Hacker News: prvc

New comment by prvc in "Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher"

prvc — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 23:07:59 +0000

>Sounds more like brute forcing than intelligence

Do you have a criterion that distinguishes between whatever you mean by those two respective terms?

New comment by prvc in "Mars Bar from 1991 found – and it's 20g bigger than today's"

prvc — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 15:56:52 +0000

Article could have profited by adopting a neutral tone instead of attempting to be comedic. Surely information on historical sizes has not been lost. As for the candy bar market: the ideal outcome for the consumer would be if a single candy bar ended up being a reasonable portion size, priced proportionately to cost to produce.

New comment by prvc in "Mario Meets Pareto"

prvc — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:52:38 +0000

I am the complete opposite of that. My attention wanes when someone fails to get to the point, instead dwelling in irrelevant details which are not intrinsically interesting. Have to muster the motivation to concentrate in such circumstances, and doing so is not enjoyable.

New comment by prvc in "John C. Dvorak has died"

prvc — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:49:01 +0000

There does not seem to be a documented close lineal connection between August Dvorak and composer Antonín Dvořák, although it would be reasonable to suppose some relation exists.

New comment by prvc in ""Disk Not Ejected Properly": What It Means"

prvc — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:27:54 +0000

Less interoperability leads to more lock-in in their view. Poor implementations facilitate this. Making the user lose data or be uncertain about losing data is just icing on the cake.

New comment by prvc in "Billions of Sketches Reveal Hidden Cultural Variation in Human Concepts"

prvc — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 04:59:15 +0000

Poorly conceived thesis; if the concepts differ, then they are different concepts.

New comment by prvc in "'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut"

prvc — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:48:42 +0000

The new Star Wars movie grossed $81.6 million at its debut last weekend, for comparison.

New comment by prvc in "Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers"

prvc — Sat, 23 May 2026 07:50:34 +0000

>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson.

Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?

New comment by prvc in "Using a 1978 terminal in 2026 (DEC VT-100)"

prvc — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:00:17 +0000

The problem with using a physical terminal for everyday computing in 2026 is that there is no model that provides a happy medium between sufficient bandwidth for a snappy experience while in use, and a cool retro feeling. Newer models one might have seen very recently, for example in a library, and older ones will feel sluggish.

New comment by prvc in "ChatGPT Images 2.0"

prvc — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:48:47 +0000

That's why I want it; their motives for doing it, should they decide to, would presumably be different.

New comment by prvc in "ChatGPT Images 2.0"

prvc — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 03:46:36 +0000

I hope they will consider releasing DALL-E 2 publicly, now that there has been so much progress since it was unveiled. It had a really nice vibe to it, so worth preserving.

New comment by prvc in "All elementary functions from a single binary operator"

prvc — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 05:19:12 +0000

This is neat, but could someone explain the significance or practical (or even theoretical) utility of it?

New comment by prvc in "They're made out of meat (1991)"

prvc — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:42:52 +0000

The concept of "meat" presupposes the existence of carnivores, so it's hard to see how the realization in the story could ever have been surprising.

New comment by prvc in "Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket"

prvc — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:07:53 +0000

Have they announced any price from which to adjust? If not, then it would be unnecessary for them to announce the adjustment.

New comment by prvc in "Terrence Malick's Disciples"

prvc — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 22:01:32 +0000

"Disciples", but seemingly without back and forth feedback from the "teacher". Many happy to ride on the coattails of his reputation, though. This particular style might also be attractive to new film-makers because it allows them to dispense with learning the basics of traditional film language.

New comment by prvc in "Gemini 3 Flash: Frontier intelligence built for speed"

prvc — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:24:35 +0000

Apples to oranges.

New comment by prvc in "Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz"

prvc — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 07:09:24 +0000

Should have just quoted what Hooke said... not sure what we're supposed to take away from this.

New comment by prvc in "TextEdit and the relief of simple software"

prvc — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 20:59:15 +0000

>The best way to reclaim our digital experiences, though, might be to stick with the likes of TextEdit, software that is unable to do anything except follow our commands.

Man, if he only knew...

New comment by prvc in "What happened to Apple's legendary attention to detail?"

prvc — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:20:41 +0000

This situation persists: for instance, try to write to an external disk formatted with NTFS using the GUI tools alone. Baffling why Apple doesn't simply obtain a license in order to gain this capability. Big unnecessary inconvenience, primarily for their own users.

New comment by prvc in "Bertrand Russell to Oswald Mosley (1962)"

prvc — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 10:17:15 +0000

Anyone wondering what might have prompted his evident change of attitude after already having engaged in a "correspondence" with Mosley should note that this letter was written during Ralph Schoenman's infamous tenure as Russell's secretary.