<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: branon</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=branon</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 05:09:37 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=branon" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Una Watch: Garmin watch competitor but repairable, open ecosystem and USB-C"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And I just bought a Garmin Forerunner 55, too. I'm still within the return period, will have to consider this...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:18:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49087051</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49087051</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49087051</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I got Robert Fitzgerald, wish it would tell me which passages were by which authors after I finished though<p>ah, it does, to an extent at least - about 2/3rds down the front page, ctrl+f for "opening"</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:07:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49082593</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49082593</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49082593</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Amid nurse shortage, a university rolls out the welcome mat for men"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is a nice idea but I think practically the shift will come not from instituting gender-affirming nomenclature but rather redefining male biases.<p>The idea of being involved in an important (and historically female) profession dedicated to compassionate care should be received as honorable by men irrespective of the job title's femininity. I disagree that it's demeaning.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:33:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994620</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994620</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994620</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Tech Workers Face Evaporating Financial Security as AI Transforms Industry"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My thoughts were along this line too. Being laid off is unfortunate, but being laid off after making $500k/yr for a mid-level managerial position is a karmic self-correction.<p>The opening sentence of the article even tacitly admits this - "Susan Smith considered herself a winner in the American economic lottery" - the operative word here is "lottery" and I am not altogether surprised the type of person to coast on Facebook money for decades found themselves hard up after it got cut off.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:40:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977385</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977385</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977385</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For me, the hard-and-fast ruleset is implemented from an ideological perspective rather than a technical one. Stipulated, UE5 games can be fun and certain genres suffer less from upscaling than others.<p>Fact remains though, that homogeneity and monoculture in tech is bad. The inability to properly render all the frames of the product I paid for, without burning thousands of dollars on hardware and emitting hundreds of watts of waste heat (and sometimes not even then!) is worse.<p>I <i>refuse</i> to believe that upscaling/framegen is a solution to <i>any</i> existing problem, because I remember when we didn't have to do that.  I want to render ALL the frames at actual resolution. Hardware is <i>so</i> powerful now, there should be no excuse.<p>The only reason I will accept upscaling is as a power-management strategy to be employed while on battery. For upscaling to be required for any other reason represents a failure somewhere in the game development process. I won't pay for failures, especially when it costs me yet <i>more</i> money in hardware to run the failure-enabling technology.<p>I'm not talking about playing 4k@60fps native and I'm not railing against system requirements. I get modern games require modern hardware, but the ratio of what's required to run UE titles now is skewed by an order of magnitude. Simultaneously, it feels like lowend (or even midrange) optimization has been completely forgotten.<p>I also think that by using software like UE or Unity, you're necessarily deprioritizing a decent chunk of the "game development" process. Instead you are choosing first & foremost to participate in cottage-industry dynamics as a business strategy, with all gamedev-related decisions relegated as subordinate to your chosen business partner(s).<p>Additionally - and I'm getting into conspiracy theorist territory here a little bit - I believe (to an extent) that a lot of these games are made with "cutting-edge" technologies mostly as fodder to propel the industry "forward" by whatever means necessary.<p>By this I mean: producing the "Next Great Photorealistic Game" (which looks/plays mostly the same as the previous year's photorealistic game but requires NVIDIA's new $2,000 graphics card to run) props up AMD and NVIDIA by requiring their latest generation of hardware. It enriches Epic Games by requiring their latest engine with new features. It encourages studio consolidation because now you need an entity like Microsoft to bankroll development if you want any hope of competing in the AAA space.<p>Despite how bloated and ridiculous this has become, the industry continues to grind forward as these companies perpetuate and profit from the model, because there's a decent contingent of consumers who can be relied upon to purchase whatever comes out, no questions asked. And that's fair! If it's fun, then it's fun right?<p>But that consumer is ever-more taxed by the state of AAA gaming. And it only gets grimmer every year (as evidenced by TFA and recent happenings at Xbox).<p>I'm willing to believe some of this comes off as arrogant or elitist (not a gamedev, no real perspective), but these are my honest thoughts, and are how I inform the purchasing decisions I make as a consumer. Looking at where we're at and where we're going versus where we came from clashes with my ideology and makes it unfun to me personally.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:54:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824429</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824429</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824429</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For me this falls apart on the consumer side of things.<p>UE5 games are manifestly lower quality than games built on custom engines. Optimization is especially worse. UE5's performance baseline _requires_ the use of upscalers (DLSS/FSR, fake/AI frames) in order to hit basic targets like 1080p@30fps.<p>I won't buy games built on Unreal Engine. Homogeneity of this type is horrible for customers of the gaming sector.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:20:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819962</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819962</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819962</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "No Systemd"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There was probably a case to be made for this stance when systemd was very new and getting shoehorned everywhere but increasingly I don't see the point<p>I think the issue people took with it was less on technical merit and more about the principle of resisting a change which was occurring too quickly for comfort<p>it was kneejerk reactionary to begin with and hasn't made any more sense as systemd has improved and received better integration with other software<p>I do mourn the loss of Upstart though, I thought that was one of Canonical's cooler projects<p>I also use Void/runit primarily and enjoy it because of its simplicity, it's a nice _exercise_ to run systemd-free but I don't pretend it comes anywhere near the level of capability that systemd provides</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 18:26:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48737092</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48737092</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48737092</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Have you restarted your computer this week?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I do still enjoy the odd >30 day uptime on my PC. Usually only reboot when a new kernel version is cut.<p>I used to reboot into every kernel patch but often I leave .0 running for a very long time now. They seem stable and the kernel moves fast enough nowadays there's often another .0 right around the corner. There might be exploits but  they're not a valid threat model for my little desktop.