Hacker News: biofox

New comment by biofox in "Show HN: Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)"

biofox — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:23:44 +0000

It can't be a good idea to condition yourself to be comfortable around an exposed wire that's near to a real power socket.

New comment by biofox in "New laws to make it easier to cancel subscriptions and get refunds"

biofox — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:54:52 +0000

Good luck finding out how to contact customer support. The darkest dark pattern of them all.

New comment by biofox in "Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)"

biofox — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 03:08:29 +0000

Reminding me that early Windows versions used to have this colour as the default desktop colour -- and I remember seeing similar tones on Mac and Unix desktops in the 90s.

https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/books/user-interface-sof...

New comment by biofox in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"

biofox — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:47:52 +0000

That would require technical know-how.

It's much easier for clueless lawmakers to write "the computer check the age", and make it everyone else's problem.

New comment by biofox in "Show HN: Poppy – A simple app to stay intentional with relationships"

biofox — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 11:59:37 +0000

"Privacy isn't a feature — it's the foundation."

"No feed, no doomscrolling — just intention."

"Not your whole address book — just the ones you'd hate to lose touch with"

"You care deeply—you're just terrible at follow-through."

"You care deeply—your ADHD brain just doesn't..."

New comment by biofox in "Arabic document from 17th-cent. rubbish heap confirms semi-legendary Nubian king"

biofox — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 11:51:50 +0000

The Middle English spelling and phonetic shifts are what make it so painful to read. The words themselves though are mostly comprehensible with a bit of effort.

Go back another four hundred years to Old English and Beowulf and it becomes complete gobbledygook (to me at least).

New comment by biofox in "A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks (2024)"

biofox — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:04:56 +0000

The batteries were either charged using a "telephone magneto", or were taken to a local town to be charged off of mains electricity:

https://www.1900s.org.uk/1920s60s-windup-phones.htm

New comment by biofox in "A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks (2024)"

biofox — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:55:36 +0000

Very cool to see one comment linking to an old Sears magazine from the 1920s, showing some of the equipment people would have constructed these networks from:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101066805050&vi...

The thing I'm most amazed by is how "modern" the catalogue is, especially the clothing and phonograph sections.

New comment by biofox in "CIA to Sunset the World Factbook"

biofox — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:20:44 +0000

Did you forget the /s?

Some people mentioned the dollar as the global reserve currency, but there's also the use of English as the global lingua franca, the US being the largest global destination for talent and investment, and countries (previous) willingness to make sacrifices or deal with the US on less-than-perfect terms out of a sense of shared culture.

New comment by biofox in "I miss thinking hard"

biofox — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 14:47:25 +0000

In silico duckying

New comment by biofox in "Apple I Advertisement (1976)"

biofox — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 19:41:52 +0000

What was the reasoning behind that?

New comment by biofox in "Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants"

biofox — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 12:44:40 +0000

SSRIs saved my life. No exaggeration. They might be overprescribed, only effective is some individuals, and they certainly have their share of side effects, but they're still the gold standard treatment for clinical depression and anxiety.

New comment by biofox in "Virtual Boy on TV with Intelligent Systems Video Boy"

biofox — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:36:48 +0000

Never used a Virtual Boy, but I'm somehow nostalgic just for the development tool -- grey metal boxes with vents, LEDs, and rocker switches transport me into an optimistic future of the past.

New comment by biofox in "Heathrow scraps liquid container limit"

biofox — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:05:50 +0000

The US embassy in London do this. You can take liquids in, as long as you drink from them at security.

New comment by biofox in "Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes""

biofox — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:23:55 +0000

The UK dominated the world in coal production, shipbuilding, factory machinery and textile mills before WW1, and went into steady decline post-war.

E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mikael-Hoeoek/publicati...

New comment by biofox in "The cleaner: One woman’s mission to help Britain’s hoarders"

biofox — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:45:47 +0000

That's a sad indictment of tech.

Most underlying technology is timeless (see TAOCP, SICP, CLRS, K&R, GoF, Dragon Book, Beej's Guide, Sipser,...); but we seem set on producing an endless, pointless, churn of frameworks and minor language differences in the name of progress.

New comment by biofox in "Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes""

biofox — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:16:28 +0000

I think there is a lot of truth in that. It led to the death of patriotism (which is now considered embarrassing outside of sport), national purpose, institutions, empire, and coincided with the decline of heavy industry (which only happened much more recently in the US).

EDIT: Saying that, there is still a strong positive national identity. We're just too embarrassed to express it strongly (see patriotism), because of our fall from grace.

New comment by biofox in "ChatGPT Health"

biofox — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:58:51 +0000

I work in biomed. Every textbook on epidemiology or medical statistics that I've picked up has had a section on Bayes, so I'm not inclined to believe this.

New comment by biofox in "Carrier Landing in Top Gun for the NES"

biofox — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 16:26:40 +0000

Thank you. You just unlocked a repressed trauma.

New comment by biofox in "GPT-5.2"

biofox — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 10:41:14 +0000

I ask for confidence scores in my custom instructions / prompts, and LLMs do surprisingly well at estimating their own knowledge most of the time.