<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: gramie</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gramie</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 25 May 2026 00:46:00 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=gramie" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When I was a volunteer in Africa, my school's English teacher was furious because none of the students in his class had done the homework. His solution: to bring them into the staff room one by one, have them hold their hands in a "chef's kiss", fingertips pointing up. He then whacked their fingertips ten times with a short wooden rod (laughing as he delivered the final blow, "and one for Caesar!).<p>These were tough, hardworking teenagers, but very few of them were not in tears when they stumbled out of the room.<p>The next day we found out that he had forgotten to assign the homework.<p>So why should corporal punishment <i>ever</i> be considered appropriate?<p>(I'm not arguing with you, but agreeing with you.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 03:38:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058232</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058232</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058232</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I would suspect that the vast majority of bullying ends when the victim is able to escape from the bully -- by changing schools, etc.<p>We hear about victims snapping and beating up their bullies because that makes a good story. How about victims who snap but then are beaten up (because the bullies are often bigger and more used to violence) even more? Probably much more common.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 03:31:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058195</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058195</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058195</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> such cases were easily resolved<p>Hah!<p>In any case, it is a curious argument that, in order to show that stronger people should not hurt weaker people, you think it's okay for stronger people to hurt weaker people.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 03:28:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058166</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058166</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058166</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "A statement about why RightsCon 2026 will not take place in Zambia"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You are correct (source: I was a volunteer in Lesotho many moons ago).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 03:23:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47983007</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47983007</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47983007</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you enjoy The X-Files, you really should check out Millennium, by the same creator (Chris Carter) and broadcast at roughly the same time.<p>It's very intense, with an Emmy-deserving performance by star Lance Henriksen (whom you may remember from the movie Aliens). It mixes Christian theology and eschatology, mythology, horror, and serial killers, leavened with delightful humour.<p>The first season is mostly "serial killer of the week", but is important to establish the characters and long-running story arcs.<p>The second season is a delight, with some of the best writing of any TV show I know, and a lot of complex situations with no easy answers.<p>The third season changed (and cheapened) everything, and is only worth watching for completists.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 03:21:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47982997</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47982997</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47982997</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Show HN: Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I would bet that you can find used calculus textbooks quite easily.<p>I did chemical engineering long ago (how long? Computerized process control was just being introduced into the curriculum, and we learned to program in Fortran). I did several calculus courses, but it was always just a matter of memorizing techniques.<p>Much later, I came across Calculus Made Easy on Project Gutenberg, a textbook from 1914 that actually helped me to understand <i>why</i> calculus works, instead of just treating it like magic.<p><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:05:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47913682</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47913682</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47913682</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Archive of BYTE magazine, starting with issue #1 in 1975"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Compute! was very much aimed more at the home market that Byte (which appealed more to IT professionals). At the time, though, Compute! and Compute's Gazette (for Commodore computers) were great for me.<p>The most amazing magazine of all, though, was The Transactor. Exclusively Commodore, and for programmers. Very few ads, too. Their "Inner Space Anthology" was an incredible resource for everything technical. Memory maps, ROM listings, and much, much more.<p><a href="https://csbruce.com/cbm/transactor" rel="nofollow">https://csbruce.com/cbm/transactor</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:59:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825720</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825720</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825720</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Archive of BYTE magazine, starting with issue #1 in 1975"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I was in Lesotho, a small country completely surrounded by South Africa (when the White farmers were expanding and taking all the Africans' farmland, they left Lesotho because it was all mountains, but with no minerals).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:50:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825630</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825630</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825630</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Archive of BYTE magazine, starting with issue #1 in 1975"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>From 1988-91, I was a volunteer teacher in Africa. I lived in a hut without running water or electricity, and I had a subscription to Byte.<p>There was also almost nothing to read, so when my monthly issue of Byte appeared (2-3 months later than most people would receive it), I devoured that thing. I would read it literally cover to cover, including all those ads, several times.<p>I wasn't (then) working in IT, so a lot of the content (like Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar) went way over my head but it didn't matter, I read it anyway, often by the light of my kerosene lantern. I learned a huge amount: object-oriented programming, this new thing called the Internet (capitalized back then, and before the WWW), and how Jerry Pournelle was a self-important jerk (but boy, did I envy the toys he got to play with!).