Hacker News: neilalexander

New comment by neilalexander in "Iran war sparks renewables boom as Europeans rush to buy solar, heat pumps, EVs"

neilalexander — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:24:16 +0000

Vegetable oil will cause long-term damage in modern diesel engines with direct injection or common rail injection systems. Older indirect injection diesel engines could tolerate it much better because of the pre-combustion stage.

New comment by neilalexander in "Starlink Mini as a failover"

neilalexander — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:28:00 +0000

I'm a fairly average HN user but I earn my livelihood by working from home. Backup connectivity is cheap.

New comment by neilalexander in "Windows: Microsoft broke the only thing that mattered"

neilalexander — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:39:54 +0000

No platform is perfect but I'd argue that desktop Linux still has far more many rough edges to contend with when something goes wrong. There are way too many problems for which "well just open the terminal and..." is the only solution.

New comment by neilalexander in "Firefox Nova – our first look at the browser's big redesign"

neilalexander — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:06:33 +0000

Useless padding and borders seems to be par for the course in the last couple of years. Another thing redesigned for no tangible benefit.

New comment by neilalexander in "What your Bluetooth devices reveal"

neilalexander — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:51:05 +0000

Random Bluetooth MACs are already possible. iOS devices have been doing it for years alongside the random Wi-Fi MACs.

New comment by neilalexander in "Discord Alternatives, Ranked"

neilalexander — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 12:09:25 +0000

There is not a single good XMPP client for macOS or iOS either. There are a couple of minimally functional ones that are aesthetically dreadful, but nothing that would come even close to replicating what people would expect even from Signal or WhatsApp, let alone a monster like Discord. Certainly nothing that I could ask friends or family to use.

New comment by neilalexander in "FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled"

neilalexander — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:45:22 +0000

You might want to check that charger. I have the same option set to ask every time and it never appears for chargers.

New comment by neilalexander in "Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires"

neilalexander — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:52:57 +0000

I have been using the exact same G4201TM devices at home for approaching five years now to do much the same: reuse some unused telephone wiring for a meaningful purpose. They are rock solid and have needed exactly zero attention since being installed.

New comment by neilalexander in "Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI""

neilalexander — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:40:39 +0000

One advantage with LLMs is that they are often more able to find things that you can roughly explain but don't know the name of. They can be a good take-off point for wider searches.

New comment by neilalexander in "Designing an IPv6-native P2P transport – lessons from building I6P"

neilalexander — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:17:21 +0000

If you assign a subnet to a host, or allow the host to claim multiple addresses via ND from the link subnet, then you can use as many addresses as you want. You could give every process on your machine its own IPv6 address for example.

New comment by neilalexander in "iCloud Photos Downloader"

neilalexander — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 21:10:57 +0000

You can go to https://privacy.apple.com, log in with your Apple ID, select "Request to transfer a copy of your data" and then select "iCloud photos and videos to Google Photos".

New comment by neilalexander in "IPv6 just turned 30 and still hasn't taken over the world"

neilalexander — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 15:29:13 +0000

Because there isn't "empty space" in the IPv4 packet header (or even the pseudoheader format from which TCP or UDP checksums etc are derived) to expand your new bits into. By breaking the packet format, you just invented a new network protocol that all of the routers, firewalls and middleware of the world don't know how to handle.

New comment by neilalexander in "Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach"

neilalexander — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:15:25 +0000

> Old farts making laws about things they know nothing about.

Who's going to stop them?

New comment by neilalexander in "Rivian Will Add Lidar in 2026, Says Tesla's Cameras Aren't Enough"

neilalexander — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 10:52:18 +0000

As I understand it, Volvo's relationship with Luminar broke down, not that there was an obvious problem with the technology itself.

New comment by neilalexander in "Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products"

neilalexander — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:13:13 +0000

I would think that if they actually spent the time and money fixing the core functionality of their core products (like Windows and Office) that they might have a much easier time promoting things like Copilot. Instead they leave their users wondering why they're so hell-bent on shoehorning AI into a Start menu that takes whole seconds longer to open than it should or into Windows Search that regularly fails to find installed programs or local files.

New comment by neilalexander in "Accepting US car standards would risk European lives"

neilalexander — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:03:07 +0000

You seem to be desperate to talk about blame but ultimately they're called accidents for a reason. Not because we want them to happen, not because we can always prevent them. Regulations like this are about changing the outcome, not the initial reason it happened.

New comment by neilalexander in "Accepting US car standards would risk European lives"

neilalexander — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:41:23 +0000

You know what else will be braindead in your nice world? The child who runs out in front of a car after a rigid tight-angled metal corner drives into their skull. These regulations aren't about blame or "drivers/pedestrians/cyclists should be more aware!", they're about reducing or avoiding as much harm as possible when things don't go to plan and an accident happens.

New comment by neilalexander in "Accepting US car standards would risk European lives"

neilalexander — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 10:38:41 +0000

EU legislation requires a number of design considerations for pedestrian and cyclist collisions, like specific energy absorption requirements for front-impact and side-impact protection, restrictions on sharp corners/steep angles that could concentrate impact forces, minimum clearance around hard internal structures, mandatory ADAS (automated emergency braking, lane departure warnings) etc. Not saying that US cars are "not safe" in a binary fashion but for the most part these things are either optional or unregulated in the US.

New comment by neilalexander in "True P2P Email on Top of Yggdrasil Network"

neilalexander — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 21:32:24 +0000

Yes.

New comment by neilalexander in "True P2P Email on Top of Yggdrasil Network"

neilalexander — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 21:32:03 +0000

> I have serious doubts who are the target of this or what is the point of this to exist at all. It is literally worse than email.

Yggmail is a fun proof-of-concept and that’s about it. It isn’t perfect, nor does it have to be.

“It’s email, but not as you know it.”