Hacker News: svrtknst

New comment by svrtknst in "DRAM has a design flaw from 1966. I bypassed it [video]"

svrtknst — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:24:48 +0000

Unnecessarily negative imo.

I like the video because I cant read a blog post in the background while doing other stuff, and I like Gadget Hackwrench narrating semi-obscure CS topics lol

New comment by svrtknst in "I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me"

svrtknst — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 08:34:51 +0000

It's easy to win an argument when you get to construct both sides. You can easily be direct and to the point without being brash.

You could, also, be wrong or misinformed, so I don't see the big deal about "Hey -- the latency numbers look pretty heavy. Should they be in the 400s?" or "I don't believe this is the best approach, we'll get issues with XYZ".

New comment by svrtknst in "I found a vulnerability. they found a lawyer"

svrtknst — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 17:38:30 +0000

That doesnt necessarily track. He could have stolen the data, then reported it to clear his own name. He did access more data than he needed to prove that there is a likely breach.

New comment by svrtknst in "I found a vulnerability. they found a lawyer"

svrtknst — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 17:37:39 +0000

Is it? if 10 people may have committed a crime, should we exonerate 1 of them because he reported it and promises he didnt do anything?

New comment by svrtknst in "I found a vulnerability. they found a lawyer"

svrtknst — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 08:16:57 +0000

If you flip it, we have a dude here admitting to breaching a large number of accounts and gaining access to PII -- including PII about minors.

Are we and the Maltese government just going to trust this guy and assume he has actually deleted everything, with no investigation?

New comment by svrtknst in "An AI agent published a hit piece on me"

svrtknst — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:23:20 +0000

we should be worried about both. there is a real risk of this rendering human trust and the internet pretty much useless

New comment by svrtknst in "I was banned from Claude for scaffolding a Claude.md file?"

svrtknst — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 09:27:21 +0000

eh, words are reality. insults are just changes in air pressure but they still hurt, and being constantly subjected to negativity and harsh language would be an unpleasant work environment

New comment by svrtknst in "Hate is a strong word, but I don't like Windows 11"

svrtknst — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:21:53 +0000

I'm not being factious, but is there any Linux distro with a desktop experience that matches Windows and macos?

Like, yes, I know there are many flaws with both. A lot of sound, technical issues with windows and macos. A slew of UX ones as well. But despite W11 carrying around remnants of Windows 98 still, both of those OSes _feel nice_.

Multiple desktops work well, nice gestures, simple installers and applications. Stuff often just works.

My experience with the distros and desktops Ive tried in Linux have felt like windows 98 with a janky web interface on top, or have missed a lot of features that commercial OSes have, installing programs is a mix of flatpaks, APKs, and building from source.

Often feels like a thin veil on top of a technically-inclined terminal OS.

Is ther eany OS/desktop where you dont pay the "linux tax" when it comes to how the GUI feels?

New comment by svrtknst in "As deep-sea mining race ramps up, mission will assess whether ecosystems recover"

svrtknst — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 09:54:11 +0000

Spoiler: No, they dont. They never do. Reports will say "yeah, probably" and in 10-40 years will change to "oooh well they didnt".

New comment by svrtknst in "Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop"

svrtknst — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 11:54:48 +0000

not only does OP imagine a powerful customer base, theyre all aligned enough that one configuration fits all. im doubtful

New comment by svrtknst in "Preliminary report into Air India crash released"

svrtknst — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 16:05:14 +0000

Aren't you the one building on suppositions? We know that they don't have flight hours. We cannot conclude what condition they were in aside from that.

to jump from "they could be tired or hungover" to "yeah or aliens" is very dishonest. Especially for a very fresh matter where we know very little, all our assumptions are just that, and nothing we writes has any bearing on anything.

New comment by svrtknst in "I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs"

svrtknst — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:07:32 +0000

You, and the OP, are being unfair in your replies. Obviously, it's not worthless for all applications but when LLMs obviously fail in disastrous ways in some important areas, you can't refute that by going "actually it gives me codign advice and generates images".

Thats nice and impressive, but there are still important issues and shortcomings. Obligatory, semirelated xkcd: https://xkcd.com/937/

New comment by svrtknst in "Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)"

svrtknst — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:20:18 +0000

a wonderful thing to do in that case is to either ask, or present your concern as a concern. An expression of uncertainty and fear. Not as a statement, or counterclaim, or by trying to propose a solution to the problem you've invented.

The figurative "you", in this case

New comment by svrtknst in "Paper Apps"

svrtknst — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:28:05 +0000

for given values of "smarter" and "dumber". i've yet to encounter a smart digital to-do system. most are terrible and pretty dumb. a paper todo is pretty much as smart as you make it.

New comment by svrtknst in "Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark"

svrtknst — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:18:35 +0000

What "is" JavaScript then? It's not the language specification (that's ECMAScript) and it's not the interpreters (that's Node, Deno, Bun, V8, Spidermonkey…), so what... is it?

And to follow up - how does Oracle use "JavaScript" in trade?

New comment by svrtknst in "Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds"

svrtknst — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 15:06:46 +0000

Roman-built roads and the spread of Latin were tremendously important. Noone said they were invented by them.

New comment by svrtknst in "RFC 35140: HTTP Do-Not-Stab (2023)"

svrtknst — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 12:34:41 +0000

Personally I disagree. IMO, devtools were better when competing with firebug, but I haven't experienced much of a difference in the past... 8? years. Something like that.

New comment by svrtknst in "1BRC Coding Challenge: Nerd Sniping the Java Community"

svrtknst — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 10:25:27 +0000

It also doesn't work properly, since it sets cookies before you make a choice.

New comment by svrtknst in "US Military pulls the trigger, uses AI to target air strikes"

svrtknst — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 11:52:07 +0000

There are parallells to human complacency, and there have been military incidents due to it.

New comment by svrtknst in "Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature"

svrtknst — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 07:58:45 +0000

Not sure about "fix" but cooling the body via hot showers is a fairly common recommendation for anxiety relief, especially prior to sleep.

Supposedly, if you cool the body down externally (cold shower, cold environment) it will try to increase body temp, but if you take a hot shower or sauna, the body will instead try to lower its temperature.