Hacker News: BillSaysThis

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread"

BillSaysThis — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 02:29:14 +0000

You’re assuming, or insinuating, the PE firms don’t immediately start paying themselves outsized management fees, bonuses, and the like.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread"

BillSaysThis — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 01:51:54 +0000

My issue with most PE deals is that the PE firm doesn’t have enough skin in the deal. Look at, say, the EA deal where almost all of the purchase price is coming from debt on EA. This to me is wrong because the new owners have almost no incentive to build the business for the long term—EA is a strong operator but face layoffs and LOB closures just to service the new debt.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "When Computer Magazines Were Everywhere"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:51:52 +0000

I remember the ‘90s fondly in this regard. 1000 pages issue of Computer Shopper, the early days of Wired, and so much variety of publications. But especially because after work I wrote dozens of articles for Software Development Magazine and even judged the Jolt Awards a few years.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Some users have noticed settings that let Meta analyze and retain phone photos"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 20:42:28 +0000

I use it explicitly for Facebook

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 17:33:28 +0000

Unbelievable!

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Brian Wilson has died"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:20:27 +0000

The Beach Boys, on a double bill with Chicago, Madison Square Garden Summer ‘75, were my first concert. No Brian, of course, but all the songs were his. So many amazing tunes! (Note: despite going with my dad, we got stoned out of our gourds from the pot those around us were smoking.)

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Visiting Us"

BillSaysThis — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 04:01:33 +0000

100%!

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Tesla protests gain momentum while the hate is dividing Tesla owners"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 01:59:09 +0000

We have one story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023 about a startup promising to identify factory workers giving, by management definition, less than 100% and yet CEOs can run multiple companies, take board seats, and oversee the American government. Of course the last one of those is so far adding huge value to all the others…

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Thank You Bootstrap 1"

BillSaysThis — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 03:52:28 +0000

I, having decades of frontend development experience, asked this of my VP once. He said no designers would work for us if we did this.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Scale Model of Boeing 777-300ER, Made from Manila Folders"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 18:03:53 +0000

If he adds AI, can he make it fly?

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Silver amulet is the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 18:01:31 +0000

https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/

The British History Podcast starts in deep pre-Roman times and, after ~460 episodes, is up to 1091.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "The Rise and Fall of Ashton-Tate (2023)"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 18:40:41 +0000

I joined the purchasing department at Prentice-Hall in 1988 and saw How to Use and Understand dBase III+, which we'd just published, on my boss's secretary's desk my first day. She so regretted letting me take that because my job was supposed to be Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets but I turned everything into Clipper apps after the first month. Clipper really made my career by turning me into a full-time developer (and not the contract analyst I was supposed to be...).

New comment by BillSaysThis in "React 19"

BillSaysThis — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:46:10 +0000

updateName is a call to the backend/server to update the database...

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Enemy"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 01:15:22 +0000

Hilarious! I mean horrible! No, hilarious.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Leaving and Waving"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 19:23:13 +0000

I also wish I'd spent more time trying to get my parents to talk about the early parts of their lives. Only one grandmother lived until I was old enough to think of this, but I didn't think to do it with her either :(

New comment by BillSaysThis in "'Hell Joseon' and the South Korean generation pushing to breaking point"

BillSaysThis — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 18:49:57 +0000

As a childless American in his 60s on the edge of retirement, this article is eye opening. While it seems to me that Americans of the same age are not going through the same education, job, and marriage stresses, they are going through different job and relationship stresses. Ones that are very different from my generation. Honestly I wouldn't want to be in either situation.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "The decline of the working musician"

BillSaysThis — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:01:56 +0000

Lefsetz, Let the Clubs Close https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/11/04/let-the-clubs-close...

New comment by BillSaysThis in "Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read"

BillSaysThis — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 21:35:46 +0000

I'd start with the Night's Dawn trilogy, I've read most PFH except for his last few and those are my ATFs.

New comment by BillSaysThis in "The Prophet of Cyberspace (2016)"

BillSaysThis — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 21:07:02 +0000

IA: https://archive.org/details/NoMapsForTheseTerritories

New comment by BillSaysThis in "ESPN Faces Proposed Fine for Improper Use of Emergency Alert Tones"

BillSaysThis — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 23:43:52 +0000

:sad-face: