Hacker News: JackFr

New comment by JackFr in "Firewood Splitting Simulator"

JackFr — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:41:10 +0000

I spent a summer chopping a whole bunch of wood with a steel handled 10 lb maul. Many was the evening where my hand was numb until the morning, but by the end of the summer my shoulders were ripped.

You quickly learn the differences between locust, pine, maple, oak or, god forbid, cherry.

New comment by JackFr in ""Don't You Just Upload It to ChatGPT?""

JackFr — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:33:11 +0000

I worked at large Japanese bank in New York and happened to sit near Chief US Economist next to his Japanese translator. She would occasionally ask about certain idioms. I remember explaining what a wildcat strike was for instance. But it must have been pretty tough because the guy was prolific in his commentary.

New comment by JackFr in "Lines of code got a better publicist"

JackFr — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:06:18 +0000

Upvoter here. Nothing special -- I like Claude a lot. I found it more ergonomic to work with, and I think its models are state of the art. I believe I'm more productive especially in legacy crufty codebases.

I may not be representative of the universe or have a controlled, randomized study to back it up, but that's not what upvotes are for are they?

New comment by JackFr in "What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]"

JackFr — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:01:07 +0000

Bats

New comment by JackFr in "Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight"

JackFr — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:51:18 +0000

Try to get a Java developer to do something without Spring.

New comment by JackFr in "Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?"

JackFr — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:23:27 +0000

The SEC (Southeastern Conference) arguably the leader in football, basketball, baseball and softball and apart from those sponsors 18 other sports. They do not sponsor soccer.

As long as that’s case I’ll have trouble believing we’re gonna be great.

Soccer is like the metric system of sports. Everyone else uses it. It makes sense and we should like it, but we’re culturally suspicious of it.

New comment by JackFr in "Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health"

JackFr — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 22:23:53 +0000

Socializing != socialization.

The first is enjoying the company of friends, while the second is a sociological process of internalizing cultural norms and appropriate behavior. How to behave in a group, how to approach a stranger, how to respond to someone who irritates you, etc.

New comment by JackFr in "How turkey hacked the hair-transplant industry"

JackFr — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:56:19 +0000

> If they really wanted to fleece you

Tip: Bald people the worst to fleece.

New comment by JackFr in "Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai"

JackFr — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:40:52 +0000

I not sure what crap casino you're going to, but there are no penny slots in Vegas.

https://www.casino.org/news/vegas-myths-re-busted-the-end-of...

New comment by JackFr in "Stop Ruining It"

JackFr — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:09:07 +0000

Path to X happiness:

- Eschew the "For You", Read tweets only from people you have chosen to follow.

- Only follow people who have a bona fide livelihood outside social media, avoid anyone for whom income is largely driven by "engagement".

New comment by JackFr in "What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology"

JackFr — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:38:15 +0000

Obligatory Asimov: 'The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but 'That's funny...”'

New comment by JackFr in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

JackFr — Thu, 28 May 2026 17:08:48 +0000

Ignore the downvotes -- that is an insane system.

New comment by JackFr in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

JackFr — Thu, 28 May 2026 17:07:12 +0000

You might be surprised how the gov't threatening to take your house every year affects prices. And the ability to get mortgages. And new construction.

New comment by JackFr in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

JackFr — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:56:43 +0000

> these deeply immoral rich fucks

If that is your starting point, I don't think you're going to approach tax policy rationally.

Ken Griffin may be deeply immoral -- I don't know -- but it's not a condition of being rich.

New comment by JackFr in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

JackFr — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:40:27 +0000

It's a revenue policy. It's effectively a wealth tax, cleverly implemented largely within the existing tax regime.

Ken Griffin spend 183 days a year in Florida, so he pays no NY state or NYC income tax. He does pay ~1.8% income tax on his $238 million home though. Now he will pay significantly more. (His property is also assessed at a far lower number.)

New comment by JackFr in "The worst job interview I ever had"

JackFr — Wed, 27 May 2026 07:45:41 +0000

“Passionate? Jethro Tull should be in the rock and roll hall of fame.”

New comment by JackFr in "Magnifica Humanitas"

JackFr — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:41:11 +0000

> Church and any kind of believe system hurts our society and divides us.

Any belief system? And yet I bet you value freedom over slavery, wisdom over ignorance and compassion over brutality. That’s a belief system, despite not being a religion.

New comment by JackFr in "A case against Boolean logic"

JackFr — Fri, 22 May 2026 12:02:30 +0000

> Like, it gets used a lot in SQL

Except it explicitly is not strictly Boolean in SQL because of nulls.

X = Y can take the value true, false or null if either or both X and Y are null.

New comment by JackFr in "Show HN: Race to the Bottom"

JackFr — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:02:03 +0000

Am I the only one who is bothered by “Choose the worst” with only two options? It should be “Choose the worse”.

New comment by JackFr in "Starship V3"

JackFr — Wed, 13 May 2026 04:10:58 +0000

I think it’s tough to stay grounded when you’re as rich as he is. (To be clear, my intent is to explain and not excuse the path he’s taken.)