Hacker News: vmilner

New comment by vmilner in "AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them"

vmilner — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:41:38 +0000

There's a depressing number who dismiss the benefits of things like learning times tables as 'rote learning' rather than force-multipliers that free your brain for other things.

New comment by vmilner in "AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them"

vmilner — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:13:51 +0000

"There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first."

  Sherlock Holmes, 'A Study in Scarlet'

New comment by vmilner in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

vmilner — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:42:08 +0000

Takes me back to the ZX Spectrum 1980s when 128KB RAM was an unaffordable luxury. (Bit like today...)

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2000237/Book/Mastering...

http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/zxspectrum/docs/Comple...

New comment by vmilner in "FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System"

vmilner — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 07:37:21 +0000

> FreeBSD despite its title never had something to do with Free Software

The FSF disagree:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#FreeBSD

New comment by vmilner in "EU commissioners shut down air conditioning for employees, leave theirs on"

vmilner — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 18:31:00 +0000

Yes Minister on point as usual

https://youtu.be/x-HBsT6GmMs?t=69

New comment by vmilner in "Mechanical Watch (2022)"

vmilner — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:50:09 +0000

Does anyone have recommendations for cheapish mechanical watches that don't cost a fortune to service? (UK based) Secondhand or new.

New comment by vmilner in "The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)"

vmilner — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:19:14 +0000

"In the morning Fatty was mildly unnerved to see the other hobbits painting a large sign outside the little house with 'Frodo lives here' and 'Sauron sucks!' on it."

New comment by vmilner in "The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)"

vmilner — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:34:29 +0000

Fatty Bolger?

New comment by vmilner in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

vmilner — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:22:49 +0000

I remember when Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks (Mix of 'Choose your own adventure' and solo D+D adventure) were big in the UK in the 80s, and teachers were sniffy about them not being proper reading. I bet they'd love their kids to be reading them now.

New comment by vmilner in "A Gentle Introduction to Lattice-Based Cryptography [pdf]"

vmilner — Sun, 31 May 2026 15:04:15 +0000

It's a superficial point but this relatively newer style (La)TeX layout makes me much more keen to read documents for some reason.

New comment by vmilner in "Confidence Scores for Exam Questions"

vmilner — Thu, 28 May 2026 20:47:43 +0000

I seem to remember some medical related multiple choice tests in the UK use a mechanism of +1 for correct , 0 for unanswered , -1 for incorrect.

New comment by vmilner in "Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore"

vmilner — Tue, 26 May 2026 08:03:11 +0000

I enjoyed reading Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Peter van der Linden after reading that in the early 90s. Also the C standard from the time and the attached 'Rationale' document https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/FIPS/fipspub160.pdf (The rationale is 234 pages in). Also this 1995 book version of the comp.lang.c FAQ https://c-faq.com/book/ and https://c-faq.com/

New comment by vmilner in "Pen pal programs endure in a digital age"

vmilner — Thu, 07 May 2026 07:19:12 +0000

Are there no posted birthday cards in Denmark any more?

New comment by vmilner in "Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores"

vmilner — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:15:53 +0000

"Pricematch" is also common in the UK for traditional stores like Sainsburys Tesco competing with Lidl and Aldi 'discounters'.

New comment by vmilner in "Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores"

vmilner — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:11:46 +0000

Isn't it common for state sales taxes to be added at the till? (I don't live in the US but that seemed to be what happened on my visits there)

New comment by vmilner in "Jennifer Aniston and Friends Cost Us 377GB and Broke Ext4 Hardlinks"

vmilner — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:30:26 +0000

It's not as good as ed: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

New comment by vmilner in "Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder"

vmilner — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:54:57 +0000

The estimable (inestimable?) Daniel Estevez wrote excellent blogs on the Voyager comms protocols.

https://destevez.net/2021/09/decoding-voyager-1/

New comment by vmilner in "Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder"

vmilner — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:50:31 +0000

Edwin Berlekamp significantly reduced (by half I think) the number of transistors required for the Reed-Solomon error correcting code by telling them to use a non-standard 'primitive element'

New comment by vmilner in "JPEG Compression"

vmilner — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:23:05 +0000

The weirdest thing to me is that the quantisation matrix isn’t symmetrical in the top left to bottom right diagonal.

New comment by vmilner in "Lost Doctor Who episodes found"

vmilner — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 17:34:37 +0000

“Secret Army” (the “straight” inspiration of the comedy “Allo Allo”) - a dramatised version of the Belgian Comete line that returned allied airmen to Britain still stands up as a superb series from the 70s.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8ae0po