Hacker News: drummojg

New comment by drummojg in "Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it"

drummojg — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:44:59 +0000

"WHO'S 'THEY?????'"

New comment by drummojg in "Siri AI"

drummojg — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:13:20 +0000

Right? I've been waiting a lot of years for an upgrade to my voice-activated timer setter/music player launcher.

New comment by drummojg in "Project Gutenberg – keeps getting better"

drummojg — Fri, 15 May 2026 21:50:09 +0000

The best thing I ever did for my father was to buy him a kindle and an access point and show him how to use Project Gutenberg to get books. He loved the old writings (he being a GED holder who was in the Navy during Korea yet had read the entire Harvard Classics). He had a special rolled up towel he used to prop it on his lap in his favorite chair and he read and read and read. When he passed he was reading "Legends of the Jews" from 1931.

I had some small e-correspondence with Michael S. Hart back in the 90's as well, and made a few modest contributions to the project, which made my English major undergraduate heart swell with pride and joy.

I guess this is only to say that PG is special to me for these reasons, and I am glad to see it still thriving. <3

New comment by drummojg in "We can’t send mail farther than 500 miles (2002)"

drummojg — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:35:37 +0000

I also enjoy the one about testing bird strike tolerances with store-bought chicken.

New comment by drummojg in "Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support"

drummojg — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:24:51 +0000

I loved Pegasus. Specifically because to move it to another machine you just had to copy the PMAIL folder and make a shortcut. No registry awareness, no dependencies.

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

drummojg — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 13:05:24 +0000

I stopped reading once the author claimed it was a lie because the SecSrv knew technical terms, then claimed it was a lie because they didn't know the technical terms. It's too early in the morning to be purposely confused.

New comment by drummojg in "Training language models to be warm and empathetic makes them less reliable"

drummojg — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 16:33:10 +0000

I would be perfectly satisfied with the ST:TNG Computer. Knows all, knows how to do lots of things, feels nothing.

New comment by drummojg in "Hacker News Hug of Deaf"

drummojg — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:58:50 +0000

TIL '\a' is bell on POSIX. That's neat to me all by itself.

New comment by drummojg in "Public Access OpenVMS System"

drummojg — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:11:06 +0000

I have a MicroVAX in my living room that I use as an end table.

New comment by drummojg in "The impact of AI on the technical interview process"

drummojg — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 22:02:41 +0000

I helped interview a guy recently who was (a) ESL, and (b) Typing in our questions and reading the answers at a breakneck pace to the point where it was almost pathological; we could not get a word in. In unspoken horror and synchronization, we got through the formal part of the interview as quickly as we possibly could.

New comment by drummojg in "Public Access OpenVMS System"

drummojg — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:26:50 +0000

I still miss bitnet.

New comment by drummojg in "I live my life a quarter century at a time"

drummojg — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 02:10:29 +0000

I feel this in my soul. I work in higher education, and every major contribution I've made has been ripped from my hands and either dashed like the first copy of the ten commandments or handed over to someone shinier. I'm still proud of all I've done.

New comment by drummojg in "Phishers Love New TLDs Like .shop, .top and .xyz"

drummojg — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 15:46:26 +0000

I have always thought the infinite proliferation of TLDs was a stupid idea. I'd be enlightened if I could think of one scenario that benefits from it outside of the registrars.

New comment by drummojg in "Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature"

drummojg — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 17:31:43 +0000

I still remember looking at these with my mother when I was small. We loved to hunt for Gold Bug. She told me later in life that her favorite was, "Lowly worm washes his face and foot." (He always wore a sock and shoe on the end of his tail.)

New comment by drummojg in "Pointer Pointer"

drummojg — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 02:44:35 +0000

Not sure if the photoset is biased, or if drunk people really like pointing.

New comment by drummojg in "Cloud Appreciation Society"

drummojg — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:34:19 +0000

I second this.

New comment by drummojg in "Louis Rossmann calls community to leave Reddit"

drummojg — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 12:30:45 +0000

> All HTTP forums are pretty much just centralized recreations of various components of Usenet

The VAXbb clone I wrote in 1999 would beg to differ. :)

New comment by drummojg in "Turn ideas into music with MusicLM"

drummojg — Fri, 12 May 2023 19:27:14 +0000

I used "rollicking" in one description and it was exactly what it sounds like to your unconscious when you are far too drunk at a country bar

New comment by drummojg in "Internet in a Box"

drummojg — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:14:54 +0000

This comment is bang on.

New comment by drummojg in "New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible"

drummojg — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 13:42:39 +0000

Plenty guitarists are far better than Hendrix, but they didn't get there in a vacuum.