Hacker News: herodoturtle

New comment by herodoturtle in "447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane"

herodoturtle — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 05:21:41 +0000

In long term archival use cases this is less of an issue. Especially if it’s many exabytes we’re talking about, needing to be stored for decades.

But I 100% agree with your main point about possibility vs productionisation.

New comment by herodoturtle in "Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead"

herodoturtle — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:09:43 +0000

Indeed it is forced savings but with the benefit of covering your funeral expenditure if it is required suddenly and unexpectedly.

For context, it might cost you $5 per month, and give you funeral cover of $500.

As OP mentioned it is very common in South Africa, likely owed to the unpredictable life expectancy. All the large insurers offer it, it’s a massive market.

New comment by herodoturtle in "Artemis II will use laser beams to live-stream 4K moon footage at 260 Mbps"

herodoturtle — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:40:47 +0000

I’ve read elsewhere that the cut-away during booster separation was intentional given the high risk manoeuvre.

If something went wrong / explosion etc, then they wouldn’t want to broadcast it.

Something to that effect. I’m paraphrasing someone else.

New comment by herodoturtle in "Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March"

herodoturtle — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:46:27 +0000

I heard this in a Justin timberlake as Napster guy voice

New comment by herodoturtle in "Chess in SQL"

herodoturtle — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:52:30 +0000

This is such a cool way to build brand awareness - kudos to the author.

I'd never heard of dbpro.app until now - and this article is just so awesome.

Nice job!

New comment by herodoturtle in "LG's new 1Hz display is the secret behind a new laptop's battery life"

herodoturtle — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 11:43:59 +0000

Hacker news attracts all sorts of curious people, including luddites like myself! ^_^

New comment by herodoturtle in "LG's new 1Hz display is the secret behind a new laptop's battery life"

herodoturtle — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 05:44:41 +0000

Tried to open this page on my mobile, good grief the changing advert spam overload kills the reading experience.

New comment by herodoturtle in "A Eulogy for Vim"

herodoturtle — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:40:22 +0000

> And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate the jobs of the poor and replace them with a robot that lies.

That sentence jumped out at me.

New comment by herodoturtle in "Ask HN: What would it take to provide free AI to the underprivileged?"

herodoturtle — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:13:08 +0000

This is great advice we will look into this thank you

Ask HN: What would it take to provide free AI to the underprivileged?

herodoturtle — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:21:31 +0000

Hi folks,

Seeing headlines recently of Altman's vision for users purchasing access to AI as a utility (the same way we pay for electricity).

Whilst I can appreciate the convenience of this, I'm not sure it would be a practical / affordable option in may parts of the world (in my case I'm specifically thinking of the African context, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere too).

What would it take to host and provide access to an "open source" AI for the benefit of the underprivileged?

I'm specifically wondering about the technical possibilities (open source LLMs?), and back-of-the-envelope calculations for hosting and computation.

There is going to be a real need for this in my part of the world, and myself and some others are working with a government think tank to help fund and ultimately drive this.

Thanks.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47499498

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

Hong Kong: New rule forces people to surrender passwords

herodoturtle — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:06:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.dw.com/en/hong-kong-new-rule-forces-people-to-surrender-passwords/a-76482612

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47490555

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by herodoturtle in "Leviathan (1651)"

herodoturtle — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:26:35 +0000

Found your comment mightily insightful, so may as well ask:

Can you recommend a handful of similar “historical” works that you’d consider a must-read (or simply just darn interesting).

Thanks!

New comment by herodoturtle in "An old photo of a large BBS (2022)"

herodoturtle — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 10:12:18 +0000

> That's when I learned about phone phreaking.

“And never again have to pay for a service that would be dirt cheap, if it weren’t run by a bunch of profiteering gluttons!”

- Razor & Blade

New comment by herodoturtle in "The changing goalposts of AGI and timelines"

herodoturtle — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:08:16 +0000

Agree with your overall point. Curious what you’re basing the “not in the next 30 years” claim on, if you’d care to expand.

New comment by herodoturtle in "PC processors entered the Gigahertz era today in the year 2000 with AMD's Athlon"

herodoturtle — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 17:02:17 +0000

I remember upgrading my 486 DX2 66Mhz to a DX4 100Mhz and all of a sudden being able to run winamp and Quake. That felt pretty epic at the time.

New comment by herodoturtle in "AI Made Writing Code Easier. It Made Being an Engineer Harder"

herodoturtle — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 19:18:08 +0000

Lots of comments here critiquing the article for allegedly being written by AI.

I see the post is even flagged now.

Irrespective of who wrote it or how it was written, the essay is packed with wisdom.

I’ve been programming for 30+ years and leading teams for the last 20 - and I found the essay deeply insightful.

I realise I’m a sample size of 1, but just figured I’d comment here to advocate against this post being flagged. Surprised that it is.

New comment by herodoturtle in "Ask HN: Can we use AI to make a Hackers (1995) sequel starring the same cast?"

herodoturtle — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:06:10 +0000

Random plot idea:

Imagine the year is 2035.

Crash & Burn had a kid, and that kid is now a young adult.

An agentic ClosedAI has granted itself chmod 666 on the interwebs, and is wreaking havoc on a global scale.

Hackers of the world must unite once again to overcome evil.

Ask HN: Can we use AI to make a Hackers (1995) sequel starring the same cast?

herodoturtle — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 20:38:30 +0000

Need good ideas for plot...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078918

Points: 2

# Comments: 3

Ask HN: Hackers sequel, same cast, 30 years later

herodoturtle — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:49:37 +0000

I suspect the odds are low of an official sequel being produced.

But with this latest wave of jaw-dropping AI video gen, I imagine it’s possible to make a sequel to Hackers, featuring the same cast 30 years on.

Plot ideas anyone?

Hack the planet <3

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47050497

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by herodoturtle in "An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened"

herodoturtle — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 16:11:54 +0000

Certainly not the only old fart ‘round these parts.

Your comment reminded me of Dr Dobbs Journal for some reason.