Hacker News: mac3n

New comment by mac3n in "The Luna Ring [pdf]"

mac3n — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:36:05 +0000

that would make a fantastic weapon

New comment by mac3n in "The Therac-25 software radiation disaster"

mac3n — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 18:31:13 +0000

for another example, see the detailed (scrubbed?) study

https://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRU...

Since then we have extended automotive software from engine control to driving.

New comment by mac3n in "Why doesn't HN have a mobile app?"

mac3n — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 13:13:16 +0000

> My reddit usage grew massively

and that's a good thing?

New comment by mac3n in "VitruvianOS – Desktop Linux Inspired by the BeOS"

mac3n — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:14:31 +0000

My favorite thing about the early BeBox was the Pulse CPU meter, which shows the load on each of the two CPU chips. Clicking on a CPU stopped it. Clicking on the second stopped it as well, which took me a moment to realize.

New comment by mac3n in "ChatGPT for Excel and new financial data integrations"

mac3n — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:52:53 +0000

https://www.sciencealert.com/excel-is-responsible-for-20-per...

https://www.qashqade.com/insights/the-worst-financial-servic...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36197280

i'm sure this will fix everything

New comment by mac3n in "Teleprinter"

mac3n — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:52:37 +0000

> In contrast, Unix's ever-terse developers ended up making it send only a linefeed by itself, and so the OS which can still actually use teleprinters no longer does so correctly.

not so. Unix inserts a CR before the LF in the tty driver.

New comment by mac3n in "February 2026: Bitcoin fell 24%. Nothing in crypto infrastructure broke"

mac3n — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 23:28:33 +0000

it's going just great!

New comment by mac3n in "Scientists train human brain cells on a microchip to play Doom"

mac3n — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:04:03 +0000

That's some Tleilaxu level of creepy!

New comment by mac3n in "The road to hell is paved with asphalt (2024)"

mac3n — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:02:18 +0000

as a [road] bicyclist, I do appreciate some good asphalt.

New comment by mac3n in "So you want to build a tunnel"

mac3n — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:54:36 +0000

house gotta have sipapu

New comment by mac3n in "Four Column ASCII (2017)"

mac3n — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:45:35 +0000

anyone remember 005 ENQ (also called WRU who are you) and its effect on a teletype?

New comment by mac3n in "Four Column ASCII (2017)"

mac3n — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:38:48 +0000

credit to William Crosby, "Note on an ASCII-Octal Code Table", CACM 8.10, Oct 1965

https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/365628.365652

also defined 6-bit ASCII subset

New comment by mac3n in "RFC 3092 – Etymology of “Foo” (2001)"

mac3n — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:52:35 +0000

folklore was that IBM used it as an example of a bad variable name, based on Zarathustra Q Xerxes III

Here it is, in fact! Page 19:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/360/os/...

> But if the programmer decided to use ZQX-3 in pl.ace of MINIMUM-BALANCE because it is shorter, or because he once met a cab driver named Zarathustra Q. Xerxes III, then it is a bad name.

New comment by mac3n in "FTC Chairman Issues Warning Letter to Apple CEO"

mac3n — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:40:29 +0000

let's see some "Courage", Apple?

New comment by mac3n in "Why vampires live forever"

mac3n — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:13:57 +0000

see also Floyd Kemske, "Human Resources: A Corporate Nightmare"

https://archive.org/details/HumanResourcesPdf

> Corporate management is the use of humans as resources. So is vampirism.

>Biomethods, Inc. is a struggling biotechnology company whose venture capital group is growing tired of pumping in new blood every quarter.

New comment by mac3n in "RFC 3092 – Etymology of “Foo” (2001)"

mac3n — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 18:25:10 +0000

Now, tell us about "ZQX3".

New comment by mac3n in "Child prodigies rarely become elite performers"

mac3n — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:35:45 +0000

> The general population is much larger than the population of child prodigies.

have we forgotten Lake Wobegon?

New comment by mac3n in "Signal Is Down"

mac3n — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:18:57 +0000

paranoia increases...

New comment by mac3n in "Show HN: FOMOmeter – crypto sentiment based on crowd emotions, not price"

mac3n — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:29:26 +0000

did you include

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

New comment by mac3n in ""Ptolemaic Code": software that appears functional but is based on a fundame"

mac3n — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:24:49 +0000

it seems like there's some confusion here between the Graeco-Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100 – 160s/170s AD) and the Macedonian General/Pharoah Ptolemy I Soter (c. 369/68 BC – January 282 BC).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_(disambiguation)