Hacker News: disparate_dan

New comment by disparate_dan in "Patrick Stewart has died"

disparate_dan — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 21:24:41 +0000

So many dimensions to his class and talents. I've been lucky enough to see him twice, performing live on stage - as Macbeth, and in Ibsen's The Master Builder. Unforgettable.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Use social media mindfully"

disparate_dan — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:27:17 +0000

I'm fairly sure there is a book about that exact thing, but I can't remember how it ends...

New comment by disparate_dan in "Las Vegas is embracing a simple climate solution: More trees"

disparate_dan — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 06:15:43 +0000

But more water, in a desert region?

New comment by disparate_dan in "Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad"

disparate_dan — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 21:11:38 +0000

I agree. I think there is a third thing: processed foods are more likely to contain additives like colorants, emulsifiers, preservatives and stabilisers that humans have been eating for decades rather than centuries so we don’t have the same body of knowledge about them or their health-related impacts.

New comment by disparate_dan in "With 'Megalopolis,' the Flop Era Returns to Cinemas"

disparate_dan — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 20:00:30 +0000

It’s not just age. Martin Scorsese is still making exceptional films. So is Clint Eastwood.

New comment by disparate_dan in "How Deep Can Humans Go?"

disparate_dan — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:13:19 +0000

I wonder if there are lessons to be drawn from other marine mammals which can diver way deeper and longer than assisted humans, although they all also metabolise oxygen. How for example do cetaceans deal with the nitrogen in their bloodstream on returning to the surface?

New comment by disparate_dan in "A Few Notes on the Culture by Iain M Banks (1994)"

disparate_dan — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 19:45:33 +0000

I’m a veteran SF reader but I only read The Culture books for the first time recently, and I agree with you, albeit you have to acknowledge their massive influence on contemporary SF. The Three Body Problem, though, I struggled to finish the first book at all, because I found the prose excruciatingly bad (or more properly I guess, the translation).

New comment by disparate_dan in "Why isn't everyone using code workflow platforms when creating new applications?"

disparate_dan — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 07:31:35 +0000

How does Step Functions avoid the cold start problem? Isn’t it just executing on Lambda?

New comment by disparate_dan in "Poll: Can you visualize details with your eyes closed?"

disparate_dan — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 13:53:58 +0000

I think this is a different phenomenon - I forget the name, but basically, your brain produces more of the behaviour that you rehearse with it. In my youth I played a lot of Tetris, to the point where I would ‘see’ (almost hallucinate, really) fitting shapes into the tops of hedgerows and skylines when I was outdoors.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Mutual Friends: The Adventures of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins"

disparate_dan — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 13:48:05 +0000

In fact, I discovered Wilkie Collins through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Drood; but now I find my Dickens is lacking and I need to explore beyond A Christmas Carol. But reading Dan Simmons is a delight, whether it’s Hyperion, or his Stephen King-esque works, or my favourite, The Terror, which is something else again.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Ads in the OS"

disparate_dan — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 20:12:46 +0000

I’d been off Windows since the early XP days, first Mac then Gentoo then running a hackintosh for several years, and got fed up with the maintenance. Since in the end I was mostly using it for gaming I just thought, WTH, I’ll use Windows 10, how bad can it be!? I lasted a month and then in a figure of pique and frustration I downloaded and installed Linux Mint 20.3. What a breath of fresh air! And the silver lining is Steam Play which makes it as good a gaming machine as ever and far better than it was as a hackintosh

New comment by disparate_dan in "Ask HN: Email provider that doesn't lock you out and has good support?"

disparate_dan — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 20:38:07 +0000

There’s probably no provider, paid or otherwise that you can be guaranteed to be safe with because they all rely on automated systems that can make mistakes. I would say you have more chance for active support if you go with a paid service like Proton though.

Apart from that, redundancy makes sense - don’t rely on a single email provider/service but have several independent email identities with your mail synced across them. This goes for associated data too - the worst part of having your account locked is losing access to your cloud-stored contacts, files, etc.

New comment by disparate_dan in "My 24 year old HP Jornada can do things an iPhone still can't do"

disparate_dan — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 20:22:40 +0000

I loved this idea too, but I think we’ve come to realise it in a different way, more or less, purely by syncing everything to the cloud. I feel that the transition between my phone, iPad and PC is pretty seamless with continuity of all the data I care about, and different views and interaction models based on the capabilities of the devices.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Twitter’s former CEO has a new app that looks a lot like Twitter"

disparate_dan — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:47:54 +0000

Is is using Mastodon?

New comment by disparate_dan in "First trailer for Babylon 5: The Road Home"

disparate_dan — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:46:15 +0000

Frankly, it’s a miracle how many of the original actors were able to reprise their roles given the unfortunate ratio of deaths in the cast after the show wrapped.

I hope it’s great, but I can’t help but worry that JMS has returned to plunder the bones of his one time success.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Productivity down as Remote Work up?"

disparate_dan — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:39:44 +0000

TIL a new law.

New comment by disparate_dan in "Do you think writing backend with Python feels wrong?"

disparate_dan — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:35:26 +0000

Java’s strength IMO is that the JVM is pretty reliable and performant even under heavy loads, and can be predictably tuned and optimised where that’s needed. That’s pretty compelling along with an OK language that works well at scale (lots of developers).

New comment by disparate_dan in "My Day Away from Reddit"

disparate_dan — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 10:09:42 +0000

I posted this already on a similar thread. I’m very aware during deliberately not visiting Reddit these last two days, that I’m missing the ‘dopamine hits’ from the controversial posts and outrage bait more than the loss of information and discovery.

New comment by disparate_dan in "How many shipwrecks are there in the world's oceans?"

disparate_dan — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 20:46:48 +0000

I’m sure I read something recently about there being a limited future for viewing the wreck of the Titanic before it degrades, and that’s under pretty deep water, over 2km down.

New comment by disparate_dan in "With all social media fucking up severely, what's next?"

disparate_dan — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 20:22:07 +0000

I switched to Reeder after Feedly started showing me ads. So far, so good.