Hacker News: crystaln

New comment by crystaln in "Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell"

crystaln — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 02:29:10 +0000

Some day maybe excel will be a proper database. Anyway, who uses Excel?

The real question is if Google Sheets will get these features.

New comment by crystaln in "Stockfish 19"

crystaln — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:29:15 +0000

My favorite chess quote:

"The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."

I find this to be very valid.

New comment by crystaln in "Stockfish 19"

crystaln — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:27:13 +0000

"Only teaches two useful lessons" seems a little certain.

Off the top of my head I can think of a number - the value of diversity and the contextual power of capabilities such as the power of weaker pieces used diligently, and the power of counterintuitive sacrifices.

Chess also makes no accommodation for your fantasies and ego. There is no luck, only skill.

There is also much to be garnered from the layered complexity of strategy, where some strategies will take you to a certain level of play that need to be completely replaced or expanded with nuance to reach a higher level.

There are many lessons to be learned from chess.

That said, I would not recommend anyone become good at chess to get good at life.

New comment by crystaln in "Stockfish 19"

crystaln — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:19:50 +0000

Stockfish has created entirely new lines in chess which people incorporate into their play. For instance an early pawn push to h4 is now common among chess pros. It's value was not recognized before Stockfish.

New comment by crystaln in "Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO"

crystaln — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 23:48:36 +0000

Apparently uBO can't be ported to MV3, as dynamic request interception is no longer allowed, only fixed block lists.

"For security and privacy"

New comment by crystaln in "Kinney Drugs pulls back AI phone assistant after hundreds of customer complaints"

crystaln — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:14:40 +0000

I guess everything is ok these days as long as the President says "We screwed up [our most basic responsibility to customers], and we own that."

New comment by crystaln in "Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)"

crystaln — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:35:30 +0000

But corners do look better in video games like that.

New comment by crystaln in "McMansions 101: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? (2016)"

crystaln — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:20:47 +0000

Interesting position, and also very opinionated.

For instance, personally I think having secondary masses dominate can make the structure look smaller and more intimate.

Like in this one, it looks like a bunch of cottages instead of a behemoth.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/3e5a80e11854cd751a1bb314a4591c87...

I live in a house with MANY "voids" aka windows. The house looks pretty stunning, and the views are spectacular.

New comment by crystaln in "Parallel Reconstruction of Lawful TLS Wiretapping"

crystaln — Sun, 31 May 2026 17:57:17 +0000

Thanks for explaining. It's an interesting turn of phrase. I don't see how it relates to parallel construction.

New comment by crystaln in "Parallel Reconstruction of Lawful TLS Wiretapping"

crystaln — Sun, 31 May 2026 02:28:08 +0000

Parallel construction would be if LE unlawfully intercepted transmissions using this technique and discovered a crime, then found other unrelated evidence to begin an investigation of that crime.

New comment by crystaln in "Parallel Reconstruction of Lawful TLS Wiretapping"

crystaln — Sun, 31 May 2026 02:26:16 +0000

Indeed. Parallel construction is when law enforcement doesn't want to burn their source or their source is unlawful, so they find another way to justify a warrant or prosecution even tho their initial justification comes from a different source.

This has been upheld as lawful, but also can unfortunately be used to disguise unlawful behavior.

Reverse engineering is not related to parallel construction.

New comment by crystaln in "Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents"

crystaln — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:28:16 +0000

This is how markets balance. When there is under supply prices go up and incentivize production. When there is oversupply production goes down. Prices converge on a small premium to the price of production.

New comment by crystaln in "Show HN: NanoClaw – “Clawdbot” in 500 lines of TS with Apple container isolation"

crystaln — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:13:17 +0000

Seems much more likely the cost will go down 99%. With open source models and architectural innovations, something like Claude will run on a local machine for free.

New comment by crystaln in "Why I left iNaturalist"

crystaln — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 10:47:54 +0000

I am not inclined to read this longwinded post. Anyone who writes a headline like this is not worthy of it's subject, and the popular comments would tend to agree.

I'm sure the author is well intentioned and filled with integrity, however trashing a thing you created because you feel dejected is inherently self-interested and unworthy of attention.

New comment by crystaln in "Unexpected patterns in historical astronomical observations"

crystaln — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 15:19:36 +0000

A widespread theory among et believers is that nuclear explosions bring the attention of et intelligence around the universe as a sign of sufficiently advanced life to investigate, and that aliens are here to make sure we develop without self-destructing and join the intergalactic world peacefully.

New comment by crystaln in "Bots are getting good at mimicking engagement"

crystaln — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:23:25 +0000

It's definitely better to know what traffic is real for many reasons, however won't clicks just lower the value of a click and conversion numbers, but leave overall conversion the same?

If conversion rate drops 90%, the value of a click should also drop 90% as companies adjust the bids for ads.

I'm sure this isn't always true in practice and it takes time for bids to adjust. I'm just wondering how much impact this actually has.

And on the other side, if ad companies were better at filtering bots, their clicks become more valuable and companies should be willing to pay more.

New comment by crystaln in "That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus"

crystaln — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:30:45 +0000

I believe if you connect directly to the tower a phone is connected to you can bypass central spam filters.

New comment by crystaln in "Signal Secure Backups"

crystaln — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 17:17:19 +0000

This is mentioned as a future feature.

New comment by crystaln in "The warning signs the AI bubble is about to burst"

crystaln — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:12:51 +0000

Yes bubbles always have survivors. They will be hurt and also one day worth much more than they are now.

New comment by crystaln in "The warning signs the AI bubble is about to burst"

crystaln — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:02:55 +0000

Bubbles burst when the media and public are finally bought in that they burst. This article is a good sign we aren’t there yet.