Hacker News Reader

Normilleon Hacker News Submit – Chrome Web Store

Brilliant! --just what we need. An even easier way for people to thoughtlessly submit articles without spending a couple of seconds looking first, to see if they've already been submitted a dozen times.

Normilleon Is it time to retire the .gb top level domain?

TRIVIA CORNER:

In Irish Gaelic the island of Great Britain is Breatain Mhór [Big Britain] and Breatain Bheag [Little Britain] is the name for Wales. Obviously coming from the historical fact [much trumpeted by the Welsh] that they were the original Brits, driven into the mountainous west by the Saxon invaders. England in Irish is Sasana [obviously referring to Saxons] thus making an Englishman a Sasanach

NOTE: These terms are similar in Scottish Gallic too. Hence the widely known Scots usage of Sasanach as a derogatory term for an English person which, in reality, means calling them a 'Saxon'.

Normilleon Outrage after a startup with Russian founders wins Slush pitch competition

Stars have always been popular. How's about a red star?

Normilleon Crystal in Production

Said it before and I'll say it again:

I love the look of Crystal [I've always been a fan of Ruby's syntax] but I'm completely put off by:

1: Lack of decent tooling [C'mon. Any language which doesn't have a full-featured VScod[e/ium] extension by now isn't going to attract many people who want a modern IDE to work in!]

2: Unfriendly error mesages. When I have dabbled with Crystal in the past, I've nearly always had to look up error message to find what they actually mean, in terms those unfamiliar with the inner nuts & bolts of the language would understand.

It may be [deservedly?] much maligned. But I think V sets the bar for error messages. The V compiler tells you what's wrong in plain language and often suggests ways you could fix it. Crystal could learn a lot from V here.

3: Compile times are still far too slow. Rust is generally criticised for having glacial compile times. But has the "if it compiles it will be safe" defence as mitigation. Crystal's compile times aren't that bad. But they're a lot slower than [for example] Go and V.

No.3 I could put up with, if no.s 1 and 2 were given some love. But, overall I'm just not attracted to investing time in learning Crystal, while it has these down sides.

Normilleon Are You Sick of Acronyms?

Shouldn't title be AYSOAC?

Normilleon Snowdon to be known by it's Welsh name Yr Wyddfa

Actual title: Snowdon: Park to use mountain's Welsh name Yr Wyddfa

If you'd kept that, you'd not have misused that apostrophe on it's

Normilleon Earth now weighs six ronnagrams: New metric prefixes voted in

  >o their 1793 measurement of the distance from the equator to the North Pole was off by less than 2 km....

Or, like a lot of people, the Earth's put on a bit of wieght in the intervening 200+ years

Normilleon Ask HN: Smoothest way to Remote Desktop from a Mac to local headless Ubuntu box?

I use AnyDesk [0] to connect to my Linux media centre from OSX*. That's not headless though, so not sure if it would work for you

*Actually "used". It no longer works since I switched from Ubuntu to Manjaro

[0] https://anydesk.com/gb

Normilleon Is hacker “news” a lot less about hacker and more about news?

  >My solution: uBlock Origin...

Wow! --this is a brilliant idea. I'd been trying to hack something together in GreaseMonkey to do something like this. But unfortunately my JS-foo is practically non-existent. So I never got very far with it. I never even thought of trying to do it with uBO.

Mind you, my ABP filter syntax knowledge is about as flakey as my understanding of JS. Nevertheless, this is what I've got so far:

  #block submissions with these domains...
  #or with this in the title...
  news.ycombinator.com#?#tr.athing > td.title > span:-abp-contains(/[Tt]witter/):upward(tr)
  news.ycombinator.com#?#tr.athing > td.title > span:-abp-contains(/[Yy]ou[Tt]ube/):upward(tr)
  news.ycombinator.com#?#tr.athing > td.title > span:-abp-contains(/[Ee]moji/):upward(tr)
  news.ycombinator.com#?#tr.athing > td.title > span:-abp-contains(/[Ww]orld [Cc]up/):upward(tr)
  news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing > td.title > span:-abp-contains(/[Pp]interest/):upward(tr)

It's a bit clunky to write and it leaves the 'submitted by' line behind. But already my HN viewing is 23% less annoying.

Do any of you ABP syntax gurus out there know a less clunky way to match case insensitively? For some reason the -abp-contains() filter is case sensitive and uBO doesn't accept a regex with /(?i)keyword/ or /(?i)[keyword]/

Normilleon Z-Library Was a Lifeline for Students on Shoestring Budgets

  >I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the rest of this semester without zlib.

