<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: mtlynch</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mtlynch</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:25:21 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=mtlynch" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Maiao: Gerrit-style code review workflow for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, others"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> <i>So, what am I missing?</i><p>Gerrit/CodeApprove/Reviewable-style reviews are actually designed for exactly the scenario you're describing.<p>The thing you're missing is that it's helpful to see a diff view of, "What changed since my last review?"<p>If your review workflow is:<p>1. Junior engineer makes 15 commits to implement a feature in 300 LOC<p>2. Junior engineer sends you the PR for review<p>3. You review and send your notes to the engineer<p>4. Junior engineer makes 15 more commits and another 100 LOC churn, but PR is 350 LOC total diffs<p>At (4), the thing you probably want to see are the 100 LOC of diffs since step (3). I haven't tried this on GitHub for awhile, but last I checked, your options are to either view only diff of PR against main branch, view each of the 15 commits individually, or hand edit the URL to get the "what's changed since (3)?" view.<p>On Gerrit/CodeApprove/Reviewable, they all default to "what changed since I last reviewed?" and you comment on that diff rather than what's changed against the main branch, which is the default on GitHub.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:10:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447594</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447594</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447594</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I jumped to the end and saw $2.3k for the mini split and couldn't believe it. I've installed mini splits on two homes and the quotes were always in the $15-25k range for 3-5 head units, so $2.3k for a head + outdoor condenser unit sounded implausible, but then I saw he found a surprisingly good deal:<p>> <i>I got a ton of quotes for installing a mini split. They ranged from $4-$7k, which was higher than I expected after researching the cost of a quality small unit and knowing this would be a tiny job for an HVAC contractor, especially because I had my electrician prewire the electrical. I was considering installing a DIY system (Mr. Cool DIY system with pre-charged AC lines), But found an HVAC contractor who would install a system for a much lower price than the other quotes I received (and he had great reviews on Thumbtack). In the end, I got a Daikin Mini-split, a common system with many replacement parts. The installation took about 5 hours, and my tech did a great job. I am glad I researched and got a lot of quotes for this one.</i></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:42:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436018</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436018</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436018</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Codefloe Is a Professionally Hosted Public Git Forge"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've ported a couple of repos to CodeFloe in the last few days, and so far, so good. Performance is similar to when I self-host Forgejo on a dedicated VPS where I'm the only user, which is super fast. And their built-in CI is pretty nice.<p>It's a huge contrast to Codeberg, which struggles with basic navigation of the web UI and every git push or pull takes 2-10s.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:21:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423882</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423882</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423882</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Codefloe Is a Professionally Hosted Public Git Forge"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think you're holding CodeFloe to an unreasonably high standard here. What SaaS vendors agree to financial guarantees if they lose user data or have an outage?<p>Here's GitHub's policy:<p>> <i>We will not be liable for damages or losses arising from your use or inability to use the service or otherwise arising under this agreement.</i><p><a href="https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service" rel="nofollow">https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...</a><p>Here's Atlassian's policy for BitBucket:<p>>  <i>14. Limitations of Liability</i><p>> <i>14.1. Damages Waiver.  Except for Excluded Claims or Special Claims, to the maximum extent permitted by Law, neither party will have any liability arising out of or related to this Agreement for any loss of use, lost data, lost profits, interruption of business or any indirect, special, incidental, reliance or consequential damages of any kind, even if informed of their possibility in advance.</i><p><a href="https://www.atlassian.com/legal/atlassian-customer-agreement#liability" rel="nofollow">https://www.atlassian.com/legal/atlassian-customer-agreement...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:18:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423839</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423839</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423839</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Buy Your Friends Batteries"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I read the book <i>Poor Economics</i>[0] around when it came out, and it described something similar.<p>For people who don't have access to banks, they form "savings clubs" where there will be, say, 12 people who put in $100 per month, and one person takes the pot every month. The idea is that if you keep the money yourself, then you're socially pressured to spend it when there are holidays or guests, but if it's locked up in the savings club, you can't spend it, and then you get a big lump sum to spend on a large purchase that would be otherwise hard to save for.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Economics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Economics</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:52:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335846</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335846</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335846</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Strangely, a few years ago, Facebook hired a rabbi and appointed him "Director of Responsible Innovation."[0]<p>He did an interview on Search Engine that I thought was interesting,[1] but it definitely seemed like there was more to the story than just, "Facebook needed to be ethical, and this guy was so good at ethics that he decided to help out."<p>[0] <a href="https://chochmat.org/rabbi-zvika-krieger/" rel="nofollow">https://chochmat.org/rabbi-zvika-krieger/</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.searchengine.show/what-does-it-feel-like-to-believe-in-god-classic/" rel="nofollow">https://www.searchengine.show/what-does-it-feel-like-to-beli...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:59:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49265651</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49265651</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49265651</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Mea Culpa – Dark Hours"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>How is this Gruber's fault? What level of verification do you expect of a tech blog discussing the experience of another tech blogger?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Aug 2026 17:44:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233610</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233610</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233610</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Super Mario Derivations"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is such a cool and funny use of derivations. He defines a Nix attribute path that emulates game state in Super Mario 3 so that you can say<p><pre><code>    nix build '.#level1.rightb.rightb.rightab.rightb'
</code></pre>
And it outputs the screenshot that results in that sequence of button presses. And shared prefixes cache to the same hash, so Nix caches every step so that you can try different button sequences and only have to calculate from the point that you've reached a unique sequence.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:25:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226473</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226473</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226473</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Super Mario Derivations]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/05/super-mario-derivations">https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/05/super-mario-derivations</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226433">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226433</a></p>
<p>Points: 5</p>
