Hacker News: gib444

New comment by gib444 in "A brief history of instant coffee"

gib444 — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:43:49 +0000

I'm in the UK but I have a kettle that lets you pick the temperature. I usually just use 50C (122F) for instant if I'm having it black, or 70C (158F) for a splash of milk. Boiling water would make an already miserable experience far more miserable.

New comment by gib444 in "A brief history of instant coffee"

gib444 — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:40:07 +0000

> which is why spray drying remains the dominant method

I don't think I've ever seen spray-dried. Even the cheap supermarket instant coffee is mostly freeze-dried in the UK I believe.

You can really see the power of marketing at play in instant coffee.

A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans.

If you have more money than sense, there's even "Nescafe Gold Blend Cap Colombia" at £62/kg

I do drink instant, but I stick to supermarket own-brand 'gold' that is around £13-18/kg (freeze dried). You just accept it'll be bad, and always drink with sugar and milk.

I find the basic Nescafe has a distinct taste and not in a good way. I think a lot of people buy it for nostalgic reasons and not much else (well, excluding the brain-dead brand addicts)

New comment by gib444 in "A brief history of instant coffee"

gib444 — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:07:34 +0000

3000 glorious watts

New comment by gib444 in "The underrated benefits of always having oatmeal at lunch"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:31:04 +0000

> There is basically no downsides to eating too much protein

A more nuanced opinion from the Harvard Medical School:

"Can too much protein be harmful?

The short answer is yes. As with most things in life, there can be too much of a good thing and if you eat too much protein, there may be a price to pay. For example, people that eat very high protein diets have a higher risk of kidney stones. Also a high protein diet that contains lots of red meat and higher amounts of saturated fat might lead to a higher risk of heart disease and colon cancer, while another high protein diet rich in plant-based proteins may not carry similar risks." [0]

[0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-nutrition/when-it-co...

New comment by gib444 in "The underrated benefits of always having oatmeal at lunch"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:13:07 +0000

Quinoa base can be good too. With a bit of cinnamon/maple syrup/vanilla etc to take the edge off the bitterness (on top of rinsing well).

New comment by gib444 in "My Google Workspace account suspension"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:03:12 +0000

> Avoid places that only offer the "Login with Foo" if at all possible (looking at you Tailscale).

Tailscale is the only serious company that I can ever recall offering /only/ third party login. It's bit bizarre on the face of it. Anyone know the reason?

New comment by gib444 in "Microsoft terms say Copilot is for entertainment purposes only, not serious use"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:00:48 +0000

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587866 (200 comments, 5 days ago)

New comment by gib444 in "Someone at BrowserStack is leaking users' email addresses"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 15:19:51 +0000

6. BrowserStack contests the fine for a couple of years, not paying a euro cent

7. People just remember 'BrowserStack got hit by a massive fine'

8. Everyone carries on with business as usual

New comment by gib444 in "What life looks like on the most remote inhabited island"

gib444 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:06:35 +0000

Bit like introducing crack and commenting how great it is nobody is sat at home sober and bored

New comment by gib444 in "What life looks like on the most remote inhabited island"

gib444 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 19:31:18 +0000

> The Albatross bar, the island’s only pub, once a lively social hub, is noticeably quieter these days. Many locals now spend their evenings at home scrolling, video chatting, or watching Netflix

That's sad

New comment by gib444 in "Are tech companies even hiring?"

gib444 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:43:40 +0000

That's fantastic, especially in light of the death of IR35 contracting

New comment by gib444 in "12k AI-generated blog posts added in a single commit"

gib444 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:41:39 +0000

"Showing 1 - 25 of 45488 posts"

I miss the days when we could assume that's just a pagination code bug

New comment by gib444 in "Are tech companies even hiring?"

gib444 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 05:00:25 +0000

Woah the £100k glass (class) ceiling was broken in the east midlands? Does it involve commuting to London?

New comment by gib444 in "Solar and batteries can power the world"

gib444 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:29:36 +0000

And then you need proper ventilation systems once you "fix" insulation

New comment by gib444 in "LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:42:27 +0000

Micrôsoft does indeed have a lofty and sturdy moral high ground from which to denounce scrapers and breaches of intellectual property rights and website TOS violations, having never invested in OpenAI.

New comment by gib444 in "Tailscale's new macOS home"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:13:56 +0000

Yes! More windowed interfaces! I hate apps that outgrow a modal. I hate losing the context. No wait I think I hate all modals.

Mullvad, your turn next please

New comment by gib444 in "Reinventing the pull request"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:12:18 +0000

What does the full story look like in your preferred approach? Regarding releasing for example

New comment by gib444 in "LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:49:11 +0000

All apps can do that right

New comment by gib444 in "DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:07:55 +0000

You can surely trust the wolf in their brick house knowledge

New comment by gib444 in "The Windows equivalents of the most used Linux commands"

gib444 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:03:27 +0000

Same! Closely followed by 'cat' lol. 'type' just doesn't register in my brain