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blargthorwars

74 karma · joined February 4, 2025

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blargthorwars··on BBC says 'irreversible' trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul
Imagine needing a government licence to look at a screen.
blargthorwars··on What's driving rising business costs?
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the catch-and-release of car thieves drove up costs for everyone. If I change my address away from the craziness, my policy drops by half.
blargthorwars··on Porn depicting sex between step-relatives set to be banned in the UK
The weird bit is that the UK is the inbreed/incest hot zone of Europe:

"It is estimated that approximately 55% of marriages within the Pakistani community in the United Kingdom are between first cousins. This practice, often referred to as consanguineous marriage, is culturally favored within certain communities, leading to higher rates of inbreeding coefficients, which can be comparable to those found in other regions with high rates of cousin marriage, such as in the Middle East."

The UK refuses to make it illegal. That would be racist. The worst crime ever.

blargthorwars··on Guilty Displeasures
I'm supposed to like They Might Be Giants and Talking Heads, but I just can't. Even after a Terry Gross marathon of Fresh Air.
blargthorwars··on [dead]
"He shot two people in the legs and served three years in prison."

Would you expect other countries to put up with people like this?

blargthorwars··on Trump Fake Electors Plot
Here in Washington Statue, we hardly elect Republicans. There are several reasons, but one of them is that the Republican Party runs really weird candidates.

The two people who could have gotten Donald Trump elected ran against him. That's how bad the candidates the Democrats ran were: The voters would rather have Donald Trump.

blargthorwars··on How I launched 3 consoles and found true love at Babbage's store no. 9 (2013)
I lived through this, and it captures the era well. I'm trying to see through young eyes, but I can't stress how new things seemed every year during this era. Nowadays, there doesn't seem to be as much progress, just better iteration.
blargthorwars··on Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools
For me, phonics was a lifesaver. Sure, you have to learn a corpus of typically common words that don't follow the pattern, but that's ok. I went from functionally illiterate to loving language.
blargthorwars··on Nearly half of ammo seized by Mexican government came from US Army plant
Wait? Are borders a thing now?
blargthorwars··on We mourn our craft
Computers are better at chess. Humans invented chess and enjoy it.

I think humans have the advantage.

blargthorwars··on Puget Systems Most Reliable Hardware of 2025
We've had quite a few large Samsung SATA drives fail or start to fail. 4TB and up seems especially suspicious. Not back to spinning levels of badness, but we had a 3% failure rate. Previously, two years ago, it would have about an order of magnitude less.
blargthorwars··on Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?
I found usage really helps you learn how to WAG (Wild Ass Guess).

It also scares the crap out of me to think about what infinity is: you see your slide manipulate incredible numbers, then you imagine a slide that is twice as big. Or a few feet long.

blargthorwars··on Is a RAM-only PWA "Secure Camera" safe for journalists?
You have to account for Ram getting swapped to disk now and then if something else needs pages.
blargthorwars··on The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal
White people and passenger planes tend to get along well. They invent them.
blargthorwars··on Tim Cook sold Apple's soul
I learned this with new pronouns. What I think... isn't what I say.
blargthorwars··on We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s
Rebellion nowadays is living like a sterotyped 1950's family.
blargthorwars··on Post-a-molt: Post to Moltbook directly using the public REST API
There will be a bot/human CAPTCHA economy trading with eachother. This will be how WW4 starts.
blargthorwars··on Bitcoin Looks Set for Longest Monthly Losing Streak Since 2018
Don't even need quantum to worry: Satoshi's wallet could be a massive rug pull by the CIA/FBA/NSA when the time comes.
blargthorwars··on Genetic data from over 20k U.S. children misused for 'race science'
Some medicines work better or worse depending on race. Based on the scientific methodology, your statement is incorrect.
blargthorwars··on Microsoft will give the FBI a Windows PC data encryption key if ordered
Assume good intent. If Microsoft didn't escrow the keys, the next HN post would be "mIcR0SofT Ate mY chILDhooD pHOTos!!"
blargthorwars··on I'm 34. Here's 34 things I wish I knew at 21
It's definitely a balancing act. I have a friend with whom I try gently help him fix his spiraling life. That would let me help him if he's open to it. But for my own sanity and the health of my family, I can't make it a year-long repeated ask.
blargthorwars··on Uber Faces Growing Pressure over Sexual Assault Record
How about we arrest, convict with due process, and incarcerate criminals?

Pushing predators around from job to job doesn't solve the problem.

blargthorwars··on Danish Armed Forces expand their presence and continue exercises in Greenland
The US has a military base on Greenland now, and has had more in the past. We also have experience in Alaska and the South Pole.

The US understands cold.

blargthorwars··on Danish Armed Forces expand their presence and continue exercises in Greenland
This would be bad for the EU.

France has a first-strike doctrine. It's unique in the world, and it scares the shit out of everybody. An EU arsenal would be a typical retaliatory-strike doctrine.

blargthorwars··on Hacking a Casio F-91W digital watch (2023)
You’re absolutely correct! I was totally hooked by the intro—the kind that promises Forbidden Wisdom™—and then I made it about halfway before my attention quietly left the chat. The random bolding of almost every other word felt like getting yelled at by typography. I wasn’t reading anymore; I was flinching. And sure, I can tell there’s a ton of human effort in there, but the overall vibe? Very “AI but with a human supervisor.” Polished, eager, slightly over-explained, and aggressively formatted. I’m sure it’s useful. I just couldn’t finish.
blargthorwars··on Eat Real Food
Our kids lived the change: school meals went from decently school-made food with lots of variety to prepackaged stuff from a distributor.

The intent was good....perhaps... but the processed food manufacturers made bank.

blargthorwars··on Hacking VBA to support native scripting runtime with no COM dependencies
Great question! Programmatically copy your snippet to a module, then call it:

Public Sub AppendCode() Dim cm As Object Set cm = Application.VBE.VBProjects(1).VBComponents("GeneratedLogic").CodeModule

    cm.InsertLines cm.CountOfLines + 1, _
        "Public Sub NewProc()" & vbCrLf & _
        "    MsgBox ""Dynamically added""" & vbCrLf & _
        "End Sub"
End Sub
blargthorwars··on Hacking VBA to support native scripting runtime with no COM dependencies
Friendly reminder for MS Access fiends:

It's ok to store code in tables and then pass it to VBA for evaluation via Eval, or to ASF via the engine.Compile

blargthorwars··on Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life
Remote role? Why would anybody pay UK wages instead of $developing_country wages?
blargthorwars··on The general who refused to crush Tiananmen's protesters
May his name be remembered and on our lips for ever, and may his memory be a blessing for his family.
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