Hacker News: vr46

New comment by vr46 in "Emacs Turns 50"

vr46 — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:01:40 +0000

About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!

New comment by vr46 in "New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6"

vr46 — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 05:08:12 +0000

Happily running my M1 Max, but have recently been annoyed at my decision to go with the off-the-shelf 32GB version at the time. I recalled telling friends at the time that the ridiculous memory bandwidth should offset that, so I ran some tests on memory pressure while running all my mess and, well, whaddya know, everything is actually tickety-boo. No memory pressure for the most part. And this is with big rust projects, Orbstack builds and runs.

The engineering that went into the M1 was amazing, I truly think that now, an M1 Max was the biggest bargain ever in my entire computing life. £3,299.00. In contrast, the 64GB i9 I bought only two years before was £4,149.00.

New comment by vr46 in "Getting ready to operate GNU Taler in Germany"

vr46 — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 15:09:06 +0000

no, that is correct, I live in Hamburg and the number of bars and shops that are cash only or EC-card only is legion

New comment by vr46 in "Hacker leaks 281 GB of data from Germany's far-right AfD party"

vr46 — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 08:33:38 +0000

I don't know that he's bad at working with others to the extent that it causes all the problems, it seems more like he's got that visionary thing going and the vision is constantly on the move, so he can't see the first thing through.

Reform are falling apart like a chocolate orange, there's so many things, but yes, hiring the not-too-bright lunatics from the dregs of the Tories, again and again and again, wasn't ideal. I'm fine with that, let's not interrupt them.

New comment by vr46 in "Hacker leaks 281 GB of data from Germany's far-right AfD party"

vr46 — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:53:13 +0000

If you were paying attention, you'd see that Reform are predictably self-destructing due to their racism, jingoism, corruption, misogyny, governance, indiscipline and exposure of their lies to the public.

Dominic Cummings at best is a male Ayn Rand, decrying, denouncing and challenging everything but happy to accept largesse or break the rules as it suits him. I quite like him, as it goes.

New comment by vr46 in "Getting ready to operate GNU Taler in Germany"

vr46 — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 23:27:40 +0000

You can barely use non-EC debit cards in Germany, if any card at all.

I’m all for fast-forwarding and you can pull this off I will donate towards a statue in your honour.

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:19:10 +0000

You're right, and I can't edit it now. Here's the corrected URL:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-court-dismisses-...

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:17:53 +0000

No, the UK regulator was asking a service provider owned by a Japanese guy to comply with UK laws in order to do business in the UK, and the service provider sued the regulator in a US court. 196 other service providers agreed to comply

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:16:09 +0000

I don't want to waste my red pen marking this comment but thinking the UK is anything like the US or slightly similar in these regards is like using song lyrics as a source in your essay.

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:14:13 +0000

That comment, your comment, is misleading and legally selective - much like Preston Doo-dah's post.

The CLOUD Act bypasses traditional MLAT procedures, faced significant civil liberties opposition (EFF), and resolved a genuine jurisdictional dispute, not a mere drafting oversight. Claiming that data location is irrelevant ignores foreign laws and national sovereignty. Explaining why the US wants extraterritorial powers doesn't establish that it should have them.

New comment by vr46 in "Setting Up SSH Keys on macOS with Touch ID"

vr46 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:00:03 +0000

As cool as this is, this does limit the functionality of your keys, because not everything can access the secure enclave in the way it wants to - and as others point out, this is a one-way street and locks your mac hardware into the flow.

I went with this system for some months but it ultimately broke my workflow. I switched to a system of my own devising, in which my local security key decrypts the SSH keys I require.

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 22:35:41 +0000

I guess you don't know what actually happened. All but four of the 200 companies Ofcom asked for compliance, complied. The point is about any business that operates in the UK, and especially if it generates income from the UK, should be subject to certain laws in the UK. Not because they're accessible from the UK.

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:58:44 +0000

The UK is Russia in denial? I am massively confused

New comment by vr46 in "Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case"

vr46 — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:15:37 +0000

The write-up from the lawyers is unintentionally hilarious

1. 4chan actually lost its case in the US District Court on 15 September 2026. (sauce: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-court-dismisses-...

The judge dismissed its lawsuit against Ofcom for lack of jurisdiction, because Ofcom was protected by foreign sovereign immunity.

2. The judge's comments were obiter dicta observations that were not necessary to decide the case, rather than a binding ruling that Ofcom's actions were unconstitutional, making the headline somewhat selective, it's hardly the defeat of a giant regulatory system. Still, I suppose he needs to show he did something to earn his fees.

We could go on and on and fucking on about American double standards here:

Cuba. ABC being hassled over Jimmy Kimmel making gags about Kirk. The White House restricting reporting. Ending support for public broadcasting. Book bans, the CLOUD act, the TIKTOK DIVESTITURE fercrissakes. Sanctions on the ICC.

New comment by vr46 in "AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right"

vr46 — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 10:25:00 +0000

They've already infiltrated all the agencies in Germany

New comment by vr46 in "Israeli settlers attack European diplomats in the West Bank"

vr46 — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 23:27:40 +0000

It is simply not possible to be Jewish and Israeli without questioning one of those identities

New comment by vr46 in "Citroen revives the 2CV for an electric age"

vr46 — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:14:36 +0000

The original was - no joke - absolutely mind-blowing off-road. The dumb places we could go in a 2CV when I had abandoned my car way way back...

New comment by vr46 in "How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn't"

vr46 — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 03:10:50 +0000

is all writing fiction if it wasn't written by an eyewitness?

New comment by vr46 in "The Mafia may be keeping fentanyl out of Italy"

vr46 — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:08:21 +0000

TL;DR: ‘Correlation is not causation’ does not mean ‘correlation tells us nothing about causation.’

New comment by vr46 in "Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed"

vr46 — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:27:18 +0000

Israel and Israelis are not the same thing, one is a country that engages in war crimes, lobbying and propaganda, Israelis are just people. And many of them are at odds with their country.