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chem83

Re:Lula wins election after final votes tallied on Monday October 26, 2026 @09:22PM (#50253598)
Other than the other points made, 16-17, 70+, and illiterate are granted voluntary suffrage. Some of the activation came from convincing those people to show up and cast a ballot.
Re:ThinkRail from JetBrains on Saturday October 24, 2026 @06:46AM (#50220007)
Not a good look, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything. As a counter point, they had a good showing at next.app devCon 3 weeks ago in Berlin.
Re:SimCity, but with Permits on Tuesday October 20, 2026 @03:41PM (#50171603)
Cool project!

Tangential: Elon was tweeting recently about how he blames bureaucracy for the NY-DC Hyperloop corridor's failure (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2112102304782680107). Whether that is ignoring other major problems with the plan or not, there's been bi-partisan criticism of how the traditional western democracy has severely slowed down infrastructure investment (see, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_(Klein_and_Thompson_...). I see a lot of people going to China after being oblivious to it for years mostly due to western propaganda and being in awe with how fast the country has advanced its industry and public infrastructure with superior high speed rail, power grid, and other investments. I wonder if the west will ever find a way to adapt the dynamism that an autocracy affords to its system of government (which sadly has been increasingly described as an aristocracy/plutocracy/corporatocracy/kleptocracy).

Not sure there's a strong use case for one of these $6K laptops yet, considering you can get a mini PC running AMD Ryzen 495 or 395 with 96, 128 and 192 GB of memory for similar amount of money and connect remotely from a cheaper/smaller/more battery-efficient laptop. Microsoft also has this same chip in non-laptop form factor: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-rtx-....

Coding while flying is often the use case people bring up, but the power brick these laptops come with sometimes trip the plane's power plug in coach and you can't run local AI on battery for long. Also, over time planes will get better connectivity (Starlink etc.) and that particular full-offline scenario will go away.

For gaming, there are better options with dedicated GPUs like the Asus Zephyrus and similar.

What am I missing?

If their revenue-generating products are not doing so hot, I wonder what that means to projects such as Kotlin and Compose Multiplatform. Will they keep the lights on?
I feel like the growing polarization in that space is pretty much going to kill any chance of collaboration (for example: https://xcancel.com/dhh/status/2091229491867594983?s=12&t=JH...). It really boils down to DHH and his conservative worldview clashing over things like the downsides of corporate funding and capitalism, building system software by just throwing more AI cycles at it, rejecting data centers over environmental concerns, and pushing back on AI-generated code due to slop and security issues. I just don't see both sides putting their differences aside to work together. DHH will probably just duplicate unaligned efforts so he can completely bypass and avoid having to deal with the human element.
Re:Ask HN: GitHub employees what's going on? Why? on Tuesday August 18, 2026 @05:54PM (#49353269)
Seems to be a pattern that infra teams in and around Azure don't know how to deal with age-of-AI levels of demand and struggle when internal politics + technical hubris get in the way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616242
Agree with the mini split observation. Mostly ductless, but sometimes ducted. Specifically, they're heat pumps, which removes the need to add an oil or gas furnace and works reasonably well for NYC winter when there's modern foam-based insulation and windows. Those 4-6 story new-construction or gut-level renovation buildings in Brooklyn have largely gone that route.
It's insane to me that some new construction buildings still use PTACs. Having used too many of those, this was a deal-breaker last time I was in the market for an apartment. Such a New York thing, just like how you cannot have a balcony on the 2nd floor, or how you won't find those sink garbage disposal grinders in any kitchen. But cross the Hudson toward NJ, and my understanding is that they're common. It's a combination of hyper-local regulations and economic incentives that date from god-knows-when and make American cities very unique in their quirks.
Re:Em dashes are fucking amazing on Friday July 24, 2026 @11:24AM (#49037045)
Same. On Google Docs it auto-corrects to an en-dash (–), which is annoying, but I find the double dash (--) more easy to spot and read on computer screens.

