Hacker News: S_Bear

New comment by S_Bear in ""This cannot continue": Xbox leaders lay out "hard truths" behind sagging brand"

S_Bear — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:32:48 +0000

Including their ridiculous naming system. Referring to a playstation generation is easy, referring to an xbox generation past the 360 is incredibly difficult.

New comment by S_Bear in "A dumpster arrived behind my university's library"

S_Bear — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:50:23 +0000

I used to work in a bookstore, and I've been working in libraries almost my entire career. Most books have no value. I've probably thrown out a million books in my life; most of them have been diet books, cook books, and political biographies.

My current library is around 2000 square feet and I acquire around 1000 books a year, so I have to toss around 1000 books a year, because they're made of matter and take up space.

New comment by S_Bear in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

S_Bear — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:05:06 +0000

I've been replaying some of the games of my youth, and they are either super easy or don't take very much time (I remember the original Final Fantasy being this vast epic tale; it took me 9-ish hours to beat as an adult. My Punch-Out reflexes didn't die, and I made it to re-skinned Mike Tyson on my first go.) A third of a game of Civ V takes longer than any of the NES and Genesis games I played as a kid.

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

S_Bear — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:42:07 +0000

Club Happily Bald here. My wife prefers me without hair, and razor blades are significantly cheaper than haircuts. I can't imagine trying to preserve my hair.

New comment by S_Bear in "Phantasy Star IV – 1993 Developer Interviews"

S_Bear — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:39:56 +0000

III was my favorite. Lyle was so cool to 13 year old me, the multi-generation cyborgs were awesome (in fact, the multiple ending were all kind of neat), I loved the biomes connected by tunnels, and the art direction was kind of gross and funky compared to how clean the PSII enemies were.

New comment by S_Bear in "Cahokia"

S_Bear — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:17:49 +0000

Cahokia was one of the coolest places to take people when I lived in St Louis. It's kind of a hidden gem and it altered the way I had been taught that native people had lived.

New comment by S_Bear in "I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility"

S_Bear — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:14:23 +0000

I read this every couple years or so and enjoy it every time.

New comment by S_Bear in "Guilty Displeasures"

S_Bear — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:53:10 +0000

I work as a librarian (and have been one for 25+ years), but I kind of hate the things that librarians should care about. I got into this business because I like helping elderly people in my community with their smartphones and tablets, and getting children to read. I don't care about cosplaying as a social worker or lawyer, fighting injustice and challenging assumptions; I just want to help Mildred w her iPad so she can zoom with her grandkids.

New comment by S_Bear in "Guilty Displeasures"

S_Bear — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:35:32 +0000

Other people's dogs are my favorite dogs.

New comment by S_Bear in "The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline"

S_Bear — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:49:53 +0000

And wife and I are both old and wrinkly and happily child free. Childfree people aren't just hedonists.

New comment by S_Bear in "The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline"

S_Bear — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:40:00 +0000

I cut my parents out of my life as soon as I was able. Depending on the 'vibrancy of family life' when you're old is often a bad gamble.

New comment by S_Bear in "Eddie Bauer declares bankruptcy"

S_Bear — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 22:18:57 +0000

I used to have a 'Rugged Indoorsman' shirt. Loved that one.

New comment by S_Bear in "The Boomcession: Why Americans Hate What Looks Like an Economic Boom"

S_Bear — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:31:27 +0000

My home insurance jumped from $600 a year to $2300 a year from 2019 - 2025. A big boost for consumer spending indexes, but I feel really ripped off. (I shopped around last year and every company was charging the same amount)

New comment by S_Bear in "Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden"

S_Bear — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 21:43:34 +0000

My parents are poor boomers, but if they had to live as I do, they'd be rich boomers. They have no financial discipline and burned through cash like crazy. If they would have saved even a little bit in the 80s and 90s, they'd be in a much better situation.

New comment by S_Bear in "Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy"

S_Bear — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:11:54 +0000

For all the effort we put into science education, cooking is applied science we do every day. We should start in elementary school and keep at it through high school, in my opinion.

New comment by S_Bear in "Scott Adams has died"

S_Bear — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:57:39 +0000

That book killed Dilbert for me. I enjoyed every Dilbert book up until that one, then it just faded away for me.

New comment by S_Bear in "Are we tired of social media? (2025)"

S_Bear — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 16:23:38 +0000

My wife has been on the same minecraft server for 15 years. We meet up with the other members fairly regularly; a few of them even flew out to Hawaii with us for vacation last year. This year we're going to Canada for vacation, and we'll probably have a group of 7-8 of the Canadian members meet up and go do stuff.

New comment by S_Bear in "Vietnam bans unskippable ads"

S_Bear — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:59:07 +0000

My favorite mobile game ad was for Jeep, which was 3 seconds of the word JEEP on a black background. My wife and I laugh about it, but we remember it. It was actually really effective in that regard.

My second favorite was for some pirate game, but the ads were basically the setup for an adult movie, with tons of hammy overacting. I thought they were so funny, I was really sad when they stopped.

New comment by S_Bear in "Ask HN: What would you do if you didn't work in tech?"

S_Bear — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:14:56 +0000

I'm not 'in tech', but I am a technology librarian and a large part of my job is teaching senior citizens how to use their devices. I don't make a ton of money, but I get a lot of social capital in my community, as well as a bunch of fresh baked goods this time of year.

New comment by S_Bear in "How getting richer made teenagers less free"

S_Bear — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:24:20 +0000

I was at a conference in St Cloud, MN a few years ago, and I could see the Panda Express from my hotel. Took around 40 minutes to walk there because I couldn't get the timing right to frogger myself across the 6 lanes. Got stuck in the island in the middle for a good 15 minutes because the slip lane always had cars in it.