Hacker News: tjoff

New comment by tjoff in "Barcodes are about to go extinct"

tjoff — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 18:51:32 +0000

What innovation are we talking about?

New comment by tjoff in "Barcodes are about to go extinct"

tjoff — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 11:33:55 +0000

Context: Back then the user experience was terrible, cameras and phones were so slow that scanning even one code was a painful chore.

New comment by tjoff in "Giving friends custom text buzzes based on Morse code"

tjoff — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 15:43:20 +0000

Would be cool to buzz the message itself in morse code, though todays buzzers are so weak I don't think I'd be able to make it out (if I knew morse code, that is).

But would be cool with a separate buzzer of sorts where you get the normal buzzer notification and then hold a finger somewhere specific and get details that way.

New comment by tjoff in "Gitea 28.0"

tjoff — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 21:26:55 +0000

I'd argue project values, license and health are way more important.

New comment by tjoff in "Claude Code reads AGENTS.md only when telemetry is on [fixed]"

tjoff — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:45:55 +0000

Nice find, though I'd rather read the prompt that was used to write this article. It is about ten times longer than it needs to and is quite painful to read.

New comment by tjoff in "OpenJev"

tjoff — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:42:03 +0000

This one is so much better than the vast majority of sites though?

Clear and to the point. Not even a cookie popup (which ni user respectable site needs, so super low bar to clear).

If you meant the text then I agree.

New comment by tjoff in "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"

tjoff — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 06:43:45 +0000

There are plenty of Ubuntu forks?

New comment by tjoff in "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"

tjoff — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:01:35 +0000

There is no reason for anyone on any distro to use snap.

It will die so just leave it alone.

New comment by tjoff in "XCancel service is suspended until further notice"

tjoff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:07:29 +0000

Because for some reason people link to it here.

New comment by tjoff in "The case against JPEG XL"

tjoff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 16:57:30 +0000

Those are messaging/communication apps,sound in those apps can be quite disruptive so that doesn't surprise me at all. It has nothing to do with the original gif, it is just that gif is now synonymous with short clip (with or without sound) and sound in that context is disruptive.

Go to google.com, search for images and select image type gif and you will get mp4s with sound.

New comment by tjoff in "The case against JPEG XL"

tjoff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:05:28 +0000

Gif doesn't mean "no sound" anymore. Gif is more or less "short video", which broke a lot of assumptions at first but we have pretty much passed that transition and it makes sense for what they are used for today.

That ship has sailed.

New comment by tjoff in "216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]"

tjoff — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:53:26 +0000

If I'm a passenger in a tesla, does the owner and/or tesla break a law when neither informs me that I'm being spied on?

New comment by tjoff in "Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare"

tjoff — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:48:10 +0000

Cargo culting is probably the biggest reason people use AWS.

New comment by tjoff in "LibreOffice breaks download records after declaring it has no AI features"

tjoff — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:02:02 +0000

Just wait til 2038 ;)

New comment by tjoff in "The Raspberry Pi Interactive Timeline · 2006–2026"

tjoff — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:55:11 +0000

I did something similar with a raspberry pi 2 which also by itself is way overkill, it also had a usb-wifi dongle because when I realized that it didn't have wifi natively and running Ethernet was a bit cumbersome for a temporary project. But for these simple projects there is no point in buying the latest and greatest version.

When people remember the $35 pricepoint and lament the price increase of today they forget that they don't serve the same purpose anymore. Hell, the Zero 2 is cheaper than that and plenty powerful for a ton of projects.

New comment by tjoff in "The Raspberry Pi Interactive Timeline · 2006–2026"

tjoff — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:16:20 +0000

8GB is a bit overkill though, of course depending on what you use it for but it is an unfair baseline.

2 GB costs a fraction (but maybe get 4 if you want/need margin) and is more than enough for most projects. And I say this as someone whose opinion is that 32 GB is the absolute bare minimum for a general purpose computer (including laptops).

New comment by tjoff in "How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?"

tjoff — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:48:57 +0000

That tells you that subscription is cheaper than tokens. Which ought to be a given.

But it does not tell you what and how much either is subsidized...

New comment by tjoff in "How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?"

tjoff — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:25:29 +0000

Depends on whether the costs they have are inflated ten-fold due to hardware shortages.

Ignoring current state of shortages, the interesting part (for me at least) is how much a SOTA token costs on current hardware if you exclude the costs for paying for current TSMC shortage and without factoring in the cost of new datacenters being rushed and renting hardware from your competitors (who are also supply limited).

The "actual" cost is of course also relevant and interesting but it is another thing entirely.

New comment by tjoff in "How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?"

tjoff — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:36:30 +0000

Why do everyone assume they are subsidized? When we seemingly have no idea what it costs? Maybe average subscription is breaking even and token spend is pretty much pure profit?

Case in point, claude code seems hell bent on increasing usage at all cost. Which makes sense in the growing phase (get people hooked) but it does not make sense given the hardware shortage. So, which is it?

New comment by tjoff in "How bicycle coaster brakes work (2018)"

tjoff — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:38:19 +0000

Sure but you can do it easier and with more control with any other type of brake,from the basic V-style rim brakes to hydraulic disc brakes.