Hacker News: jkxyz

New comment by jkxyz in "Jabber/XMPP: How Do We Gain Traction?"

jkxyz — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:55:28 +0000

If you're talking about the push notifications experience, then XEP-0357 solves this, but app developers have to host the infrastructure which the XMPP server calls back to and dispatches the notifications to Apple or Google. Last time I used Monal on iOS this was solved and worked well. On Android I think most apps still prefer to keep their own background connection open.

https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0357.html

New comment by jkxyz in "Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal"

jkxyz — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:04:09 +0000

I went cold turkey off of citalopram when I was a teenager and it was a pretty unpleasant two weeks of heart palpitations, but the immediate benefit of no longer experiencing emotional blunting made me avoid taking any more antidepressants for 10 years. I was prescribed it by a GP and never given any real support in my mental health or in coming off of it. It was a real black pill for me on the UK's treatment of mental health issues.

Last year I started taking buproprion (Wellbutrin) after seeing a private psychiatrist in Romania, and I found it beneficial, but ended up losing more than 10kg, and becoming malnourished to the point of my hair falling out. Again I stopped of my own accord, and buproprion has basically no cessation symptoms.

This spring I saw a psychiatrist through Romania's public health service who prescribed me vortioxetine (Brintellix/Trintellix) after I shared my history and it's been a game changer. I experience basically no side effects besides a slight reduction in libido, with no other effects on sexual function. It's really helped me to find my balance again. And I see a psychiatrist once a month paid for by my public health insurance with the medication fully comped. Vortioxetine has a half-life of 66 hours so the one time I did have to skip a day and a half, the withdrawal was not noticeable.

Just sharing this to say that there are good doctors and good meds out there, and that having low tolerance for one medication doesn't mean that you shouldn't talk to a doctor about it and try others.

New comment by jkxyz in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

jkxyz — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:34:54 +0000

"To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science." - Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem

This immediately made me think of the Sophons silently manipulating the sensors of particle accelerators to prevent humanity from developing advanced knowledge of particle physics.

Petrichor

jkxyz — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:18:51 +0000

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435126

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

New comment by jkxyz in "Claude Opus 4.8"

jkxyz — Thu, 28 May 2026 22:58:44 +0000

My smoke test for new models is to get it to generate a crossword, and this is the first time it's done a good job on the layout:

  ■  S  W  A  M
  B  L  A  M  E
  E  A  G  E  R
  A  T  O  N  E
  M  E  N  D  ■

The full conversation: https://claude.ai/share/60bd0c71-b576-4f8b-a272-ca1af982874c

New comment by jkxyz in "Apple unveils new accessibility features"

jkxyz — Wed, 20 May 2026 06:59:53 +0000

Removing the escape key is what bothered me most as someone using Vim keybindings. It made it feel very unpleasant to edit code because the Touch Bar had no physical feedback. I still have a visceral memory of how much I disliked touching the glass with my left ring finger.

Understanding the Garbage Collector

jkxyz — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:04:56 +0000

Article URL: https://ocaml.org/docs/garbage-collector

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198709

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

8 Years of Clojure

jkxyz — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:28:02 +0000

Article URL: https://joshkingsley.me/8-years-of-clojure/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192423

Points: 34

# Comments: 2

Hyperart Thomasson

jkxyz — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:59:49 +0000

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperart_Thomasson

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38993877

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by jkxyz in "OpenAI CEO's threat to quit EU draws lawmaker backlash"

jkxyz — Thu, 25 May 2023 23:54:53 +0000

> Funnily enough, the EU guy who is leading this and doubling down, is Romanian.

What is the relevance of your personal (and poorly informed) opinions about Romanians? It’s a needlessly low blow and it’s tiring to hear the same myths perpetuated by people who have zero context on Romanian culture and life. If you do not associate Romania with honesty, morality, and innovation, then it’s because you have been misinformed.

> Anyone including businesses, are free to use their money how they see fit by paying for a service that runs in a another country.

I don’t think that has ever been true in any legal jurisdiction. Every country has restrictions on trade and payments that can be made when acquiring services domestically or abroad.

New comment by jkxyz in "Why I like Clojure"

jkxyz — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 20:24:34 +0000

Clojure's implementation of `memoize` is here:

https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/master/src/clj/cloju...

What were the special cases for your use case?

New comment by jkxyz in "Huge study finds drugs stop HIV transmission"

jkxyz — Fri, 03 May 2019 10:03:08 +0000

I participated in the study along with my former partner. IIRC, I was asked at a health check-up if I knew my partner's status, and then asked if we wanted to enroll. It just involved meeting a (very kind) doctor every 6 months, getting a finger-prick test, and completing a form with the number of occurrences of unprotected sex. We did this for at least a year, so I hope the data were eligible.

New comment by jkxyz in "Shavian alphabet"

jkxyz — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 09:27:45 +0000

It seems pretty common to just type the extra letters in Romanian as their most visually similar Latin character. I've never seen anyone writing Romanian with digraphs when they're sending text messages, for example. "Bună dimineața" just becomes "buna dimineata". As someone learning Romanian, it makes it a challenge - I still learn the word and its pronunciation. Conversely, in German, digraphs seem to be commonly used and understood.

New comment by jkxyz in "Disabling the Intel Management Engine"

jkxyz — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 10:25:29 +0000

This is off-topic, but the Gentoo installation guide that this page is a part of is one of the most comprehensive and accessible Linux guides I've ever read. It taught me a lot of Linux concepts that I never needed to use before when setting up cloud VMs, and now I have a fully working installation of Gentoo + GNOME (with an encrypted root partition) that I'm confident in managing and upgrading. I definitely recommend checking out the rest of the guide.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide

New comment by jkxyz in "Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin"

jkxyz — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 10:48:51 +0000

Not exactly. But there are definitely overtones of nationalism and anti-liberalism in what ministers were saying at the Conservative party conference and in recent anti-immigration proposals. They're also insisting on denying MPs and the public a vote on the exact terms of our withdrawal when many people are calling the referendum irresponsible and the result a flippant protest. So currently "respecting" this vote is not exactly the height of liberal democracy either.

New comment by jkxyz in "Show HN: Cluvio – A new cloud analytics platform based on SQL and R"

jkxyz — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 16:07:12 +0000

I've already suggested this as a replacement for my company's Informatica/Salesforce/Custom reporting setup, which is a huge, confusing, and time-consuming mess, for something that's really not business critical. Looks to be a great balance of simplicity and power.

New comment by jkxyz in "Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin"

jkxyz — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 12:36:16 +0000

I'm planning on moving from London to Berlin within 6 months (I'm British), and mostly for the same reasons (RIP fabric). I have a couple of German citizens as friends who are also seriously considering doing the same. My main concern is how to avoid joining the English-speaking bubble. Although nothing has charged my motivation for learning German more than the recent government responses to Brexit. It does feel a bit ironic that I'm fleeing to Germany from a fascist government.

Guide to Electronic Music [Flash]

jkxyz — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 21:33:51 +0000

Article URL: http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12374283

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

When Poles Collide: Jonny Greenwood's Collaboration with Penderecki (2012)

jkxyz — Tue, 24 May 2016 02:28:25 +0000

Article URL: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/feb/23/poles-collide-jonny-greenwood-penderecki

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11758598

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Has the age of quantum computing arrived?

jkxyz — Sun, 22 May 2016 10:50:14 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/22/age-of-quantum-computing-d-wave

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11748071

Points: 3

# Comments: 0