<p>If something smaller like Mesa updates, I can reload everything simply by logging out/back in, no need for a full reboot/LUKS unlock.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:50:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733509</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733509</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733509</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Half-Life 2 in a Browser"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Here's RuneScape 2 in a browser: <a href="https://2004.lostcity.rs/client?world=2&detail=high&method=0" rel="nofollow">https://2004.lostcity.rs/client?world=2&detail=high&method=0</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:28:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678096</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678096</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678096</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Steam Machine launches today"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I respect what Valve is doing here and I loved the Steam Deck but a prebuilt desktop PC with 16 GB system memory and 512 GB storage for $1,000+ is insulting. Those are specs that belong on a laptop or a lowend console offering like the Series S.<p>I think this product is going to be hamstrung by its attempts to present as a midpoint between a PC and a console. The way this is being achieved seems to be by selling a device with the specifications of a console but the price tag of a PC.<p>Valve already did the "this is a lowend device and that's okay" thing with the Steam Deck, and got away scot-free because nobody expected a handheld and people didn't have a ton of preconceived notions. The Deck was also a better value since it was (prior to the price hike) priced reasonably for its specifications.<p>The desktop PC and/or living room console modalities are both significantly more stratified. People have solidly defined expectations about price-to-performance-to-usability ratios in both of these sectors, and I worry this doesn't go far enough in any particular direction to meet the demands of either market.<p>Leaves me wondering who exactly this is for.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:10:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635414</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635414</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635414</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Color Photos of Stalin-Era Soviet Union Taken by a US Diplomat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>From the two pictures I hadn't inferred that it was specifically a preponderance, hence naïveté of my original conclusion</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:17:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556600</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556600</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556600</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah, is that why... I noticed this too but assumed it was due to some communist ideal of gender equality leading to more women tradespeople, wishful thinking I guess</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:41:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48555175</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48555175</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48555175</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Commodore Releases Flip Phone"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It seems that way, marketing page claims broad support incl. VoLTE which bodes well for US compatibility, however I noticed this in the FAQ:<p>Q: What network bands are supported?<p>A: Please see the Network Specifications section above this FAQ for supported bands and carrier compatibility.<p>But there is no "Network Specificiations" section on the page that I can find. It would be really nice to know which specific bands the modem supports.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:17:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554848</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554848</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554848</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Commodore Releases Flip Phone"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> we ordered a Commodore-branded Sailfish-OS phone from an ODM<p>Is this true? I did some research on flip phones the other week and I didn't turn up anything running Sailfish. Options seemed limited to<p>* custom AOSP derivatives (Punkt, Sunbeam, Kyocera, others - most common)<p>* older KaiOS devices (Nokia 2780 and friends)<p>* Nokia S30+ devices (traditional proprietary feature-phone firmware, somehow Nokia is still producing these)<p>Are there any other examples of Sailfish phones being vendored similar to how Commodore is doing theirs?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:16:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554053</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554053</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48554053</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "All 9,300 Japanese train station, animated by the year it opened (1872–2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This occurs for me on desktop as well (Firefox, Linux)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:34:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477942</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477942</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477942</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Apple Watch for Your Kids"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'd be concerned a kid would lose this. Sure it's got Find My but that only tells you where it's at, doesn't guarantee retrieveability.<p>Also do you need an iPhone to manage the kid's Apple Watch or can you do this with a PC (web UI somewhere? apple.com?) or Android device etc? This is very important, if they're billing it as a safety device for kids, interacting with/reading data from the safety device should NOT require a _specific model_ of separate device. I should be able to do it from anywhere.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:01:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48459405</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48459405</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48459405</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'll never, ever forgive Google for killing the "Basic HTML View" client mode for Gmail.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 23:18:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377565</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377565</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377565</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah, for some reason I figured this was a minor bug that'd be fixed eventually. Wayland windows are never allowed to spawn always-on-top? Sort of lame.<p>If the logic is that it's the window manager's job to set window rules for this, fine, but in that case Plasma should probably ship with preconfigured rules matching the Chrome/Firefox PiP window.<p>I also find the lack of an Xlib-compatible macro API disruptive but I usually run an X11 session inside Xvnc for this purpose anyway.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:29:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372456</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372456</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372456</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by branon in "Windows 95 contained a workaround for a SimCity 2000 memory bug"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Still painfully sloppified and hard to read. They must have let it terraform the entire text without setting any expectations. Em-dashes for emphasis and punchy short sentences abound. Terrible.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 13:14:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48322706</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48322706</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48322706</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[How 2004 RuneScape fit a multiplayer RPG into 56k dial-up]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="http://jkm.dev/posts/how-2004-runescape-fit-a-multiplayer-rpg-into-56k-dialup/">http://jkm.dev/posts/how-2004-runescape-fit-a-multiplayer-rpg-into-56k-dialup/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307722">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307722</a></p>
<p>Points: 5</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 12:02:36 +0000</pubDate><link>http://jkm.dev/posts/how-2004-runescape-fit-a-multiplayer-rpg-into-56k-dialup/</link><dc:creator>branon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307722</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307722</guid></item></channel></rss>