Hacker News: GrifMD

New comment by GrifMD in "Cursor Camp"

GrifMD — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:40:57 +0000

That was delightful, what more can I say?

New comment by GrifMD in "Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker"

GrifMD — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 01:12:52 +0000

This is cool! I do want to ask, did you have AI design the page for you? It looks like a design pattern I've seen spit out by LLMs pretty frequently.

I'm not hear to talk down to you about the site, I love this little thing that gives me just enough info to satisfy my curiosity.

New comment by GrifMD in "“This is not the computer for you”"

GrifMD — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 04:05:10 +0000

It reminds me of the iPhone 5C when I had a 5S, it's a beautiful colorful breath of fresh air that I wish I had but my needs are so much greater. But if I wasn't an engineer who needed a highspeced MacBook Pro I'd go with it.

New comment by GrifMD in "The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies"

GrifMD — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 23:50:54 +0000

It's called Coppertone for a reason

New comment by GrifMD in "Facts about throwing good parties"

GrifMD — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 03:15:45 +0000

You've gotta change it from "you're throwing a party" to "we're throwing party".

Or just ask them to invite some people man, don't stress.

New comment by GrifMD in "Fewer H-1B visas did not mean more employment for natives (2017)"

GrifMD — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:40:42 +0000

A recent survey revealed that 30% of Australians are casually racist... https://youtu.be/DHQRZXM-4xI?si=gsVaLimUuW_g0c6d&t=72

New comment by GrifMD in "Fewer H-1B visas did not mean more employment for natives (2017)"

GrifMD — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:38:22 +0000

Maybe? The Australian tech seen has always felt fairly small to me, at least in Sydney. We've got Atlassian and Canva as the local darlings, and then Google, Amazon, FB, and Salesforce have their offices, though I don't think much real engineering work gets done here. I'm not trying to throw shade at any engineers in Sydney of course, especially at those companies, I just never got the since that the engineering teams were large here.

Maybe I'm too insular, but is there much of a startup seen here, @aussieguy1234? If there is I'd love to hear about it

New comment by GrifMD in "Grok Code Fast 1"

GrifMD — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 21:22:13 +0000

That's a bad faith argument and you know it. More power is more power. These projects weren't taking away from development of other power plants.

New comment by GrifMD in "The underground cathedral protecting Tokyo from floods (2018)"

GrifMD — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 23:52:12 +0000

Mirror's Edge (2008) had a pretty neat level inspired by these storm drains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3qooY0d_A

New comment by GrifMD in "Instagram Addiction"

GrifMD — Wed, 21 May 2025 03:21:39 +0000

I feel very much the same way as the author about TikTok. I browse it far too often. I've implemented app based screen time limitations in iOS specifically for Reddit and TikTok but it's so easy to override. Deleting the apps for a few days works, but only for so long.

New comment by GrifMD in "The Dead Planet Theory"

GrifMD — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 04:22:33 +0000

My takeaway from that was more "the world isn't that daunting, if you just do something consistently with effort, you're going to do a lot better than most people since most aren't putting much effort into it."

You don't have to do that with everything in life, but you can do that with the things you care about.

It could be actually practicing chess, it could be following a training plan while running, and it could be rising through the ranks at work.

I like cycling, and I know with a consistent routine I improve a lot more than my friends who just cycle on once or twice a week. I'm not trying to be better than them, I just really enjoy being a good cyclist.

New comment by GrifMD in "Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows"

GrifMD — Wed, 01 May 2024 05:38:57 +0000

It's been a few years since I've used a VPN with streaming, but I recall some services not working well with it. I was in Australia with NordVPN to the US on a fibre connection.

New comment by GrifMD in "BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels"

GrifMD — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:37:47 +0000

I looked it up out curiosity, it's over 2 miles along a major road that crosses a major freeway. There is a suburban route that has a dedicated bike lane crossing of the freeway (101). Yikes.

New comment by GrifMD in "Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert"

GrifMD — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 01:16:00 +0000

It's always a treat to fly on. I managed to score some first class award tickets on Etihad's A380s from Sydney to Abu Dhabi to London... for July 2020. As you can imagine, that didn't work out.

I fly Sydney to LAX on Qantas usually once a year and somehow I always get swapped from an A380 to a 787 :/

I understand that this plane isn't the most fuel efficient, and that the A350, 787, and 777X are replacing it, but the A380 just feels a little "golden age of flying". The multiple decks, the bars on some planes and the crazy first class suites (and their showers) really made it a cool plane. It was the first plane that flew on that had enhanced pressurization (Qantas economy LAX to MEL back in 2010), as I mostly flew AA's old 737s back then.

I do acknowledge, that a lot of the things I'm lamenting are premium products, I really do. The cost for first and business class tickets on most A380 flights are ridiculous, and frankly the only time I've flown business is either via upgrades or award tickets (thank you credit card bonuses). Still, you've got to admit they are cool planes. What other plane could you actually take a shower on?

The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok

GrifMD — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 23:21:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34670931

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by GrifMD in "Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons”"

GrifMD — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 01:21:43 +0000

"Sydney has a few crossings where instead of particular directions being open to pedestrians, the whole crossing goes green for pedestrians and red for cars. This seems more efficient to me, and safer since cars aren't moving at all when you cross - often you have to share the space with cars turning left when you cross. I wish we had more of these."

---

These are called "pedestrian scrambles", and I like them a lot more too. I do know there's a few in the Sydney CBD, but I don't recall them being marked particularly well that they are a scramble.

The ones in Oakland (picture below) are very well demarcated, and a study found them to reduce vehicle-pedestrian conflict though did increase the amount of people crossing parallel to traffic when the signals indicated "don't walk".

Picture: https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/crossings...

Study: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3fh5q4dk

New comment by GrifMD in "Privately-Owned Rail Cars"

GrifMD — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 02:00:43 +0000

You should see how impressive some of the luxury trains have gotten. Japan has a couple of them that are particularly luxurious. And while these aren't owned by individuals, they're indicative of what you could own.

https://www.luxurytrainclub.com/trains/seven-stars-kyushu/

https://www.jreast.co.jp/shiki-shima/en/

New comment by GrifMD in ""The Social Network" synth sounds"

GrifMD — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 23:51:58 +0000

Of their works: the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a few choice coding songs. Some of it is little too dark or a little too airy. Before the Flood is also pretty good a little sad at some points. The Juno single they put out as part of the 2016 Jupiter probe collaboration with a few artist is pretty nice. The Vietnam War soundtrack never quite vibed right for work. And finally, Watchmen Vol 1 is dope, especially NUN WITH A MOTHERF&ING GUN but good luck getting work done to that.

New comment by GrifMD in "White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight"

GrifMD — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 23:37:28 +0000

The Ministry of the Future also addressed the same type of heat reduction technology, albeit as a much smaller part of the book.

I'd highly recommend it, though the opening is very hard to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

New comment by GrifMD in "The end of the manual transmission is near?"

GrifMD — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 04:03:37 +0000

I don't own a car anymore, but it's something I online window shop sometimes. It seems like Lexus is going to be the last luxury car brand to keep physical controls instead of all screen.