Hacker News: herewulf

New comment by herewulf in "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to"

herewulf — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:57:39 +0000

The active maintainer(s) get paid for doing ongoing work, the same as any other job. That creates incentive to be the maintainer of a project. If the maintainer(s) isn't/aren't active, then there should be incentive for someone else to take over. Same as any other job.

New comment by herewulf in "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to"

herewulf — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:06:02 +0000

This kind of thing happens to apps regardless of whether they are closed source or FOSS.

If management of a closed source app in an app store changes in a way that you don't like, you have zero recourse.

If it happens to a FOSS app, then you could potentially use the source to install the app yourself or pay another supplier to do it for you.

Although given the reality of the low cost of mobile apps and small, niche user bases, your purchase probably amounts to something more like contributing to a tip jar anyway.

New comment by herewulf in "OpenAI Discloses Six New Incidents of ‘Concerning’ A.I. Behavior"

herewulf — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:41:54 +0000

Wasn't the conventional wisdom to never feed raw input into `eval`?

Oops.

New comment by herewulf in "Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination"

herewulf — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 04:05:33 +0000

I came here for a procrastination joke comment and didn't find it, but I suppose someone will get around to it eventually.

New comment by herewulf in "I accidentally logged hundreds of thousands of phone calls to military bases"

herewulf — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:19:59 +0000

"Native" is a stretch. It does not mean that they don't have a legitimate claim but the fact of the matter is that the islands were uninhabited prior to the Age of Sail.

New comment by herewulf in "I accidentally logged hundreds of thousands of phone calls to military bases"

herewulf — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:16:29 +0000

Thanks to the Internet, yes, yes they do. Or rather they can in quite short order and then can thoughtfully join a discussion on the topic.

New comment by herewulf in "There's no such thing as a small software team anymore"

herewulf — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 19:02:01 +0000

There's at least skill needed to recognize the BS in the answers.

I've been prompting a bit on a hobby project that sort of boils down to MechE. It's far from my domain of expertise but I've recognized enough BS and been sent down some rabbit holes all too frequently to discover the BS at the end.

New comment by herewulf in "Emacs 31.1 RC1 is available"

herewulf — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:32:47 +0000

    *** Grep results can be edited to reflect changes in the originating file.
    Like Occur Edit mode, typing 'e' in the "*grep*" buffer will now make the 'grep' results editable.  The edits will be reflected in buffers visiting the originating files.  Typing 'C-c C-c' will leave the Grep Edit mode.

Madness!

New comment by herewulf in "Why Target Common Lisp for Code Generation?"

herewulf — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 04:06:49 +0000

They use the software that is pre-installed on their computer.

New comment by herewulf in "Why Target Common Lisp for Code Generation?"

herewulf — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 03:50:07 +0000

Neither was he. Clearly pointing out that CL is also a language that can build real apps, not just academic exercises.

New comment by herewulf in "US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers"

herewulf — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 03:59:36 +0000

Root shell is the way to go. sudo is a crutch.

New comment by herewulf in "US hires over 2k video gamers as air traffic controllers"

herewulf — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 03:56:14 +0000

And discussion from 8 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154441

New comment by herewulf in "Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models"

herewulf — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 20:19:01 +0000

Maybe quote a less controversial fantasy novel next time?

New comment by herewulf in "Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models"

herewulf — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:27:41 +0000

Alright, not Open Source but Free Slopware. This time the meaning of "free" is quite clear.

New comment by herewulf in "Show HN: I'm a 15 Year Old Wannabe Engineer, This Is a Cycloidal Gearbox I Built"

herewulf — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 20:19:33 +0000

You learn much more by doing the actual grunt work. Some people enjoy learning for the sake of learning.

We can learn assembly even though compilers exist. We can learn OpenGL even though 3D engines exist. We can learn to write a relational database even though SQLite/MariaDB/Postgres exist. Et cetera.

You can also play games for which you have all the cheat codes and simply choose to not use them.

New comment by herewulf in "Show HN: I'm a 15 Year Old Wannabe Engineer, This Is a Cycloidal Gearbox I Built"

herewulf — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 20:03:12 +0000

"Degrees are expensive, just make stuff."

From the channel description. I love it!

New comment by herewulf in "Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant"

herewulf — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 18:18:57 +0000

Interesting but people die (or are severely injured) in all kinds of industrial accidents all the time. Unfortunately, with or without regulation it comes with the territory of a modern industrial society.

New comment by herewulf in "PowerFox Browser"

herewulf — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:06:11 +0000

I recently got an iMac from the same era up and running. First as a FOSS gaming machine for my kids, then as a gift for a friend who was lacking computing options. The secret (as you probably know) for installing a lot of FOSS software is MacPorts not Homebrew.

I thought my Firefox LTS was updating fine, but I could be wrong. I could certainly browse with it.

New comment by herewulf in "CBC to stop airing NHL games after 74 years, end of free hockey on Canadian TV"

herewulf — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:35:16 +0000

If a hockey stick costs 1000% to 1200% what it used to, then that's definitely going to affect pick-up games. Particularly with how often these things break (I don't know how junior league teams afford it). Statistic per the video. Also per the video, the cost of sports equipment in general has decreased by 25% over the same time period.

I don't blame you if you didn't watch a 20+ minute video straight through and missed some of the details.

The cost of watching hockey may not increase, but the percentage of Canadian players in the once Canadian dominated NHL will probably continue to decline (if that's important to anyone watching). However, it probably means worse Olympic performances in the long run with a smaller pool of top tier Canadian players.

New comment by herewulf in "CBC to stop airing NHL games after 74 years, end of free hockey on Canadian TV"

herewulf — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 03:27:10 +0000

Unfortunately, hockey in Canada is on the decline. I recently watched a good video covering the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oca_4WD69SQ

I can't imagine that the end of Hockey Night is going to help.