Hacker News: solstice

New comment by solstice in "Accelerando (2005)"

solstice — Sat, 16 May 2026 16:03:38 +0000

I just reread Daemon and Freedom™. Highly recommended. They definitely hit different today than when I first read them in 2010 or thereabouts

New comment by solstice in "Dark Star (Film, 1974)"

solstice — Sun, 10 May 2026 19:30:43 +0000

Oh wow, Dark Star has been in my to watch list for a while already.

The German dubbing of Monty Python's Life of Brian is hilarious too. It's as funny as the original and sometimes even better.

New comment by solstice in "Localsend: An open-source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop"

solstice — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:58:05 +0000

I was too when due to network problems at our last traditional LAN-party (WC3, CS1.6 etc.) we used the hotspot feature of one phone to get everyone on a local network. I was skeptical and assumed the PCs wouldnt be able to see each other but lo and behold: it worked flawlessly!

New comment by solstice in "When your digital life vanishes"

solstice — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:35:34 +0000

About the "locked" Thoughts.doc file: Shouldn't this be trivially crackable nowadays?

New comment by solstice in "Chernobyl wildlife forty years on"

solstice — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:29:01 +0000

thank you. TIL. Hiking the Green Belt sounds like an interesting long-term hiking project

New comment by solstice in "AgentFM – A single Go binary that turns idle GPUs into a P2P AI grid"

solstice — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:01:08 +0000

Having just reread Daemon by Daniel Suarez this hits differently. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel))

New comment by solstice in "Direct Win32 API, Weird-Shaped Windows, and Why They Mostly Disappeared"

solstice — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:17:39 +0000

Oh yeah. Browsing the submissions and forums on customize.org are among my first forays into the internet.

New comment by solstice in "Fuck the cloud (2009)"

solstice — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:01:17 +0000

Well have you uploaded them to archive.org?

New comment by solstice in "Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead"

solstice — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:57:10 +0000

Maybe because they are significantly more finicky than DVDs to set up for playing in VLC for example. You need to download a key list of all released bluray movies from a slightly sketchy website, put it on a folder in the system somewhere and only then does it work.

I'm not sure if it's easier using jellyfin etc.

New comment by solstice in "RAM Has a Design Flaw from 1966. I Bypassed It [video]"

solstice — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:04:43 +0000

Is there a reason you can think of why AMD, Intel etc. would not want to do this?

Really enjoyed the video and feel that I (not being in the IT industry) better understand CPUs und and RAM now.

New comment by solstice in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

solstice — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:47:47 +0000

The use of AI assistants in genealogy is interesting. There seems to be a lot of activity in that area

New comment by solstice in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

solstice — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:04:38 +0000

I dig the electroduotone. Congrats!

Have you heard of electronicos fantasticos? It's this band from Japan who make incredible music with instruments they made themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0VYsiMtrNE

New comment by solstice in "Haunted Paper Toys"

solstice — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:57:05 +0000

Those look delightful! Eg for the next RPG session. On Google, the search term "papercraft" yields a lot of other results with easy to assemble models

New comment by solstice in "Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division"

solstice — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:04:38 +0000

The author changed names for the revised edition to increase the distance to the SCP wiki.

New comment by solstice in "Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division"

solstice — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:57:44 +0000

Isn't there also a physics angle to antimemes (as portrayed in TINAD)? Self-erasing information sounds like a reduction of entropy and should therefore be a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, no?

New comment by solstice in "If You Need a Laptop, Buy It Now"

solstice — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:28:04 +0000

Thank you!

New comment by solstice in "Estonia to relaunch Skype as Europe's sovereign platform"

solstice — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:30:55 +0000

Another reason is that "skyping" is such a cromulent word that event today I still catch me using it in conversation with colleagues and friends.

New comment by solstice in "If You Need a Laptop, Buy It Now"

solstice — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:43:38 +0000

What models or classes of models would I be able to run on that hardware?

I've asked myself that question while looking at some of the models on this: site https://laptopparts4less.frl/index.php?route=common/home

New comment by solstice in "The Return of the Energy (as) Weapon"

solstice — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:33:44 +0000

Article title is slightly misleading, as its meaning is "Energy as a weapon". So nothing about lasers etc.

New comment by solstice in "The Strait of Hormuz Oil Shock Is Now Heading West"

solstice — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:58:43 +0000

I'd like some credible source for the Japan claim, please. Per https://www.jluggage.com/blog/fact-check/japan-buying-oil-in... it is a rumour.