Hacker News Reader

mslaon Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

Well, they were obviously incorrect.

mslaon Mexico's President Sheinbaum Decrees Universal Healthcare for 120M

> Medicare For All

Nobody who relies on Medicare would say that. The people who say it want a fantasy Medicare that doesn't exist.

https://www.medicare.gov/providers-services/original-medicar...

Some of the items and services Medicare doesn’t cover include:

    Eye exams (for prescription eyeglasses)
    Long-term care
    Cosmetic surgery  
    Massage therapy
    Routine physical exams
    Hearing aids and exams for fitting them
    Most dental care: In most cases, Original Medicare doesn't cover dental services like routine cleanings, filings, tooth extractions, or items like dentures.

mslaon Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

Incorrect according to who? You? Your Sainted Mother? Sounds innovative to me, and hardly traditional. Saying male is somehow gender neutral sounds even more bizarre.

No, usage makes correctness in language, not people trying to invent some weird conlang they wrongly insist is correct English.

mslaon Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

With Windows, you get what you pay for.

In this case, that's an OS controlled by an unaccountable company that can take application software away from you.

Related: If you're the customer, you're the product.

mslaon In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

They're coming for the jobs immigrants would be taking if the Japanese government weren't so xenophobic.

mslaon Linux 7.1 Expected to Begin Removing I486 CPU Support

Support for the Pentium isn't going away now, certainly, and nobody's announced plans to drop it from the Linux kernel, but every architecture has a time horizon.

mslaon Linux 7.1 Expected to Begin Removing I486 CPU Support

Well, that leaves the Pentium family, doesn't it?

I wonder how far we are from the removal of all 32-bit x86 support from the mainline Linux kernel.

mslaon IPv6 address, as a sentence you can remember

A bit less than 50% of the whole Internet.

Wow. That's so amazingly unpopular. Why anyone bothers talking about something untold millions of people use every day is beyond me.

mslaon Circuit-level PDP-11/34 emulator

WebAssembly version with photo-realistic GUI. Run a PDP-11/34 in your browser:

https://dbrll.github.io/ll-34/

mslaon Make macOS consistently bad unironically

Is this a case of "It Just Works" or "You're Holding It Wrong"?

mslaon CERN uses tiny AI models burned into silicon for real-time LHC data filtering

Are they some ancient small-scale integration VLSI design? Do they broadcast on a low-frequency VHF band? Face it: Oxymorons like those are part of the technical world. "VLSI" was a current term back when whole CPUs were made out of fewer transistors than we use for register files now, and "VHF" is low frequency even by commercial broadcasting standards.

mslaon Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline

> But the western Roman empire fell and cities depopulated and folks switched back to subsistence farming for hundreds of years.

> And plenty of places have been at war and had much of civilization's usefulness diminished from days to decades. Not to mention straightforward natural disasters.

The only one of those things someone survived by being an individual prepper is the natural disaster, because in the other cases the government didn't just go away, it was replaced by other groups who could kill any given individual and take their stuff. The only way to survive is to leave and become a refugee or to band together in an even bigger group that can kill all individuals and smaller groups and take all their stuff. This is how you get the Carolingian Empire, Los Zetas, MS-13, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge.

Individual preppers are living in a fantasy land to the extent they think they can wait out political collapse. They might well be competent enough to wait out a terrible natural disaster, but at that point they aren't "preppers" so much as people who listen to what FEMA and NOAA and other disaster-focused government agencies recommend for their regions.

mslaon Kagi Translate now supports LinkedIn Speak as an output language

Reflecting on my professional journey through high-stakes environments. I’ve taken a deep dive into my career trajectory and realized it’s time for a pivot. I’ve been so focused on disruptive innovation and high-velocity execution that even my mentors are questioning my work-life balance.

But I’ve never disrupted a market that didn't need a shake-up. Being treated like a junior associate? Unheard of in my network. You need to be mindful of your personal branding and strategic positioning, or you and your stakeholders might face a total budget freeze.

