<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: smithza</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=smithza</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 04:43:14 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=smithza" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Your hex editor should color-code bytes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A gist I (claude) threw together that maps this color scheme on hexl-mode. <a href="https://gist.github.com/zacharyasmith/bcfd91c9685c6cec30385a687a92477b" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/zacharyasmith/bcfd91c9685c6cec30385a...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:08:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925877</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925877</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925877</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Your hex editor should color-code bytes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A gist I (claude) threw together that maps this color scheme on hexl-mode. <a href="https://gist.github.com/zacharyasmith/bcfd91c9685c6cec30385a687a92477b" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/zacharyasmith/bcfd91c9685c6cec30385a...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:08:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925874</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925874</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925874</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Goldfish Drives Own Car Thanks to Computer Engineer's Record-Breaking Invention]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/3/goldfish-drives-own-car-thanks-to-dutch-computer-engineers-record-breaking-invention">https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/3/goldfish-drives-own-car-thanks-to-dutch-computer-engineers-record-breaking-invention</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619001">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619001</a></p>
<p>Points: 2</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:23:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/3/goldfish-drives-own-car-thanks-to-dutch-computer-engineers-record-breaking-invention</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619001</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619001</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I read the book but don't recall any correlation to the topic of solar system alignment. Spoiler: Era 3 in the novel does speak of space exploration but this is all before the launches of Voyager (though Sputnik had launched by the books release IIRC).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:45:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578831</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578831</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578831</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from crashed cars"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>LVDS implies differential signals and are designed to minimize EMI and can be hard to splice while still maintaining signal integrity. They can support high data rates (ethernet cables also use twisted pair LVDS). Theoretically this should be feasible up to 100s or even 1000s of mbps</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:22:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531637</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531637</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531637</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "ai;dr"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Please read through this incredible book review (book is <i>All Things Are Full of Gods</i> by David Bentley Hart). It is the kind of philosophy that everyone is looking past. Syntactic vs informational determinacy. LLMs is designed to create copy that is syntactically determinate (it is a complex set of statistics functions). Whereas the best human prose actually is the opposite--it does not converge on syntactic determinacy (see quote below) but instead converges on informational determinacy. The plot resolves as the reader's knowledge grows from abstraction and ignorance to empathy, insight and anticipation.<p><a href="https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/one-to-zero" rel="nofollow">https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/one-to-zero</a><p><pre><code>  Semantic information, you see, obeys a contrary calculus to that of physical bits. As it increases in determinacy, so its syntactical form increases in indeterminacy; the more exact and intentionally informed semantic information is, the more aperiodic and syntactically random its physical transmission becomes, and the more it eludes compression. I mean, the text of Anna Karenina is, from a purely quantitative vantage of its alphabetic sequences, utterly random; no algorithm could possibly be generated — at least, none that’s conceivable — that could reproduce it. And yet, at the semantic level, the richness and determinacy of the content of the book increases with each aperiodic arrangement of letters and words into coherent meaning.
</code></pre>
Edit: add-on<p>In other words, it is impossible for an LLM (or monkeys at keyboards [0]) to recreate Tolstoy because of the unique role our minds play in <i>writing</i>. The verb <i>writing</i> hardly appears to apply to an LLM when we consider the function it is actually doing.<p>[0] <a href="https://libraryofbabel.info" rel="nofollow">https://libraryofbabel.info</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2026 19:37:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993919</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993919</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993919</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "ai;dr"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Go thee to the land of government contracting and see thou how well thine ideas hold up.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2026 19:29:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993799</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993799</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993799</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Chrome extensions spying on users' browsing data"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>consider how the xz supply-chain attack occurred 2 years ago [0]. the malware isn't auditable with a `git clone` as easily as you might want.<p>[0] <a href="https://research.swtch.com/xz-timeline" rel="nofollow">https://research.swtch.com/xz-timeline</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:58:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976544</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976544</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976544</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Chrome extensions spying on users' browsing data"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>key word "encourages"<p>when someone uses `npm install/add/whatever-verb` does it default to only using trusted publishing sources? and the dependency graph?<p>either 100% enforcement or it won't stick and these attack vulnerabilities are still there.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:56:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976524</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976524</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976524</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Converting a $3.88 analog clock from Walmart into a ESP8266-based Wi-Fi clock"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The DIY tuning fork clock is very cool. I am hard pressed to understand why accutron doesn't still make and sell tuning-fork watches. I really admire the creative use of resonance frequencies (not dissimilar to quartz watches but cool that you can really see <i>the</i> tuning fork for you watch as opposed to a diminutive quartz crystal).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:48:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953291</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953291</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953291</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Converting a $3.88 analog clock from Walmart into a ESP8266-based Wi-Fi clock"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I would be very careful of transmitting on the same frequency as WWVB. It is very likely illegal.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:38:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953205</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953205</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953205</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Television is 100 years old today"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><i>Amusing Ourselves to Death</i> by Neil Postman is the book that comes to mind with this article link. 2 years ago my wife and I took the TV off the wall. My kids don't have Bluey or the latest Disney cartoon to keep them company. I am not going back... It has been the most blissful time. Amazing that the TV is not required to lead a thriving life despite what the incessant sales-industrial-complex will tell you.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:38:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46782340</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46782340</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46782340</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I tried to do this recently but discovered that the DRM algorithm changed and I couldn't use the standard de-DRM tools.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2025 17:26:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45619350</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45619350</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45619350</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "ReMarkable Paper Pro Move"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It is a Linux variant. Has been rootable in the past.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2025 00:27:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45121979</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45121979</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45121979</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "This blog is running on a recycled Google Pixel 5 (2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>USB ethernet tether might be the “how” here. Or some sort of VPN (tailscale) to the home LAN that the phone is hooked up to. Not quite “off-grid”.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:31:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45110898</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45110898</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45110898</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Grayjay Desktop App"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What is the functional difference? unzip is installed as a default on linux distros just as tar is...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2024 21:05:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42475021</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42475021</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42475021</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Pretty.c"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The more pedantic compiler flags you introduce, the more strongly typed it becomes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2024 16:51:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947064</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947064</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947064</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Pyspread – Pythonic Spreadsheet"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have been using grist [0] for a number of months. Self-hosted. Uses Python and has defined all common Excel functions as Python functions. Has a web-api so it can be used as a kind of database. Very nice for my small use-cases where Excel would have fit the bill. I have not stress tested it and I know there are row limitations without going to the enterprise edition.<p>0: <a href="https://www.getgrist.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.getgrist.com/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2024 17:40:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40300879</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40300879</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40300879</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Show HN: I've Implemented a RSS Reader"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>On iOS install ReadKit which can interact with a very nice interface to FreshRSS. I self-host FreshRSS and it works perfectly, syncing with the server so when I go to the computer, it is up-to-date with what I have opened. I do not know if ReadKit is on Android.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jan 2024 20:10:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38846491</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38846491</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38846491</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by smithza in "Show HN: Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>emacs org mode… anything else needed?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 Dec 2023 20:15:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38738134</link><dc:creator>smithza</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38738134</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38738134</guid></item></channel></rss>