Hacker News: jcbrand

New comment by jcbrand in "eMudhra to Exit Global SSL/TLS Certificate Business"

jcbrand — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 15:02:07 +0000

Private key, not public key.

New comment by jcbrand in "Neovim have a ~$800k Bitcoin donation sitting untouched since 2023"

jcbrand — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:57:15 +0000

Except that this is literally what Gold does.

The ratio of one ounce of gold to one productive beef cow has held for a hundred years, and plausibly for around 5,000 years.

A single ounce of gold could purchase a quality tunic, sandals, and belt in Ancient Rome and still buys a fine tailored suit in the modern era.

https://findbullionprices.com/blog/gold-purchasing-power-wha...

New comment by jcbrand in "Neovim have a ~$800k Bitcoin donation sitting untouched since 2023"

jcbrand — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:52:21 +0000

Those are credit bubbles bursting, not the result of hard money.

New comment by jcbrand in "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence"

jcbrand — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:10:06 +0000

Looks like I might have been wrong about Dino, sorry about that.

I worked on adding OMEMO2 support to Converse.js via libomemo.js and I tested it against Kaidan.

New comment by jcbrand in "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence"

jcbrand — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:27:52 +0000

FWIW Converse.js and Dino also support the latest OMEMO.

New comment by jcbrand in "Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months"

jcbrand — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:48:39 +0000

Generally speaking, if demand stays high, and existing suppliers don't increase supply, the high prices create an incentive and opportunity for new market entrants to increase the supply.

New comment by jcbrand in "OnePlus halts operations in USA and Europe"

jcbrand — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:18:57 +0000

I love my OnePlus 9 pro phone. What would be a good replacement?

New comment by jcbrand in "Claude Fable 5"

jcbrand — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:54:04 +0000

"War department" is the older name, not "Defense department".

Also, is it really a defense department when you're starting wars of aggression every 15 years or so?

New comment by jcbrand in "How will OpenAI compete?"

jcbrand — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:46:29 +0000

I still use perplexity. Which tool is better currently?

New comment by jcbrand in "On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]"

jcbrand — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:55:22 +0000

It's not capitalism that requires infinite growth, it's our current monetary system.

New money is created by lending it into existence, with interest.

That last bit is key. In order to pay off the interest, you need money, which was also loaned into existence with interest.

The only way to maintain this is through constant economic growth. Without it there's a deflationary collapse.

New comment by jcbrand in "The collapse of the econ PhD job market"

jcbrand — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 18:31:08 +0000

The Austrian school does not dominate academia, not even close. Even the Wikipedia article you linked to says it's a heterodox school, meaning it's not mainstream.

Academia is dominated by Keynesianism.

New comment by jcbrand in "Lit: a library for building fast, lightweight web components"

jcbrand — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:54:47 +0000

I used Lit components in a large FE project, enjoyed doing so and am happy with my choice. I don't use the shadow DOM at all.

The project is Converse.js, an XMPP chat client. It's an old project that was originally created back in 2013 with Backbone.js.

I first replaced all templates with `lit-html` when I first heard about that, and then when lit-element (and now "lit") came out, I started rewriting the project to use that.

This app has since been integrated into many different websites that rely on other frameworks like React and the fact that Converse.js is a web component () makes this easier.

If you're interested, here's the Github repo: https://github.com/conversejs/converse.js And you can demo it here: https://chat.conversejs.org/

You'll need an XMPP account (see https://providers.xmpp.net/ for possible providers).

New comment by jcbrand in "Is the A.I. Boom Turning Into an A.I. Bubble?"

jcbrand — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 18:56:53 +0000

Being able to hold on to wealth is an underestimated and undervalued ability.

It's actually pretty easy to lose money. Everybody is happy to help you part with yours.

New comment by jcbrand in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2025)"

jcbrand — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 09:22:26 +0000

Your website is very clever, I like it, but unfortunately Google has classified it as a dangerous site with a phishing risk, which I think is understandable because you're effectively pretending to be Google.

New comment by jcbrand in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2025)"

jcbrand — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 06:16:33 +0000

For junior developers in developing countries this can still be a worthwhile salary.

Converse 11: A Major Leap Forward for XMPP Webchat

jcbrand — Wed, 21 May 2025 15:23:07 +0000

Article URL: https://opkode.com/blog/2025-05-21-converse-11/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44052474

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

New comment by jcbrand in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)"

jcbrand — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:02:32 +0000

I'd also like to know, I love the look.

New comment by jcbrand in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)"

jcbrand — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 07:59:31 +0000

Taking a sabbatical and spending more time on an open source XMPP web client that I started 10 years ago already.

https://conversejs.org

The website is a bit old, but lots of exciting changes are happening under the hood and I finally have the time to make big architectural and performance improvements.

New comment by jcbrand in "Code that helped end Apartheid"

jcbrand — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 19:44:25 +0000

South Africa does have wealth distribution policies in the form of requiring all companies that do business with the state or which need licences (like mines or telecoms) to have a minimum number of black ownership and black employees.

South Africa also has affirmative action.

In fact, there are more race based laws in South Africa currently than during Apartheid.

https://freemarketfoundation.com/race-law-in-south-africa-30...

Now maybe you're talking about violent wealth redistribution. That generally doesn't work. It results in collapse and everyone gets poorer.

Zimbabwe bring the prime most recent example.

New comment by jcbrand in "The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US"

jcbrand — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:10:40 +0000

The first vowel tells you from which country it comes.

Grey is UK English, so think "e" for England. Gray is American English, so think "a" for America.