Hacker News: jccalhoun

New comment by jccalhoun in "iNaturalist"

jccalhoun — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 14:23:15 +0000

I didn't know they had a map feature. I zoomed in on my neighborhood and... all the pins are mine :-P

New comment by jccalhoun in "How to talk to anyone and why you should"

jccalhoun — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:47:03 +0000

I'm kind of a misnthrope. I don't know my neighbors and I don't want to. I bought my current house in part because it has a fence around it. I wear earbuds in the store so random people don't try to talk to me (I'm also tall so I get people asking me to get things down for them somewhat often). I teach college so I guess I get enough interaction with strangers from having new students every semester.

New comment by jccalhoun in "DOGE Track"

jccalhoun — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:26:09 +0000

Just today I ran into one of the very minor legacies of doge. When talking about conflict styles I used to have students take a survey on the US Institute of Peace's website. Doge shut it down. I guess that survey was taking up too much money to run... Now the only thing there is a press release stroking Trump's ego.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android"

jccalhoun — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:07:56 +0000

I am an android and windows user but i have an ipad and i listen to an apple-centric podcast and I'm amazed at the things that don't work. I've been using swiftkey on android since before MS bought it so I kept using it on ipad. The ipad reverts to the apple keyboard all the time.

On macos there was a post a day or two ago about window arrangement which seems very inferior to windows. I was in the mac lab at school and was surprised that there's no multi item clipboard built in. The answer seems to be use a 3rd party app for these but it seems odd that such basic things aren't built in.

New comment by jccalhoun in "30 Years of ReactOS"

jccalhoun — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:42:27 +0000

what about him is supremely loathable? that he doesn't code?

New comment by jccalhoun in "Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes""

jccalhoun — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:35:16 +0000

I don't think many people care about Mickey as a character. They like the image but that's about it.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes""

jccalhoun — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:32:40 +0000

A more recent show to compare would be the UK vs the USA version of Ghosts. I like both shows but it is interesting how in the USA version all the main Ghosts are basically good people while the UK Ghosts have more serious flaws. And in the UK version, money is a constant problem while in the USA version it isn't nearly as big of a problem.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Scott Adams has died"

jccalhoun — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:23:08 +0000

Whenever I heard of Adams, I always remember that time in 2011 when he made a sockpuppet account on metafilter to pseudonymously praise himself. https://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos

New comment by jccalhoun in "Travel Is Not Education"

jccalhoun — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:22:00 +0000

I'm born and raised in the midwest of the USA. I've watched UK shows since the 80s when PBS would run Doctor Who, Keeping Up Appearances, and other UK shows. I've never read a history devoted to London or the UK but I know the basics. This summer I visited London for the first time and there were so many things I either had no idea about or knew in the abstract but experiencing it first hand was very different.

New comment by jccalhoun in "iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan"

jccalhoun — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 03:04:52 +0000

Apple didn't donate to Trump's inauguration, give him a gold and glass paperweight, and donate to his demolishing of the East Wing so that they would have to open up the app store in the USA

New comment by jccalhoun in "Claude in Chrome"

jccalhoun — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:27:57 +0000

I'm not sure I see the appeal of AI in the browser. I've tried a couple and don't really get what I would use it for.

The AI integration I think would be useful would be in the OS. I have tons of files that are poorly organized, some duplicates, some songs in various bit rates, duplicate images of various file sizes, some before and some after editing. AI, organize these for me.

I know there are deduplicators and I've spend hours doing that in the past but it would be really nice to just say "organize these" and let it work on them.

Of course that's ignoring all the downsides that could come from this!

New comment by jccalhoun in "The immortality of Microsoft Word"

jccalhoun — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 20:27:54 +0000

Yes. Wordperfect was the favorite of lawyers for a long time.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Germany's train service is one of Europe's worst. How did it get so bad?"

jccalhoun — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 15:13:34 +0000

True. But it was my first time in Europe so I wanted the experience. If I go again I will probably fly.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Germany's train service is one of Europe's worst. How did it get so bad?"

jccalhoun — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 14:05:51 +0000

This summer I took a DB train from Amsterdam to Berlin. Being from the midwest USA, I didn't have a lot of experience with trains so I bought a first class ticket. The air and power in my car weren't working. There was no beverage car or service so we sat sweating to death. After a couple hours they gave in and told us to go to another car. Then at the next stop someone got on and yelled at me because I was in his assigned seat.

New comment by jccalhoun in "In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution"

jccalhoun — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:23:49 +0000

Fox news.

New comment by jccalhoun in "The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn"

jccalhoun — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:17:34 +0000

For me, it isn't about not liking the story, but about having to watch a movie when I want to play a game. Don't show it to me. Let me do it.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Bad Dye Job"

jccalhoun — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:07:50 +0000

All things considered, this is a pretty mild pun. It isn't making fun of his name or replacing it with a slur or something.

New comment by jccalhoun in "Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold"

jccalhoun — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:17:34 +0000

For this, it is pretty legit since it is old. What is thought to be driven by money laundering is people paying crazy amounts of money for graded VHS movies or NES games.

New comment by jccalhoun in "I don’t need a Steam Machine"

jccalhoun — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:59:34 +0000

My conspiracy theory: Microsoft knew the Steam Machine was coming and decided to get out of the console market.

New comment by jccalhoun in "My friends and I accidentally faked the Ryzen 7 9700X3D leaks"

jccalhoun — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 14:42:28 +0000

Where did they lie? Someone posted some benchmarks. They reported on the appearance of benchmarks that indicate a new chip. Being wrong is not lying.