<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: jamesbelchamber</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jamesbelchamber</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 06 May 2026 22:52:32 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=jamesbelchamber" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "The Document Foundation ejects its core developers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is yet another negative article with LiberOffice/TDF at the centre of it (this time with Collabora freely dragging themselves into the muck). This after attacks on OnlyOffice and OpenOffice for, from a relatively external perspective, "existing as competition".<p>I appreciate that for those "in the trenches" this may be a rallying cry or a shot across the bow, but for the rest of us it is indicating that we keep the whole thing - LibreOffice and Collabora - at arms length. Which is a shame because I've recommended both to people in the past, as well as happily using both at various points myself.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:09:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603621</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603621</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603621</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The tech community has had pretty much free reign over the last few decades, and has always chosen adult convenience over child safety (and mostly profit over both). The "middle ground" probably involves a bigger transfer than this.<p>There's probably a much better solution than "adults vs children" but very few with our expertise seem seriously interested in solving for safer children, which essentially leads to inexpert solutions gaining popular support.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:54:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47534238</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47534238</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47534238</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Could Project Managers start talking to me like the suggestion in Scenario 1 too please, that's clearly better.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 09:00:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285880</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285880</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285880</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It should be acknowledged that this was at least significantly about lobbying, and shouldn't be considered a cut-and-dry "failed experiment" (though clearly there are lessons that can be learned):<p>> [Munich Mayor] Reiter wanted Microsoft to move its Microsoft Germany corporate headquarters to to Munich. Microsoft moved and Reiter wants to deliver on his promise to make Munich a Windows-powered city.<p><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-munich-should-stick-with-linux/" rel="nofollow">https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-munich-should-stick-with-l...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:50:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150310</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150310</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150310</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Pebble Production: February Update"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I used to use Curve but they became really unreliable, especially when paying for public transport, so I just switched back to a normal card.<p>Shame because you can get some nice watch straps with curve integration, which would neatly solve the missing payment feature on Pebble watches.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:58:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076786</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076786</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076786</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "How often do full-body MRIs find cancer?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It does, doesn't it! This is basically the reason scepticism in screening has risen (amongst scientists and medics, not the general population) - research seems to show that screening catches much more cancer but doesn't save many more people.<p>Rohin Francis does a good video on it, which you don't have to watch because it has references underneath you can click straight through to (the video is good though): <a href="https://youtu.be/yNzQ_sLGIuA" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/yNzQ_sLGIuA</a><p>I am frustrated by this because it seems obvious to me that "more data == better" but I guess it makes sense if you think of the scans as having high amounts of noise, and us having a poor understanding of the system we're monitoring (this never happens in tech, of course :)).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Feb 2026 23:05:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019314</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019314</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019314</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "How often do full-body MRIs find cancer?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One important point is that many people die WITH cancer but not OF cancer. So even for the 1.8%, only a fraction of those people were going to die of the disease (or even suffer significant symptoms) - the rest were just going to die of natural causes anyway.<p>But now you've found it you pretty much have to remove it, which has significant quality of life implications.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Feb 2026 22:36:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019110</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019110</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019110</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is incredibly cool tech built on an idea of participatory, consensus-building democracy that I want to believe is possible and sustainable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2026 20:48:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994935</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994935</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994935</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Basic Income and UBI are colloquially synonyms, people use them interchangeably, and the Irish government are almost certainly using it to endear themselves to supporters of UBI and to get more coverage for their policy than media would give them if they just called it a grant.<p>This happens all the time. For example, in the UK there was a push for a "living wage" in the 2010s, which the government responded to by rebranding the minimum wage the "National Living Wage" and bumping it a little for over-25s.<p>This seems to be the same thing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:49:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979074</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979074</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46979074</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If they think this is good/important then fine but what they've created is a grant programme, not a UBI.<p>Personally I would have thought this money would have been better spent getting people on the margins the stability to retrain into in-demand skilled careers (e.g. single, unskilled parents training as electricians or plumbers). That feels like it would be a more durable, multi-generational benefit.<p>But again, this is just a grant programme.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:03:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978453</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978453</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978453</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Marxists don't like Basic Income and it's incompatible with Marxist ideology.<p>"Marxism" has just become thought-terminating shorthand for "thing I don't like".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:46:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978191</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978191</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978191</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>OpenStack was created by NASA and Rackspace, both very American..</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:18:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839126</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839126</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839126</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The whole post is a gish gallop of half truths and nonsense.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:11:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839057</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839057</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839057</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Two days of oatmeal reduce cholesterol level"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>By the powerful oat lobby?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:32:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822750</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822750</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822750</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The wanker licensing board defected to Reform last week</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:53:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762938</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762938</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762938</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "FOSS "just fork it" delusion"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think the wisdom of "just fork it" is that in a project the power lies with the people who do the work (yes, that power is often rented out in exchange for a pay cheque), and in an open source project you have the right to do that work without kowtowing to the authority of other people who did the work before you ("just fork it").<p>The important point lost in many of these anti-fork posts is that forks usually aren't hostile, and "just fork it" isn't usually a dismissal of people's input - rather, it's an invitation to do the work and to stop looking for permission. Which is really the core value of open source - no need for permission, "just do it". Forks also don't generally split communities because forks live within the community (and good community leaders foster the tolerance of forks).<p>As an example, I have a fork going of someone else's open source project which I made to meet my client's needs. I've got an email thread going with the project owner, it's all very friendly, and one day the fork might merge back in again (probably in parts). I think this is how most forks work, with the exceptions making big headlines partly because they're juicy gossip but mostly because they are exactly that - exceptions.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 14:06:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46743658</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46743658</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46743658</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Updates to our web search products and  Programmable Search Engine capabilities"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are competing search indexes (Bing, Ecosia/Qwant, etc) objectively worse in significant ways, or is Google just so entrenched that people don't want to "risk it" with another provider (and/or preferences and/or inertia).<p>I suppose I'm asking whether this is actually a _good thing_ in that it will stimulate competition in the space, or if it's just a case that Google's index is now too good for anyone to reasonably catch up at this point.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 23 Jan 2026 10:22:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730745</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730745</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730745</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Everyone's a Gangster, Till You Get Bundled in G-Suite"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You might be thinking of the second "Hangouts", whereas what I'm referring to was apparently "Google+ Hangouts" and was the original. You could get 25 people on there, and for a bigger audience you could go "on Air" (which streamed the Hangout). Looks very similar to Zoom (in fact I suspect Zoom was heavily inspired by it) and I remember using it (and it's descents) before COVID and the rise of Zoom.<p>This video demonstrates an early version of it (from 2011!): <a href="https://youtu.be/KLf9jzFvkTA" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/KLf9jzFvkTA</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:56:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696955</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696955</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696955</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Everyone's a Gangster, Till You Get Bundled in G-Suite"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> At one point Zoom was the only one that could figure out how to video conference well.<p>I may be misremembering but wasn't it _Google_ who worked it out first (Hangouts was free and easy to use) and then fumbled it so badly that Zoom entered much later with a sorta-okay alternative at just the right point in time?<p>I truly don't understand how Google keep breaking good products but I remember Hangouts being kind-of amazing for a moment there.<p>(This is tangential and I don't think it undermines the article)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:27:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696608</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696608</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696608</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by jamesbelchamber in "Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I used to teach with it - at classroom-scale it was really good. Unfortunately they shut all that down a little while back, and there wasn't really a good replacement. Which was a shame.<p>Seems to have worked out for them, mind!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 16:31:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555567</link><dc:creator>jamesbelchamber</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555567</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555567</guid></item></channel></rss>