Hacker News: code_duck

New comment by code_duck in "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"

code_duck — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:58:37 +0000

Build quality, keyboard and displays are consistently reviewed as being nicer for the Neo than that price range of windows laptops.

New comment by code_duck in "Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta"

code_duck — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 10:27:29 +0000

Horrible sympathy and religion bait like "I bet nobody will upvote this poor sick child with one leg, won't you? 1 amen = 1 prayer!"

New comment by code_duck in "HMD Touch 4G"

code_duck — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 20:24:13 +0000

₹4,199 it seems, which is about $45.

New comment by code_duck in "What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph"

code_duck — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 12:49:02 +0000

I’m surprised the site had that little activity, relatively, around 2010. That’s when I was using it the most. It seemed plenty large to me at the time… I can’t imagine the experience was that great a few years later. I wasn’t really paying attention by the time it reached the peaks later that decade.

I always found the format of the side obtuse and the culture not very welcoming. My most popular answer ever was something about JavaScript from 2008 or 2009, and to this day, people come in and say “this isn’t the way to do it, this is outdated“. No kidding, but every new question about that gets closed as a duplicate.

New comment by code_duck in "Why do AI company logos look like buttholes? (2025)"

code_duck — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 12:38:01 +0000

The OpenAI logo and “swirling hexagon” in general is reminiscent of the old logo of SNET (Southern New England Telephone), except it’s a pentagon. I used to draw this on my book covers at school to make life feel more engaging.

https://logodix.com/logo/1065826.jpg

New comment by code_duck in "Book prizes don't work how you think"

code_duck — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:32:37 +0000

I'd guess she probably means USB flash storage devices.

New comment by code_duck in "Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves"

code_duck — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:00:38 +0000

The article states some of the companies successfully made gloves, but customers such as hospitals considered the prices too high, which is why they're looking to the federal government to be the primary customer now.

New comment by code_duck in "Librepods: AirPods liberated"

code_duck — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 21:08:59 +0000

Linux on older Macs, currently. I'd love to install Linux on my M5 (or even ARM Windows 11) but it's not possible due to Apple's lack of documentation and some other issues.

New comment by code_duck in "The CAPTCHA arms race: from distorted text to browser identity"

code_duck — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:44:26 +0000

So in the past few years? Oh dear, no. Captchas have been in common use for much longer than that. reCAPTCHA has been around almost 20 years.

New comment by code_duck in "Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users"

code_duck — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 02:34:25 +0000

There were a lot of companies who thought an app was preferable to a mobile website (which is still true today). For example, around 2010-11 I was working on Etsy API stuff at the time but had no interest in making a mobile app for anything, and saw a few developers and apps acquihired by Etsy.

New comment by code_duck in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

code_duck — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:33:55 +0000

From what I've observed, 1-2 years ago if you were timed out or hidden (banned) on a live stream, YouTube would show a "you've been timed out or hidden" message above the commenting box. Then it seems they changed that to simply showing your comments as if they were posted successfully, but nobody else can see them, i.e. shadow banning. It's rather obvious on channels with text-to-speech because the TTS bot doesn't say your comments. You can also sign in with another account and see your comment doesn't appear. This involves both automated filtering by YouTube, filtering set up by the channel owner or managing mod, and moderator actions. It's a pretty annoying way to do things.

New comment by code_duck in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

code_duck — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:08:39 +0000

This is the way tech companies have been dealing with perceived abuse for years, at least a decade. Instead of telling you what a problem is, they'll just say "something went wrong". Theoretically this is to prevent bad actors from learning the bounds and how to abuse a system. It is similar to shadow banning.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:33:55 +0000

What I learned is also that often doctors will shrug at an unclear illness, and wait for it to become severe enough that it's obvious. Once I had 650 glucose and a A1C of 12, they couldn't say it was just a psych problem.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:07:38 +0000

It's common to get a spot/random glucose test as part of a metabolic panel, but not that common to get an A1C or certainly auto-antibody tests, in my experience.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:50:20 +0000

I told my gastro that I was on a very restricted diet. I had lost a ton of weight from not being able to swallow food and though it was related to Celiac or food allergies, and they really didn't listen to what I was saying. The psychologist told me that I was "so worried about gluten that I was starving myself", which was quite offensive, actually. I had been in phsyical pain every day for months and went from 180 lbs to 120 (at 5'10") until I found a liquid diet that worked for me and regained weight. I had no idea carbohydrates were an issue.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:48:28 +0000

I was told I had 'prediabetes' and actually got my own glucose testing kit. It didn't seem far off at that time, though, possibly because I was having such a difficult time eating anything. I didn't really know what to look for, though. Glucose being above 100 when I woke up? Over 180 a couple hours after eating? I tested a lot but didn't have any doctor support or interpretation.

At the hospital, I saw a gastroenterologist who specialized in Celiac, because I had just been diagnosed with Celiac a year earlier and many of my symptoms seemed related to digestion. He absolutely should have done diabetes tests. On the last day of the 2 weeks I was there, he said "It could be type 1 diabetes... some people get that too" but didn't order any tests. When I was diagnosed at the ER another year later, my glucose was 650 (very high) and had been averaging 300 (it should be ~85). So yeah, the doctors were negligent, in my assessment.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:45:19 +0000

LADA comes on slowly compared to regular juvenile onset type 1. With regular T1, you'll be in diabetic ketoacidosis and hospitalized within 3 months. LADA can take a year or two, sometimes even longer. I had Celiac diagnosed a year prior, and many of the symptoms seemed the same - fatigue after meals, heartburn, other digestive issues - and that confused things. Plus I had terrible medical care for the first 6 months while I was losing weight and wondering what was happening.

New comment by code_duck in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

code_duck — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:13:38 +0000

I had a much more common autoimmune disease, adult-onset Type 1 Diabetes (LADA), determined to be health anxiety by a very large, major renowned hospital who should have known better. It led to over a year of continued illness before finally I was diagnosed at an ER. I'm sure some people have psychosomatic or anxiety based illnesses, but it's rather grating to be told by a psychologist that you're worrying yourself to death when you are very, very sure that's not the issue.

New comment by code_duck in "What are locusts and what happened to them?"

code_duck — Sat, 30 May 2026 20:19:22 +0000

The uptake inhibition means it leaves serotonin in a place where it can be active. So, it increases the amount of serotonin available in the brain.

New comment by code_duck in "Phantasy Star IV – 1993 Developer Interviews"

code_duck — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:26:15 +0000

Phantasy Star Online was fantastic. It had some connection to the original games, but many new ideas and systems. The game was originally developed without plans to make it a Phantasy Star game and that was bolted on midway through development, which could account for why the plot was somewhat lacking. Overall though, it was like most Phantasy Star games - There's the Dark Force/Profound Evil, it's possessing people and animals and corrupting things, and you have to stop it. Usually they've explained the discrepancies by setting various games in the past. I think ultimately you're supposed to just not care and accept that ok, it's a PS game, of course you're fighting the Dark Falz.

Phantasy Star Online 2 was perhaps even better. It is a huge game, and was around in Japan for years, receiving many large updates, without a US release. Eventually Microsoft brought it to the US because they wanted to be involved with the successor, Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis. It was released with a rapid fire schedule where they compressed 9 years of updates into 2 years. Now, it's unfortunately not fully playable, and receiving no more new content, but is still mostly available. NGS has been doing... okay. The success of that game is mixed. It's decent though and is still receiving new content.