<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: n4r9</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=n4r9</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:24:11 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=n4r9" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Computational chemistry, Locally? My rant on SSH"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> You can disable the laptop PIN requirement in keepassXC<p>Thanks for the pointer! I can see an option "Enable database quick unlock (Touch ID / Windows Hello)". It's a bit of a clunky setting though. Ideally I'd like to use quick unlock <i>instead</i> of typing the DB password (e.g. only after session inactivity), but when that setting is checked it also forces you to use it immediately <i>after</i> typing the password.<p>> and store the OTP code in the app<p>Oh lord, this is a game-changer.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:14:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49067426</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49067426</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49067426</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "How to write English prose (2023)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's less precise than it pretends, in my opinion. At least, it gleefully drops precision in favour of artful insinuation. For example, in reference to Orwell and Strunk & White it uses the word "decrees" to mean "advocates", implying a sort of pompous authority.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:56:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49066847</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49066847</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49066847</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Computational chemistry, Locally? My rant on SSH"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Recently Claude Code said my authentication credentials had become invalid and I needed to log in again. I recorded the ridiculous number of steps this took:<p>- Copy-paste link to browser<p>- Wait several minutes while page load hangs<p>- Click refresh a couple of times, page finally loads<p>- Type in work email<p>- Redirect to work portal, type in work email <i>again</i><p>- Asked for work password: open KeepassXC and type in Keepass database password<p>- KeepassXC additionally demands that I enter my laptop PIN<p>- Copy work password into work portal<p>- Asked for Authenticator code: go look for phone<p>- Find phone, load up authenticator app, type into work portal<p>- Wait several minutes while page load hangs<p>- Click refresh a couple of times, eventually get code to paste back into Claude session.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:06:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034982</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034982</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034982</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Hacker wipes Romania's land registry database"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My reading is: "The agency would surely be panicking more than this if they didn't have an offline backup".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:04:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979046</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979046</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979046</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "The Trump administration's Threat to Scientific Research"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The DEI regulations were narrowly targeted. These are sweepingly based on "alignment with administration policies and priorities".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:33:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977949</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977949</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977949</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You can buy land in Northern England or Wales at £10k per acre. Even a large bowling centre wouldn't need more than a few acres.<p>But you're right in general. Looks like this former bowling centre in Inverness is asking for £1.5m: <a href="https://uk.businessesforsale.com/uk/for-sale-leisure-development-opportunity.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://uk.businessesforsale.com/uk/for-sale-leisure-develop...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:59:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977552</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977552</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977552</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That doesn't address anything unless you stake out and back up your position. Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel advocates both accuse the BBC of bias towards the other side.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:28:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935083</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935083</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935083</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For what it's worth, I stopped paying the license fee because of how the BBC sucked up to the Tories in the lead up to the 2019 GE. From Newsnight displaying images of Corbyn that made him look like a Soviet stooge, to Laura Kuenssberg leaking postal vote ballot information, to Alex Forsyth saying that Boris Johnson "deserves" the election.<p>People say that it's subject to complaints of bias from both sides of the spectrum, but I've yet to see comparable concrete pro-left examples.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:03:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933928</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933928</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933928</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Stripe and Advent have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal – sources"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>In the UK you can send someone a Monzo link allowing them to pay directly and instantly into your account.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:14:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932955</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932955</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932955</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "G# – A modern .NET language with Go, Kotlin, and Swift ergonomics"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They might have meant to put that point in the Go section?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:02:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48931583</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48931583</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48931583</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Societal Impacts: Claude's values across models and languages"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Interesting. Was it persistent, or just once? Their post about this functionality says:<p>> This ability is intended for use in rare, extreme cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions.<p><a href="https://www.anthropic.com/research/end-subset-conversations" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/research/end-subset-conversations</a><p>Regardless of the correctness of it, I'm curious to know why you thought such language was actually going to be helpful!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:46:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920764</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920764</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920764</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What's more, you have little difficulty falling asleep any time, any place!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:25:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919761</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919761</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919761</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Isn't that "conventional wisdom"?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:24:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919753</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919753</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919753</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "AI is a bad tool"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes and no. I think it's perfectly legitimate for someone to enjoy coding in assembly but not Python. And if someone comes over and talks about how much faster they can build things in C, it's fair enough for them to question whether that person had enjoyed writing assembly in the first place.<p>Aside: there's a clip on YouTube of Linus responding to someone asking if he'd consider using other languages for Linux. His response is that he likes to be close to the metal, and he likes C because you can look at C code and know <i>well enough</i> what the compiled assembly code will look like. You can't really say that with LLMs. You can understand C and you can understand the prompt for building a program in C which will achieve xyz. But you can't actually know what the output of the prompt will look like.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:28:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919214</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919214</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919214</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "No Spanish reading crisis?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> that doesn't make you or "democracy" better than a non-reader that may be a movie watcher addict<p>I dunno. There's something to be said for having the focus to sit down and read through a book. It suggests someone is a little more comfortable with their own thoughts and doesn't succumb to constant tech distractions. Which in turn suggests an ability to think more clearly and less emotively about politics.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:58:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906158</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906158</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906158</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "AI is a bad tool"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think the joy of coding comes simply from writing lots of code. It's the act of precisely expressing one's internal thoughts into an physical medium, and watching it take effect. Using AI as an intermediary makes it less enjoyable. It's like a painter telling his speedy assistant what he wants to paint, and reviewing every attempt until it looks like what he was aiming for. Obviously the painter won't find that as fulfilling and meaningful. And a skilled painter probably won't be quite as happy as if they'd done it personally. The act of painting is a primary driver, not just having a finished painting at the end.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:58:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898768</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898768</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898768</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "How we can reduce traffic congestion"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's a nice self-referential loop. The definition of factoid is, itself, a factoid.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:49:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897056</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897056</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897056</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "Deir El-Medina Strikes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Sounds a little like the Thieves' Guild in Discworld.<p>> The Thieves' Guild was established early in Lord Havelock Vetinari's rule of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari realised that what people crave is stability, and that, while it is impossible to stamp out crime altogether, it is possible to regulate it. The major gang leaders of the city were therefore called to the Patrician's Palace, where they agreed to be held responsible for ensuring a socially acceptable number of thefts.<p>> While initially the main money-making venture of Thieves' Guild members remained theft, albeit under strict guidelines and leaving a receipt, more recent books show a system of "insurance", whereby people may pay a fee directly to the Guild and therefore become immune to robbery for a specified period.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:39:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884559</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884559</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884559</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "How Aldi is taking on US supermarkets with its $4 almond butter"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'd be interested to know how almond butter gets to $22 per jar in a country that produces over 80% of the world's almonds.<p>Years back I stayed in Davis California for a few months, and was astonished at how expensive fresh fruit and veg were. I vaguely remember bell peppers costing 2-3 times what they would in the UK. Again, in a state that produces so many of them. I wish I could understand what was going on behind that.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2026 06:50:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878955</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878955</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878955</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by n4r9 in "The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Speeches only show projected intent.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:42:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865690</link><dc:creator>n4r9</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865690</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865690</guid></item></channel></rss>