Telegram and Tor are your friends:

https://t.me/firstlibrarybot

http://bookszlibb74ugqojhzhg2a63w5i2atv5bqarulgczawnbmsb6s6q... (books)

http://articles24t2d47kb6rbabobokvrnymh2smkleosntcu6qxou6sxe... (articles)

Normilleon Is hacker “news” a lot less about hacker and more about news?

'Hacker News'? I thought it was 'Twitter News' these days.

Normilleon Yesterday HN had 14 posts in 2 hours about Russia attacking Poland

  >but that in no way undermines the legitimacy of the current government...

I never said it did. But you [deliberately?] failed to mention that the previous pro-Russian government was also democratically elected. Pointing out instead that it was 'corrupt'. Well, a government can be corrupt and still democratically elected. And [cf. several previous UK elections] a government can also be 'democratically elected' with a majority of the people voting against it.

  >Clearly, as we see from the peoples’ reaction to Russian occupation...

Yes. It's amazing how, in the western press everyone in Ukraine is opposed to the invasion. Yet on sites like Russia today, we're given the impression that in those territories in the east annexed by Russia, huge numbers of the population are rejoicing at being 'liberated'.

You're 'clearly' seeing only one side of the story. I'm not saying that what's being reported on the Russian side isn't full of lies, half-truths and propaganda. But I'm cynical [or realist] enough not to take what we're being fed by our side at face value either.

As the man said "The first casualty of war is truth"

Normilleon China circles El Salvador's economy as country edges toward crypto plunge

  >a senior associate at the Washington DC based...

Sounds ... partisan

Normilleon China circles El Salvador's economy as country edges toward crypto plunge

As I said, referencing this story in another thread [0], where we were discussing media bias:

Nice use of the word 'circling' there to suggest a predatory shark, about to move in for the kill on aa hapless victim. Methinks the wording and visual imagery would have been quite different, if the US or EU was in talks to buy up El Salvdor's debt.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33622285

Normilleon Yesterday HN had 14 posts in 2 hours about Russia attacking Poland

   >It seems unreasonable to me to call Ukraine fascist when it has a democratically elected government and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was a consequence of Ukrainians getting rid of a highly corrupt, dubiously elected leader...

There's another classic example. In the west, the 'Maidan Revolution' is reported as a popular uprising to overthrow a corrupt government. On the Russian side the same events are reported as a revolution fomented by the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected government, because it was pro-Moscow, and replace it with a pro-western one.

Is either version the absolute truth? Is either version a total lie? I'd say, as with most such tales, the truth is found somewhere in the middle.

You've even done it yourself. You said Ukraine has a "democratically elected government" which replaced a "highly corrupt, dubiously elected leader". But the previous government was democratically elected too. And was overthrown by a revolution [popular or otherwise]. >All societies engage in censorship in one form or other.

Of course. But only the west seems to maintain this pretense that "we" don't and "they" do.

EDIT: Oddly enough, I just closed this edit window to see a submission from the Guardian:

"China circles El Salvador’s economy as country edges toward crypto plunge" [0]

with 'circling' giving a nice predatory image of a shark waiting to move in for the kill on a hapless victim. I wonder how that headline would have been worded if the US or EU was in talks to buy up El Salvador's debt instead of China?

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/15/china-el-...

Normilleon The plague of emoji insertion in French docs

smiley face. crying face. row of hearts in different colours. strange yellow thing that might be a banana or an arm flexing its bicep. sports trophy. winking face.

My god! --you're right. This is so much better and clearer than using those boring old fashioned words.

Normilleon Yesterday HN had 14 posts in 2 hours about Russia attacking Poland

   >HN is manipulated at its finest

It's patently obvious to anyone who is honest with themselves that all coverage of the Ukraine conflict is biased to one side or the other. And here in the west, it's biased towards the pro-Ukraine narrative.

I read a wide variety of news sites, ranging from The Guardian to Russia Today to China Daily [and several more in between] and it's striking, not how bias is shown in what's reported. But also in what's not reported or is glossed over. A couple of examples:

1: The alleged discovery of US biolabs in Ukraine was pretty much ignored by the western media but got lots of coverage on RT and was also mentioned on CD.

2: When Ukraine bombed the Crimean bridge, Russia Today led with the fact 3 civilians were killed and 2 were missing presumed dead. The fact that civiliams were killed was not mentioned at all on the BBC etc.

Conversely, when Russia started the bombardment of Ukraine's infrastructure, RT led with how the bombardments had taken out 'weapons storage' and 'communications' and didn't mention any civilian casualties. While the BBC etc. led with the numbers of civilians killed.

