Hacker News: mbrndtgn

New comment by mbrndtgn in "LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent"

mbrndtgn — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 11:34:27 +0000

Razer mice are the worst because they are just HIDs and could work without any special driver at all! Also I don't need their whole suite on every Windows computer I plug my mouse in. I think most people would just configure their Razer mouse on one PC, save the settings in the firmware of the mouse itself (I guess, I've actually never used their driver suite) and then never touch their software again.

It's just crazy to me that a lot of keyboard manufacturers have basically standardized on VIA as their firmware which can be configured via WebUSB without installing any additional driver. But my mouse somehow needs a gigantic driver suite just to configure and save some settings? It's just madness.

I like Razer mice and their headsets, but I will never install any of their drivers. Ironically I feel more comfortable using Razer hardware on non-Windows devices than on Windows precisely because they don't support other operating systems.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org"

mbrndtgn — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 01:03:06 +0000

Migadu is fantastic if you can live with their daily limits.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "PuTTY has a new website"

mbrndtgn — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 06:44:56 +0000

So you're suggesting we should bring back extended validation? Currently they don't mean anything.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "MicroSD cards' SBC days are numbered"

mbrndtgn — Wed, 15 May 2024 12:32:07 +0000

That's my experience as well, but the ones which have wear leveling are almost as expensive as SSDs and I only use them in devices which have no other storage option. For a new SBCs I would definitely prefer an SSD or NVMe drive.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "The Never-Updaters: Why Some People Refuse to Download New Software"

mbrndtgn — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 19:16:13 +0000

To be honest, I've rarely lost any functionality because of a new feature release of any software. I can't even think of a security update that caused any problems in the last few years.

The article mentions iOS and macOS updates and I can relate to that somewhat, though. OS X 10.7 at the time was horrible. It had known memory leaks that never got fixed and you _had_ to update to 10.8 to fix it. There was also a version that introduced a new DNS forwarder which was so broken that Apple rolled it back in a point update.

It still seems weird to me to reject any software updates based on broken functionality.

Oh, I actually do stay away from updates on one device. My HP printer would reject my third party toner if I would update it and that's why I keep it disconnected from the internet.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Juice jacking: The urban legend about phone charging that just won’t die"

mbrndtgn — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 10:23:49 +0000

Slow charging etc. is nice for laptops, but for phones I wouldn't even bother. If you use your phone for navigation in summer, it's very likely your phone's battery will degrade rapidly anyway due to the heat.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Wad Commander: Play Doom I and II in the Browser"

mbrndtgn — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 19:03:24 +0000

Zandronum if you want to use mods, odamex if you prefer a vanilla experience. The odamex discord server is a good starting point.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Ask HN: As a Windows developer and user, can anyone recommend a Mac for testing?"

mbrndtgn — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 15:29:14 +0000

The RAM that is available is faster and the SSD is also quite fast, but it's a little bit misleading to claim that an Apple Silicon Mac with 8 GB of RAM performs similar to an Intel Mac with 16 GB RAM. The Intel Mac will actually almost always perform worse and run hotter with CPU-heavy (but not memory-constrained) tasks, no matter the amount of RAM it has. But if the Apple Silicon Mac has to read / write constantly to and from swap and the Intel Mac doesn't (assuming whatever you do doesn't require an Intel Mac with 16 GB of RAM to swap), you will still notice a difference.

Overall I would still prefer an Apple Silicon Mac especially if it's just for testing purposes. It's not like one Electron app will require constant swapping. An M1 Mac mini with 8 GB of RAM is perfectly fine for that.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Tell HN: My phone just told me to check for moisture in the USB port"

mbrndtgn — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 13:00:57 +0000

>[...] but I guess it senses a short across some of the pins inside?

Most lithium ion chargers have (or should have) some kind of short circuit protection. It would make sense that the internal charging unit could make this information available to the operating system.

New comment by mbrndtgn in "Apple Announces iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus"

mbrndtgn — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 21:39:43 +0000

I would wait until it's actually confirmed that it has 6 GB of RAM. There is also an A15 in the iPad mini 6 which is based on the A15 in the 13 Pro, but with only 4 GB RAM. If this is the case a discounted 13 Pro could actually be the better option (also because of the 120 Hz screen).