I’m not one to pivot without a plan, but I have to stay agile. As competitors sunset their products, I see my own vision reflected in the market disruption. I’m the kind of Thought Leader the new hires aspire to be—working late, optimizing workflows under the office lights.

Spending most of our careers Living in a high-growth startup paradise. Spending most of our careers Living in a high-growth startup paradise. Keep spending most of our careers Living in a high-growth startup paradise. Keep spending most of our careers Living in a high-growth startup paradise.

Look at the KPIs they’ve got me chasing. I can’t have a 9-to-5; I was forged in the hustle culture. So I have to be fully aligned with the core team. Too much time spent on passive content consumption has me chasing moonshot goals. I’m a highly-educated professional with a ROI-focused mindset. Got my pitch deck ready and a vision for the future. I’m a dedicated disruptor, focused on market penetration. And my team is fully onboard, so let’s keep the synergy positive. Success is just one breakthrough away. I’m living a "fail fast, learn faster" lifestyle—it’s the industry standard. I’ve hit my Q3 targets, but will I reach the Q4 milestones? With the current market volatility, it’s hard to forecast. Tell me, why are we so siloed that we fail to see That the stakeholders we impact are you and me?

mslaon Kagi Translate

Here's the Ten Commandments translated into "Dr. Seuss"

I am the Lord, your God, it’s true! No other gods will do for you.

Don't use My name in ways that are bad, That makes the Lord quite wishy-sad.

Keep My day holy, a day for some rest, Of all of the days, it’s simply the best!

Love your father and mother, too, In everything that you say and you do.

Don't hurt a person, don't kill or don't strike, That isn't the sort of thing anyone would like!

Be true to your spouse, don't wander away, Keep your heart faithful every single day.

Don't take what's not yours, not a pin or a shoe, Stealing is something that you shouldn't do!

Don't tell any lies or say things not true, About all the neighbors who live near to you.

Don't want your neighbor's wife for your own, Leave her with him, and leave them alone!

Don't wish for his stuff, his house or his toys, Be happy with yours, you girls and you boys!

... and into Maoist Standard English:

I am the People's servant, the vanguard of the masses. You shall serve no reactionary idols before the collective will.

You shall not exploit the name of the Revolution for personal gain or vanity.

Remember to uphold the discipline of the struggle and the collective labor of the masses.

Honor the revolutionary elders and the proletarian family.

You shall not murder your class brothers, but wage relentless struggle against the enemies of the people.

You shall not engage in decadent bourgeois morality or betray the revolutionary partnership.

You shall not expropriate the collective property of the people.

You shall not spread counter-revolutionary rumors or bear false witness against your comrades.

You shall not harbor individualist desires for the companions of your comrades.

You shall not covet the resources of the collective or seek private accumulation.

... and into Donald Trump:

I am the Lord your God, and let me tell you, nobody does it better. You’re not going to have any other gods, believe me, just Me.

Don’t use the name of the Lord your God in vain. It’s disrespectful, it’s a disaster, don’t do it.

Remember the Lord’s day. Keep it holy. We love the Lord’s day, don’t we? It’s very special.

Honor your father and your mother. Great people, very important. You have to show respect.

Thou shall not kill. We want law and order, we want safety. No killing.

No adultery. You’ve got to stay loyal, you’ve got to be smart.

Thou shall not steal. We don’t like thieves. We’re going to stop the stealing, it’s terrible.

Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor. No lying, no fake news. We want the truth.

Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. Not good. Stay focused on your own life.

And don’t covet your neighbor’s goods. Their house, their boat—don’t worry about it. We’re going to have our own things, and they’re going to be much bigger and better.

mslaon Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

Well, they had better hope nobody notices how to use this flaw to chain into another one in the current generation.

mslaon Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

You can't. Console makers have these locked-down little systems with all the security they can economically justify... embedded in an arbitrarily-hostile environment created by people who have no need to economically justify anything. It's completely asymmetrical and the individual hackers hold most of the cards. There's no "this exploit is too bizarre" for people whose hobby is breaking consoles, and if even one of those bizarre exploits wins it's game over.