Also, cosmetically I don't really like how em-dashes are used without spacing (e.g. "this—then that" instead of "this — then that"). Feels like we're trying to import publishing styles from newspapers and books heavy on serif font to places where monospace and sans-serif is the norm and it doesn't quite fit well.

Re:Native SDK from Vercel on Tuesday July 21, 2026 @03:30PM (#48997031)
Also, what's native about this framework? What does that even mean?
Re:TypeScript 7 on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @02:08PM (#48835224)
dhh is still not very fond of it. To each their own.

https://world.hey.com/dhh/turbo-8-is-dropping-typescript-701...

Re:Should DayQuil Be Legal? on Monday July 06, 2026 @02:32PM (#48808610)
Interesting that in the US metamizole[0] (dipyrone, or Novalgin and Analgin comercially) is banned in the US due to agranulocytosis[1] risk. It's fairly common in Europe, Asia and South America.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamizole

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agranulocytosis

Re:NixOS 26.05 on Monday June 29, 2026 @12:14PM (#48721149)
NixOS has been my daily driver since 2022/2023 and I have greatly improved the management of my 2 computers and few VMs since. Because of LLMs, I now understand the language much better, but even if I didn't want to write Nix directly, describing the config to AI usually produces good results.

The two main sticking points IMO are still:

- Development environments are still a pain. devenv.sh is great for web and backend, but not perfect for dependency (package) management and more complicated environments like mobile or embedded

- nixpkgs monorepo doesn't update fast enough IMO. As a consequence, I see a number of flake repositories popping up to more easily package and distribute software not yet on nixpkgs or that don't update often enough (https://github.com/numtide/llm-agents.nix is a good example). This is perhaps by design, but it takes some digging to find the reliable and trustworthy flake repos. I'm increasingly concerned with AUR-like trust issues

Re:Deno Desktop on Monday June 22, 2026 @11:56AM (#48631985)
VLC is not the example you're looking for. Written in Qt for desktop and their own libVLC wrapper for mobile. Yes, in the case of VLC, parent comment is right: you clearly see the issue. And a media player is a relatively uncomplicated piece of software, UI wise.
Re:Deno Desktop on Monday June 22, 2026 @10:04AM (#48630316)
Care to expand on what this solution is? What is Clojure bringing to Flutter in this case? Ty.
Re:The state of building user interfaces in Rust on Saturday June 13, 2026 @10:46AM (#48517849)
Tons of great options, for sure, but community efforts and corporate sponsorship ends up fragmented if there isn’t a clear winner.

For desktop app development, if I don’t care about native controls (and what does that mean in Linux or even post-Win32, anyway?) and don’t want to deal with Electron, why not use something a bit more established like Avalonia or Flutter?

The LCD screen polarizer may eventually detach[0][1], effectively ruining the screen. Unfortunately, it's not easily replaceable. I think it's not impossible the enthusiast community will eventually come up with a solution, but until then I'd use your 48G as much as you can. After it's done, either get a Prime while they still sell on eBay or get a SwissMicro 42n for similar keyboard feel and nostalgia factor.

[0] https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-18710.html

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/calculators/comments/1r8gtvr/hp_48g...

Thanks for the write up. Wondering why not use something like Flutter for good cross platform support with good graphical performance on all systems.

One could argue that with agentic programming, releasing on a new platform is simply a matter of prompting for a new target, but I fear that the non-determinism of LLMs will lead into a whac-a-mole situation where you’re constantly fighting framework specifics and the code that the agent spit out to get to pixel perfect solutions across the platforms. Flutter in this case would be a more token efficient solution and quite fast on most platforms (particular the ones where their Impeller engine runs).

Re:Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars [video] on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @09:10AM (#48207104)
I always thought the problem with hybrids was the complexity of the drive train, but this video is challenging that notion. It argues that the hybrid pack (minus the battery, perhaps?) is more compact and simpler than a manual gearbox, even. It consists of two electric motors and a planetary gear set, which is seemingly simpler than clutch packs, gear sets and belts of regular transmissions, including CVTs.

Time codes 3:06, 37:07, 43:57, 43:36 (note on the eCVT naming), and 44:17.