<p># Comments: 1</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:21:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/05/super-mario-derivations</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226433</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226433</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley, with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I tried using it, but it didn't work well in my experience.<p>There was be a huge textarea for notes, so I'd write detailed notes after a good conversation, but it didn't auto-save, so if your browser crashed or you accidentally closed the tab, you lose everything. There would also be weird CSRF token errors, which also could cause you to lose everything you just typed.<p>I started writing in a markdown file and then copying over, and then I realized it's simpler to just write in markdown files and skip the app entirely, so I now just use different markdown files for each person and I add a date heading when I want to add a new entry.<p>The design of Monica also never quite matched my thinking. There were all these features designed to capture the relationship graph of how you knew everyone and what all their friends and pets' names are and how they met and what their birthdays are, but for me, the thing I want to remember is like, "Oh, when I saw Joe last year, he was getting into woodworking. When I see him next week, I want to ask how that's going." I never feel like, "I bet Joe will be so impressed that I remembered how he met his friend Ned!"</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:53:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184619</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184619</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184619</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Ask HN: What are the viable alternatives to DuckDuckGo?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Also a happy Kagi user since 2023, and full disclosure: I participated in their crowdfund, so I have some financial stake in the company that I don't really understand.<p>I'm always surprised when I see people say, "I can't imagine paying for a search engine."<p>Imagine if you lived in a city with horrible air pollution, and you were coughing all the time and coming down with mysterious respiratory illnesses. And then you go to a friend's house in the same city who's happy and healthy, and it turns out they have an air filter they pay $10/mo for. And your reaction is, "I can't imagine paying $10/mo just to breathe air."<p>Pay for search! Get out of the ad-optimized Google black hole. This is a tool you use hundreds of times per month and it fundamentally influences the way you experience the web. It's something that should be a no-brainer to pay for even if it was only marginally better than Google, but I've found it significantly better than Google in most dimensions.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:51:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156575</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156575</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156575</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Stripe Just Wants a Number]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://blog.exe.dev/billable-facts">https://blog.exe.dev/billable-facts</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49121401">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49121401</a></p>
<p>Points: 1</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:35:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://blog.exe.dev/billable-facts</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49121401</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49121401</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "Show HN: Bribes.fyi – Know before you go. New feature added"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Reposting is officially allowed:<p>>  <i>Are reposts ok?</i><p>> <i>If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates.</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html</a><p>While we're on the subject of following site guidelines:<p>> <i>Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:49:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051419</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051419</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051419</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Inspected My Take-Home Interview Project. It Was a Whole Operation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yeah, exactly. If there's a C2 server, there's some protocol for communication between the C2 server and each victim node.<p>You can intentionally infect a machine with the malware but then watch the traffic between the victim node and the C2 server. If you get lucky, the C2 server assumes that the victim node is trusted and doesn't sanity check victim->server communication.<p>Note that this cranks up the danger quite a few notches, though it sounds like you know what you're doing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:29:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021274</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021274</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021274</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Inspected My Take-Home Interview Project. It Was a Whole Operation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> <i>Naturally, the next move was pivoting from defense to offense. I wanted to see if the attackers left any vulnerable services exposed on their IP.</i><p>Why not attack them through the C2 interface? That's where I'd expect them to slip up.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:58:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49015535</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49015535</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49015535</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Stopped “Creating Content”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think we disagree on the connotation of the word "lead."<p>To me, if someone describes me as a "lead," it implies that they are focused on making the sale rather than on anything else about the business relationship. I would also find it unsettling if a doctor told me that I was a "good lead" because I had a disease they treat.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:55:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983268</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983268</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983268</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Stopped “Creating Content”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>OP here. I wrote the post myself with no AI (modulo grammar checks).<p>What makes you think it's AI-generated?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:35:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982985</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982985</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982985</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Stopped “Creating Content”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>OP here. Thanks for reading!<p>I'm having trouble understanding where we disagree. It seems like you're arguing that she's correct because it was helpful for the mutual acquaintance to refer me to this vendor, which I agree it is.<p>My point is that the term "lead" implies that she's thinking about making the sale rather than serving me as her client. Do we disagree about the connotation of the word "lead?"<p>As a more extreme example, if you went to a doctor for an illness and they said, "Wow, I'm going to make so much money treating you," I imagine you'd find it off-putting even if the doctor would only earn the money because they're doing a useful thing by treating your illness.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:13:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982629</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982629</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982629</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Stopped “Creating Content”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I appreciate the critique!<p>Sometimes when I'm thinking about a blog post, I fall in love with a joke I want to use, but then it constrains how I think about the topic. I still like the <i>David</i> example, but I'm too close to the post to have a balanced perspective, just having finished it today.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:47:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982206</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982206</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982206</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mtlynch in "I Stopped “Creating Content”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>OP here. Thanks for reading!<p>I'm not trying to argue that art is sacred and we have to hold it up over everything else, but I am joking that there is still an implicit boundary where we don't use "content" to refer to things that we respect highly.<p>I think a lot of people that talk about "art" vs. "content" are talking about art vs. business, but I'm more arguing about big vs. small and aggregation vs. individuality.<p>It makes sense for YouTube and Twitter and Facebook to refer to everything on the Internet as "content" because there's so much variety and those platforms are trying to capture all of it. But I just realized it's silly for me, an individual author to refer to my work as "content" when I could just as easily say "book" or "blog posts."</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:29:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981983</link><dc:creator>mtlynch</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981983</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981983</guid></item></channel></rss>