Hacker News: Simon_O_Rourke

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "The Kaiser and a "Mediocre Man" Theory of History"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:50:37 +0000

Mediocre sales leaders I've found treat pipeline stagnation as a motivation problem rather than fixing the underlying issues with training, lead qualification, or sales collateral. Previous company had a sales pipeline tanking, and the "brilliant" Sales VP thought bringing forward a sales off-site to get the best performing reps together to motivate them. Net result, pipeline tanks further, VP waits a few months and leaves, and the reps all get upset at missing their targets for a full quarter.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "The Kaiser and a "Mediocre Man" Theory of History"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 30 May 2026 10:49:12 +0000

You could fit in most senior directors, consultants and sales VPs into that bucket comfortably.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 16 May 2026 12:44:00 +0000

I'm just waiting for my current company to have a Sev 1 CritSit so I can document the bejesus out of the root cause and expose our non-technical AI evangelist leadership as the sort of goons most of the senior development staff already suspect.

Only by walking us into some revenue or customer impacting failure - through inappropriately having junior devs doing senior level things - will some sense of sanity start to prevail again.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Porsche will contest Laguna Seca in historic colors of the Apple Computer livery"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 03 May 2026 17:55:22 +0000

This is a nothing burger of a story.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "“Collaboration” is bullshit"

Simon_O_Rourke — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 20:03:53 +0000

As someone who is being actively "encouraged" to be more collaborative with a few non technical political type managers merely for the appearance of it, this rings true. Collaboration is great if you don't have a clue and can coast on someone's coattails.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "[dead]"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 22:24:14 +0000

Fun times in Caracas. Interested to see what future Mafia film will use this a backdrop.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "CIA Star Gate Project: An Overview (1993) [pdf]"

Simon_O_Rourke — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:05:08 +0000

> I am amazed that people take Hal Puthoff at his word that he has worked on all these secret projects for decades even though he cannot describe in definitive terms what the actual outcomes of those programs were.

This is one hundred perfect my view on this, and things are more than suspicious when suddenly being asked to get into the weeds on some technical aspect these guys start citing national security to keep things vague.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 07:14:37 +0000

A lot more of Max Hastings than I would care to admit. But boy, can than man write a ripping yarn.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "NTSB Preliminary Report – UPS Boeing MD-11F Crash [pdf]"

Simon_O_Rourke — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 07:20:40 +0000

That's terrible. If the NTSB had flagged this flaw before then someone failed with an inspection regime or maintenance.

The NTSB doesn't ever accept the "sometimes bad things happen, shrug" excuse and kudos to the professionals there.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Report: Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO 'as soon as next year'"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 07:52:33 +0000

I presume he's moving on to some Trump appointed position.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "The Pen and the Spade: The Poems of Seamus Heaney"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:21:13 +0000

Bush league poetry compared to WB Yeats or John Berryman.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "I Am Mark Zuckerberg"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 11:05:29 +0000

I would send business that guys way if I could, he seems like good people, unlike the more famous Zuckerberg.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Eating stinging nettles"

Simon_O_Rourke — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 19:47:10 +0000

Great way to 'other' a group of folks who don't tend to stick to an all veggie diet. It wasn't enough just to say you can eat nettles and they're ok, but they had to take a dump on meat eating while they're at it

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division"

Simon_O_Rourke — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 18:18:02 +0000

That'll save them a few million dollars when things are tight.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 10:39:49 +0000

CORBA, it got hopelessly complex but it's full potential was never reached as the greed heads took it over.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Five years as a startup CTO: How, why, and was it worth it? (2024)"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:58:52 +0000

I respect the honesty that went into that writing.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Greenland is a beautiful nightmare"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 17:33:40 +0000

Beautiful, but definitely not worth invading or sending our troops to take over, if you don't awfully mind Mr. President.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?"

Simon_O_Rourke — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:57:28 +0000

Just don't fall off the side of those platforms.

It'd be interesting to see what additional "personal atmospheric floatation" devices would be needed.

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Meta exposé author faces $50k fine per breach of non-disparagement agreement"

Simon_O_Rourke — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 15:53:23 +0000

So what happens if she racks up a few million in fines and declares herself bankrupt, say in the UK, where you can't then be held responsible for earlier debts?

New comment by Simon_O_Rourke in "Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone""

Simon_O_Rourke — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 16:39:21 +0000

This would lead to literally murder in my part of upstate New York. Heck, my neighbor will even park on his own lawn to avoid the ten foot walk from the pavement.