Hacker News: wvh

New comment by wvh in "If IPv4 were land"

wvh — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:18:20 +0000

I think I had HE and Surfnet tunnels in the very late '90s already. IPv6 sure is taking some time...

New comment by wvh in "I Returned My iPhone Duo"

wvh — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 09:53:03 +0000

Maybe you're like me and give careful consideration to your purchases for several years, going down the rabbit hole and learn to know about the specs, pros and cons better than any salesperson or even the engineers that made it...

New comment by wvh in "I refuse to accept a censored Internet. Join Me at FOSDEM 27"

wvh — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 12:24:02 +0000

If operating a (even encrypted) wireless mesh net gets you gulag or death penalty, not very far.

New comment by wvh in "Quad9 to exit France"

wvh — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:09:56 +0000

Respect. I'm not a big fan of politics, but have you ever tried to explain your mission to EU legislators and try to make them understand your viewpoint? There seem to be some quite strong-handed tactics to make content disappear from the internet, and having some of those in charge understand that this is not the way forward might turn out to be very important to all of us in the future.

New comment by wvh in "AI was great until it was not"

wvh — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:57:01 +0000

I feel there are workplaces and career choices where those people go who want social contact and fulfil personal utopian ambitions, not necessarily having profit in mind, and jobs where you go to make money efficiently. And these days, the divide between those has gotten very large to the point many jobs have no personal contact or room for personal growth, interests or artistic skill anymore. It feels the sane middle ground for sane people who are looking for a sane balance has been or is being hollowed out.

And when that workday is done, everybody goes home by themselves to scroll some more.

New comment by wvh in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

wvh — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 14:02:23 +0000

Exactly, the younger generations just stay at home, on the internet. So social drinking has mostly disappeared. Those that really want to get totally drunk probably still do though.

New comment by wvh in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

wvh — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 14:00:33 +0000

I'd say that here in Finland, the decline in alcohol use has more to do with global trends, especially with the younger generations. The problem though is that there has not been any replacement for the social lubrication required here for people to attempt to be social. Purely based on my own experiences, people are less social, go out less, and therefore use less alcohol.

Feels as if the death of religion is followed by the death of bars, restaurants and other places to go out to in the evening, especially after Covid, leaving even fewer places to meet people.

It's true that people up here tend to get very drunk collectively as the evening drags on, which has always bothered me as somebody who doesn't drink alcohol... First everybody's very dry and awkward, then it's fun for an hour or so, and then things start getting over the top and pretty mental. Compared with central Europe, people don't slow down a few glasses in.

But all that is changing as it seems many people just stopped going out at all. So people might drink less alcohol, but I'm not sure that indicates an improvement of mental health or social coherence. The internet is making people lonelier.

New comment by wvh in "Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout"

wvh — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:12:18 +0000

I'm a trail runner in Northern Europe. Hoka has been omnipresent there for the last few years, as has (traditionally) Salomon.

Not sure I've seen much Hoka outside of trial running circles here yet.

I'm thinking about sneakers used for actually doing sport though.

New comment by wvh in "Live map of public transport in Belgium"

wvh — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:00:05 +0000

Fascinating... I have a thing with maps. Does the information come from a central server that runs some open-source protocol for public transport, or is this gathered from different endpoints in different formats?

New comment by wvh in "Nebula Sans"

wvh — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:59:47 +0000

This is interesting, I didn't know about Nebula. Anything to support less intrusive platforms and stop being followed for months by horrible content because you clicked on the wrong video.

New comment by wvh in "FDA approves first in class targeted therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer"

wvh — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:53:02 +0000

My aunt died of this last year. It took all of three months. That has given some food for thought in my family over what the most humane and merciful way to die is; 5 minutes and a heart attack, three months and this, or several years in other forms of cancer and tumours.

Ignoring the pain aspect of the disease, three months seems not to be a bad time to come to grips, say your goodbyes, tie up loose ends but not prolong suffering indefinitely and waste away.

Also, hail to healthcare systems that facilitate legal euthanasia.

New comment by wvh in "How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)"

wvh — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:53:12 +0000

Please don't let it become acceptable to be yelled in the face every few minutes of the day by ads, commercials, notifications and other attacks on our perpetually overstimulated brains, most of which we have no control over at all.

To have a healthy relationship with technology requires holding manufacturers and service providers responsible for our mental health.

New comment by wvh in "uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook"

wvh — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:35:32 +0000

It's insane to think how much brain power, computing power, electricity and component lifecycle wear have been wasted through the years, yelling random stuff at me; or even worse than random; often stuff that is directly harmful to me.

As somebody who – not entirely willingly – is working mostly remote, the only interruption in the day I have from the outside world is the sudden loud inane noises of commercials.

New comment by wvh in "Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way"

wvh — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:50:51 +0000

We need a powerful non-profit / semi-governmental organisation that regularly tests all these things and tells it like it is. Something like Stiftung Warentest in Germany.

People can make up their own mind about going for cheaper electronics or aiming for longevity, but at least we would have a clearer picture of who is contributing to that pile of electric waste and we could make more informed decisions.

New comment by wvh in "Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick"

wvh — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:50:16 +0000

It's not racism at all to be weary of (any) political system, its overreach and the incentives of the people living in it, be it China or America or Russia.

The word racism is vastly overused these days.

New comment by wvh in "US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search"

wvh — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 09:01:53 +0000

This. If any country won't treat you like a guest, avoid travelling to it.

If it's your own, that's harder to do – time to fight and change the system before it gets worse and will swallow you whole.

New comment by wvh in "CD sales growth outpaced vinyl in the first half of 2026"

wvh — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:36:26 +0000

I've been digitising my music collection since 2000 and still buy CDs or, if available, lossless FLACs. I really wonder how many people still bother "owning" the music they like instead of "renting" it. It might be irrational, but buying it and owning it feels very different than getting it over the radio or some streaming service.

New comment by wvh in "$100 AI Music Video: Claude Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol"

wvh — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:26:38 +0000

This. I generally much rather watch a live video of the band performing the song interspersed with some behind the scene footage than some random badly acted (non-AI) slop video on top of the song.

If you like the music, you probably want to feel some connection to the people making that music.

New comment by wvh in "$100 AI Music Video: Claude Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol"

wvh — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:08:53 +0000

A lot of iconic scenes were at the discretion of the actors in those scenes. One wonders how much personality and complexity you can really get without the skills and idiosyncrasies of everybody in front of and behind the cameras on a real movie set.

My point being there's a lot more complexity in not producing slop than it seems.

New comment by wvh in "Train sim created by just one person is being called the best ever made"

wvh — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 16:08:37 +0000

Because the software industry doesn't pay anymore for constraints or doing things "the hard way". Everything is high-level language and by tomorrow. The day after it doesn't exist anymore anyway.

I'd wish to get a project that's low-level, multi-year and high quality of engineering and longevity. Make the best you can – something to be proud of.