News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

freetinker

Re:How Universities Should Prepare Founders on Monday August 24, 2026 @11:20PM (#49428725)
Exactly. Answer: How universities of yore have “prepared” founders thus far. The premise of PG’s otherwise insightful prose is on shaky ground - or at the very least - debatable.

(I hope PG isn’t outsourcing his thinking to some agentic workflow.)

Re:Remote on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @01:29AM (#49268131)
I’d expect (which I grant is selfish/entitled) someone with 12k+ well-earned karma points to set a high bar for tone and constructive discourse. This feels unreasonably antagonistic.
Re:Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism on Saturday August 01, 2026 @04:10AM (#49132241)
I think you may have missed the point. Law enforcement isn’t some 100% effective panacea. And getting to the point of a class action = a lot endured. Which is OP’s point.
Re:Advertise in ChatGPT on Tuesday July 21, 2026 @03:43PM (#48997220)
And so begins the enshittification.

I hope my comment ages like unpasteurized milk on a hot summer day, but I’m afraid it will age like an sp3 hybridized allotrope of carbon.

Re:Ending All Respiratory Infections on Thursday June 25, 2026 @08:52AM (#48672611)
Heartbreaking. Sorry for your loss.
We’ve known about this for a while I feel from dimples on a golf ball.
You’re self-questioning and self-reflective. Totally not worried for you or by you. Keep it up.
Re:There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @12:07PM (#46618716)
To paraphrase Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to prioritize something when his salary depends upon his not prioritizing it.”
Waymo solved San Francisco. Non-trivial, imo. Is London more complex?
This is an evolved view. Let’s put achievements on currency, not humans. Of course, this is no panacea - “achievement” is ambiguous enough to be open to interpretation, and therefore political capture. But it’s a step forward.
Re:Ask HN: How can I use my laptop without monitors? on Sunday October 05, 2025 @08:33PM (#45486524)
Apple Vision Pro.
Re:Why I Choose Email over Messaging on Sunday October 05, 2025 @07:38PM (#45486234)
Emails are optimized for COA record-keeping, not efficient communication.
PR budgets exist to _prevent_ exactly this sort of response.
Re:You're a Slow Thinker. Now What? on Sunday September 14, 2025 @05:32PM (#45243421)
This is an astute point. I’m a mid-40s mech engineer in the Bay Area. HN is my tribe, by and large. I’ve been bombarded with perspectives that ADHD medication is the answer. (Not officially diagnosed, but I’m confident I meet the criteria and very likely “afflicted.”)

The brain is complex—adapted, or maladapted, for different tasks. My working hypothesis: mine is maladapted to the behaviors currently rewarded in corporate America. And I know I’m not Feynman.

So here I am, stuck in a bi-modal world (or maybe just worldview). This piece hits hard.

Re:A love letter to the CSV format (2024) on Thursday September 11, 2025 @01:08AM (#45207995)
The comma makes it more human-readable. What separator would you suggest?
Re:What fact do you wish everyone understood? on Monday August 04, 2025 @02:41AM (#44782719)
This is a largely correct, but incomplete take imo. Cultures are neither “good” nor “bad”. Some are better than others at optimizing different outcomes. Of course, culture A might be objectively better or worse for you vs culture B - depending on what you value or prefer optimizing.
Re:Ask HN: Is university still credible? on Friday August 01, 2025 @08:32PM (#44763917)
This, 100%. Look East (assuming a Western reference point) for copious evidence that supports this POV. Education is a means to an end, and the only way out of abject poverty (personal experience).

Studying the classics and poetry (arguably components of a well-rounded “liberal” education) is a privileged viewpoint. Hell, I wanted to study theoretical physics. But that would be like studying poetry. Engineering just seemed more practical. Now I earn more than a tenured professor of physics at a top university. Q.E.D.

Re:ICE Is Getting Unprecedented Access to Medicaid Data on Friday July 18, 2025 @09:50PM (#44611833)
This.
More gullible fodder to influence via handheld screens.
Re:Self-Taught Engineers Often Outperform on Thursday July 17, 2025 @11:47PM (#44601012)
Could you share a little bit about your journey - how you got started, your motivations? (I’m trying to teach myself programming/development, hence the curiosity.)
An elegant solution to this problem would be to enforce a very low speed limit entering the turn.

“Sharp turn ahead, reduce speed to 5 km/h”

True problem solvers. They solved a political problem, but created a real one. Certainly not engineering ethos torch-bearers.

However, they did meet spec. I’d fire leadership first.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

Terrible. Interaction loop is too slow. Not ergonomic.
People lack nuance. Nuanced views are computationally expensive.
Re:Tools: Code Is All You Need on Thursday July 03, 2025 @07:53PM (#44460090)
Drones are delivering. Ukraine?
Apple does not owe Android users a superior non-Apple experience. Android a pretty damn huge platform, right? Way bigger than Apple, I hear? Blame Google. Google failed to compete.
Re:I deleted my second brain on Sunday June 29, 2025 @01:34AM (#44410585)
Underrated comment.
Re:Your Manager Is Not Your Best Friend on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @01:24AM (#44177477)
Astute observation, and spot-on IMO.
Great app, love the privacy policy too.

How’re you planning to monetize this? Or just giving it away free?

Re:Everything Is Ghibli on Tuesday April 01, 2025 @11:49AM (#43548230)
Excellent points both. I need to ponder this…

Older »