Hacker News Reader

subsection1hon Show HN: Cursor Directory – From a 3-hour build to a 250k users/mo community

At the time that I read this thread, there were 14 comments, of which 13 were posted by users whose median karma was only 68. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

subsection1hon Ask HN: Those who still work for Tesla, why are you still with that company?

> Pull your head out and be useful instead of complaining against the people actually building the world.

franze didn't complain about anything. He simply asked why people work at Tesla. You're defensiveness is hilarious.

subsection1hon The Reason Zelenskyy Doesn't Wear a Suit

I considered downvoting you... because you use Windows.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38803047

subsection1hon Tell HN: Brother printers no longer consumer friendly

> And I'm going to have to buy new colour cartridges despite very rarely printing in colour.

I stopped buying color printers about 20 years ago because of this issue.

Monochrome forever!

subsection1hon America faces a Trumpian economic slowdown

> The bureaucracy is all encompassing; it's in the military industry, healthcare industry, education industry, the consulting industry, and of course, the government.

I wonder why you didn't mention the energy industry. Hmmm.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=2024&in...

subsection1hon Why and How I use “Org Mode” for my writing and more (2022)

> I have to admit it looks dated.

I assume this is because most Emacs users, especially Emacs devs, disable the menu bar, tool bar, tab bar, scroll bar, etc.

> default keyboard shortcuts not working

Yeah, I think a new Emacs installation should prompt the user to choose between something like "Common keyboard shortcuts" and "Classic Emacs shortcuts". It would take me only a few minutes to set up all the common keyboard shortcuts for a new Emacs installation, but I think it should be just one setting.

subsection1hon Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads editor to quit

> Trump had campaigned to Libertarians earlier last year and so far has done everything they had asked for

Trump stopped funding Israel?

https://lp.org/blogs-anonymous-chaos-in-gaza/

subsection1hon Ask HN: Do US tech firms realize the backlash growing in Europe?

My family has <ourlastname>.com that we registered in 1996, but for email, I mostly use my own mail-related domain name (<word>mail.com), which I use for all pseudonymous accounts.

subsection1hon Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

Relevant discussion from 6 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43000827

subsection1hon Gulf of America name change in the U.S.

> it peaked with renaming "master" to "main"

For me, no rename will ever surpass freedom fries:

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

subsection1hon Ask HN: Is it me or we almost stopped using Google because of LLMs?

I still use Google Search, but almost every search I perform includes `site:example.com`.

But even then, Google Search can still suck compared to Kagi, etc. For example, why do I not see relevant results for these searches?

https://www.google.com/search?q=inherit_errexit+site:www.gnu...

https://www.google.com/search?q=pipefail+site:www.gnu.org/so...

But I do see relevant results for the same searches using DuckDuckGo:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=inherit_errexit+site:www.gnu.org/s...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pipefail+site:www.gnu.org/software...

subsection1hon Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore

> I think this whole thing boils down to whether you like elon or not.

I think this whole thing boils down to you being an anti-abortion zealot who is so anti-abortion (you've expressed opposition to abortion on Hacker News, a tech forum, not just once, but multiple times![1]) that you see no issue with Trump cutting government spending in certain areas while he is simultaneously expressing support for the US occupying Gaza, funding a goddamn Christian task force[2], etc.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&query=abortion+author:T...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/erad...

subsection1hon Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

> People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC.

FYI, this guy is a troll.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153109

subsection1hon Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore

> If you don't vote, you effectively vote for the winner.

Yes, if the Electoral College wasn't a thing.

subsection1hon The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

> It has negative educational value.

