Hacker News Reader

badcppdevon Show HN: I made a web-based notepad with a built in unit calculator

Mini feedback: The difference between a defined variable and an undefined variable could be clearer. And should an expression with an undefined variable still give a value?

So if you had: Alice's food + Bob's foood = £30 then I think there should be more to highlight the typo.

P.S. This is an awesome thing

badcppdevon Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich

Apologies for my misunderstanding. I meant zero hate or vitriol.

I categorised 'wish you the best' the same as 'thoughts and prayers' but you probably didn't mean it like that. I wanted to draw a contrast between actions that only effect an individual, like your example of quitting a bad job, and actions that effect society, i.e. changing the rules to close the loopholes that businesses use to exploit their workers.

I think we both agree that systematic societal change would be a good thing. Cool.

badcppdevon Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich

I think your idea of a tongue in cheek comment was a bit simplistic for the subject matter.

badcppdevon Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich

Why are you saying there are only two alternatives? Do you strongly believe that?

The author of the article and the related book is 76 years old. Are you calling him a kid?

badcppdevon Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich

Your wishes are worth zero.

- Would you be willing to oppose corporations controlling the government with bribes/campaign contributions? - Support a judicial system where poorer people can access justice? - Tell your representatives that wage theft should be punished as seriously as theft and fraud?

badcppdevon The East African Federation experiment

I would disagree because in my opinion it seems that there are some parts of the western developed world where levels of exploitation are increasing.

badcppdevon Meditations: A Requiem for Descartes Labs

That is a super fascinating story with a lot of insight into the internal operations of a well-funded VC startup.

badcppdevon Sending spammers to password purgatory

I often see downvotes for comments that make claims but don't include details.

In this case you say, "an issue with GDPR" but fail to elaborate.

badcppdevon Mary Schmich's “Wear Sunscreen”, which turned into an unlikely 90s hit (2019)

You just beat me to posting a link to Safran's song.

  But most of all, don't aim too high, 
  You're probably only suited to an office or factory job

badcppdevon TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

You are replying directly to GP.

badcppdevon TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

Imagine if all the people who write millions of words on the internet about issues channelled their energy into just helping others in their community.

(I am aware of the judgemental hypocrisy in the statement above.)

badcppdevon TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

I've realised I was wrong in my response. The comment you were reacting to did not mention the word diagnose. And I shouldn't have used it in my response.

You seemed to have jumped to a conclusion, used the word diagnose, and you are now trying to argue about the use of that word.

badcppdevon On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

That's not even remotely the same as flying multiple bomber missions every single day.

Imagine every time you tuck your children into bed you know that there are nuclear weapons heading towards your home. Hopefully tonight they turn away at the border again.

badcppdevon On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

I would suggest reading some history books to round out stories like that.

badcppdevon TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

Because boys are allowed to play with dolls. And shouldn't think it indicates they are trans or have gender dysphoria. It's not a sign of anything.

Please don't misinterpret the comment.

*Edit: removed the word diagnosed as wasn't in the original comment.*

badcppdevon On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

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

Crazy times. 1960 - 1968 The United States flew nuclear armed bombers to the borders of the USSR 24 hours a day.

Imagine if 'insert country name' flew armed bombers to the border of 'insert western country name' every day in 2022.

badcppdevon The Upper Middle Class Is Getting Squeezed

Can you quickly give your definitions for different classes. Salary bands and lifestyles?

badcppdevon South Carolina bill outlaws websites that tell how to get an abortion

God didn't tell anyone that. A few old people wrote some stuff down in a book and now a whole lot of people believe they should follow some but not all of the rules in that book. Do you follow all the rules in your holy book?

badcppdevon South Carolina bill outlaws websites that tell how to get an abortion

The effects are already devastating. From the point of view of a women unable to access medical services due to these laws it is literally a matter of life and death right now.

So you can worry or you can act.

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

Yes. You could heat fluid and use it to generate electricity as you can assume the runway is hotter than the ambient air. But if you look at other solar thermal power stations [0] you can see that they generally use concentrators to get the working fluid very hot for more efficient operation. So a runway based system probably wouldn't be economical even if it were good reuse of space.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_st...

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

Your comment fascinates me. A normal ice hockey rink is 1,800 square meters. The biggest indoor ice rink in the US is the Schwan Super Rink = 28,000 sqm which consists of 8 separate rinks.

Yuma's 4 runways total 543,000 sqm. At midday those runways are absorbing 543MW of energy from the Sun. So that might require 100-200KW of electricity to run the heat pumps. And then you still need somewhere to dump the heat.

In short, I think the reason they don't cool runways is due to the cost.

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

How is the infrastructure in Texas generally? Roads? Bridges? Power grid?

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

Sadly there isn't a functioning government in the UK that can freak out and do something about it.

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

As well as making concrete runways the best thing the UK government could do is adopt a "war footing" where it comes to climate change.

I use the term war footing because the impact of climate change is going to be on the order of a major war. And also because the response required for the decarbonisation required is going to be a significant portion of GDP.

Or they could keep their heads in the sand.

badcppdevon Runway melts at London Luton airport as temperatures in UK near 40°C

Latitude of Yuma, US: 32.6° N

Latitude of London, UK: 51.5° N

To be clear they are talking about the air temperature rather than runway temperature and I've added the latitude so you can understand why it's a big deal that London has hit 40 degrees.

badcppdevon Building friend catchers

Really. I'm finding Discord has a really high surface tension. By that I mean that I bounce off servers because so often nothing interesting is happening and I can't see anything to drag me back

badcppdevon Iceland’s forest and bush cover has increased sixfold since 1990

Some interesting replies to your comment. As you included an interesting sentence claiming the trees were taken by the British I just wanted to ask what your thoughts on that were now?

badcppdevon Lenovo shipping new laptops that only boot Windows by default

I see it as quite feasible that an attacker could insert a fob or organise for a fob to be inserted without also having opportunity to reboot the computer.

That fob could then compromise the system when the computer was rebooted. The Lenovo bios setting being discussed would prevent that.

BTW Can you clarify if you think the feature from Lenovo is a good or a bad thing given your claim that it's very easy to disable?

badcppdevon Met Police UK Live Facial Recognition

You are saying you're afraid but I think if you look at the decisions the Tory government has made and the policies they've enacted then I don't think you are being very logical.

The conservative government has seen:

* Wide spread fraud (£££ contracts for friends of ministers + covid loan fraud)

* Wide spread law breaking (covid lockdown laws) * MPs being charged with sexual offences ranging from assault to rape

* Brexit policies, negotiations, and treaties that are chaotic and highly damaging to the economy

* Inefficient social welfare programs that leave disabled people starving to death

If you pay tax in the UK then I don't honestly see how you could be worried about a change in government. The conservatives are only capable of 'governing' by giving large amounts of tax payers money to private companies that extract a large amount of profit while delivering the minimum possible for the money.

badcppdevon If-im-gone – A cheat sheet for if I am somehow incapacitated

Thanks for that useful link.

I came to comment that the OP linked git hub checklist is quite low effort.