<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: tengwar2</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tengwar2</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:11:07 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=tengwar2" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes - but that's the gauges you are taking as standard. In fact narrow gauge railways are pretty common, since they are easier and cheaper to put through some landscapes. But as for main line high speed / high load railways, the balance of cost vs utility usually works out the same. Another major effect is standardisation in Victorian Britain (which is why Brunel's gauge on the GWR was replaced). Those engineers went out in to the wider world, and took standard gauge with them, and often the locomotives were manufactured in Britain. Hence the long distance railways often use exactly the same gauge - but the exact measurement was a matter of Parliament deciding on what compromise to draw based on early railway lines, bearing in mind that it was a lot easier to reduce gauge rather than increase it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:14:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757252</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757252</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757252</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The story about "the width of the backsides of two Roman horses" is just a myth. Which should be obvious if you look at the many different railway gauges in use. You can trace it back to 19C standardisation, and argue over whether Brunel's 7'¼" was better than standard gauge, or if we should all have converted to 3m Breitspurbahn, but that's a different question.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:19:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750459</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750459</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750459</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Does the editor in this environment do automatic capitalisation?<p>I have to say that when I used Modula-2, editors were very simple and banging away on the shift key or caps lock was a real irritation.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:12:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750401</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750401</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750401</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "What happened to GEM?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, there were one or two third party assemblers available. From memory, the issue was with the downstream tools - so for instance on CP/M 3.0, I think you had to use the DR one to be able to build an RSX (equivalent of a TSR under DOS. You could count the number of 8080 CP/M 3.0 machines on the fingers of one foot.<p>You've reminded me that I have a 380Z or 480Z in the loft - I must get it going again.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:40:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515199</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515199</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515199</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "What happened to GEM?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I can't say I'm wild about a world where Digital Research won. When they were dominant with CP/M, the tools and documentation were bad to the point where most machines had Z80 processors and DR only provided an 8080 assembler, so you had to DB significant bits of code to get the missing opcodes. Developing RSXs to access bank-switched memory under CP/M 3 could have been so much easier with a few examples and perhaps debugging tools. MS/DOS was just so much easier.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:12:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47511453</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47511453</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47511453</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't subscribe to iCloud, and have never seen these. Where do you see them?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:33:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47451977</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47451977</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47451977</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Warranty Void If Regenerated"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's a bit of a tradition of introducing engineering ideas through stories. I remember a novella which was used to introduce something like MRP II (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_requirements_planning" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_requirements_planning</a>) in the 80's. One of the reasons I think it works is that it keeps a focus on the human elements - like why Tom fitted the switch in your story. I remember automating a lab system back in 1985, which would bring in £1000 per day. Two weeks later I found out that the reason it wasn't in use was that the user wanted an amber monitor rather than a green one. I fitted the switch.<p>I don't know if this is what the future will look like, but this looks realistic. And if my non-existent grandson starts re-coding my business without asking, he's going to spend the next six months using K&R C.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 23:10:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419608</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419608</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419608</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "What happens after you die? (2016)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One of my jobs is taking funerals in the UK. (It's always useful for a project manager to have access to a number of deep holes). As the article says, things are different in Europe, and even between the constituent countries of the UK. In England, where I am, probably 90% of funerals lead to a cremation rather than a burial. There was a revolutionary change from "illegal and heretical" to "absolutely fine and normal" in a short period of the 19C. I've taken a service at the original crematorium  in Woking, which has plaques for a few notable people including Eleanor Marx and Alan Turing. That made the London Necropolis obsolete - a huge graveyard in the same town, with its own dedicated railway leading out of Waterloo station, built when London was running out of room.<p>I said I took a service at the crematorium: most crems are run by local councils, have one or two chapels as part of the complex, and are set in a cemetery. Stand-alone crematoria for direct cremation do exist, and I think that this will be the way of the future, with funerals taken with a box of pre-cremated ashes rather a coffin, mainly to reduce cost. Cost is high, though far from as high as in the USA: no embalming, hence no need for vaults for pollution control, simple coffin which is cheaper and only needs four bearers, crematoria run more as a public service than as a profit centre, ashes often scattered rather than needing a grave. But it still ends up costing a lot because so many people are needed to run the service.<p>We do have the equivalent of body disposal by the county. A basic funeral is funded by the local authority, and it is a funeral, not just body disposal. I've done a small number where someone has died with little money, and without known friends or family. I have spent some time contacting pubs, churches and clubs to find anyone who might want to come or be able to tell me anything for the eulogy.<p>It's a fascinating job - I can't think of anyone other than midwives who can visit homes from such a wide section of society and hear life stories. Today I took a huge funeral for a matriarch from a very clannish area of the town - you often get four generations of a family living within a few hundred yards of each other. It's a very different culture to my own middle-class background.<p>It's also fun to go to the biennial National Funeral Exhibition - several thousand people who are habitually kind and empathetic, descending on an exhibition hall in the middle of an agricultural showground, to see the latest advances in high-altitude disposal of ashes and demonstrations of the manufacture of wicker coffins (personally I would go for the felt coffin). My wife is looking forward to it, though she has advised me that if I continue to call her Morticia she's going to be picking up some business cards for her own use.