Hacker News: sloum

New comment by sloum in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

sloum — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:03:22 +0000

Nah: https://www.magicbell.com/blog/using-push-notifications-in-p...

New comment by sloum in "I Won't Download Your App. The Web Version Is A-OK"

sloum — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:01:42 +0000

You could add features to make it a PWA and explain to users how to save it t their desktop. I used ProtonMail for years that way (I do not have a smartphone anymore, so no longer do so).

New comment by sloum in "Building a Shell"

sloum — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:07:42 +0000

Yes!! This!! I wrote a shell awhile back and was pretty happy with it... but could _not_ get job control to work quite right. It was a big pain.

New comment by sloum in "A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification"

sloum — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 01:09:05 +0000

Found it:

> “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.

To whittle down the the important part:

> “Covered application store” means > any [...] general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application

If you have a network stack, you can 100% connect to a "covered application store" and thus the OS falls under the scope of the law.

New comment by sloum in "A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification"

sloum — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 01:04:34 +0000

I believe that if you have a network stack and can download files from the internet--which would include software--that it counts. I don't want to re-read to find the part, but they seemed to imply that any system where you could download software from the internet and then run it.

New comment by sloum in "A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification"

sloum — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:05:46 +0000

From the bill:

> "Covered application store” does not mean an online service or platform that distributes extensions, plug-ins, add-ons, or other software applications that run exclusively within a separate host application

There is a reasonable argument that a linux distribution is, itself, a host application. This is clearly an argument against their intention... but makes perfect sense to me. With this argument, the law does not apply to pretty much any environment where the applications are scheduled and run by a supervising process, at least by my reading.

New comment by sloum in "Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI"

sloum — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 01:12:22 +0000

> "vile machines raping the planet" is obviously vitriol

Well, I still think you are giving an opinion and I am giving mine. I disagree with your opinion. Mr. Pike is making a statement of fact. I do not consider it particularly vitriolic. You may consider it hyperbolic and I could understand that (even if I do not agree with it).

> Abolish it rather than continuing the current path, strict prohibition on any creative endeavor, and being extremely skeptical about anything other than direct language translation

...is not extreme in the slightest. If something is wrong (either morally or as a good and viable path forward) it only makes sense to cease following that path. I posit that it is not possible to creatively use this technology. It can only serve to steal the creativity of others. Prompting a machine to make something out of misc. parts for you does not make you creative. Nor does it make the machine creative. But for us to agree on that we would have to better define either creativity or art (spoiler: my view is that only sentient beings can be creative or make art). I suppose I could agree that the developers of an AI system are being creative, but certainly not the users. Being skeptical is always a good position with something new until shown reasons to not be skeptical. Positions are allowed to grown and change, s tarting skeptical about something is absolutely a reasonable position to start from. I see none of your statement as being evidence of extremism at all. Sounds like exercising sound, reasonable judgement.

New comment by sloum in "Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI"

sloum — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 21:23:51 +0000

Well, I couldn't disagree more with you: being anti-AI is absolutely not an extreme position. You are living in a bubble if you think it is. "Fervent anti-AI territory" is a good position, not hate speech.

New comment by sloum in "Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI"

sloum — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 21:16:43 +0000

Funny, it seems perfectly appropriate to me.

New comment by sloum in "Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI"

sloum — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 21:14:08 +0000

Yeah, but the industry is a big part of the problem and most people working in it are complicit at this point (whether or not they are reluctantly complicit).

New comment by sloum in "Show HN: Play abstract strategy board games online with friends or against bots"

sloum — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 01:46:47 +0000

I also really like asymmetrical games. In particular the various Tafl[0] reconstructions. Some are unbalanced, but some are very balanced and fun to play as either attacker or defender. There are various versions with rule variations to accommodate various board sizes too.

