Hublium's comments

Hublium | 2 years ago | on: Planito: A 9-day week for a balanced life

Assuming you want to keep working ~40 hours a week, I feel like the best idea are four 8.5 hour days and Friday as a half day. This gives you half a day to "decompress" and still have a two day weekend ahead of you. This is the working time model most common in my country.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Windows 98 icons are great (2015)

Thank you, was not aware of that. There was no mention on this Wikipedia article that I used to double-check:

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

Let's rephrase @endgame's comment as "Windows XP and Office XP were the first versions of their respective series where product activation was mandatory on all retail editions." Point still stands I guess.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Windows 98 icons are great (2015)

To be fair, you have to remember that the calculator is called "calc.exe" to use this method. However, when parent said "you really wouldn’t want the II of that era back" I understood "you" as "HN reader", not as "regular user".

Also, there is also a "discoverable" way to launch programs keyboard-only: <Windows>, P, A, C (Programs - Accessories - Calculator).

I just really dislike the Windows 10 start menu search. It slows down on random occasions just often enough to be too annoying for me to use, at least on my machine.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Windows 98 icons are great (2015)

Press <Windows>+R, "calc" <Return>. Easy and fast, if you can remember the exact names of the executables.

Also, back then Windows came not only with printed manuals, but also with an actually useful help system and not one that just makes a Bing search.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Windows 98 icons are great (2015)

Where do you have this information from? As far as I know, product activation for office started with Office XP ("2002").

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: The scourge of job title inflation

Adressing high school teachers as "professor" is common in Austria and Czechia.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: The IT Crowd US Pilot (2007) [video]

I'm sorry, what? Single-camera, no laugh track has been an extremely common format for sitcoms for the last twenty years.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Magnus Carlsen resigns against Hans Niemann in the second move

a more recent example of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsen_versus_Nepomniachtchi,...

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: The Mystery of Numerical Notation on the Dial Plate – 4 Is Expressed as IIII

Wikipedia says:

>Isaac Asimov once mentioned an "interesting theory" that Romans avoided using IV because it was the initial letters of IVPITER, the Latin spelling of Jupiter, and might have seemed impious. He did not say whose theory it was.

That's the explanation I've always heard.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

EU regulations now forbid SMS-based authentication. I tried explaining to the bank clerk several times how I am not using the Google Play Store but it was only when I held my Nokia "dumb phone" in their face that they gave me a hardware token generator (for free actually!).

For context, I use a Nokia 8110 and a LineageOS device.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

This is a case where I want to mention Austria as a positive example: The vaccination certificate app is open source on Github, so you can compile it yourself and not need to use the Play Store.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Coins and banknotes with a face value of 3

>Over the years many countries experimented with 3-unit coins or banknotes. For instance, in the 90s, Ukraine had a 3 karbovanets banknote and Uzbekistan had a 3 som banknote

I think "experimented" is the wrong word here when Uzbekistan and Ukraine paid with 3 kopeck coins and 3 ruble banknotes for decades before that.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: What do you think Elon will do with X.com?

If you missed it (like me). This is about the answer he gave when asked whether he thinks about creating his own social media platform:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1557199404301307904#m

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Periodex – Elegant Periodic Table (158 kb page)

It's always frustrating when you can't set the language of a website manually.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Google Maps launches Street View in India

Norwegian has the diphthongs "ei" and "øy", while Danish has "ej" and "øj". Though I don't know whether you can rely on that when looking at proper names (surnames, place names).

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Google Maps launches Street View in India

in case anyone here is wondering anyway:

Only Czech: ě, ř, ů

Only Slovak: ä, ľ, ô

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: TwinBASIC: A modern BASIC aiming for 100% compatibility with VB6/VBA

I am more of a Delphi/Lazarus guy myself, but can anybody who is actually considering using this compare it against Gambas, RAD Basic, Xojo, ...?

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Hertzbleed Attack

In German, a <z> always makes a /ts/ sound and in modern orthography, "tz" is only used after (short) vowels.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: When Good Codenames Go Bad (2006)

VLC Media Player uses Discworld character names.

Hublium | 3 years ago | on: Engineers investigating NASA’s Voyager 1 telemetry data

My family has a 1950's GM Frigidaire. Works still fine. Nowadays, we only use it occasionally though when we have a party or something.