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choult

8,402 karma · joined February 6, 2013

Managing Director of Xarma, a tech consultancy.

Software somethingorother at Slide, BCDR for MSPs.

It really should go without saying: My opinions are my own.

I do have a sense of humor :)

Contact: enquiries@xarma.co ; choult on LinkedIn

submissionscomments
choult··on I Tried the Robot That's Coming to Live with You. It's Still Part Human
Archive link https://archive.is/n39ee#selection-2163.0-2163.72
choult··on Man with Gun Tackled, Arrested at [WikiConference North America] in Downtown NYC
Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/5Fwqz#selection-1159.0-1159.60
choult··on Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative
Sadly, brigading seems to have gotten the submission of the actual site flagged:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487771

choult··on The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and fall of yogh
In the UK, yogh existed in Scotland a while longer than in England. You can observe it still in the name Menzies which is pronounced Ming-is there - the z in place of the yogh.

In the last week, our most famous Menzies passed away - politician Sir "Ming" Campbell.

choult··on Everything I know about good API design
It's a problem downstream. Integrators weren't forced to include a version number for v1, so the rework overhead to use v2 will be higher than if it was present in your scheme to begin.
choult··on UK's Vertical VX4 eVTOL flies outside Kemble circuit for first time
Kemble is always fun to drive past - rolling hills and fields, and then suddenly 747s...
choult··on No as a Service
Well this is something... someone creating a service off the back of a meme that's been flying around my networks for the past two days...
choult··on [dead]
Regardless of immigration status, men in black kidnapping people from the streets is yet another sign of the US's descent into fascism.

If the video linked to from this xkcd does not terrify you then you are complicit.

choult··on The 'freaky and unpleasant' world when video games leak into the physical realm
I've experienced this before - not only with games such as Tetris (I could "feel" my brian working in a different way) - but also with looking at trees etc when engrossed in Lindenmayer Systems [1] that I was working with at the time.

I assumed it was basically something along the lines of your brian adapting to a "new" reality/situation and engaging the pattern-matching parts that work best for the challenge at hand. Then afterwards it remains on just in case you need it again, like a warm boot.

As I type about it, I realize it likely has relation to things like anxiety - useful in some situations (such as actual danger) but remains "on" when it doesn't have to and becomes intrusive.

choult··on Pipelining might be my favorite programming language feature
... and then recreate the scripting language...
choult··on Aqua Tofana: The 17th Century Husband Killer
What a killjoy you are.
choult··on Hacker News Hug of Deaf
FYI, next time try `watch -n 5 <cmd>`
choult··on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU
Like GP said - America's enemies.
choult··on French researcher denied entry for a personal opinion on Trump administration
Citations needed.
choult··on Tesla fans exposes Tesla's own shadiness in attempt to defend Autopilot crash
Please watch this unedited video of the run up and impact:

https://xcancel.com/MarkRober/status/1901449395327094898

I am happy to take more comments from those who know Teslas more than I, but lets base our critiques on the available information (especially when it is indicated in the article).

choult··on Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died
Oh dear... You should hear some of the stories about Jim Caviezel[0]...

On second thought, maybe make up your own mind before you dip into that.

[0] https://open.spotify.com/episode/1euFlDCuryFSzMw6BjQCWA

choult··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (March 2025)
SEEKING WORK | Remote (US/UK timezones) | UK (dual national US citizen)

I'm Christopher Hoult, 20 year vet of web technologies with a wide variety of scale (from proofs of concept to working with major telecoms and social media companies).

I work with startups and scaleups in the areas of technical architecture, management, integrations, API design, technical product management and M&A integration strategies. I currently offer hourly or monthly rates, with an eye on fractional roles.

Email: chris@xarma.co / LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/choult

choult··on Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting
The trick is to avoid invading them and make them come out to play.
choult··on New DOGE site update breaks down government jobs by salary/age/headcount
Give him time.
choult··on Work at the Mill: The story of Digital Equipment Corporation
Nice to see a mention of Reading UK in there - for those interested, DEC's first UK office was upstairs at what is now a Brewdog bar.

These days, I can frequently be found in said space on Wednesdays, practicing my improv skills.

choult··on Meta torrented & seeded 81.7 TB dataset containing copyrighted data
Hollywood became popular for filmmaking because they were literally the opposite side of the country from Thomas Edison and his patents...
choult··on Proposed bill to make it a crime to download DeepSeek in the US
The new administration seems hell-bent on repeating history, especially 30s Germany.

Isolationism is the natural outcome of blaming "the other."

choult··on NYPD records longest no-shooting streak in 30 Years
"2 overnight shootings end NYC's 5-day no shooting streak, 5 minutes after it was announced" is the current title of this article...
choult··on Ask HN: To LinkedIn Am I Just Collateral Damage of a Barely Functioning System
I too had this experience last week, for suspicious account activity purposes; as someone running my own company it was a kind of frightening prospect. I assume that my account was targeted for failed login bombing due to being rather outspoken about a certain person's style of saluting.

The verification process failed once or twice for me, but I finally got it done, and my account was restored within 24 hours - and with no details about the actual "supicious activity" that triggered events.

Still, there was very little way to communicate with them about it; the r/LinkedIn community has a stickied post about it, with some links that do not require an active account.

It's worth noting that I'd also been flagged by Cloudflare for extra checks for a while; I also changed my browser's User Agent and it resolved that.

choult··on Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port
For the non-Brits, "sixth-form" means years 12 and 13 of school - equivalent to junior and senior years of high school in the US. The first and second yearsof sixth form are referred to as "lower sixth" and "upper sixth" respectively.

It's a hold-over term from when secondary education (ages 11 and up) started in "first form" and worked up.

choult··on All federal agencies ordered to terminate remote work–ideally within 30 days
There will be no exceptions. Trump, Musk et al don't understand compromise.
choult··on Matt Mullenweg, Automattic's CEO, Seems Bound and Determined to Wreck WordPress
I've done my best not to pathologize him here, but...

Suggest therapy.

choult··on Matt Mullenweg, Automattic's CEO, Seems Bound and Determined to Wreck WordPress
His sense of self importance and relevance seems to be especially crucial to him. He is losing both.
choult··on Why is Git Autocorrect too fast for Formula One drivers?
I like to say that the danger of software archaeology is the inevitable discovery of coprolites...
choult··on TikTok goes dark in the US
Trump has displayed a disturbing pattern of changing his opinions and actions after meeting with monied or powerful people who have vested interest in said change.

Often this is accompanied by a public message of flattery or a donation to his "political" coffers.

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