Hacker News: chriszhang

New comment by chriszhang in "How I Write Code: Pen and Paper"

chriszhang — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 05:43:32 +0000

I tried pencils but I find text written pencils to be too faint. I find it uncomfortable to read. But pen writes text in bright blue color which is more pleasing to read.

New comment by chriszhang in "Sputnik V: fraudulent clinical trial data"

chriszhang — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 04:15:45 +0000

Moscow Times article does not load on my phone. It appears to reload itself again and again. Then it error out. Anyone facing same issue?

New comment by chriszhang in "Tell HN: Protonmail is no longer private, sharing user info with US authorities"

chriszhang — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 06:37:30 +0000

My last straw with Protonmail: I created an email account in Protonmail. Used it to send and receive emails as usual. Then one day suddenly their "algorithms" suspended my account because the "algorithms" found that my account was being used for abuse. That was the end of Protonmail for me. Back to GMail. I know people lose their GMail accounts too. But in the last 17 years, I had 0 issues with GMail and 1 issue with ProtonMail and that 1 issue disrupted my life for a while.

I now find me asking: What is a good reliable email provider out there? I know I can host my own email in my own server under my own domain name but on HN we have seen articles about people losing their domain names too. Is there truly no good way to have permanent email address?

Is bringing your temperature down important when you have a fever?

chriszhang — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 14:15:33 +0000

Article URL: https://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2012/07/31/3557498.htm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26889984

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by chriszhang in "Comparative unsafety"

chriszhang — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:41:08 +0000

If I try to search something within the page with Ctrl + F that also causes the whole page to re-render and display "loading ..." and "rendering ..." progress bar.

New comment by chriszhang in "7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?"

chriszhang — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 04:02:36 +0000

I wish I could limit the use of Internet to 1 hour per day. Like the olden days in the early days of internet.

Internet was given in our university for only 1 hour per day. It was possible to live in this manner even when I used to do programming. All programming documentation was available as PDFs or downloadable copies. I remember the MSDN documentation for C++ could be kept on the local machine. For Python I used to keep a PDF copy of the tutorial and reference i think.

These days I don't know anymore if that style of working will still work. Software has become so complex and error messages have become so many and so complex that I think we need access to internet all the time while programming. To see resolution to strange errors in Stack Overflow or on GitHub issues.

I wish all software developers did not assume that I am connected to the Internet all the time. It will be good if we can have a world where local-first internet-optional style of programming is still there.

If SiteA loads script/image from SiteB for logging hits, is it deemed tracking?

chriszhang — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 14:20:08 +0000

Article URL: https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/mj60a0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26681278

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by chriszhang in "Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server"

chriszhang — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 10:17:43 +0000

Someone please be kind and explain to me how this works? Don't different executable formats need different headers?

Don't ELF need "0x7F ELF" header? Don't Windows executable need "MZ" header? How is it fulfilling both requirements simultaneously?

Ask HN: Should you care about privacy policies if you have nothing to hide?

chriszhang — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 05:59:38 +0000

I meet people sometimes that don't care about privacy policy because they think they have nothing to hide. I think there were some stories on HN where someone thought they have nothing to hide but then got into problems because their privacy was misused or their data was misused. Those stories provide lesson that everyone should care about privacy and how their data is used. Cannot find such stories now using search. anyone has links to them? Or any similar story or news articles that can be used to convince that everyone should care about privacy even those people who think they have nothing to hide?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26098708

Points: 6

# Comments: 13

New comment by chriszhang in "Python’s tug of war between beginner-friendly and advanced features"

chriszhang — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 06:24:08 +0000

I came here to say the same thing. A lot of the discussion with modern languages focus around syntax. Why not use a Lisp which has very minimal syntax and focus on solving problems instead?

Do you have an opinion about Common Lisp? I know that Scheme is more minimal and cleaner but since you recommend Scheme I want to know what your opinion about Common Lisp is.

New comment by chriszhang in "Python’s tug of war between beginner-friendly and advanced features"

chriszhang — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 05:26:37 +0000

Does this curve really represent everyone's experience?

I never experienced the "I hate Python" phase. I think I went straight from "So exciting" to "productive" phase with Python.

Ask HN: What is a nice way to begin learning game programming these days?

chriszhang — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 05:22:13 +0000

One thing I want to avoid is start with heavy and complex beasts like Unity which abstracts away a lot of the basic concepts.

I am looking for something more minimal. Game programming from scratch approach. Like the early days when people used to write programs in BASIC building all the graphical components and audio tones step by step.

Is there something available today? My requirements:

- No game engine.

- Portable technology. I should be able to share my game with users on other platforms and systems.

- A good learning resource to begin learning game programming from scratch.

- Support for graphics and sound.

Any help will be appreciated.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26033398

Points: 4

# Comments: 2

New comment by chriszhang in "Perl.com Taken over by Domain Squatters"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 12:24:03 +0000

What is the full story behind this? How did it happen? Was it a domain hijack? Did someone forget to pay the bill? Do I need to worry about this for my domains?

New comment by chriszhang in "OO in Python is mostly pointless"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:37:21 +0000

> How about file-like objects in python? Many file-like interfaces are necessarily stateful.

Still the state and the functions that operate on them can be separated out. Right? No reason why the state and the functions need to be tied together inside a class.

New comment by chriszhang in "Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:32:40 +0000

I have not faced this problem. I say that there will be a learning curve to understand the product before a new developer can start fixing bugs or adding enhancements. Managers have always understood it.

For contractors too the learning curve is part of the deal. The contractors get paid by the hour when they are climbing the learning curve. Managers seem fine with it.

New comment by chriszhang in "OO in Python is mostly pointless"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:02:30 +0000

Calling someone a "narcissist" is clearly name calling.

I did not find anything narcissistic in the OP's post. It is a controversial topic but nothing about it came off as narcissistic.

New comment by chriszhang in "OO in Python is mostly pointless"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 09:57:28 +0000

> thanks for the comment

There is really no need to be respond nicely to someone hiding behind their anonymity and calling you names and throwing personal attacks at you. Your parent comment's account should simply be flagged and banned.

New comment by chriszhang in "OO in Python is mostly pointless"

chriszhang — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 09:49:17 +0000

> Please, post your clickbait bullshit somewhere else.

This is needlessly insulting and aggressive. Flagged.

80-characters-per-line limits should be terminal, says Linus Torvalds

chriszhang — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 04:39:58 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/01/linux_5_7/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25642179

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by chriszhang in "Show HN: History suggest box for your shell"

chriszhang — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 05:32:06 +0000

Yes. ZSH has this too. I think the basic shell features can go a long way.