<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: darrenf</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=darrenf</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:18:01 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=darrenf" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "How the world’s first electric grid was built"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Godalming, UK (where I live) stakes a claim for having the world's first public electricity supply in 1881. I walk past the commemorative plaque on almost a daily basis. <a href="https://www.godalmingmuseum.co.uk/articles/electricity" rel="nofollow">https://www.godalmingmuseum.co.uk/articles/electricity</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:47:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515619</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515619</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515619</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah. I’ve always used the subclass 651 eVisitor, without realising it was only for some European countries (or that it was different to the ETA).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 07:31:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177649</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177649</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177649</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That link clearly says you don't have to use an app.<p><i>If you are unable to use the app, you can apply online through ImmiAccount for another visa that suits your needs.</i><p>This triggered me because I've been to Australia tens of times (albeit not since 2023) and have always used my Immi account. I just logged in to check and sure enough I can still lodge an application there, no app required. Ironically I would prefer an app and will use it for my next visits because I've always found the Immi site cumbersome. But the site is still there.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:15:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168053</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168053</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168053</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There is legislation in the EU, and BirdyChat announced compatibility.<p><a href="https://www.birdy.chat/blog/first-to-interoperate-with-whatsapp" rel="nofollow">https://www.birdy.chat/blog/first-to-interoperate-with-whats...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:33:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801118</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801118</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801118</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The BBC have been covering it in the UK. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cjnwl8q4ggwt" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cjnwl8q4ggwt</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:37:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779185</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779185</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779185</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>People have been protesting in the UK.<p>Fourteen arrested after protest at Iranian embassy: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3g8glgxvo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3g8glgxvo</a><p>Protester climbs on to balcony of Iranian embassy in London: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy09yvd57x2o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy09yvd57x2o</a><p>Silent protestors gather in solidarity with Iran: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4g1me23x7o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4g1me23x7o</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:35:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779171</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779171</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779171</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Apple Creator Studio"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> <i>What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers?</i><p>Apple absolutely has data centres. Where do you think Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud, Maps, etc compute happens?<p>Here's a press release straight from the horse's mouth about one in Denmark, in late 2020: <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2020/09/apple-expands-renewable-energy-footprint-in-europe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2020/09/apple-expands-rene...</a><p>> <i>Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?</i><p>Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:54:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602632</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602632</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602632</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Network of Scottish X accounts go dark amid Iran blackout"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Manx is the demonym for people from the Isle of Man. It's odd to see it written "Isle of Manx" in a list of other demonyms, but the word Manx itself is far from modern. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_people" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_people</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:43:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600235</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600235</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600235</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5K_run" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5K_run</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 10 Jan 2026 10:14:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564415</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564415</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46564415</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I’m advocating not advertising.<p>I capitalise it out of muscle memory. That’s all. FWIW Wikipedia capitalises it as well.<p>I called it out with a link because I expect many folk to be unfamiliar with it, but the nature of parkrun itself — rather than simply going for a 5k[m] run — is intrinsic to the point I was trying to make.<p>5k is perfectly well understood to be a distance, especially in context, in British English and I’m a Brit. My bad I guess for not adding “m” for (some of) the HN readership. [EDIT: actually, <i>I</i> said 5km! Not my fault if parkrun says 5k, but they are a British organisation)<p>Regardless of that, you were correct that parkrun is indeed a run around a park. I won’t explain any further nor link anywhere lest it be misconstrued as advertising (something that’s proudly free, mind you). Besides which I need to get to and get my running kit on.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 10 Jan 2026 06:46:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563399</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563399</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563399</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I found this to be true, and that it perfectly dovetailed with TFA.<p>When I was at my absolute depth (so far…) back in 2013, I would see my counsellor at 1130 on a Saturday. I’d be able to recount the darkness of the previous 7 days in stark vivid detail, yet cheerfully and not feeling at all depressed in the moment. The counsellor asked what I did on Saturday morning except the session and my answer was, well I do Parkrun[0] of course. I always do Parkrun. It’s in my calendar, it’s not really negotiable. It might have been the only time I managed to get out of bed all week, but, I mean, how can I possibly skip Parkrun?<p>I never actually linked the exercise to the boost in my mental health until I had it pointed out to me at that moment. I go for a run and I feel better <i>because of the run</i>. I would spend the whole 5km stewing and ruminating and maybe in tears but half hour after getting home I could function! it’s stuck with me ever since, and I’ve never (yet) been so down again.<p>Tomorrow will be my 429th Parkrun :)<p>[0] <a href="https://www.parkrun.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.parkrun.com/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 22:38:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46560433</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46560433</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46560433</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Long time fileformat.info user. here, just wanted to say thanks -- always found it incredibly useful for this exact purpose.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:52:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433329</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433329</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433329</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Show HN: Ez FFmpeg – Video editing in plain English"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I’m trying to understand the “In order of usage popularity” thing — this implies telemetry in CLIs, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t the order of options change/fluctuate over time?<p>Or if no telemetry but based on local usage, it would promote/reinforce the options you already can recall and do use, hiding the ones you can’t/don’t?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 27 Dec 2025 21:44:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405556</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405556</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405556</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Show HN: Witr – Explain why a process is running on your Linux system"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is that not `whatis`?<p><a href="https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/whatis.1.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/whatis.1.html</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 27 Dec 2025 08:27:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400180</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400180</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400180</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Show HN: Shittp – Volatile Dotfiles over SSH"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For kitty users, see also <a href="https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/ssh/" rel="nofollow">https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/ssh/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Dec 2025 15:59:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46345706</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46345706</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46345706</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "I wasted years of my life in crypto"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I shoved £500 down in Sept 2017 knowing full well it was a gamble, and still have a roughtly £500 balance now -- having skimmed enough off the top over the years to buy a couple of iPhones and whatever else. I 100% consider this profit to be literal dumb luck.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:39:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193519</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193519</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193519</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Perl's decline was cultural"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Very. I use `Test::MockModule` (not just in tests) or `Sub::Override` or `Class::Method::Modifiers` a lot, according to convention/style or as I see appropriate — but there are, of course, tons more ways to do it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 07 Dec 2025 18:20:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183770</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183770</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183770</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Perl's decline was cultural"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> <i>[TIMTOWTDI] literally means 'there is more than one way to do it in Perl' - and you can perhaps infer from that that there's little to no reason to do it using anything else</i><p>Not my experience at all, FWIW. For me, and the vast majority of Perl devs I’ve worked with over the past 30 years, TIMTOWTDI absolutely means some of the “ways to do it” don’t involve Perl, and that’s not only OK but expected. <i>Of course</i> Perl isn’t the be all/end all. It’s a lot of fun though!<p>(I’m a majority Perl coder to this day, it’s my favourite language by far. Hell, I even find it readable and easy/fun to debug)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2025 19:40:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176020</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176020</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176020</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Google unkills JPEG XL?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wait, what? Englishman in my 50s here and I use phrases like that all the time — “I’ll be missing standup cos I’ve a GP appointment”, “leaving at lunchtime as I’ve a train to catch”, “gotta dash, I’ve chores to do”. No one’s ever said I sound German!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2025 22:11:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114009</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114009</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114009</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by darrenf in "Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Which is exactly why to cut it out. If you put salt in my cup of tea, I’m gonna notice and it’s gonna ruin the drink.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 27 Nov 2025 06:58:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066511</link><dc:creator>darrenf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066511</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066511</guid></item></channel></rss>