Hacker News: nicholasbraker

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:46:14 +0000

I thought crypto would have solved this ;-)

Mnemonic BTC Slots

nicholasbraker — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:02:32 +0000

Article URL: https://coinables.github.io/mnemonic-slots/#

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702524

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Dutch police have their own car stolen during car theft chase"

nicholasbraker — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 07:19:26 +0000

Dutch police are not as trigger happy as other countries. They take their monopoly on violence quite serious ;-)

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Thirteen Months That Changed IBM (2020)"

nicholasbraker — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:39:17 +0000

I don't have firsthand experience but I do know that IBM mainframes (Z-series) are still actively developed and lifecycled. Whether this is purely financial (as in: we keep the customer locked in to our ecosystem regardless if there are alternatives available which offer the same level of robustness etc.) or the platform really is better suited to the specific requirements set by banks, government agencies etc. remains to be seen..

New comment by nicholasbraker in "European Nations Decide Against Acquiring Boeing E-7 Awacs Aircraft"

nicholasbraker — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 07:49:24 +0000

Let's hope a decision on an alternative platform is made quickly (although I am sceptical due to the bureaucratic maze of NATO procurement). The current AWACS-platform (E-3A) still uses old engines which are loud, smokey and not as efficient. Neighbouring communities deserve a quieter platform as well as NATO needs a potent airborne early warning platform. European technology is not an issue (Thales, Leonardo etc. make great modern AESA based radars). Also interoperability of data between NATO members used in the C2 chain is not an issue.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Windows 3.1 in a Windows 95 Virtual Machine (2022)"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 09:06:12 +0000

Ow wow, worked ISP support in 1997 - 1999 and indeed recalled having to reinstall TCP/IP stack and tweaking setting to make stuff work. Next to that, gruesome installation of ISDN drivers (which technically were out of support for us) for a specific brand of ISDN modems the incumbent telco provided to customers.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Move over Dijkstra: New algorithm just rewrote 70 years of computer science"

nicholasbraker — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 13:21:03 +0000

The challenge of implementing this for internet routing is that you'll probably need a whole new protocol implementation as part of either BGP (currently the protocol responsible for Internet routing between networks) or something entirely new. Let alone that BGP is a path vector protocol and not a link-state protocol that uses Dijkstra (like OSPF and IS-IS).

It might optimize internal routing but getting this standardised across vendors etc. is not impossible, but probably takes a long time to standardise/govern etc.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "David Lynch LA House"

nicholasbraker — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 07:22:00 +0000

Damn, only 25%? Luxury!

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Should we drain the Everglades?"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 06:52:08 +0000

The reason why we had something like the Delta works was due to a 12 Bft storm hitting our shores in 1953. This infrastructure is built to withstand these kind of storms and protect the land from flooding. The protections in place (movable doors in storm surge barriers etc.) are used a few times the last decades when storms did hit our shores. I don't know if this is useable in the Florida context. It's easy to say whenever a big hurricane hits the Florida shore: "Yeah, just ask the Dutch to fix this.." And I am sure some smart guys from our tech universities can pull it off, but you need money and political will. And it literally takes decades to built it.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "AP Live: View from Gaza as Israel Begins Expanded Operation in Gaza City"

nicholasbraker — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:42:27 +0000

It's bandwidth versus latency. Two different aspects. A live feed going one way works fine over a high('ish) bandwidth link as long as there's no need for interactive (back-and-forth) traffic. See it as a highway. The highway can be very wide with lots of lanes (=bandwidth) but to get from point A to B can cover a large distance (latency)

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Novel hollow-core optical fiber transmits data faster with record low loss"

nicholasbraker — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 06:55:33 +0000

You probbaly need a specialised crew to do this and as such such fiber won't be installed in your own neighbourhood for your Fiber-to-the-Home connection anytime soon I guess. But, maybe in a few decades it will.

When such technology becomes practical for the large telco's it will be implemented soon as this saves on attenuation equipment.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "SAP splashes €20B on Euro sovereign cloud push"

nicholasbraker — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:12:33 +0000

If you want to compete you must also invest in associated PaaS and SaaS-services supported by a development framework to code and integrate it all. As mentioned, getting an IaaS product is not a problem now, it's about getting the developers onboard.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 18:55:20 +0000

Holding a small amount of cash is even promoted as part of a "survival package" here in The Netherlands. (Next to water, canned food etc.)

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 18:50:59 +0000

The first line is straight out of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the same vein as "In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people angry and has widely been considered as a bad move." Love it!

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 06:24:22 +0000

I have been driving VW for decades. Never had any issue apart from some Apple CarPlay snags. Drove Golf, Touran and Tuiguan Allspace. Always a pleasure.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 06:22:49 +0000

Off course it's safe, something which doesn't drive with a "Critical System Communication Fault" and unable to enter in the first place due to a "Digital Key Failure" is sure as hell not going to cause a fatality ;-)

New comment by nicholasbraker in "AWS forms EU-based cloud unit as customers fret"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 07:04:17 +0000

But are they really a sensible alternative to AWS/azure when it comes to developer support etc.? Based on the offerings of European alternatives it seems that everything upto IAAS and limited PAAS offerings can be sourced European, but the real value-add is in development tooling, pipeline support etc. (e.g. AWS CDK) The lock-in on those tools are huge and Europe really need to step up to provide an alternative to that. Love to be proven wrong though.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "KDE for Windows 10 Exiles – Upgrade your software, not your computer"

nicholasbraker — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 13:44:44 +0000

My 85 years old dad uses Win10 right now, but using KDE (or similar environment) seems to be a good alternative. He only uses Firefox and mail anyway.

New comment by nicholasbraker in "The David Lynch Collection"

nicholasbraker — Fri, 30 May 2025 07:34:14 +0000

Almost tempted to do a bid on the Black Lodge Style Red Curtain and Zig-Zag Rug. Almost.. ;-)

New comment by nicholasbraker in "Poll: How often do you bathe?"

nicholasbraker — Wed, 21 May 2025 07:36:37 +0000

Same here. Taking a bath is rare (I do have a bathtub though), but I shower every day, sometimes twice a day after sport.