And if you predict the next dozen bizarre things someone might try, you both miss the thirteenth thing that's going to work and you make a console so over-engineered Sony can kick your ass just by mentioning the purchase price of their next console. ("$299", the number that echoed across E3.)

mslaon Why I love FreeBSD

Remember: If z/OS were as widely used as Windows 95, it would be just as insecure!

God, it reminds me of Slashdot trolls in the 1990s..

mslaon Stop using grey text (2025)

While we're wishing, let's bring back serifs. I, for one, would like to be able to tell the difference between AI and Al without context clues, and using an inherently lossy font is the opposite of "readability".

mslaon Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

More to the point, if they required 2FA every time you tried to modify the JS, nobody would do it because it would be too annoying. "Username, password... oh, the 2FA just timed out, gotta wait for the next one... what, that doesn't work? Does it want the old one? Oh... now it wants the next one... just a second... "

mslaon Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

> Also the language that has made me millions over my career with no degree.

"You can't hate rum, it's made me so much money!"

mslaon Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

Yep, WASM is so much more secure.

mslaon El Paso ICE Camp East Montana under quarantine after measles outbreak

So a camp near the westernmost point of Texas is named East Montana.

East Montana is also near an international border, and therefore is a "reasonable" place to have an ICE camp. Also, ice and camps.

None of this is confusing.

mslaon Closure of the Weatheradio service in Canada

Yeah. I'm down on commercial AM/FM radio being touted as an emergency service, because there's so rarely enough behind the scenes to make it reliable or even minimally usable as such, but this is something purpose-built to fill that role, and shutting it down means there's nothing which can fill it, given how worthless commercial radio is at the task:

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

> Because it was the middle of the night, there were few people at local radio stations, all operated by Clear Channel with mostly automated programming. No formal emergency warnings were issued for several hours while Minot officials located station managers at home. North Dakota's public radio network, Prairie Public Broadcasting, was notified and did broadcast warnings to citizens.

If you wanted to make commercial radio even minimally acceptable as an emergency alert system you'd be... guess what... reinventing EAS and EAS-a-likes, except more expensive and less responsive! EAS never has to "Interrupt This Program" it can just get to the meat.

mslaon Eschewing Zshell for Emacs Shell (2014)

Ctrl-R to search for previous command, which I use more often. Pretty ergonomic if you do the normal Emacs thing and rebind Caps Lock to Ctrl, ironically.

mslaon Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

If you're going to be cynical, at least credit them with some brains:

MAGA isn't going to last forever, and when it collapses, the ones who publicly stood up to it will be better positioned to, I don't know, not face massive legal problems under whatever administration comes next. A government elected by middle-aged moms who use "Fuck ICE" as a friendly greeting isn't going to have any incentives to go easy on Palantir and Tesla.

mslaon Rust is just a tool

It's interesting how it's Obviously Impossible to write OSes in garbage-collected languages, and this is proven by the fact successful OSes were written in garbage-collected languages back in the Stone Age, or 1980s, whichever. My current laptop has enough RAM to swallow the entire state of a Symbolics workstation (RAM and disk) without noticing, but it's obviously too wimpy to run an OS written in anything other than C.

(Nitpickers' Corner: "Successful" and "the most commercially successful" are, in fact, two different words. Gots all them different letters an' everything. Therefore, Genera not being as profitable as such Sophisticated Top-Of-The-Line Pieces of Professional-Grade Enterprise-Ready software as MS-DOS doesn't mean Genera wasn't successful.)

mslaon Show HN: Microgpt is a GPT you can visualize in the browser

About how many training steps are required to get good output?

mslaon France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

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

> The FMLA allows eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period to care for a new child, care for a seriously ill family member, or recover from a serious illness.

There's limitations on that, but the common idea that Americans don't have healthcare is unfounded and appallingly ignorant.

mslaon Television is 100 years old today

You're skipping a few steps (like the Altair 8800) if you say that Apple invented the PC as we know it. Apple didn't even invent the GUI as we know it.

mslaon A Brief History of Ralph

Surely that would be better written as

    cat PROMPT.md | cat | npx --yes @sourcegraph/amp