Hacker News Reader

binarycrusaderon The Commodore 77, an All-New Cyberpunk 2077 Collaboration

This might fit your fancy:

https://www.8bitdo.com/retro-mechanical-keyboard-c64/

binarycrusaderon Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise

What’s the saying?

You cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themself into in the first place.

binarycrusaderon Steam Deck sells out in North America within 24 hours of price hike

No, they weren't wrong -- it was listed as sold out almost immediately after. It's just out of date now already since it looks like it has been restocked again. Source? I had checked shortly after they said they restocked only to see it was sold out again.

Also, they addressed the inventory size in the fine article. Maybe the snark isn't warranted?

binarycrusaderon RTX 5090 and M4 MacBook Air: Can It Game?

I picked both Puget Systems and Falcon Northwest because for the most part, both focus on pre-tested off-the-shelf parts with good reliability data from their own servicing.

My Puget Systems workstation for example has a simple AIO for cooling with some Noctua fans and a Fractal Design 7 XL full tower case.

The Tiki system I ordered for a family member from Falcon Northwest does have a custom case, but almost everything else is fairly standard inside. The super small form factor was important to them.

Could I have built either of these systems myself? Absolutely -- I've done that for at least prior 20 years or so, and I've built dozens for employers, but it sure was nice to buy one that just worked this time instead of having to having to fiddle with memory sticks or find exactly the right bios settings for stability, etc.

I'm well aware of the premium I paid but I can honestly say it has been incredibly nice to have a workstation that just works without having to fiddle with bios updates or hardware. I also don't really have the time to spare so I was entirely willing to trade funds for time.

binarycrusaderon RTX 5090 and M4 MacBook Air: Can It Game?

DISCLAIMER: Only speaking for myself, not employers or affiliates.

I've been pretty darn happy with the Puget Systems custom workstation I ordered last year before the memory craze started (especially since it has 192GiB of DDR5).

I also ordered another family member a custom "Tiki" system from Falcon Northwest and that has also been quite excellent from what I've seen and they've told me.

Now is obviously not the most economical time to order a new system, but when it is appropriate (and for what it's worth) I think those are two great system builders.

binarycrusaderon College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

I’ve been typing for years since the 80s. However, even in the 90s I found any extended period of handwriting to be painful and laborious. I don’t think I could handle an instructor that insisted on handwritten long form but I’d happily accept a compromise in the form of a typewriter.

binarycrusaderon A new C++ back end for ocamlc

Indeed: https://blog.janestreet.com/author/sdolan/

https://signalsandthreads.com/memory-management/#:~:text=Ste...

binarycrusaderon Something is afoot in the land of Qwen

You absolutely do not have to show ID to pick up every prescription; just some, which is also dependent on state law, federal law, and pharmacy.

But also, I don't care if it's a tired argument--this isn't about how things are, it's about how we want them to be. I don't want to live in a state action-coerced society.

binarycrusaderon Microgpt

Maybe they're talking about this version?

https://github.com/loretoparisi/microgpt.c

binarycrusaderon How to Allocate Memory

Can you clarify?

As far as I'm aware, dwAllocationGranularity returned via GetSystemInfo determines the MEM_RESERVE alignment and size. Yes, in practice this is always 64KiB but may not always be true in the future.

Additionally, dwPageSize returned via GetSystemInfo determines the alignment and size for MEM_COMMIT which in practice is 4KiB or 16KiB.

Put differently, while an application might be stuck with allocation-granularity reservations, the actual commit is in units of page size, right?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/reser...

Page protections are also based on page size afaik, for example: https://www.softwareverify.com/blog/leaking-memory-with-virt...

Or the way I read it, you might be stuck with a dwAllocationGranularity reservation, but the actual commit increment is in units of dwPageSize.

binarycrusaderon Puget Systems Most Reliable Hardware of 2025

I ordered a custom Ryzen 9950X3D workstation in a full-size tower from Puget last year with 192GiB of RAM before the memory craze happened and I've been quite happy with it. Zero reliability issues and excellent performance.

Coincidentally, I also ordered a custom Tiki-based gaming system from Falcon NW for a family member and that's also been amazing.

