Hacker News: ecshafer

New comment by ecshafer in "Penguin 'Toxicologists' Find PFAS Chemicals in Remote Patagonia"

ecshafer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 17:24:36 +0000

My hypothesis is that PFAS and microplastics are responsible for the drop in female fertility, drop in male fertility, drop in testosterone levels, increase in obesity, etc. These chemicals are pervasive in the environment, causing disruptions to the endocrine system that regulates our body. This is why higher elevation areas seem to lag the trends, as they are not getting as much down stream accumulation in the environment. My sister hypothesis GLP-1s are a chemical that is undoing some of that disruption. If what you are doing works, it'll imo be a modern day Norman Borlaug.

New comment by ecshafer in "Will I ever own a zettaflop?"

ecshafer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:33:52 +0000

Soon every website will have an LLM entirely in JS that will create the React code for the rest of the website, build it, deploy it, then create the article on the fly from a prompt, and present it.

New comment by ecshafer in "France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech"

ecshafer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 14:20:44 +0000

The trick I have is that I add the game and all related windows exes to steam in the same file system. When you run a game on proton through steam, it makes this virtual file system thats matches a game appid, or a uuid. So youll get a folder somewhere thats like 12345566778. You can add that file to an override for a different application, and have it run on that application file system. So if you add a patcher, mod tool etc, you can use it just like its in windows.

For example: Add Diablo 2 exe to Steam. Run Diablo 2 in proton. This creates a folder like 123455 /home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/123455/. Then Add LOD to Steam, add this to the system launch STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/123455/ and you can run the installer on the older file data. Do the same for a mod patcher, etc.

New comment by ecshafer in "EFF is leaving X"

ecshafer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 02:38:04 +0000

Massie, a republican, and Rand Paul, another republican, are by far the most supportive of free speech politicans in congress.

New comment by ecshafer in "EFF is leaving X"

ecshafer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 02:28:11 +0000

The only congressman who would actually support the EFF in digital rights is Massie, a republican.

Reading their post they throw out every progressive buzz word for the omnicause, they are clearly aligning themselves with the progressive wing of the Democrats. The wing which is ironically some of the most anti-free speech in all of American politics.

New comment by ecshafer in "EFF is leaving X"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 23:45:40 +0000

EFF used to stand for a cause that was neither left nor right.

New comment by ecshafer in "EFF is leaving X"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 23:44:25 +0000

I miss when tech was mostly the former. Or many just the world when these niches could exist without political activists for the omnicause.

New comment by ecshafer in "The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:11:53 +0000

Read the next 4 words past that. Middle schooler refers to an age group as well.

New comment by ecshafer in "EFF is leaving X"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:05:49 +0000

One of their posts that they themselves link is supporting abortion. I am not sure how abortion connects with my right to not disclose information about myself or digital rights.

New comment by ecshafer in "The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:48:01 +0000

I am not talking about what American education covers nor the average American. But what people with an interest in History, who are reading history books, watching history documentaries, etc. would know. Avignon is not that deep.

New comment by ecshafer in "The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:46:37 +0000

I think you are missing the key qualifier with a passing interest in history. I absolutely knew of the avignon papacy in middle school.

New comment by ecshafer in "The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:15:05 +0000

Any middle schooler with a passing interest in history is aware of the Avignon papacy. Jumping to “AI” is a bit much.

New comment by ecshafer in "Session is shutting down in 90 days"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:41:01 +0000

There is some great irony that you can have a flashy app with good user growth, and get a chunk of cash from a vc firm. But if you want to get a loan from a Bank to open a restaurant you best have a business plan.

New comment by ecshafer in "Help Keep Thunderbird Alive"

ecshafer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:06:38 +0000

Mozilla and Wikipedia for example are causes I support. But why would I give money to them if they are going to turn around and give money to some cause I don't support (OR am actively against)? These non-profits love to shuffle money around to unrelated causes. As a non profit, supporting open source software, I think expecting a large percentage of the donation to go to engineering and not admin, social causes, etc. is a reasonable expectation.

New comment by ecshafer in "Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:29:31 +0000

The Free Civ and Free Colonization games are good. Brogue, Nethack, DCSS are good if you like roguelikes. OpenMW is a totally open source reimplementation of Morrowind, so that might fit the bill.

New comment by ecshafer in "Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:27:04 +0000

I am very surprised if he can't find a job, as an American, in DC, with 12 years of C++ experience. Sure companies aren't great at assessing open source experience, but there is one area its easy to find a job as a dev: work that requires a clearance.

New comment by ecshafer in "Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:42:15 +0000

The fact that software to show the bible needs a GPU is funny in some kind of dystopian way. That is the kind of software that should work in 50k of memory.

New comment by ecshafer in "Germany Doxes "UNKN," Head of RU Ransomware Gangs REvil, GandCrab"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:37:10 +0000

I find it entertaining that even as part of a Russian hacking gang, the real threat is the Russian tax authorities. Regardless of how you got the money, need to pay the taxes.

New comment by ecshafer in "In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 14:47:27 +0000

Pregnancy and birth is a miracle. And the death rate is extremely low in the developed world.

New comment by ecshafer in "Is Germany's gold safe in New York ?"

ecshafer — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 14:40:19 +0000

> There are immigrants that advocate for pulling up the ladder behind them and advocate for very racist policies.

If you listen to the immigrants supporting "pulling up the ladder", you wouldn't be making such bad faith attacks. Typically the arguments come from legal immigrants that took no benefits, attacking policies of mass immigration or illegal immigrants and giving social benefits to immigrants. This isn't pulling up the ladder, this is a fiscally conservative view that someone who pays taxes can hold and is a reasonable policy to have.