Hacker News: idw

New comment by idw in "Show HN: Bigwords.page – Turn any screen into a sign. The URL is the app"

idw — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:21:26 +0000

Really nicely done

New comment by idw in "'coarse – AI peer review, of course (MIT license)"

idw — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:28:12 +0000

I'd like to know how good people think this is from different disciplines

'coarse – AI peer review, of course (MIT license)

idw — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:27:39 +0000

Article URL: https://coarse.ink/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49574031

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (at least a little)

idw — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 22:53:26 +0000

Article URL: https://beeb6502.com/blog/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-at-least-like-the-bomb-a-bit/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49162462

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

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

idw — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:49:07 +0000

"The low waters of the [Danube] have resulted in several unexpected discoveries. ... And a resident of the northeastern Bulgarian city of Ruse found bones on the Danube river bed, which experts determined were the remains of a mammoth."

Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

idw — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:49:07 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0nqv05g0do

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49114048

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

New comment by idw in "Ask HN: Entrepreneurs, how long did it take you to succeed?"

idw — Thu, 28 May 2026 22:01:34 +0000

The saying goes: it takes ten years to become an overnight success.

As for the stick or twist question, if your only goal is to make money then twisting whenever it seems to make that more likely makes sense. Most people thrive on doing work they care about enough to stick with when it is hard, and my guess is that gets better results over time.

One bit of practical advice: celebrate the little successes on the way to whatever you may think a big success looks like. Wherever the journey ends up, it's important to enjoy it as much as possible.

They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."

idw — Thu, 14 May 2026 11:05:05 +0000

Article URL: https://nateglubish.substack.com/p/they-said-it-would-cost-54-million

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48133728

Points: 65

# Comments: 69

New comment by idw in "The Bureaucratic Escalator and how it operates"

idw — Sun, 03 May 2026 09:55:11 +0000

TL;DR: Bureaucracy in public institutions is not principally a management pathology. It is the cumulative result of a largely logical process. It is generated by policy and rendered permanent by asymmetric incentives. Nobody decides to create it; nobody is readily positioned to undo it.

The Bureaucratic Escalator and how it operates

idw — Sun, 03 May 2026 09:55:11 +0000

Article URL: https://profserious.substack.com/p/the-bureaucratic-escalator

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47995302

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by idw in "Ask HN: What breaks first when your team grows from 10 to 50 people?"

idw — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 12:53:18 +0000

Done this. Good question but I don't think it's the most helpful way of thinking about it.

Every new recruit brings their own assumptions about how organizations / employment / etc. work and many of those assumptions won't be visible until after a while. This is especially true for managers.

I found Charles Handy's thinking about four types of organisational culture very helpful and I wish I'd found it earlier in the process.

AI summary: Charles Handy identified four types of organizational cultures: Power Culture, where decision-making is centralized among a few; Role Culture, which is based on defined roles and responsibilities; Task Culture, focused on teamwork to achieve specific goals; and Person Culture, where individual interests take precedence over the organization.

Basically, 15>50 is very likely to involve a shift from one of these to another one and making that open and explicit could help you a lot (including understanding how the role of senior managers needs to change).

The book is Understanding Organisations from 1976 but still valuable.

Good luck!

New comment by idw in "Ask HN: What Linux Would Be a Good Transition from Windows 11"

idw — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 01:53:36 +0000

+1 on Mint, specifically with the Cinnamon desktop environment for people leaving Windows

New comment by idw in "Everything – Locate files and folders by name instantly"

idw — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 21:19:30 +0000

Saw this mentioned in a comment recently, I just downloaded, installed and used it to find a file while Windows Search was still saying 'Working on it...'. So I thought others might like to know.

Previously on HN a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41337268 and probably other times

Thank you, whoever you were!

Everything – Locate files and folders by name instantly

idw — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 21:19:30 +0000

Article URL: https://www.voidtools.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938615

Points: 148

# Comments: 58

New comment by idw in "Huntington's disease treated for first time"

idw — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:59:07 +0000

The Science Media Centre (UK) has a round up of expert reactions https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-announ...

Classic Psion fan releases proof-of-concept language server for OPL

idw — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 04:35:07 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/27/vintage_computing_boffin_resurrects_opl/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45048406

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by idw in "Chairs, Chairs, Chairs"

idw — Wed, 28 May 2025 09:38:15 +0000

The robing room chair of state

New comment by idw in "Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?"

idw — Mon, 26 May 2025 10:21:23 +0000

Simon Willison has helpful recent advice on this: Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code (11th March 2025) https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/11/us.ing-llms-for-code/

Everything Google Announced at I/O 2025

idw — Wed, 21 May 2025 14:12:44 +0000

Article URL: https://mashable.com/article/google-io-2025-everything-you-need-to-know

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44051662

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by idw in "The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder"

idw — Thu, 15 May 2025 11:12:06 +0000

Sometimes the BBC does make mistakes but this seems to fit their style guide:

"Treat collective nouns - companies, governments and other bodies - as singular. There are some exceptions: ... Sports teams - although they are singular in their role as business concerns (eg: Arsenal has declared an increase in profits) Rock/pop groups"

So treating a crew, like a team, as plural makes sense.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/grammar-spelling-punctu...

Both approaches are regularly used, so it is now more of a style choice, hence being in the style guide.

The Economist style guide says Brits are more likely to use plural and Americans singular but writers need to make a judgement in context: https://www.economist.com/johnson/2010/09/20/style-guide-ent...