I think I would be hard-pressed to choose between the two system builders, but Puget definitely has the edge for workstations since they offer Full-size towers and other hardware that Falcon NW does not. Conversely, Falcon NW offers custom cases and the very best of hardware for gamers with unheard of customization options like custom paint jobs.

binarycrusaderon A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

Claude Code is a CLI tool which means it can do complete projects in a single command

https://github.com/features/copilot/cli/

binarycrusaderon The Olivetti Company

Somewhat apropos is this excellent video I just watched yesterday where Olivetti's graphics were touched on:

https://youtu.be/xNsK_F4JlG4?t=586

binarycrusaderon Update on age requirements for apps distributed in Texas

Some states such as Virginia (although with an exception if the person has a high school diploma or equivalent):

https://www.vccs.edu/application-information/

To qualify for general admission to a college, you must have a high school diploma, its equivalent, or be 18 years of age or older.

Unclear whether that is statewide or just a requirement of this state institution. I suspect many of the ones that do have this age requirement also have the diploma exception.

binarycrusaderon The Riven Diffs – Seeing Riven (1997) Differently

Updated today, 2026–so the 1997 title is somewhat misleading.

binarycrusaderon Quality of drinking water varies significantly by airline

Completely orthagonal -- I absolutely can't stand the taste of the "Boxed Water" Alaska uses. I swear I can taste the cardboard or whatever they use to package it. I always bring my own water instead.

binarycrusaderon I'm a laptop weirdo and that's why I like my new Framework 13

Yes, eccentric, but this thread linked from the post is the real winner:

https://community.frame.work/t/the-snack-drawer-store-now-ma...

binarycrusaderon Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

...they also appear to have been acquired by an investment group this past year:

https://www.fusfoundation.org/posts/transformational-milesto...

binarycrusaderon The Geometry of Schemes [pdf]

Pretty sure that's a ferret.

binarycrusaderon Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

right, which is why I said partially...

binarycrusaderon Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

It might be subjective, but doesn't this count at least partially as a currency on the gold standard?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_ZiG

binarycrusaderon Commodore 64 Ultimate

It’s back!

https://www.computesgazette.com/

binarycrusaderon Our Paint – A featureless but programmable painting program

I think it's more subtle than that:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250719210835/https://www.wello...

The project is a mix of licenses since it's a mix of components. If I had to guess, they intend source code and maybe the binaries under GPLv3 that they own, fonts under SIL Open Font, but "brushes" and "splash images" under CC_BY_NC, etc. mean they could probably constrain certain uses:

  Our Paint is a painting application.

  Copyright (C) 2022-2025 Wu Yiming

  Learn more about LaGUI: https://ChengduLittleA.com/lagui

  Support the development: https://patreon.com/ChengduLittleA

  Our Paint is licensed with GNU GPL v3, and Noto fonts are licensed with SIL Open Font license. You should be able to find details about the license in the source code directory.

  The splash screen images under Resources are licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0). You can not use these images commercially, but you are free to contact the author for licensing info on other products such as prints.

  The brushe files packed with Our Paint distribustion are licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0).

My personal opinion is that if that's what they intended, it seems quite reasonable.

binarycrusaderon OpenBSD is so fast, I had to modify the program slightly to measure itself

I found it exceedingly difficult to read, so I ended up applying these ublock filter rules so I could read it:

  flak.tedunangst.com##.bl.shooter
  flak.tedunangst.com##.br.shooter
  flak.tedunangst.com##div.bullet

binarycrusaderon PBS Passport Streaming Service

Maybe it is station specific but mine has always been online. Login to account, donate, and then it’s automatic.

binarycrusaderon Barrelfish OS Architecture Overview (2013) [pdf]

sadly, last release 2020-03-23:

The Barrelfish project is no longer active. See https://systems.ethz.ch/ for information about our current research activities.

It is still interesting though.

binarycrusaderon How to Install Windows NT 4 Server on Proxmox

archive.org to the rescue

https://archive.org/details/VBEMPNT

binarycrusaderon Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

They are, at minimum, accountable to congress, therefore that is a lie.

There is a reason the US has three branches of government instead of one despite misguided individuals that believe otherwise.

Whether they are “co-equal” depends on who you ask but it is a lie to claim they are not accountable when their accountability is to congress directly via funding.

binarycrusaderon I ate and reviewed every snack in our office kitchen

I raise you one Apple tree estimated to be around 370 years old:

https://www.ancienttreeforum.org.uk/ancient-trees/ancient-tr...

But yes, most Apple trees seem to stop bearing fruit around 50 years of age max and rarely live beyond 90-100 years as far as I can tell.

binarycrusaderon Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid research cuts

As the other poster mentioned, endowments / donations often come with conditions attached that significantly restricts how money from them can be used.