I have not played Unlur. Looks like a cool hex variant. I like the initial phase where who plays white is decided. It is a neat way of working that out.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

New comment by sloum in "Tutorial: Teaching and Learning Compilers Incrementally"

sloum — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 01:08:02 +0000

Agreed. I tried to dig around a bit in the pdf (though I am admittedly distracted at the moment) and it looked like a tree walk interpreter being built. At least at first. There were some sections involving x86 assembly, so it may eventually compile down to that architecture in later segments?

If anyone knows more about the style of copmiler(s) that this covers I would be interested in knowing. If I find the time to dig through the book a bit more and find out I'll update here.

New comment by sloum in "Uxn is a virtual machine with 32 instructions"

sloum — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 16:35:05 +0000

Using color alone to distinguish links is explicitly an accessibility violation. Underlines are not a requirement. I certainly agree that the link system here is atypical. It just isnt an accessibility violation.

New comment by sloum in "Uxn is a virtual machine with 32 instructions"

sloum — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 16:32:47 +0000

If you dont care about the standards, which governments use to define how accessibility works and who it applies to for legal purposes, then you essentially want to make up your own rules, policies, and ideas. Which is fine, mostly. However, it doesn't really give you solid ground to stand on when making an argument about other people's work. The fact is that according to the recognized "experts" on the subject (I'm using recognized here because again, governments use these standards and they have legal merit) there is nothing wrong with these links. There is, however, something wrong with conflating accessibility and usability. They are different. One applies to protected classes. The other has to do with everyone, but is in no way protected. There are legal ramifications to one. With the other, you are maybe a jerk for doing things against usability, but if it is equally bad for everyone, it often is not an accessibility issue. Accessibility is about leveling a palying field, usability is an opinion based thing regarding how a random person might interact with a website and usually relates to design decisions, not programatic experiences.

New comment by sloum in "Uxn is a virtual machine with 32 instructions"

sloum — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 03:50:41 +0000

There is a clear pattern and clear consistency at play here and there is no violation of the w3c/wai standards involving these links.

New comment by sloum in "Uxn is a virtual machine with 32 instructions"

sloum — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 03:49:21 +0000

The link styling system used on the wiki complies with all web accessibility standards: it clearly and consistently shows a link without using color as the sole determining factor. An underling is not required (whether you think it should be or not, though feel free to get involved, join a working group, and lobby for the change to your hearts content... though I think it will be an uphill battle for you). Accessibility standards are about helping those with disabilities. What you are experiencing is a difference of opinion about _usability_. I personally do not experience the same usability issues, but to each their own on that one. Accessibility and usability are two very different things and should not be conflated.

New comment by sloum in "Kanban Board for the Command Line"

sloum — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 14:57:37 +0000

Or as an alternate approach:

https://tildegit.org/sloum/swim

New comment by sloum in "Raw Text Club"

sloum — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 01:36:26 +0000

I have not been on an official tilde server (I wouldnt join because they have a code of conduct which I think infantilises adult humans)... but I am on a few pubnixes (circumlunar.space, rawtext.club, colorfield.space) and know a large number of folks that do not align with social and economic left values on these servers. Honestly, most of us stay out of political discussion on the servers and mostly talk about tech or sometimes philosophy (which can have political elements to it). Anecdotal, of course, so ymmv... but so long as you arent being a jerk to other people I've not seen any issues with people having diverging views of those sorts on these servers (at least the ones I have been on).

New comment by sloum in "Raw Text Club"

sloum — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 01:32:22 +0000

That seems reasonable to me. Small groups can be easily torn apart bad bad actors. Even well meaning folks that just don't vibe well can really hae a large effect on small intentional communities. It isnt about being good enough, by my reading, it is about a good fit.

New comment by sloum in "Slope: A hackable hobby programming language"

sloum — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 15:26:58 +0000

Different standard library, different focus, similar-ish core interpreter. However, it doesnt need to be different. This was not built for folks other than me and a few friends to use (I didnt post it here on hacker news, and am not looking to "grow a userbase").