Hacker News: tormeh

New comment by tormeh in "Pixel Watch 5"

tormeh — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:19:09 +0000

This practically means you can't ship any runtimes, standard libraries, nor any big libraries with your app. Your app has to be just the business code and all the extras has to be stuff already on the watch. Crucially, size requirements like this doesn't mean you can't write slow python apps or whatever, so long as the watch ships with a python interpreter.

I suspect 10MB might be more friendly in the current day and age.

New comment by tormeh in "Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc"

tormeh — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:42:46 +0000

An OS has massive network effects. You get Windows because you want to run software compiled for Windows. The OS itself is a necessary inconvenience.

New comment by tormeh in "Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc"

tormeh — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:40:40 +0000

I think all tertiary software job markets are like this. Full of bosses and coders who don't even know how bad their practices are.

New comment by tormeh in "Gpiozero Flow"

tormeh — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:59:45 +0000

I think PLCs are programmed using a mix of text and visuals. Or at least that's what I remember from uni. I'm not entirely sure why that is. I suppose it makes it a lot more obvious to your coworkers and management when you make spaghetti code, which I suppose can create pressure to not make a total mess of things.

New comment by tormeh in "Flux 3"

tormeh — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:07:21 +0000

I can totally see that. I imagine it's great for hiking and food. But if/when this company has an issue you'll have to move again or start working at the local Sparkasse or something.

New comment by tormeh in "Flux 3"

tormeh — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:20:21 +0000

These people are hiring in... Freiburg im Breisgau? Wonder how hiring is working out for them there.

New comment by tormeh in "Which streaming service was that on again?"

tormeh — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:43:33 +0000

Usually Justwatch should be able to tell you where something is available. However I will note that it's remarkably common for something slightly old to just not be available anywhere. You cannot watch Das Boot in my region on any service so far as I can see. So I guess you loan from the library or buy DVDs off of ebay or something?

New comment by tormeh in "Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)"

tormeh — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:18:05 +0000

This critique has accumulated some issues over time. Modern approaches like GTAO are way less intense than before. They essentially only add shadows to crevices. A normal corner like this will barely look different. More importantly, techniques like SSGI will correctly take color into consideration to darken black corners and brighten white ones.

New comment by tormeh in "Qwen 3.8"

tormeh — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:11:22 +0000

Is qwen 3.6 27b the best model you can run locally at the moment? Not that I have the VRAM for it, but just curious.

New comment by tormeh in "How the Elite See Rome"

tormeh — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:05:52 +0000

I don't necessarily share this view, but I've heard it enough times to steelman it: It's about dignity. I don't want to feel like someone owns me or can tell me what to do just because they lose some pocket change in my direction. You know the notion of the "deserving poor" that deserves our aid and pity? There's a corresponding idea of a deserving customer. I'd do my best impression of a dog for you if you ask nicely, but if you offer me $100 for it then I'll be insulted. If you offer me $10000 I'll do it but I'll resent you for it.

New comment by tormeh in "A graph that should be front-page news"

tormeh — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:04:46 +0000

I think that kind of breathless excited tone is justified by the subject matter. Unlike the usual LinkedIn posts this is actually about a pretty dire situation.

New comment by tormeh in "Since Chromium 148, Math.tanh is now fingerprintable to link underlying OS"

tormeh — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 01:28:57 +0000

Do you think this could drive a shift towards more efficient web tech? I.e. more static websites, or websites served by faster software?

New comment by tormeh in "SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth"

tormeh — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 23:11:04 +0000

There are areas where the bureaucratic hurdles to changing anything and the incentives for changing anything work out to nothing ever changing. I assume in 20 years most of Berlin is still going to have 50mbit/s max. I hear residents of New York have completely given up and are using 5G modems because putting up new cables just isn't practical. On the other hand, these cities do have a significant minority of flats with gigabit internet, so if you care you can pick a modern building with modern cabling. Maybe the segment who both live in old apartments and also are willing to pay for fast internet is too small to bother with.

New comment by tormeh in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

tormeh — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 07:34:31 +0000

Is this the first court system you ever hear about? Judges are never democratically elected.

New comment by tormeh in "Postgres rewritten in Rust, now passing 100% of the Postgres regression tests"

tormeh — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 23:30:33 +0000

I bet it's being organized by project rather than product. Conway's law ensures such an org will create code around projects, not products, and that always ends horribly.

New comment by tormeh in "Postgres rewritten in Rust, now passing 100% of the Postgres regression tests"

tormeh — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 07:35:14 +0000

Woah! AGPL? That's interesting. I think Postgres has shown an open source SQL server didn't need a copy-left license to develop sustainably, so I'm not entirely aure about that, but I do like the license in general.

New comment by tormeh in "Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph"

tormeh — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 23:30:18 +0000

This ought to do it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynex . It is a real issue, though. Not because it's hard to protect any given target, but because protecting _all_ targets is more or less impossible.

Let's say you could protect yourself with the same model of drone, which you probably can't, but let's say you can. Where do you put those defense drones? The attacker gets to choose where the attack happens and you can't be ready _everywhere_. The real answer probably involves going on the offensive yourself.

New comment by tormeh in "Resetting Xbox"

tormeh — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 21:03:22 +0000

Microsoft is focused on AI and enterprise sales. I don't think they're institutionally capable of making a good end-user experience. You might just as well ask why SAP makes bad UIs - it's because the executives just don't really care.

New comment by tormeh in "Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph"

tormeh — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:58:26 +0000

Maneuverability and cost. Why this specific stunt? Marketing, presumably.

New comment by tormeh in "Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph"

tormeh — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:57:40 +0000

Maybe, but the budget for an interceptor drone is much much smaller. Unless it fails at its job an interceptor drone is only going to be used once.