. What singles the BBC out as somehow uniquely deserving of scorn? In what way is everything single thing they post untrustworthy? Did you read the article? It happened exactly 100 years ago, which presumably is why they posted it</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:40:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42709826</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42709826</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42709826</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> I see open debate as part of a healthy society. I value the ability to hear perspectives other than my own. That's what "freedom of speech" means to me<p>I don't think this open debate you're talking about actually happens much on social media. At least, outside of a few select Subreddits, I've very rarely seen it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2021 11:26:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25775093</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25775093</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25775093</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Google pilots a feature that aggregates short-form videos from TikTok, Instagram"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Google was never able to build or buy a social platform to build their walled garden higher.<p>Does buying YouTube not count?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:17:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25598962</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25598962</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25598962</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Show HN: A SQL database implemented purely in TypeScript type annotations"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Want first class tuples/immutable arrays.<p>On this subject specifically, see the records & tuples proposal (currently at stage 2): <a href="https://github.com/tc39/proposal-record-tuple" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tc39/proposal-record-tuple</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:40:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24616481</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24616481</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24616481</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Whatever algorithm used though the truth is that qualifications achieved this year are not directly comparable to qualifications achieved in other years due to the lack of exams.<p>While nobody's fault, imho we'd have been much served by admitting that they're not comparable and doing something else (e.g. add an extra qualifier to the grade or something) than by trying to make them comparable and obviously and predictably failing at it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:56:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351626</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351626</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351626</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic<p>This can also be explained by teachers assessments being an accurate representation of students ability, but students traditionally not faring as well in exams as their ability would suggest due to exam taking being an additional unrelated skill.<p>fwiw though, you only need to look at some of the outliers to see that the algorithm failed. It's all very well to say that it produced a consistent result in general, but each result specifically applies to an individual person so needs to be fair to each person as well as in general.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:49:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351587</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351587</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351587</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "‘George Eliot’ joins 24 female authors making debuts under their real names"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> It's also a bit sad that most English names are gendered.<p>fwiw the name George in English can be applied to women as well as men (though only rarely I guess). See for example Famous Five books</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 10:24:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24156098</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24156098</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24156098</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Apple, Hey, and the Path Forward"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Name one retailer that lets you hock your product in their store without paying anything?<p>This is a bad take. Hey is a subscription service. If you buy a magazine from a newsagent and then sign up to a subscription from it, the newsagent doesn't get to claim 30% of the subscription fee.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2020 14:45:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23600769</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23600769</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23600769</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Smart Algorithms beat Hardware Acceleration for Large-Scale Deep Learning"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>1 times faster means "the same speed as". 100% faster means "twice as fast". Though of course nobody would say 1 times faster in reality.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2020 11:26:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22502759</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22502759</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22502759</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The prices are listed on this page[1]. Looks pretty expensive to me.<p>[1] <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/apply-for-a-taxi-driver-licence#on-this-page-3" rel="nofollow">https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 25 Nov 2019 11:03:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627021</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627021</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627021</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Real-Time Surveillance Will Test the British Tolerance for Cameras"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Football hooliganism was well on the way to being solved by the early 90s<p>I'm not old enough to remember football hooliganism in the 80s and before, but abroad at least, it was very far from solved by the 90s - which is why passports are taken away.<p>> than all the security theatre prevented some atrocity<p>Without commenting on how effective any of this is, you won't hear about prevention because it isn't news.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Sep 2019 10:42:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993510</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993510</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993510</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Boris Johnson has an alarming track record of technology stunts"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Bear in mind neither MPs or electorate got to choose him to lead the Tory party<p>It's worth pointing out that Tory MPs absolutely voted for him  before Tory party members got the chance to, and that if MPs in general don't like him then they can vote to bring down the government whenever they like. Quite why non-Tory MPs should get to pick who leads the Tory party I have no idea.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jul 2019 12:14:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20514367</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20514367</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20514367</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "The Fleecing of Millennials"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think it's worth pointing out here that the terms Gen Y and Millenial both refer to the same generation (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials</a>)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2019 15:01:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19017889</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19017889</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19017889</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "What is the PDF format good for? Nothing (2006)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think it's fair to say that preserving page structure and formatting is never a good idea. For example, at least one good use for PDFs is sheet music/tabs. Formatting is obviously important here as it tends to lose meaning without it, but equally as important is the page structure and per-page nature of reading vs scrolling. As a (hobbyist) musician, when I'm playing an instrument, I don't have any free hands to scroll with, so it's important to me that I don't have to do it very often.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2018 13:03:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17565807</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17565807</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17565807</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Redesigning Redux"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Business logic has no place in your view components, of course, but is quite appropriate in your controller components.<p>Sure. Where you actually put stuff depends entirely on the complexity of what it is that you're building. If you have an async function that you need to use in several places then it makes sense to keep it separate. If you have several of these then maintaining a separate container component for each view component that needs access to these quickly becomes unmaintainable.<p>On the other hand, keeping them as separate functions and adding them in via redux `connect` syntax and `mapDispatchToProps` is simple and makes it clear what's going on. In this scenario, the `connect` higher-order-component acts like the container class, but it built up from separate parts depending on what you need.<p>> redux-thunk seems to encourage that you use it for everything<p>I don't think this is true. redux-thunk is a piece of middleware and that's pretty much it. It should be used however is most appropriate for your application and your particular use case. Keeping state inside components isn't always appropriate, but isn't always a bad thing either. If one is growing too complicated, then perhaps the other is more appropriate.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 05 Mar 2018 17:22:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522576</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522576</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522576</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Redesigning Redux"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The problem with putting all async code directly into components is that often, async code is business logic or some other non-view-layer thing that doesn't really belong in a component.<p>The benefit of redux-thunk (and there are obviously other alternatives that provide the same value) is that it lets you write plain functions that have nothing to do with the store, and nothing to do with components. If you put all your business logic into these plain functions, then they're really easy to test, reason about, move, refactor, etc.<p>> What drives people to put all of that into their store?<p>It's worth pointing out that redux-thunk doesn't move async code into your store. The store (i.e. reducers) is still completely synchronous.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 05 Mar 2018 16:52:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522342</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522342</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16522342</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "Horrible doors on British trains (2010)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Notice how a real person’s arm doesn’t reach the handle quite as easily as the stick figure in the diagram<p>Not that these doors aren't terrible design (they are), but notice how the stick figure is facing towards the handle when they open it, but the man in the image is facing away from the handle and reaching behind him to open it. If he turned around to face the other way before trying to open the door, he'd find it a lot easier.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jan 2018 11:53:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203703</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203703</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203703</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bengillies in "France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Schools exist for the same reason that farms and factories exist: it's a lot more efficient having specialised workers (in this case teachers) who can do the job far more effectively (in this case teach 30 or so children) than having every person do it themselves (in this case every parent take a large portion of time out of their day to teach their own child individually).<p>The alternative to school was for girls to help out around the house until they were married off and for boys to either learn their father's trade and then do that for the rest of their lives or get apprenticed off to whoever could take them and then do _that_ for the rest of their lives.<p>School helps children create a life for themselves. If children don't learn anything there they'll find far fewer paths open to them later on.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 18:00:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915986</link><dc:creator>bengillies</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915986</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915986</guid></item></channel></rss>