Hacker News: ptaffs

New comment by ptaffs in "The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader"

ptaffs — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 17:01:09 +0000

You put it well and presbyterian is right in that point, but eBooks don't have the financial risk of retail merchandise planning and merchandising, and that cost saving isn't differentiated.

New comment by ptaffs in "The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader"

ptaffs — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:20:18 +0000

That eBooks don't need printing, warehousing, distribution and retail shelving, it's quite galling that the price isn't favorably differentiated. And I don't think the author gets to keep the difference.

New comment by ptaffs in "A Practical Guide to SSH Tunnels: Local and Remote Port Forwarding"

ptaffs — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:05:08 +0000

so many time i have inadvertently ended a session with a fat fingered ~.

New comment by ptaffs in "Car headlights don't have to be this blinding"

ptaffs — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:44:58 +0000

Was discussing at home (USA) this same idea that vehicle lights are brighter and drivers are less inclined to be bothered to dip. I rented a car in the UK several years ago which auto-dimmed the beam and was fascinated by the technology which would allow it to differentiate light sources and identify oncoming vehicles.

New comment by ptaffs in "Driving in America Is Headlight Hell"

ptaffs — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:36:54 +0000

https://archive.is/20260610124844/https://www.theatlantic.co...

New comment by ptaffs in "New Referendum Would Flip Brexit Result 10 Years On, Poll Finds"

ptaffs — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:29:15 +0000

You remember the story the citizens were sold but not the vote requirement seems odd. From a minimum of research, it seems there was no vote to join the EU, which did not exist at the time (1973) of the European Communities project with common currency and the rest. But in 1975 they had a referendum to stay and decided they would with a 67% Yes.

New comment by ptaffs in "New Referendum Would Flip Brexit Result 10 Years On, Poll Finds"

ptaffs — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:47:28 +0000

At the time "polls" predicted a Remain win. Between the vote and the eventual Brexit along with protests, there was a government petition for a redo and a Remain optimism that a re-do would flip the result. For this poll to me meaningful, I would expect to see declining support for Reform. But the opposite is happening.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revoke-artic...

New comment by ptaffs in "Richard Scolyer Has Died"

ptaffs — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:21:51 +0000

Lead paint/gasoline. Asbestos. Teflon. Chernobyl. Weedkiller. Just what I can think of since the 70s.

New comment by ptaffs in "Mouseless – keyboard-driven control of macOS/Linux/Windows"

ptaffs — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:12:38 +0000

well, you should be able to, at the OS level use only keyboard shortcuts. Windows once was great with tab, enter, escape, but browsers make things more complicated than dialog boxes, and MacOS really isn't good at keyboard shortcuts. I would prefer the solution was not Mouseless and the others, but no mouse.

New comment by ptaffs in "Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies"

ptaffs — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:29:13 +0000

This. And military contractors. And predatory financial companies including high-interest credit cards. US Health insurance. Oil and Gas. -- "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

New comment by ptaffs in "Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies"

ptaffs — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:18:01 +0000

i had this suggested to me by a locum dentist, and i agree. This is totally off topic and going further so but if you didn't already, you should change your dentist.

New comment by ptaffs in "Chuwi Minibook X"

ptaffs — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:21:46 +0000

my battered linux-running eeepc900a and I would agree. They also take some standard parts to upgrade SSD or WiFi modules (Mini Pcie).

New comment by ptaffs in "Earth is now heating up twice as fast as in previous decades"

ptaffs — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:15:50 +0000

The Book "Don't think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff covers how the term "climate change" has been pushed by those with a status-quo agenda, to reduce the urgency and engagement with "global warming". The linked article uses both, but global warming more dominantly, including "heating" in the headline.

New comment by ptaffs in "US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war"

ptaffs — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:19:24 +0000

>benefits no one

isn't correct. There are plenty of people on HN working in military contract industries, high tech arms manufacturing and such. They lobby Gov and benefit financially as do their employees.

New comment by ptaffs in "US Government releases first batch of UAP documents and videos"

ptaffs — Fri, 08 May 2026 17:39:11 +0000

...more comical. Word Art was used to create the rendering. I guess the original comment was sarcastic.

New comment by ptaffs in "If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?"

ptaffs — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:55:01 +0000

Is this not addressing quality of life getting worse?

"Americans in the 21st century have experienced roughly triple the typical rate of inflation in the 2020s compared to what they’d grown accustomed to. Everything that people buy feels like it is constantly slipping out of the zone of affordability, and that is absolutely maddening to many people, no matter what the economic statistics suggest they should feel."

New comment by ptaffs in "Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold"

ptaffs — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:29:17 +0000

Browser tabs are the fault here and browsers are trying to be OS environment, so Alt+Tab is useful for major task switching. I agree it's inconsistent and annoying, but I like Alt+Tab as a way to try to find the window I'm writing that email to someone.

New comment by ptaffs in "What does " 2>&1 " mean?"

ptaffs — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 17:05:32 +0000

I understood the point of the question was how shells work seems very context driven. An & here means something different to an & there. IFS=\| read A B C <<< "first|second|third" the read is executed and the IFS assignment is local to the one command echo hello this will "hello this", even though in the assignment above the space was important an & at the end of a line is run the task background and in the middle of the redirect isn't. All these things can be learned, but it's hard to explain the patterns, I think.

New comment by ptaffs in "Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)"

ptaffs — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:56:11 +0000

Good comment. Industry influencing research is nothing new (Global Warming, Oxycodone), and the dollar amount is small but it really doesn't take a lot of money to influence anyone. This case was interesting because they diverted attention to another contributor and influenced public policy against savory snacks; I remember the public health campaign against habitual daily consumption chips/crisps, without equally addressing chocolate bars: https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/a-pac... And I'd also comment the ludicrous abstract comparison of drinking oil in a year. I wouldn't want to eat a football field of raw potato either. I do wonder how/why the Savory Snack industry didn't fire back, and why don't we have anything better than: are they both equally bad or is fat or salt worse.

New comment by ptaffs in "Resizeable Bar Support on the Raspberry Pi"

ptaffs — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 14:42:23 +0000

...and they have time and access to label maker, as opposed to sharpie. That's some dedication to having order.