Hacker News: themadturk

New comment by themadturk in "John C. Dvorak has died"

themadturk — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:18:33 +0000

Ah, well, you missed an important (and obviously beloved) part of microcomputer culture. I haven't thought about him for years, but read his columns in PC Magazine religiously. I didn't always like him, but I always read him.

New comment by themadturk in "Orion Browser by Kagi"

themadturk — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:50:52 +0000

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. Still irritating. I tend to use Firefox for Reddit now.

New comment by themadturk in "FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers"

themadturk — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:16:08 +0000

Nickel, the stock firmware on Kobo, is pretty decent. KOReader is better, though. The Kobo is a pretty hackable device. I pair my Kobo Clara BW with BookFusion, which gives me portability between any KOReader device, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

New comment by themadturk in "Book prizes don't work how you think"

themadturk — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 23:32:20 +0000

When DRM is used, it is because publishers have required it, not because booksellers require it. Is that a better way of putting it?

New comment by themadturk in "Popular sugar substitutes linked to faster brain aging"

themadturk — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 23:30:50 +0000

I don't think stevia is classified the same way; it's a natural sweetener with zero calories. I think the others are "artificial" sweeteners.

New comment by themadturk in "Orion Browser by Kagi"

themadturk — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:57:58 +0000

That's my issue as well.

New comment by themadturk in "Orion Browser by Kagi"

themadturk — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:56:48 +0000

I use Safari all the time as well, but it doesn't behave very well with Reddit (keeps closing and reopening tabs due to "too much memory" problems. Other than that, it works for 99.9% of everything else.

New comment by themadturk in "I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64"

themadturk — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:08:07 +0000

Hah! This was me, as well...first a Timex, then a C=64.

New comment by themadturk in "I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64"

themadturk — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:06:07 +0000

I (a youngish adult, in the US) had a 1541 drive that broke. I was in love with the "Silent Service" submarine game, and found an ad in one of the computer magazines for a cassette version of the game that I ordered from England. It arrived in a couple weeks, and I had my favorite game again! Thank heavens the lower tech Brits!

New comment by themadturk in "Book prizes don't work how you think"

themadturk — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:13:37 +0000

"Selling" doesn't require DRM; publishers require DRM. So not every book you want to buy or can buy is available without DRM. Not even authors especially want DRM. Kobo will only let you buy a book without DRM if the publisher makes it available that way.

New comment by themadturk in "What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?"

themadturk — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 02:07:26 +0000

Kobos have web browsers, and they have be in "beta" forever as well.

New comment by themadturk in "What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?"

themadturk — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:20:04 +0000

Most publishers demand their ebooks be sold with DRM. This can be seen as an aspect of "evil."

New comment by themadturk in "Fable turned reMarkable into Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter"

themadturk — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:07:54 +0000

A Remarkable tablet was the first thing I thought of, but it was still so unclear I had to click through to actually understand (more or less) what was going on.

New comment by themadturk in "Show HN: DRM-Free Books"

themadturk — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:46:27 +0000

My mistake!

New comment by themadturk in "Commodore 64 Basic for PostgreSQL"

themadturk — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:45:32 +0000

I ended up with two disk drives, and a RAM expansion, so I was able to run GEOS. But it took a good while to build up to that (I was a married, childless adult when I used the C=64, if that's any comfort).

New comment by themadturk in "Show HN: DRM-Free Books"

themadturk — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:19:58 +0000

At least some Tor.com ebooks are available DRM-free through Amazon. Honor Of The Queen, 2nd in the Honor Harrington Series, specifically says it's sold without DRM on Amazon.

New comment by themadturk in "Show HN: DRM-Free Books"

themadturk — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:14:11 +0000

Yes, but from some of those places the authors receive no compensation.

New comment by themadturk in "Show HN: DRM-Free Books"

themadturk — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:12:11 +0000

My own novel, The Immortal Remains, is DRM-free on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google, and other platforms (maybe Apple as well, I'm not sure). Other authors, such as Cory Doctorow, sell their books DRM-free as well.

New comment by themadturk in "A 1969 camera operators' strike created Upstairs Downstairs multiverse"

themadturk — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 23:59:14 +0000

British TV in that era was enormously, shall we say, frugal. As soon as they discovered videotape, which was both cheaper than film and reusable, they went all in on it. BBC especially (and ITV as well, it appears) often wiped their tapes and recorded over them to save money, since they saw no reason to think anyone would be interested in their shows in the future. For this reason, some early episodes of Doctor Who are lost forever, at least until some foreign TV station finds copies in their vaults, which has happened over the years.

New comment by themadturk in "I Stored a Website in a Favicon"

themadturk — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 23:40:53 +0000

I complained about this style of writing on Medium a few months ago. The author of the article replied that it's a preferred style if you anticipate your writing to be read on a small smartphone screen. This kind of makes sense. Whether that article (or this one) was AI-generated or not, I don't know.