3: RT has been claiming that there have been videos posted on social media of Ukrainian militia flying fascist banners and giving nazi salutes. Again this has not been mentioned at all in the western press --presumably as it gives some credence to Russia's justification that it invaded Ukraine to counter Fascism and undermines the western narrative that 'Russia = Wholly Evil. Ukraine = Wholly Good'

I said at the top, I consume news from a wide range of sources, of all political hues. Interestingly, since the Ukraine conflict started, I've been finding that most of the time Russia Today is unreachable from my browser, or through VPN connected via anywhere in western Europe or the US. Yet, strangley enough I have no problem connecting to the site though VPN via Asian countries.

Odd that, isn't it? It's almost like censorship. Except, as we all know, only nasty oppressive countries like Iran, China, Russia etc. try to block their people's access to foreign news sources. It must be just coincidence.

Normilleon One of the things that I think is sad about the decimation of Twitter eng

Point taken. I didn't actually follow the link. Just saw the domain and, in my mind 'Mastodon = Twitter-Lite'.

  >If something's of interest but poorly formatted, posting it here doesn't seem that unreasonable?

No offence meant. It's just one of my bug-bears at the minute that practically every news site on the planet now [even supposedly professional outfits like the BBC and Reuters] seems to have abandoned any pretence at primary research in favour of endlessly quoting what people tweeted... often with a screengrab of the tweet and then the content of the tweet written out underneath.

As someone who has nothing to do with Twitter [or FB or Mastodon for that matter] I just find it both extremey irritating and equally as alarming that it seems to be becoming the de facto place where journalist go to research a story.

Hence why I tend to voer-react when I see the same tendency creeping in on HN, which I used to think of as a 'place where I can go to read interesting science and technology articles that people have come across'. If I wanted to know what someone tweeted, I'd go directly to Twitter. I can really do without the entire newsgathering section of the internet turning into a Twitter mirror site.

Normilleon One of the things that I think is sad about the decimation of Twitter eng

Oh great! Now people are posting 'toots' as news stories, as well as tweets.

Why don't we just go the whole hog and embed Twatter inside an iframe on HN and discuss our favourite Tweets entirely via emojis?

Normilleon The plague of emoji insertion in French docs

  >A modern solution is simply to have non-breaking space easily accessible in your keyboard layout

An even better solution would be --for grown up people who have progressed beyond cave-painting and want to communicate using, you know, actual words-- to be able to disable emojis completely.

Fucking moronic shite that they are. I've seen people on Twatter and FB have entire conversations in bloody emojis. Talk about reverse evolution! Why don't we just go back to grunting and gesturing and have done with it?

Normilleon Ask HN: Anyone knows how to simplify taxes?

I think Amazon do.

Normilleon India prepares to overtake China as the world’s most populous country

Hey, Guardian. That massive blocking begging bowl which obscures half the page every time I open your site is really, really not annoying at all

/sarcasm

Even Jimmy Wales is more subtle than that.

Normilleon At all-hands meeting, Musk tells employees Twitter may go bankrupt

I really hope so. The sooner Twitter ceases to exist, the better.

Just think; journalists would actually have to start researching stories again, instead of the endless 'X tweeted this and Y tweeted that' which seems to pass for in-depth news gathering these days.

And, closer to home; maybe people on HN will stop linking to fucking tweets as news stories

Normilleon AdBlue shortage threatens EU supply chains

  >AdBlue, a mix of urea and deionised water...

De-ionised water is easily obtainable in any filling station, or place that sells motoring spares.

And urea?.. well given the amount of 'truckers' lemonade' found in lay-bys, they shouldn't have any trouble sourcing that either.

Normilleon France to require all large car parks to be covered by solar panels

Hmmmm.. presumably this won't apply to underground carparks?

Normilleon How de-googled is SimpleOS?

Why are you asking? It's your own site, so you should know.

Normilleon Iran Votes to Execute 14k Protesters, Says Rebels Need 'Hard Lesson

Gotta love modern journalism. Go on Twatter and grab a load of tweets. Put them on a page and then write them out underneath again.

Normilleon Differences Between Mastodon and Twitter

Twitter = millions of people who think the rest of the world is interested in their inconsequential shite.

Mastodon = thousands of people who think the rest of the world is interested in their inconsequential shite.

Normilleon Will anyone buy my Liz Truss book?

I'd have thought the book would sell more copies now her premiership turned into a car crash and she goes down in history as Britain's shortesr lived PM [sub: Fact check this. I can't be arsed].

ASIDE: How many copies would the book have sold, if she hadn't spontanteously self-combusted? Who the feck buys turgid biographies of mediocre politicians anyway?

Insomniacs?

Normilleon Facial recognition export claims to have found Lord Lucan

If ever there was a case for 'This thread is useless without pics!' coverage of this story is it. No-one is publishing photos of the guy in question, so we can judge for ourselves.

And, before someone mentions 'libel' or 'rights to privacy'; the facial recognition expert claims to be '100% certain'. If so, why not 'publish and be damned'?