<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: david_allison</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=david_allison</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:55:11 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=david_allison" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "A low-carbon computing platform from your retired phones"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have a large amount, some are occasionally useful when debugging.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:26:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517131</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517131</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517131</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Mirrors Edge Catalyst<p>Are you sure? I played in 2024 on PC and it was playable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 07:53:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442466</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442466</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442466</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Ask HN: What Is the State of App Development in 2026?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We define our API into the Rust via protobufs[0] and some codegen.<p>The wrapper around these is very lean, FFI-based[1], it's abstracted to a library so Android devs never need to know there's rust/codegen involved.<p>We then define a light Kotlin-based wrapper around the protobuf-generated API[2]. This is a candidate to move to Kotlin multiplatform in the near future (mostly for test speed improvements).<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/ankitects/anki/tree/main/proto" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ankitects/anki/tree/main/proto</a><p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android-Backend/blob/a0428512b37bf07e5bf691bae53c168df37739ad/rsdroid/src/main/java/net/ankiweb/rsdroid/NativeMethods.kt#L5-L18" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android-Backend/blob/a0428...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/blob/68192585a7ae45e6fa8cccbc427cf6603966b48b/libanki/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/libanki/Decks.kt#L396-L404" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/blob/68192585a7ae4...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2026 10:19:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344502</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344502</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344502</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Dumb ways for an open source project to die"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> I'd happily share if "share" still meant "drop a gist." It doesn't, anymore.<p>It still does. Feel free to use <a href="https://unmaintained.tech/" rel="nofollow">https://unmaintained.tech/</a> on your repo.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 01:24:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201895</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201895</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201895</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Ask HN: Do you know the ethics of Developers?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics" rel="nofollow">https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics</a><p>1.1 Contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing.<p>1.2 Avoid harm.<p>1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.<p>1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate.<p>1.5 Respect the work required to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artifacts.<p>1.6 Respect privacy.<p>1.7 Honor confidentiality.<p>2.1 Strive to achieve high quality in both the processes and products of professional work.<p>2.2 Maintain high standards of professional competence, conduct, and ethical practice.<p>2.3 Know and respect existing rules pertaining to professional work.<p>2.4 Accept and provide appropriate professional review.<p>2.5 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts, including analysis of possible risks.<p>2.6 Perform work only in areas of competence.<p>2.7 Foster public awareness and understanding of computing, related technologies, and their consequences.<p>2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized or when compelled by the public good.<p>2.9 Design and implement systems that are robustly and usably secure.<p>3.1 Ensure that the public good is the central concern during all professional computing work.<p>3.2 Articulate, encourage acceptance of, and evaluate fulfillment of social responsibilities by members of the organization or group.<p>3.3 Manage personnel and resources to enhance the quality of working life.<p>3.4 Articulate, apply, and support policies and processes that reflect the principles of the Code.<p>3.5 Create opportunities for members of the organization or group to grow as professionals.<p>3.6 Use care when modifying or retiring systems.<p>3.7 Recognize and take special care of systems that become integrated into the infrastructure of society.<p>4.1 Uphold, promote, and respect the principles of the Code.<p>4.2 Treat violations of the Code as inconsistent with membership in the ACM.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 10:21:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093152</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093152</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093152</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><p><pre><code>  Location: Isle of Man/Europe
  Remote: Yes - Experience working with US/International teams
  Willing to relocate: Yes - For the right role. Happy to be on-site for onboarding
  Technologies: Kotlin, Android, TypeScript, React, .NET, Java, CI/CD, Accessibility, i18n
  Email: davidallisongithub@gmail.com
  GitHub: https://github.com/david-allison
</code></pre>
Open source maintainer/top contributor of AnkiDroid: Android client for Anki. 10M+ downloads.
