<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: whyenot</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whyenot</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:27:44 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=whyenot" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Neal Stephenson responds with wit and humor (2004)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It was still an awful lot to ask of a reader, and IMO, not worth the "reward." I agree with the person you are responding to. His early works are really amazing, but beginning with Cryptonomicon he became increasingly verbose and I found his later books a lot less fun to read.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2026 21:26:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49884620</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49884620</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49884620</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Does it support dates from before January 1, 1900? (No)<p>Sigh.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 26 Sep 2026 03:55:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49853055</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49853055</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49853055</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>aren't you making a bold claim about HN ethos?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 05:27:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692361</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692361</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692361</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Eating Fruit Skins"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As Alex noted, apple seeds contain cyanide, or to be more accurate, cyanogenic glycosides. When the tissue of most apple seeds is damaged, an enzyme cleaves the sugar-cyanide bond, releasing hydrogen cyanide gas. You can test this yourself, by crushing some apple seeds and smelling the mashed seeds. It will smell of almonds, which is the smell of hydrogen cyanide gas.<p>I created a lab for intro biology around testing for HCN in various plant tissues. The interesting thing is not all apple seeds actually seem to produce HCN. Granny Smith seeds seem to always produce it (and relatively speaking a lot), while some little lunch box sized Fuji apples I bought at a farmers market don't produce any at all.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 01:52:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679134</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679134</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679134</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "California's new tire efficiency rules could save drivers $1B a year"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It seems like the idea is that we get more fuel efficient tires but at the price of having tires that wear out more quickly? That seems like a pretty lousy proposition, especially when you factor in externalities like all the micro-particle pollution that tires produce and the chronic health effects they can cause.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 18 Aug 2026 21:15:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352838</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352838</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352838</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Its serial nature also means that an evaluator's standards can drift from students with early exams to those with later exams. Oral exams can introduce issues of sex and ethnic biasing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:50:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226646</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226646</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226646</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Norway Salmon"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe they are painting the fish and find the experience unenjoyable? :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:36:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147095</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147095</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147095</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The worst thing that ever happened to Common Lisp was its ANSI standardization, which for many years killed almost all language innovation and improvement.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:59:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092575</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092575</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092575</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Bring. Back. Aperture!!! Yes there are alternative to Lightroom out there (Capture One, for example), but Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:42:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997993</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997993</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997993</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wandering spiders do not feed on banana sap. They hunt small invertebrates on the forest floor at night and hide among bananas, or other dark and protected locations during the day. The defensive posture you described is one way to help identify them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:47:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971153</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971153</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971153</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It turns out that <i>Phoneutria</i> defensive bites are most often "dry" with little if any venom. It's thought that the spiders conserve venom for use on actual prey items.<p>BTW, the four frontal eyes in a box is <i>not</i> considered a good taxonomic character for IDing them, as spiders in other related genera also have this. They do have a warning posture, but not a "dance" that I am aware of. Also, they are terrestrial and hunt on the forest floor. The stories of them "jumping" are largely exaggerated.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:37:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971074</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971074</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971074</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Qwen 3.8"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The people training the model are almost certainly not the same ones writing tweets. I don't know why that is mind boggling. We all make typos, at least the humans among us do.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:18:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970926</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970926</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970926</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "REO Trucks I4 4WD Pickup Truck Starts at $21,500"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The website is all hype with very little substance, as well as the taint of AI slop. If they aren't willing to share details, I'm not interested.<p>As a benchmark, I would use Slate, who have so far done an excellent job providing information and updates on their truck.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:45:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48961583</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48961583</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48961583</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Pebble Mega Update – July 2026"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Pebble never said that anyone "needs" to buy the ring sizing kit. They did suggest that you buy the sizing kit from them for $10, OR 3D print it at home, OR visit a jeweler.<p>The ring has a button on it that you are going to press often, and you will likely wear it on a different finger than you would normally wear a ring on. That is/was the advantage of the sizing kit IMO: you can try the different sizes and wear the "dummy" ring for a couple of hours or a day and get a better idea of what size and finger will work best for you.<p>I think calling the ring sizing a "debacle" is being a little over-dramatic. It is a shame the ring kit is off on sizing, but how big of a problem it is, is kind of an unknown right now. It's a limited production product, there will be problems at the start, just like there have been with the Pebble Time 2.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:58:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48951009</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48951009</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48951009</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The car that has sold out in almost every market outside the US?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:19:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949814</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949814</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949814</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Because the article is about more than just the buttons.<p><i>For Boepple, buttons were the family business. At his shop in Germany, he had learned to craft them out of wood, shell, horn and bone. But pearl buttons brought in the biggest profits. When a German tariff put him out of business, Boepple became one of the nearly 1.5 million Germans who immigrated to America in the 1880s. “They each brought their own skills,” Joy says. “Mr. Boepple was a button maker.”</i></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:03:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48765202</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48765202</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48765202</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>But what if the difference is either talking to an AI now, and the chances are fair that it can resolve my problem vs. staying on the line for a real person, who may be better able to help me, but there is a 2 hours wait (not an exaggeration, Hawaiian Airlines made me wait this long). Suddenly the former doesn't look that bad?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:46:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48575838</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48575838</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48575838</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The way the voting system works at Reddit encourages group think and bubbles. All it takes is five more down votes than up votes and a comment or post essentially disappears from view. It's a design that actively avoids debate.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:19:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48506821</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48506821</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48506821</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "What it feels like to work with Mythos"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Instead of attacking the author, please respond to the content of the article. That is the HN way, and it leads to more substantive and interesting discussions.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:08:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465052</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465052</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465052</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by whyenot in "Let's celebrate work that is 100% human-made"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not entirely sure what "100% human-made" even means. Also, what is the difference between 90% and 100%?  Is any website (of the modern era) 100% human made?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:49:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418079</link><dc:creator>whyenot</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418079</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418079</guid></item></channel></rss>