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:30:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47358727</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47358727</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47358727</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "CSP for Pentesters: Understanding the Fundamentals"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yup. I wondered if it was Communicating Sequential Processes when I followed a link. No, clearly not, but only found a candidate expansion 2/3 of the way through the article.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2026 20:49:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200062</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200062</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200062</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "A beginner's guide to split keyboards"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you want to do that, you can set many keyboards up to do exactly that. They just need to run the standard software - QMK, ZMK or Vial. You'll need to pick a keyboard with enough keys, of course, but there is plenty of choice. However there are other ways of solving the problem, e.g. a single key that is mapped to produce that combination. It's a matter of taste and experiment, and there is no reason for you to do it the same way as anyone else.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:45:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087956</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087956</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087956</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "A beginner's guide to split keyboards"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Thumbs: true, but I think some take it way too far - up to seven keys per thumb! The thumb is articulated at the wrong angle to move very far, so I find that two or perhaps three keys per thumb in a single arc is about as much as I can use fast.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:40:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087902</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087902</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087902</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Ga68, a GNU Algol 68 Compiler"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I used Modula-2 to build an automated lab system. It worked, but I found myself being annoyed by small features. For instance the type conversion keywords seemed to have no pattern to them, and the case sensitivity meant you were always hammering shift. Some good ideas, but I'm not sure that the problems of the time and the size of the available computers made them particularly useful.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 09:40:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46932822</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46932822</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46932822</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Man who videotaped himself BASE jumping in Yosemite arrested, says it was AI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They have to prove the case to the jury "beyond reasonable doubt". The jury are at liberty to decide that they don't believe an unsupported claim by the defence, and that the evidence provided by the prosecution is sufficient. As judges sometimes say at the start of a case, the standard is beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond all possibility of being wrong.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:38:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926288</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926288</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926288</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'll have to recuse myself if the application comes across my desk, but good luck with the application.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:56:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810249</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810249</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810249</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Probably depends on the department. I do grant and loan assessments for Innovate UK, and they have a rigorous and largely (+) transparent method for assessment which I would be happy to explain in detail. If we award money, it's accompanied by a monitoring officer (I do that as well) who is subject area expert with project management business experience. The MO meets the project every one or three months to review progress and approve payment of an installation of the grant or loan. We certainly wouldn't hand over £4M without good reason!<p>(+ Some of the detail of the scoring matrix is not as transparent as we would like, but Innovate UK does take feedback and tries to improve it).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:20:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803829</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803829</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803829</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is HN, not Reddit. You can safely assume that every single person here knows how to use man, particularly if they mention using troff to format it properly. There remains a problem.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:17:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747758</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747758</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747758</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And I said that the man pages would be a part of what you have to examine. 95 pages in the case of bash (that's after running it through troff). man pages were fine when they were three pages long, but their lack of any internal index has become a problem.<p>Ok, now you might have a dozen files which could contain the information, where the location of each file can be modified by environment variables. It's tolerable if you are working on something you change weekly, but a practical problem if you do it yearly or it's entirely new.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:39:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746234</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746234</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746234</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One of the annoyances of Linux is working out where configuration information is, following through multiple layers of indirection and files over-riding other files. This looks like adding another layer, another place to look, and if you're reading the man file for a shell (for example) it probably won't even mention that this could invalidate the information contained in that in the man file.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:36:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46742750</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46742750</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46742750</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>With HMRC, the reasoning is that this forces the company to have an accounting package. They don't care which, they just define the API. Not unreasonable. There are more issues with MTD IT (making tax digital, income tax) due to some detailed requirement decisions such as the need to report different income streams separately.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:27:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556363</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556363</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556363</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tengwar2 in "LaTeX Coffee Stains (2021) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Could Garibaldi read Narn?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:22:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556284</link><dc:creator>tengwar2</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556284</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46556284</guid></item></channel></rss>