What information in the article is inaccurate and how did you verify its inaccuracy?

subsection1hon A mouseless tale: trying for a keyboard-driven desktop

In addition to making changes like those described in the article, I bought a Svalboard keyboard (https://svalboard.com), which has a trackball under the phalanges of each hand. This allows the user to use their pointer with minimal hand movement. Here's a relevant video: https://youtu.be/RCXgPqlpZeM

subsection1hon Purelymail: Cheap, no-nonsense email

> A key reason to host your email with a reliable cloud storage provider is to have backups handled for you

Is it only email you don't back up or do you not back up any of your data that's stored on companies' servers?

subsection1hon Purelymail: Cheap, no-nonsense email

> dedicate time to implementing a secure and automated solution

Why not just use a mail retrieval agent[1][2] to download mail via IMAP?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_retrieval_agent

[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications/Intern...

subsection1hon Bloomberg Announces Effort to Ensure U.S. Honors Paris Agreement Commitments

In relation to public health issues, which are my focus, the worst states are red states. For example, the infant mortality rates[1] in many red states are comparable to those in developing nations, which is almost funny given that the leaders of these states constantly market themselves as being "pro-life". The residents of red states should consider taking some of the money they allocate to football and redirecting it to keeping their babies alive.

[1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/

subsection1hon Bluesky's science takeover: 70% of Nature poll respondents use platform

> non-academic people that almost feel LLM-generated

I don't understand why this isn't talked about as much as the MAGA garbage. I occasionally read tweets by a couple prominent Rubyists who've been using Twitter since 2006 (because Twitter was written in Ruby, which attracted Rubyists) and none of the replies to their tweets are written by familiar Rubyists like back in the day. Most of the replies are from accounts created in the past few years with AI-generated profile images.

subsection1hon Bluesky's science takeover: 70% of Nature poll respondents use platform

> I'm not going to placate sealions.

It's called citing sources. You've posted 2,087 times and only 56 of those posts include "http"[1], which is a measly 2.7%. In comparison, I've posted 556 times and 205 of my posts include "http", which is 36.9%. The problem isn't sealioning; it's that you're either lazy or you just make things up. And given that you're not too lazy to reply to a request for a source without actually providing a source, it's reasonable to assume you might be making shit up.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?prefix=true&type=comment&query=autho...

subsection1hon 24 Year old Debian bug fixed

> why I can't open gimp

If you can't open Gimp successfully, you should definitely stick to Windows.

subsection1hon Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

> I voted for him just because of this campaign promise.

LOL. You're a conservative Christian[1] who thinks climate change is a hoax[2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29187368

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&query=author:macinjosh+...

subsection1hon White House Executive Order on AI Has Been Rescinded

> Executive Order 14006 of January 26, 2021 (Reforming Our Incarceration System To Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities)

Joe Lonsdale[1], co-founder of Palantir and Trump backer, is an investor in private prisons[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lonsdale

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=Joe+Lonsdale+prisons

subsection1hon Trump signs executive order withdrawing from the World Health Organization

> Even the true Blue democrats are jumping ship. What does that tell you?

Who are all these true-blue Democrats that are now MAGA?

84% of non-religious white college grads voted for Harris[1]. What this tells me is that this presidency is simply the poorly educated and the believers in the supernatural getting their turn at bat. Oh well, I'll benefit more from the inevitable tax cut for the rich than they will.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-result...

subsection1hon I spent 18 years in the Linux console

"Linux console" is a specific thing:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_console

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

subsection1hon Ask HN: Has Musk "lost the plot"?

Everyone with standards has considered Musk to be low-class trash since 2018 when he called Vernon Unsworth a "pedo guy" and "child rapist".

subsection1hon Ask HN: Predictions for 2025?

> God, this thread is bleak. [...] I have to replace my bike tires.

Your bike tires have contributed to the microplastic crisis. :-)

subsection1hon Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

Seeing people in this thread say that they delete all their emails is super weird. I'd like to know their job titles, ages, etc. Do they not use email to converse with their lawyers, business associates, etc.?

subsection1hon Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

If you use Thunderbird and want to store your emails "in an email file format that's most efficient for backup and querying that backup later", have you considered switching from mbox (Thunderbird's default mail format) to maildir (each email stored in its own file)?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Maildir

Note: Thunderbird lacks full support for maildir. This is the reason why I switched from Thunderbird to mu4e (an Emacs-based mail client) years ago. Though, some Thunderbird users say they've been using Thunderbird with maildir for years without issues.