Hacker News: dghf

New comment by dghf in "Dostoyevsky isn't difficult"

dghf — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:25:25 +0000

According to Wikipedia:

- Jehan (Old French form of "John") -> Jan

- Jan -> Jankin (diminutive)

- Jankin -> Jackin

- Jackin -> Jack

New comment by dghf in "Dostoyevsky isn't difficult"

dghf — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:22:34 +0000

Traditionally, yes; these days, perhaps not so much.

The author Jack London was originally John London. John F. Kennedy was familiarly known as Jack ("Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"). The British racing driver John Stewart is far more commonly known as Jackie Stewart. In Patrick O'Brian's naval fiction, Captain John Aubrey is almost always referred to as Jack.

New comment by dghf in "They’re made out of weights"

dghf — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 15:38:42 +0000

Apologies, didn't notice when I got the link from YT's "Share" button. Won't make that mistake again.

Comment is now to old to edit: for convenience, here's the link without the parameter -- https://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec

New comment by dghf in "They’re made out of weights"

dghf — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:39:11 +0000

> a compelling story about a sentient toaster

"Howdy-doodly-doo! Anybody like any toast?"

https://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec?si=YbQfnZbrCe01Bicy

New comment by dghf in "I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline"

dghf — Wed, 27 May 2026 13:22:29 +0000

I keep on meaning to try these out: https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/

New comment by dghf in "The spread of Christianity, from antiquity until today, on an animated map"

dghf — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:33:32 +0000

Yes, it seems to be promoting the idea, popular in New Age writings, that Celtic Christianity was a separate denomination (or what Rome would have considered a heresy); and that just doesn’t seem to have been the case.

New comment by dghf in "The spread of Christianity, from antiquity until today, on an animated map"

dghf — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:21:28 +0000

But was it doctrinally different from Chalcedonian Christianity to justify its own colour on the map. Wikipedia suggests no, which chimes with my understanding: some local minor differences in practice, but nothing like the Christological disputes that caused the rift with the Church of the East, nor like the row over papal supremacy etc. that led to the Great Schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

New comment by dghf in "The Spread of Christianity Animated"

dghf — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:16:56 +0000

But the graphic suggests that Celtic Christianity was in some sense theologically distinct from Chalcedonian Christianity, and that doesn't seem to have been the case. The main ways that the Christians of Ireland and Britain differed from those of continental western Europe seem to have been in the shape of the monastic tonsure and the calculation of the date of Easter; and in the latter, at least, British and Irish Christians were in conformity with Rome by the end of the eighth century. (There was also an emphasis on penance and absolution as a private rather than public rite, but this was ultimately adopted by the wider church.)

There doesn't seem to have been any doctrinal disputes, nor any suggestion that British and Irish Christianity was in any way separate from the Church of Rome.

New comment by dghf in "The spread of Christianity, from antiquity until today, on an animated map"

dghf — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:33:48 +0000

What is going on with Celtic Christianity? Was it really as distinct from Roman Catholicism (and for as long) as the graphic suggests?

Also, why no Cathars/Albigensians in the south of France during the 12th & 13th centuries?

New comment by dghf in "Michael Keating has died"

dghf — Thu, 21 May 2026 16:26:39 +0000

One of the only episodes of Blake's 7 I really remember is "Orbit", in which Avon and Vila play a game of cat-and-mouse aboard a shuttle that's been stripped back to the wiring but is still doomed to crash into the planet it's trying to launch from unless another 70 kg can be ejected: as Orac helpfully points out to Avon, this is more or less exactly Vila's body mass. The respective faces pulled by Avon and Vila as Orac announces this tell you everything you need to know about their characters.

New comment by dghf in "New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome"

dghf — Fri, 01 May 2026 09:22:07 +0000

The manuscript is ~1200 years old, but the poem was composed earlier. The Venerable Bede, who died in 735, includes it and the story of its composition in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People: according to that story, it was composed while Saint Hilda was abbess of Whitby, c.660-680.

New comment by dghf in "The Mushroom That Makes People Have the Exact Same Hallucination"

dghf — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:22:58 +0000

I was under the impression that the "machine elves" were very different from the tiny people described in this article.

New comment by dghf in "Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy"

dghf — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:02:55 +0000

The Wannadies had to go with "You & Me Song" https://youtu.be/t_e_45Szprk?si=4JVZHZzguqm3SFHN

New comment by dghf in "The road signs that teach travellers about France"

dghf — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:55:27 +0000

The ones in the UK are much more minimalist: logos and symbols rather than detailed drawings.

New comment by dghf in "Apple Just Lost Me"

dghf — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:32:06 +0000

That mentions app stores, but I can't see anything about device-level age-verification there.

Also, does Ofcom have the power under the Online Safety Act to mandate app-store verification (or device-level verification, for that matter)? Or would it require secondary, or even primary, legislation?

New comment by dghf in "Apple Just Lost Me"

dghf — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:08:19 +0000

> it is fundamentally the UK’s fault by requiring such draconian measures

It would appear the UK doesn't:

> Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, praised Apple for the decision, especially since it’s not required to implement age verification for the iOS or its App Store under the region’s Online Safety Act.

-- https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-introduces-age-verif...

New comment by dghf in "Apple Just Lost Me"

dghf — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:07:05 +0000

To counter your downvoters:

-- https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-introduces-age-verif...

New comment by dghf in "Apple Just Lost Me"

dghf — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:05:53 +0000

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-introduces-age-verif...

New comment by dghf in "Is it a pint?"

dghf — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:31:08 +0000

Apologies, I was specifically replying to your last sentence, "Every other drink has to use in metric."

New comment by dghf in "Is it a pint?"

dghf — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 20:12:00 +0000

Many Americans do claim to use imperial units. They’re wrong, but they do claim it.