Hacker News: kuratkull

New comment by kuratkull in "Is Opus 5.5 nerfed? Thinking patterns changed on November 3"

kuratkull — Mon, 09 Nov 2026 12:05:05 +0000

In a workplace environment I don't think "cheaper" is necessarily the thing to optimize for. Subscription models save you a lot of time (and money) by getting things right faster, solving bigger problems, etc. A cheaper model just consumes more human time.

New comment by kuratkull in "I wish tech companies knew more about me"

kuratkull — Thu, 05 Nov 2026 22:05:43 +0000

If Coca Cola stopped advertising for a year, their sales would surely start trending down.

New comment by kuratkull in "Source code of the Estonian online voting system"

kuratkull — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 22:14:23 +0000

I don't agree with this statement. If the system is corrupt (take for example Russia), then the voting system doesn't simply matter. Having absolute access to millions of votes, either digital or on paper, allows any dictator to decide the outcome.

Millions of slips of paper are very easy to burn, and print...

E-votes just make it cheaper/easier to vote in free countries. I don't think we have invented a truly dictator-proof voting system available yet.

New comment by kuratkull in "Source code of the Estonian online voting system"

kuratkull — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 22:00:38 +0000

I'm Estonian. E-voting is widely accepted and used here. We've been doing it since 2001, and extensivelly (first parliamentary e-voting) since 2007. The fact that it's open source is long known (at least in the IT community) and highly appreciated. There's no inherent doubt about its validity in the local expert and international community.

New comment by kuratkull in "Scam American companies are using to manipulate ingredient lists"

kuratkull — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:03:55 +0000

His ChatGPT wasn't even asked to give references to the info it spat out. Who uses ChatGPT like that?

New comment by kuratkull in "Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over 'anticompetitive' fees"

kuratkull — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:28:01 +0000

It really means that the cash payers are subsidizing the card payers, b/c the cash payers don't get the cake for cheaper.

I, as a cake seller have a cost i need to pay to the network every month, from my total revenue it's some percentage (depending on ratio of cash vs card). I obviously add that percentage to my cake prices to make up for that. Both cash and card payers pay the same amount for the cake, thus they share the price hike equally.

New comment by kuratkull in "Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over 'anticompetitive' fees"

kuratkull — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:49:31 +0000

Where do you think the vendor gets the 3% to pay the network?

If I bake cakes to sell them, and have to pay 3% to a network for each purchase, then that 3% is in the price of the cakes.

New comment by kuratkull in "I used Fable to rewrite 65kLoC of Go in Rust. It cost $400"

kuratkull — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:43:16 +0000

I have rewritten several things from eg. Python to Rust, Rust to Go very recently. The 400 USD is pretty arbitrary as you could rewrite several big projects pretty comfortably with the Claude ~100 USD subscription tier.

In my experience it mostly comes down to the harness (or lack of) that you use. Something like 'superpowers' can be pretty verbose and hash out things for a long time (and use a decent amount of tokens) but the output is pretty decent. The better instructions and the more brainstorming you do initially the better - as the subagents encounter fewer issues.

Without a harness you could try a direct port (prompt: 'convert x to y, don't bother me') and if the languages are roughly compatible you could get a seemingly working port much quicker but likely with major hidden issues. A comprehensive testsuite is obviously a must.

New comment by kuratkull in "NASA: Fill in a name, and you can have an exclusive coordinate in the universe"

kuratkull — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:46:12 +0000

But which one is mine? :S

New comment by kuratkull in "Ask HN: We just had an actual UUID v4 collision..."

kuratkull — Fri, 08 May 2026 17:08:27 +0000

Define a random 128 bit key that you will never change. Use that key to encrypt 128 bit integers in sequence using AES-128, each one comes out as a, for all practical purposes, unique unpredictable ID.

New comment by kuratkull in "An AI agent deleted our production database. The agent's confession is below"

kuratkull — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:15:51 +0000

The best answer so far. It describes exactly what was going on. LLM users should read it twice, especially if "confession" didn't make your brain hurt a bit.

New comment by kuratkull in "FreeCAD"

kuratkull — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:57:20 +0000

Yeah the tutorial I linked was from Mango Jelly for FreeCAD 1.1 :) He seems to have a perfect balance of getting it done, and you understanding what you are doing.

New comment by kuratkull in "FreeCAD"

kuratkull — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:55:28 +0000

Yeah I still consider Solid Edge very good. Easy to work with, does not require internet, no stupid limitations (like the 10 model limitation for Fusion). Many tutorials, etc. But still, they might revoke their free license at any moment and I am out of a tool, and wasted experience.

New comment by kuratkull in "FreeCAD"

kuratkull — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:50:45 +0000

Yeah I actually have. I really liked the concept, but I designed a cylinder with many holes (think a robust sieve) and it just crashed when the number of holes grew too great. Even the OpenCL/MP version. I felt it being unstable in other ways too so I did not make it my go to tool. Sadly it also seems it's not being developed much.

EDIT: Missing fillets and chamfers we're also a big problem for me - probably I'm just a newbie maker and want unreasonable things, but still.

New comment by kuratkull in "FreeCAD"

kuratkull — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 06:46:56 +0000

I'm a occasional hobbyist maker and i've used Autodesk Fusion, Solid Edge, OpenSCAD and other niche parametric programs, but always felt FreeCAD was too complex. But I really wanted it to work for me because it's FOSS and 100% offline. So with the new FreeCAD 1.1 RC I found an hour long tutorial and dove in. (1.1 is supposedly much easier to work with)

After doing the tut I can say that 1.1 is very nice, i can uninstall Fusion and Solid Edge finally :)

The guide i followed, no relation to it whatsoverer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxxDahY1U6E

New comment by kuratkull in "Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia"

kuratkull — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:26:30 +0000

Because stocks have a tendency to go up even when they should be going down. And when you decide that it probably isn't going down, it will go down. Timing the market isn't a reliable way of wealth generation. Long term investing is.

New comment by kuratkull in "What we talk about when we talk about sideloading"

kuratkull — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:34:00 +0000

Currently it seems that Google is pushing for hardware attestation, so you might be able to install Graphene/Lineage if your phone manufacturer allows you to unlock your bootloader, but many Play Store apps won't work as they'll detect your root. It's actually gotten pretty insane how every low-value app considers themselves the centre of the world and unable to run on a rooted device.

Example: the loyalty card app for a local store chain - there's no money in it, I can just get some discounts when I use it. So an attacker would have to steal my phone, somehow unlock it, and then they can use my loyalty card (btw which is free to obtain for anyone and there are no tiers) to get some discounts. And for that, they have implemented a pretty decent root checker which i had to put in some effort to overcome. And there are many more like it.

New comment by kuratkull in "What we talk about when we talk about sideloading"

kuratkull — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:25:56 +0000

I have never seen people in the EU talk about the bubble colours. Texting is virtually dead in the EU as I know it, it's all in messaging services.

New comment by kuratkull in "What we talk about when we talk about sideloading"

kuratkull — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:23:23 +0000

That's also a large part of the issue IMO. I currently _have_ root on my rooted and Lineaged Poco F3. But as hardware attestation is becoming the norm I am deeply worried about the future. I have been a pretty eager Android fan due to its achievable-if-savvy openness. If I lose root and sideloading, then Android is dead to me. There would be nothing valuable in it, just another corporate walled garden.

New comment by kuratkull in "Taurine and aging: Is there anything to it?"

kuratkull — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 13:31:34 +0000

Anything you want to share that raises it above all else? Especially as you agree that all other supplements are basically snake oil.