Hacker News: edent

New comment by edent in "Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election"

edent — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:41:27 +0000

But that doesn't bring down the PM personally.

The last VONC to pass was in 1979, and Callaghan continued to lead Labour (albeit to defeat) in the General Election.

New comment by edent in "Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election"

edent — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:27:21 +0000

The UK has no constitutional method to remove a PM.

The USA does have a constitutional method to remove a President.

Nevertheless, in living memory all Presidents have survived their impeachments. Whereas (with the exceptions of Major, Brown, and Sunak) all UK Primes Minister have been removed while in office.

It makes an interesting study in the effectiveness of a written and inflexible constitution.

New comment by edent in "Pixel Watch 5"

edent — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 21:22:12 +0000

I overheard a conversation between someone on the Pixel Watch team and a woman I know. He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?"

I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me?

I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics.

The same is probably true of watches. Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. The health stuff is useful - but only for a subset of users. Seeing the time is great - but if the battery lasts less than a week, who wants to keep that screen on?

Cognition Dissemination: No Retro Consoles from War Profiteers

edent — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 07:31:40 +0000

Article URL: https://www.dcgameblog.com/2026/08/cognition-dissemination-no-retro-consoles-from-war-profiteers/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229241

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by edent in "How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026"

edent — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:12:16 +0000

I literally was trying to equate the two.

New comment by edent in "How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026"

edent — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:03:52 +0000

[flagged]

New comment by edent in "Web Security is Too Hard"

edent — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 20:01:34 +0000

Because they point foo.example.com to AWS. They then let whatever the CNAME is pointing to lapse. Then an attacker registers the lapsed AWS and can now put their content on your trusted domain.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/threat-tactic-spotligh...

(AWS have since fixed this problem, but it exists on other services.)

New comment by edent in "Franken.domains: Stitched-Together Domains, Because Every .com Is Taken"

edent — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 19:19:50 +0000

The boring answer is that infrastructure costs money.

You either use taxes from everyone to pay for it or you take money from the people using the thing.

New comment by edent in "Why did I buy this domain?"

edent — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:32:43 +0000

I was looking for a poop bike.

New comment by edent in "Why did I buy this domain?"

edent — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:49:58 +0000

(This is not my domain.)

Why did I buy this domain?

edent — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:34:41 +0000

Article URL: https://poop.bike/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49046059

Points: 3

# Comments: 4

New comment by edent in "I'm a USB-C Maximalist"

edent — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 05:07:18 +0000

Because I can put it next to my bed at night and have it cool me. Not all of us travel with a punkah-wallah.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:13:09 +0000

What's banal to you is exotic to me.

I've seen tourists in London marvel at the most commonplace thing - and I think that's delightful.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:12:26 +0000

In the UK I've never seen a train open its doors directly to the tracks. We also have lots of warning not to cross the tracks except by bridge or tunnel.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:29:49 +0000

How do you handle seat reservation refunds? That was our most annoying experience with the Interrail app - a booking fee on top of the reservation, but little support when those trains were delayed or cancelled.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:24:11 +0000

Yes. The app makes it really easy to do that. In our last trip we did it a few times.

But, as you get older, there's a certain joy in making plans in advance.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:23:11 +0000

No, I just imagined the trip…

Yes, very much still a thing. We saw Interrail travellers of all ages. Lots of students going on a big adventure - but a decent number of more experienced travellers seeing the sights.

New comment by edent in "Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:19:52 +0000

The passes were about €500 each for first class. Each reservation was €3-€15. The overnight ferry was about €100 each.

New comment by edent in "Count Binface"

edent — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 07:37:58 +0000

There's no such thing as a "legal name" in the UK. For example, Boris Johnson's first name isnt actually Boris - that's just what he goes by.

New comment by edent in "Ghost Font: A font that humans can read but AI cannot"

edent — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 10:44:31 +0000

I had thought to use homographs. Sadly, all the models I tried were able to decode something like:

"ﾌㄖ乇ㄚ ᗪㄖ乇丂几'ㄒ丂卄卂尺乇千ㄖㄖᗪ"

However, I have noticed that voice assistants have a hard time understanding homonyms. Saying "bow" (as in to bow one's head) is often stored as "bow" (as in a bow and arrow). I wonder if there's a sufficiently complex sentence which is intelligible to humans but not to machines?