Hacker News Reader

andrewlon Are hospitals overtreating patients nearing the end?

I thought this story in “comic book” form of end of life in a hospital was very powerful:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/G14-0009

andrewlon FogBugz new owners attempting to auto-upgrade all free plans to paid

I use both because of different companies we work with. FogBugz is much friendlier, but Jira does more. And Jira also has a massive number of free and commercial integrations available. When DevFactory purchased FogBugz from Fog Creek they went into rent collecting mode. They keep the lights on, but they are not going to renovate or introduce new features.

andrewlon The energy historian who says rapid decarbonization is a fantasy

I started the article and came right back to post this: “Nothing can be more counterproductive than any certainty regarding complex affairs.”

andrewlon DB Browser for SQLite

It has served me well for years. Their home page is:

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

andrewlon 50 years Smalltalk anniversary celebration at Computer History Museum

Yes, Yukihiro Matsumoto, who created Ruby, took inspiration from Smalltalk and Perl, among other languages.

andrewlon Why are there so few economies of scale in construction? Part I

Here’s an article about a different approach, where the house is built completely off site and just unfolded and set up in a day:

https://singularityhub.com/2021/07/29/these-foldable-houses-...

andrewlon Ethanol-Mediated Novel Survival Strategy Against Drought Stress in Plants

And a brief discussion of the article on CNN:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/25/world/alcohol-plants-drou...

andrewlon Levitator 1: copter flys from the tips

He posted a 35-minute followup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07jEAaAj1VA

andrewlon Byte Magazine Special Issue: Smalltalk (1984)

Did the Smalltalk balloon originate with the Byte cover, or did the Smalltalkers at PARC come up with it first?

andrewlon Summertime, and the Living Is Easier

Subhead: In 1960 only one US home in eight had air-con. Now American life is inconceivable without it, and the rest of the world wants to be cool too.

andrewlon Hard to Be a God

It’s a review of the book Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine by Anna Della Subin.

andrewlon ISO Warning Signs

I don’t understand this one:

M043 — start the water spray for the lifeboat (lifeboat launch sequence)

Why do you spray a lifeboat with water?

andrewlon Fake Dog for Home Security

Where do you live?

andrewlon Keyence, Consultant to the World’s Factories

The company has for decades been helping manufacturers get the most out of their factories with sensors and robotics. Its clients include giants from just about every industry, from aerospace (Boeing) to semiconductors (Samsung and TSMC)... It is Japan’s fourth-most-valuable company.

The audio URL works even if you’re not logged in:

https://www.economist.com/media-assets/audio/071%20Business%...

andrewlon Airbnb will up its penalty for hosts who cancel last-minute from $100 to $1k

There are lots of comments on this Twitter post from Paul Graham about an Airbnb cofounder and his commitment to users:

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1550276733110063104

They are similar to the ones here.

andrewlon Artificial photosynthesis can produce food without sunshine

Can you point to an article about the two girls from India?

andrewlon Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

Ian’s Shoelace Site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/

andrewlon Scapple

At least in the Philadelphia area, the ingredients are often summed up as “everything but the oink.”

andrewlon DB Browser for SQLite

This has worked well for me when I need something more visual than what the console offers.

andrewlon Tylr: A tiny tile-based editor

It made me think of Lamdu[1] a bit. I’m glad to see people thinking and building in this area.

[1] http://www.lamdu.org/

andrewlon From ancient oaks to walking yews: Britain’s great trees, forests and avenues

Very interesting! I didn’t know about the redwoods in Scotland. I wonder if you’d be allowed to plant non-native trees now.

There’s a dawn redwood in Brooklyn:

https://greatesttreesofnyc.tumblr.com/post/125394832885/dawn...

andrewlon The Economist Who Believes Human Ingenuity Will Save the World

Why is the Anglo-Saxon world so individualistic, and why has China leaned towards collectivism? Was it Adam Smith, or the Bill of Rights; communism and Mao? According to at least one economist, there might be an altogether more surprising explanation: the difference between wheat and rice. You see, it’s fairly straightforward for a lone farmer to sow wheat in soil and live off the harvest. Rice is a different affair: it requires extensive irrigation, which means cooperation across parcels of land, even centralised planning. A place where wheat grows favours the entrepreneur; a place where rice grows favours the bureaucrat.

andrewlon How can I get my boyfriend to stop digging his tunnel?

It means 8 feet high by 4 feet wide. But I’m with you: I’d like to know how long it was.

andrewlon The Case for American Seriousness – By Katherine Boyle

Paul Graham put this out on Twitter earlier today, and I came here to talk about it. I think YC News discussion is usually better than Twitter.

I think the article is pretty good, but she does paint with a broad brush. One example is this, which I’m not sure is well-balanced:

It is unserious to prioritize the old over the young, to shut down public schools for two years in the name of safety, sacrificing the needs of children for the neuroses of adults. Twenty years of educational gains and investment in schooling were “wiped out” by Covid policies, according to the United Nations[1]. This is the real, lasting effect of long Covid.

I don’t see school shutdowns, especially pre-vaccine, as simply the result of neuroses of adults. The schedule could be debated, but I think it’s unserious to make simplistic statements about a complex, and dangerous, situation.

[1]www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/world/americas/covid-19-education-unicef.html

andrewlon DB Browser for SQLite

I mostly use the SQLite commandline client, but when I want a GUI I use DB Browser for SQLite.

andrewlon Pharo 10

I’ve heard there’s a lot of Smalltalk (not necessarily Pharo) used on Wall Street. There’s a fairly extensive page listing companies who use Pharo at:

https://pharo.org/success.html

andrewlon Seen from space, the longest conveyor belt is in Morocco

Regarding how hard it is to get a handle on the actual size of Africa, I’ve found The True Size Of (https://thetruesize.com) immensely helpful.

andrewlon Why enterprise software is bloated

You could be a good developer with a manager who gets angry if it’s discovered you took that kind of initiative.

andrewlon Feynman’s advice to W&M student resonates 45 years later (2020)

The article quotes Feynman’s letter as saying “I am not sure how I did it, but I goofed.” What he meant is that he doesn’t know how he made such a simple error, not that he doesn’t know what the error was.

Like if I wrote in an article or book chapter that 2 + 3 = 7. I’d know what the error was when it was pointed out to me. But I wouldn’t be able to imagine how in the world I made such an elementary goof.

andrewlon Ask HN: Any other databases on single disk file like SQLite exist?

Firebird, maybe:

https://firebirdsql.org/manual/fbint-structure.html