<p>This was the age of big, fold-out Gateway 2000 ads, 20MB hard drives, and Turbo Pascal kicking other compilers' butts.<p>I would read the magazine, then write out programs (in BASIC, the only language I had learned at that point). On my monthly trips to the capital city I would go to a local NGO and in exchange for helping with their IT issues they would let me play (i.e type out my programs and try to get them working) on their computers.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:35:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47823550</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47823550</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47823550</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Every plane you see in the sky – you can now follow it from the cockpit in 3D"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you click on a city's name, you can see a list of all flights arriving and departing. Some of the arriving ones will be in flight, and you can click on the flight number to view it, then "Cockpit" view to see (roughly) what the pilots are seeing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 11 Apr 2026 19:27:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47733291</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47733291</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47733291</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Tesla reportedly developing new smaller, cheaper EV after killing Model 2"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That sounds wonderful. Our experience with an Ioniq 6 has been less spectacular. First of all, in winter the range drops from 520km to about 350km, and charging takes about 50% longer.<p>Then when we took a long trip we only found one or two charging stations faster than 10kW every 300km. Many of the chargers were not functioning, some were on private property (e.g. car dealerships) and closed on Sundays, and none of them were rated at more than 100kW (and typically charging at about 70kW). The ones that were 100kW often had one or more cars waiting for them, so our 90-minute charge could have taken double that.<p>The only exception was a Tesla supercharger station, but my wife refuses to support Elon Musk in any way, so that was out.<p>This is in Southern Ontario, outside the Greater Toronto Area.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 01:38:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47712557</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47712557</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47712557</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "A Few Good Magazines From the 70s and 80s"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There was a Toronto Commodore magazine called The Transactor that was my absolute favourite. It covered everything from the CBM 4032 and 8032 through the various Amigas. The magazine was very much programmer oriented, from assembly to BASIC and C.<p>It also published the Commodore Inner Space Anthology, containing full memory maps, ASCII tables, BASIC reference, and much, much more.<p><a href="https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-gallery/the-transactor-magazine/" rel="nofollow">https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-gallery/the-transactor-ma...</a><p>Earlier on, when I was first using our VIC-20 and C64, I learned a great deal from Compute and Compute's Gazette.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:04:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Artemis II is not safe to fly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Lots of people have bad feelings about things. If it all turns out okay, they generally forget about the premonitions. If it goes bad, then they believe that their gut instinct is reliably correct.<p>When I was small, I used to have bad feelings about my parents getting in a car accident every time they went out. It never happened, and they lived into their 90s.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:48:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Show HN: Learn Arabic with spaced repetition and comprehensible input"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For a different method of learning Arabic (or several other languages), check out <a href="https://www.languagetransfer.org" rel="nofollow">https://www.languagetransfer.org</a>. It teaches Egyptian Arabic, explaining that the entire region knows this dialect because Egypt is the TV and movie hub of the Arabic world.<p>It's all audio (MP3s or streaming) and completely free, and (IMHO) the best language learning system out there. I have used it to learn Spanish, my sixth language and can't recommend it highly enough.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:53:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The annual consumption of ice cream in Japan was 6.7 litres per person in 2021 (compared to 10 litres/person in Canada and 20 litres/person in the U.S.). For all dairy, Japanese people each ate 94 kg in 2022.<p>They eat less dairy, but hardly none. I have heard people say that a scoop of ice cream or a glass of milk each day is not a problem, but more can be. Intolerance also seems to increase with age, so younger people can consume more dairy.<p>A 1975 study in Japan puts intolerance (unable to drink 200ml of milk comfortably) at 19% of the population. I would suspect that massive exposure over the past 50 years has lowered that percentage significantly.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:38:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> doesn't have that problem by construction<p>Well no, but it does have other significant construction problems! <a href="https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/japans-20b-kansai-airport-in-osaka-sinking-at-an-alarming-rate-experts" rel="nofollow">https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/japans-20b-kansai-airport...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:01:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "France's homegrown open source online office suite"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't believe that there is a single case in world history where increased family income did NOT reduce the number of children per family. Likewise with improvements in child mortality.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:58:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are you saying that something about this product is suspect? But it has "Beautiful Craftsamnship"!<p><a href="https://img-va.myshopline.com/image/store/1731468034215/1dd40a2b58c4355aff91c01535b48f41.png" rel="nofollow">https://img-va.myshopline.com/image/store/1731468034215/1dd4...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:03:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What fraction of Americans are <i>capable</i> of reading a book (i.e. not functionally illiterate)?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:25:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We learned to use them in high school (in Canada) in the mid-late '70s. Electronic calculators were just becoming widespread, and not everyone had them.<p>I think I can do basic calculations with them, although I really haven't touched one in many years.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</guid></item></channel></rss>