Hacker News: rpearl

New comment by rpearl in "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"

rpearl — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:13:57 +0000

it is a simpler set of services at the expense of a more complex user experience

New comment by rpearl in "A Rant About “Technology” (2005)"

rpearl — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 17:15:13 +0000

Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan is specifically about physics which does not exist here.

"Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang deals with a world in which god, heaven and hell are unambiguously real.

Both are definitely "hard sci fi"

New comment by rpearl in "Underwater oxygen loss threatens earth's stability, researchers warn"

rpearl — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:28:53 +0000

CFCs are responsible for the ozone hole. There are no known significant natural sources of CFCs. The ozone hole was caused by humans and its course correction was due to the political will to phase out CFCs.

> Climate scientists can raise the alarm or whatever but have no credibility

Climate scientists have credibility.

New comment by rpearl in "British runner Josh Kerr breaks world record for mile which stood for 27 years"

rpearl — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 21:22:06 +0000

these have made significant differences in some WRs recently. Cheptegei's 10000m in particular was set with rock steady even splits compared to the prior record.

New comment by rpearl in "California AB 2047 makes 3D printers off-limits to students, educators, business"

rpearl — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 23:34:42 +0000

Can you send me these models? I would like to print and bring them to the next committee hearing. My senator is on that committee.

I will also be bringing an ergonomic grip for my camera.

My email is in my profile.

New comment by rpearl in "Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation"

rpearl — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:49:31 +0000

> How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

It is possible to tax unrealized assets. We already do. For example, a property owner pays property tax based on the value of their property, even when they are not selling it.

It is possible for billionaires to borrow against their held assets. It is therefore also possible to calculate a tax on them.

New comment by rpearl in "Rewrite Bun in Rust has been merged"

rpearl — Thu, 14 May 2026 21:09:55 +0000

it's clear that as of the time of this merge, no human has read any appreciable fraction of current mainline bun, so it's not particularly clear how much of a "mental model" exists anymore.

New comment by rpearl in "Days without GitHub incidents"

rpearl — Mon, 04 May 2026 19:48:41 +0000

It's not "unfashionable". Phabricator has been unmaintained since 2021.

New comment by rpearl in "Sawe becomes first athlete to run a sub-two-hour marathon in a competitive race"

rpearl — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 03:10:01 +0000

it is a lot more challenging when running than when biking. The jostling is not your friend.

New comment by rpearl in "ChatGPT for Excel"

rpearl — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:13:33 +0000

Try https://rowzero.com ? We have written a much faster spreadsheet engine and regularly work with 10M+ row datasets

New comment by rpearl in "Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again"

rpearl — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:29:42 +0000

an article written by an AI about fonts, when the AI fundamentally does not look at rendered text, is inherently without merit

New comment by rpearl in "No knives, only cook knives"

rpearl — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 06:15:41 +0000

This niche hobby became https://bernalcutlery.com/ which is a fairly successful Bay Area knife store

New comment by rpearl in "Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years"

rpearl — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:58:36 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character

New comment by rpearl in "Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k"

rpearl — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 05:24:24 +0000

I do not know the market well; very interesting, thank you.

New comment by rpearl in "Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k"

rpearl — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 04:52:03 +0000

perhaps when the clocks at https://clocks.brianmoore.com/ consistently make sense, AI could make a font.

Even then, I wouldn't want it making a kanji font. Consider 感 and 惑, both of which would be taught before high school.

New comment by rpearl in "New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair"

rpearl — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 20:29:42 +0000

I do floss, but I genuinely don't see that this is obvious. You can do a lot of damage with mechanical force, to both teeth and gums! Starting a flossing regimen after not having one tends to cause pain--isn't that a signal to stop? etc.

Furthermore, correlation is not causation and it could well be the case that flossing is associated with better outcomes without causing it. For example, people who can afford to go to the dentist regularly are therefore regularly told to floss. People who care about dental health in general probably floss more, but also may be doing other things, consciously or unconsciously, to improve outcomes. Gut (and perhaps mouth) bacteria have behavioral effects; perhaps flossing is caused by having healthy mouth bacteria!

(at least one study says mouthwash is better than floss. That seems obvious to me! liquids are smaller than floss.)

New comment by rpearl in "ICE Will Use AI to Surveil Social Media"

rpearl — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 05:43:34 +0000

When someone is allegedly an il_legal_ immigrant, they are present but allegedly violating immigration _laws_.

That is to say, such a person has been accused of a crime.

Due process in the constitution guarantees that individuals (including non-citizens facing deportation) have the opportunity to defend themselves in court against such accusations.

New comment by rpearl in "Why SSA?"

rpearl — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 22:57:46 +0000

SSA form is a state representation. SSA encodes data flow information explicitly which therefore simplifies all other analysis passes. Including alias analysis.

New comment by rpearl in "Designing software for things that rot"

rpearl — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:40:44 +0000

The point of measuring is reproducibility. If you want to get the same result repeatedly the easiest way is to measure.

Obviously people have been making sourdough for a very long time; you don't have to measure.

New comment by rpearl in "Codex Is Live in Zed"

rpearl — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 18:18:31 +0000

I otherwise like Zed way more than the vscode-derivatives but yeah, the edit predictions are just not even close. And it's laggier feeling despite the lower quality.