Re:VitruvianOS – Desktop Linux Inspired by the BeOS on Wednesday March 25, 2026 @01:25PM (#47520446)
I learned recently that Hitachi actually shipped computers that would dual-boot into Windows 98 and BeOS R4, except that Microsoft's license didn't allow for dual-boot, so the option was removed from the bootloader (or, rather, the Microsoft bootloader was defaulted to, instead of the Be bootloader).

It wasn't that hard to boot into Be, but I suppose most users wouldn't bother because all games and applications were on Windows anyway. Ultimately, lack of apps was probably what held it back, although Microsoft's commercial practices definitely played a role in curbing OEMs and app developers.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_Flora_Prius * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44217322

I love this project. It will bring great audio to a bunch of Pentium-era laptops and essentially expand this list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpd2CM3_384.

Problem with them, for the most part, will be about rebuilding the batteries and dealing with the poor quality of old screens.

Re:I visualized the entire history of Citi Bike in the browser on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @06:11PM (#46534584)
Relevant callout from https://bikemap.nyc/about:

* Limitations *

The data only contains the start and end station for each trip, but does not contain the full path. Route geometries are computed for each (start station, end station) pair using the shortest path from OSRM.

This means that the computed routes are directionally correct but inexact. Trips that start and end at the same station are filtered out since the route geometry is ambiguous.

Re:Spirograph style Lego drawing machine on Friday December 12, 2025 @10:10AM (#46244834)
Neat! This is a newer model, but i believe they’ve had one since the 80s: https://docs.fischertechnikclub.nl/info2/1987uk.pdf

Did Fischer ever make it outside of Germany? My father would bring us kits every time he would travel there for work in the late 80s/early 90s. The focus was more on Engineering themes, so not quite the same as a Lego or Playmobil set. More like Lego Technic for the most part.

Re:Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop on Sunday December 07, 2025 @11:21AM (#46182836)
The gaming laptops that have been made a bit less game-y without the RGBs and thick chassis turned out to be the sweet spot for me. Some compromises here and there, sure, but they mostly have the hardware I want. Asus has a good line up that works very well with Linux from 13 to 16 inches, all with dGPUs, AMD CPU (though Intel is also there), high-refresh rate OLEDs etc.
Re:OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race on Tuesday December 02, 2025 @05:48PM (#46128013)
> fire mid-management and PMs to prevent the same thing from happening again

Firing PMs and mid-management would not prevent any of code reds you may have read about from Google or OAI lately. This is a very naive perspective of how decision making is done at the scale of those two companies. I'm sorry you had bad experiences working with people in those positions and I wish you have the opportunity to collab with great ones in the future.

Re:Linux on the Fujitsu Lifebook U729 on Saturday November 15, 2025 @12:43PM (#45939136)
For something portable with a dGPU, I recommend the Asus ProArt px13. Works very well with Linux, including NixOS with the right config, with the community asusctl and supergfxctl. AMD, OLED screen, nVidia 4070 (4060 in the US, maybe we'll get 50xx next year). Downsides: the keyboard is not amazing, it comes with MediaTek WiFi, but is replaceable, and the SSD is 2230, which limits capacity. I haven't been able to fine-tune touchpad sensitivity in Wayland and I do get some screen flickering despite fiddling with some boot params and being on 6.17.x. Fewer constraints if you're willing to go 14-inch with the Zephyrus.
Re:A modern 35mm film scanner for home on Tuesday November 11, 2025 @05:27PM (#45893758)
I tried some scanning on a Plustek 8300, which is supposed to be the fastest. The process is still extremely manual/slow and I don't think it's practical on a large scale. Many families who owned cameras in the 60s-70s-80s-90s will have potentially thousands of negatives to scan, but I don't see a solution that will automate that digitalization process.

Software could also use some improvement. Automating batch correction and clean up should be easier, IMO.

Re:WinBoat: Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration on Thursday October 09, 2025 @09:39AM (#45527537)
WinApps is the project to watch (https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps), although they're still working on Wayland support (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomme...). It can get by through xwayland for the time being, it seems.

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