~10 YOE, with 6 YOE open source (4,000+ commits). Ready for stability after years of contracting and maintainership.<p>I lead a global volunteer team and take full product ownership: setting direction over multi-year horizons, planning and implementing architectural migrations, and keeping a project moving via community engagement, triage, fixes, reviews and mentorship.<p>Highlights:<p><pre><code>  - AnkiDroid now releases in tandem with upstream, rather than lagging behind by years
  - Migrated a 15-year-old codebase from Java 7 to Kotlin, maintaining git blame
  - Migrated to a common Rust-based backend. Android contributors are fully isolated from this complexity
  - Improved app rating from 4.5 to ~4.8 stars, dramatically reduced crash rate
  - Mentored hundreds of contributors and co-launched AnkiDroid's Google Summer of Code programme
</code></pre>
AnkiDroid continues as a hobby; my day job is fully separate.<p>Looking for: full-time or contract. IC or EM, I'm nontraditional so I'm open to a conversation about which fits. Drawn to work that makes people's lives better, in any stack.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 01 May 2026 15:01:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47975590</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47975590</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47975590</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Thank you!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:44:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764946</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764946</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764946</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "StackOverflow: Retiring the Beta Site"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> How could Stack Overflow succeed in a post-chatgpt eta?<p>As a data source for LLMs, and by becoming the place someone goes where ChatGPT can't produce a sufficient answer.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:07:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47653356</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47653356</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47653356</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's $50,000 per statement</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 05 Apr 2026 05:13:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47646299</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47646299</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47646299</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "The Claude Code Leak"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What if it's used for training data? It seems like there's no penalty for training on copyrighted materials.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:54:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611311</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611311</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611311</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Universal Claude.md – cut Claude output tokens"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Oh wow, thank you so much!!!!!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:27:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582755</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582755</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582755</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Universal Claude.md – cut Claude output tokens"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is this available online? I'd love documentation of my prompts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 02:03:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581924</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581924</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581924</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#USE_BIOMETRIC" rel="nofollow">https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...</a><p><a href="https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#USE_FINGERPRINT" rel="nofollow">https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...</a><p>Fear-mongering. Not even dangerous permissions. Granted on install</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:04:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581185</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581185</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581185</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "AI isn't killing jobs, it's 'unbundling' them into lower-paid chunks"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>IMO: That's just due to the speed of responses.<p>Hardware will continue to improve, and eventually you'll have the choice of reaching a flow state with 2026 models, or using frontier models at our current level of performance.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 22:27:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47568078</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47568078</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47568078</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "I decompiled the White House's new app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Very unusual: 47.0.1 is showing these permissions when on my MacBook viewing the store entry.<p>The Play Store doesn't show these permissions when viewed on my Pixel 9 Pro, and the APK doesn't have these permissions when downloaded/extracted.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2026 22:12:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47558561</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47558561</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47558561</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "I decompiled the White House's new app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You need to state the permissions you *may* request/use in AndroidManifest.xml. This data can then be displayed to users pre-installation.<p>From the (limited) article, it doesn't seem they do this: <a href="https://thereallo.dev/blog/decompiling-the-white-house-app#permissions" rel="nofollow">https://thereallo.dev/blog/decompiling-the-white-house-app#p...</a><p>----<p>EDIT: I'm mistaken. From the Play Store[0] it has access to<p>* approximate location (network-based)<p>* precise location (GPS and network-based)<p>[0] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.whitehouse.app&pli=1">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.whitehouse...</a><p>This seems to disagree with:<p>> The location permissions aren't declared in the AndroidManifest but requested at runtime<p>*shrug*, someone should dig deeper. It looks like the article may not match reality.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2026 18:16:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557010</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557010</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557010</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Updates to GitHub Copilot interaction data usage policy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Cheers!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 22:31:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47524159</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47524159</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47524159</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Updates to GitHub Copilot interaction data usage policy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have GitHub Copilot Pro. I don't believe I signed up for it. I neither use it nor want it.<p>1. A lot of settings are 'Enabled' with no option to opt out. What can I do?<p>2. How do I opt out of data collection? I see the message informing me to opt out, but 'Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training' is already disabled for my account.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:49:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523743</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523743</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523743</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Show HN: Passport Globe (See where your passport takes you)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is not using current data, which is a huge risk to take when it comes to travel.<p>You can travel visa-free (30 days) to China on a UK passport.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2026 14:27:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477862</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477862</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477862</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by david_allison in "Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Nothing (reasonable) can protect against direct lightning strikes<p>Belkin make a number of surge protectors which offer a connected equipment warranty in the UK. Admittedly: financial protection, not data protection, but I felt it was worthwhile for the peace of mind.<p><a href="https://www.belkin.com/id/p/6-outlet-surge-protection-strip-with-2m-power-cord/BSV603vf2M.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.belkin.com/id/p/6-outlet-surge-protection-strip-...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:27:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370815</link><dc:creator>david_allison</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370815</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370815</guid></item></channel></rss>