Hacker News: rpearl

New comment by rpearl in "Today's PHP security release, and how we're strengthening security"

rpearl — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:35:22 +0000

Where did the OP even ask for a "trustless database" or "cyberpunk" or anything like that?

It is perfectly reasonable for the delivery service to be trusted. After all, they're going to take the physical package, so the business must trust them, and need to know where to deliver it, so the individual must trust them. An individual can request a token for the business and the delivery service can validate it, without the address ever being given to the business.

None of this requires a blockchain to make it slower and inexplicably public.

New comment by rpearl in "Jellyfin 12.0"

rpearl — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:09:27 +0000

Lyrion (fka Logitech Media Server ) does album shuffle

New comment by rpearl in "GitHub Outage Tracker: Is GitHub Cooked?"

rpearl — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:43:36 +0000

If you do the math, their numbers are something like 1000 commits per second. That's not pushes per second either, it's just the total number of commits summed up over a week, not all of which trigger much of anything to happen.

Yes, that is scale. And yes, that's not actual requests per second. But it's the sort of scale that big (and even mid-sized) tech has known how to deal with for decades. Microsoft doesn't have an excuse.

New comment by rpearl in "Ask HN: GitHub employees what's going on? Why?"

rpearl — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 04:10:56 +0000

That is 455 commits per second. I know that's not qps over the system but it's not that huge of an input number either. Not for big tech like msft.

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.)