Hacker News: havblue

New comment by havblue in "Apple Just Lost Me"

havblue — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:41:27 +0000

Point taken that Apple hardware isn't ideal anymore, but of course the problem is neither is Windows or Chrome OS. I can switch myself over to Linux now easily enough, but what about the rest of the family? Kids need their tablets with their shows downloaded, so good luck doing that without a chrome tablet or an iPad.

New comment by havblue in "Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting"

havblue — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Is scarcity part of it? Making sure there are some jobs people have to do that don't involve combat but still drive the in-game economy?

New comment by havblue in "Shatner is making an album with 35 metal icons"

havblue — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 15:03:17 +0000

You wouldn't think someone just orating without singing is entertaining, but it worked. I'm sure Ben Folds did a lot of the heavy lifting to make it great though.

While most people cite Common People as their favorite song on the album, I also like "You'll Have Time" as one of the more philosophically important songs that I've ever heard.

New comment by havblue in "Eddie Bauer declares bankruptcy"

havblue — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:23:11 +0000

I remember back in high school, everyone would have an Eddie Bauer backpack except the random person with a Jansport. People would always insist on how you had to take advantage of the quality guarantee:

"You have a bent zipper and a small tear after lugging your books for years? Great! Take it to the store and argue with them that it's defective until they give you a new backpack!"

New comment by havblue in "The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein"

havblue — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:13:33 +0000

I was under the impression that Epstein was powerful because he was corrupt, not the other way around.

New comment by havblue in "Building Your Own Efficient uint128 in C++"

havblue — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:57:52 +0000

Your teacher being picky about the project you picked sounds a bit ridiculous. It sounds like she was attempting to force you to work on something you weren't interested in when you could have taught yourself better by choosing your own project.

I think in the 90s a lot of schools didn't have a large pool of qualified teachers for cs classes. In my experience, "programming" from the high school level involved finding a teacher who was available, maybe the person who was responsible for the computer lab, and telling him to crack a book.

New comment by havblue in "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"

havblue — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:44:18 +0000

You can see that while Windows 10 numbers are going down over the past few months, the Windows 11 numbers aren't making up for it. About 2/3 of that gap are going to Linux with the other third going to Mac. So Mac is getting more market at the expense of Windows as well. There are a significant number of disgruntled Windows users leaving over the past year.

New comment by havblue in "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"

havblue — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 17:26:35 +0000

I know we keep hearing about how their share holders are forcing this change of focus in order to monetize ai. I just fail to see how alienating developers and the gaming community in the process will ever help achieve that.

New comment by havblue in "Mammals have evolved into ant eaters 12 times since the dinosaur age – study (2025)"

havblue — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 20:58:54 +0000

Source: YouTube https://share.google/XA0msyff8lybu47FK

"Expert Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters" -The Onion

New comment by havblue in "Why have death rates from accidental falls tripled?"

havblue — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:08:23 +0000

Like anything it depends. I'm terrified at the idea that my mother in law or my mom would slip on my stairs at home. We used to have carpeted basement stairs and I slipped on them several times. They're wood with silicone traction pads now and far safer.

New comment by havblue in "Indifference is a power (2015)"

havblue — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:03:05 +0000

While it isn't expressly stoic, I'm liking the gray rock tactic more and more as I age. You can just not fight the people who are rude to you and not engage with ideas that frustrate you. When you reduce your personal connections to what you have direct control over and your actual responsibility, the need to argue with most people is very low.

New comment by havblue in "Why have death rates from accidental falls tripled?"

havblue — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:59:59 +0000

Aside from alcohol and obesity, I don't see: 1. Cancer survivability. If people aren't dying from cancer they will be more likely to die from a fall in a weakened state. 2. Two level homes are a higher percentage of new construction and people are more able to afford it when they're older.

Edit: okay they did mention fewer deaths from other causes such as cancer and heart disease.

New comment by havblue in "Dell admits consumers don't care about AI PCs"

havblue — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:25:06 +0000

I think the moral of the story is just don't buy any electronics until you absolutely have to now: your laptop, your desktop, your car, your phone, your tv's. Go third party for maintenance when you can. Install Linux when you can. Only buy things that can be maintained and enjoy what you have.

New comment by havblue in "The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora"

havblue — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:19:40 +0000

There is a lot of YouTube content that is basically people playing with toys like Paw Patrol and having them interact in doll houses. I'm not a fan of this for my kids, and there will be a ton more of it. And yes, there will be political slop as well.

On the other hand there was a video about what happened to Mickey and Goofy in Vietnam... I'm probably okay with an updated version of that.

New comment by havblue in "Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros"

havblue — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:46:28 +0000

If we start with admitting some level of consolidation is inevitable, I don't see much of an alternative to what is happening. I would think a merger with another similar studio could be similar to KMart merging with Sears, two companies with the same downsides. While Netflix will be the biggest game in town for streaming, that landscape will still have plenty of competition if you compare it to say, telecom providers or ISPs.

New comment by havblue in "Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros"

havblue — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:15:35 +0000

Long Story Short was pretty good and less stressful than Bojack.

New comment by havblue in "After Windows Update, Password icon invisible, click where it used to be"

havblue — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:59:37 +0000

We used to say this about Star Trek movies as well before determining that they're mostly bad. I've moved on from Trek and I'm fine with moving on from Windows.

New comment by havblue in "Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy"

havblue — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:08:17 +0000

While it's possible this is true, I would have preferred that the article make its own case on why Thiel is crazy and not just cite the Guardian. The article is written for someone who already agrees with the title.

New comment by havblue in "Bring bathroom doors back to hotels"

havblue — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:36:01 +0000

It seems like the target hotel customer for fancy hotels is an Instagram model or a Kardashian. I get having a sliding door to the bathroom or translucent walls on the shower is annoying but the status symbols in hotels are not designed for your average hacker News poster. They're trying to make a small room in an older building look like a bigger room to justify the price.

New comment by havblue in "Space Truckin' – The Nostromo (2012)"

havblue — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:13:30 +0000

While I agree that you can just mentally split the continuity and thus spare Newt from her fate, in doing so it means that the continuity after is meaningless. I did something similar with Star Trek Nemesis. It wasn't a great movie so I just rejected that Data died at the end. Everything else after is fan fiction and it's irrelevant whether there's some other android who carries his memories and returns.

I think there's a similar issue with Marvel after Thanos. Not as much that Endgame was a bad movie, just that the continuity was derailed and never grounded itself. Did Vision come back? Did Loki? Is the Fox Quicksilver canon now? Eh, who knows, the "real" state of the world has moved so much that it doesn't matter anyway.