Hacker News: projektfu

New comment by projektfu in "Suicide rates highest ever among middle-aged men"

projektfu — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:29:40 +0000

The graph shows that suicides overall are down from 30 years ago, while the same cohort that was higher in 1985-2005 (25-44) is now higher in 2005-2025 (45-64). Perhaps there is something about the generation more than the situation or the age of the individual.

New comment by projektfu in "Banks are now trying to offload the AI data center debt they just underwrote"

projektfu — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:25:41 +0000

I think liquidation would be unlikely. Restructuring would be more likely. Like as happens with airlines from time to time.

New comment by projektfu in "The Lightbulb Computer"

projektfu — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 11:08:37 +0000

“Lightbulb, where is Commander Riker?”

“Commander Riker is in his quarters.”

New comment by projektfu in "Man discovers his parents' coffee machine used 1TB of data in 10 days"

projektfu — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:04:07 +0000

What are they going to say? "Trackers, like these 300 we have on our site, are monitoring all this stuff and our NDA doesn't let us tell you what they are doing."

New comment by projektfu in "California closed the Montana license plate loophole"

projektfu — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:48:26 +0000

That is more because the gas tax is intended to pay for the roads. Red-dye diesel is declaring your intention to use the vehicle exclusively off-road, and thus not needing to be subject to the gas tax.

New comment by projektfu in "California closed the Montana license plate loophole"

projektfu — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:44:35 +0000

I'd be interested to know what case recognizes such a general principle. I would recommend not publicizing that you are transiting with cannabis from Oregon to Montana through Idaho, for example.

New comment by projektfu in "Show HN: Make cursed fonts like Times New Bastard"

projektfu — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 18:16:09 +0000

I'm wondering the same thing. Something about making proportional fonts fit into blocks for Chinese text?

New comment by projektfu in "The "Windows XP Box" (2003)"

projektfu — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:09:23 +0000

Now you could maybe cram the guts of a DGX Spark in there and have an incredible sleeper machine.

New comment by projektfu in "The "Windows XP Box" (2003)"

projektfu — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:02:02 +0000

This was my favorite build from that site: https://www.mini-itx.com/projects/psu-pc/

New comment by projektfu in "Montreal adopts bylaw banning insults against police, municipal employees"

projektfu — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 15:24:43 +0000

It's pretty interesting how many comments ask questions that were asked by the article. Not surprising, as I also didn't read the article before reading the comments. But it is a well-written news article.

New comment by projektfu in "I don't want to read what you didn't write"

projektfu — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:42:32 +0000

On Windows I also use QuickAccent, now part of PowerToys. I could never remember the Alt-code for the em dash. Apparently it's Alt-0151. With QuickAccent I hold a letter and right or left arrow and up comes a menu of related symbols. It's pretty neat.

On Mac, it's option-shift-hyphen. Option-hyphen gives the en dash.

On Linux, you may be able to type Ctrl-Shift-U to get unicode entry and type 2014 and Enter. 2013 is the en dash. Again, I will never remember that.

New comment by projektfu in "English: A vs. An"

projektfu — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 20:46:43 +0000

Except words ending in "ma" that came from Greek (o problema, o estigma) which are masculine, while those from Latin (a alma) are feminine as expected. In Spanish it's basically the same. A Spanish teacher gave me a nice mnemonic: "-ma is masculine, like your mother." I've never forgotten that.

New comment by projektfu in "Border agents can search cellphones without a warrant or reasonable suspicion"

projektfu — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:38:41 +0000

Perhaps a screenshot of a politically-incorrect social media post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49759504

New comment by projektfu in "Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chairman, Names Son to Replace Him"

projektfu — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:27:12 +0000

It's been a real drag being called "null" when your first name is blank.

New comment by projektfu in "I don't like passkeys"

projektfu — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:14:22 +0000

Multiple sites (e.g. Microsoft) currently ask me to use the passkey to log in after I enter my username, but the passkey doesn't seem to be stored anywhere. I usually will end up scanning the QR code to check if it's on my phone and get a negative answer. Then I have to go through the regular password + 2FA ritual I was already ready to use. After that, I am not given the option to store a passkey on the device I am currently using or on my phone. Process repeats next time. So much fun using passkeys.

I think there are two sites where I can actually log in using them.

I also don't like the way the pop-up is always so automatic and interrupting. Why not a button like other ways to log in?

New comment by projektfu in "There's no point at which turning your brain off will work"

projektfu — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:50:15 +0000

The obligatory XKCD, panel 2: https://xkcd.com/568/

New comment by projektfu in "The Beauty of Roundabouts"

projektfu — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:38:43 +0000

I've lived some places where 4-way stops were just abused, like Sugarland, TX. England and Ireland are full of roundabouts, some of which are incredibly small, just a painted dot, and some are giant multi-lane white-knuckle nightmares. There are places with good traffic light setups, but traffic lights generally suffer from the same problems of sometimes stopping traffic for no good reason while also encouraging excess speed.

In my current city, I can identify at least 3 intersections that would be better as a roundabout, but I don't have my hopes up.

New comment by projektfu in "Shopify moves back to Native from React Native"

projektfu — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 15:10:18 +0000

There's also "Helix rebuilding a screen in the Shopify mobile app using Swift and Kotlin" which sounds like a caption but there is no video or image.

New comment by projektfu in "What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks"

projektfu — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 01:49:48 +0000

Sometimes it is a synonym for ACH, but it could be processed more literally as a check, with a check image and everything, and something like "Pre-Authorized Payment" written on the signature line. Usually they also let you specify the check number, if you wanted to have it follow your own sequence. Amazon Business was doing this with invoice payments up until January of this year.

New comment by projektfu in "iPhone Duo"

projektfu — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:42:13 +0000

As an American, I find Fahrenheit much better for ambient temperature and body temperature, but I hate seeing it for things like melting points of materials and the like. I'm always thrown off by statements like 800-degree pizza ovens, because once you get above 500°F it is out of the realm of everyday measurements, and I have trouble mentally separating the values for metals melting in °C and "gee whiz" temperatures in °F.

All scientific and engineering use should probably eschew the customary measurements, even in the news. For example, in aviation, they use °C now unless your airplane is very old. Unfortunately, in the US we still use inches of mercury for pressure, both knots and MPH but never km/h or m/s, etc.