Hacker News: Stronico

AI Napoleon and AI Duke of Wellington Debate the Iran War

Stronico — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:41:00 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/home/post/p-191433245

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47456180

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Plato and Pragmatic Philosopher William James Debate Vibe Coding

Stronico — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:58:38 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/home/post/p-190504482

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47325885

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?"

Stronico — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 20:26:59 +0000

I can just give the logins to someone else. My current setup is a workable, optimal, but not clean solution to the problem.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?"

Stronico — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 18:47:41 +0000

I've got it down to 45 minutes a month, including a phone call to the venue.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?"

Stronico — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 18:46:41 +0000

All of those can be done on meetup - but then we would lose a lot of people who are not, and will not be on Meetup.

The email list is probably the single most important part of the tech stack actually.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?"

Stronico — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 15:28:15 +0000

I run a discussion group that meets once a month - our tech stack is 1. A blog running WordPress that I use to announce meetings 2. A meetup.com account (free tier) that has the same information as the blog 3. A MailChimp account (free tier) where I send notices about the meetups 4. A very active Slack group (free tier) where I announce meetups and we have entended discussions. Discord would probably work just as well.

I've never used Facebook for anything, but the above four tools work very well for us.

Nuclear Power and Hot Air Balloons

Stronico — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 13:49:02 +0000

Article URL: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-and-hot-air-balloons

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32540163

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Advice for a Generalist Going Solo?"

Stronico — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:39:56 +0000

It's important not to overthink this - You're a specialist at being you, more specifically you have a bundle of skills, some of which will be useful to people with both problems and money. All you can really do is to isolate those skills, give them a name, and offer that as a service.

Based on your original description - you are an expert in "back office" skills.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Important nonobvious startup/business lessons you've learned?"

Stronico — Thu, 12 May 2022 13:57:40 +0000

1. Care about technical matters and show that you care about technical matters - if you're selling something technical it's good to have complicated opinions on technical matters

2. Someone who is difficult in good times will be a monster in bad times

3. Repeating the words of other's back to them is eerily effective

4. Every client is in the middle of some sort of political drama, you will be some minor part of that drama - this is normal and not that meaningful

Are nuclear weapons or Rogue AI the more dangerous risk?

Stronico — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:13:16 +0000

Article URL: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/are-nuclear-weapons-or-rogue-ai-the-more-dangerous-existential-risk.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30501493

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by Stronico in "Heuristics that almost always work"

Stronico — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 22:24:40 +0000

Risk is independent of prior events, habits are not - I think that was what the anthropologist story is about

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: General Mood of the Community"

Stronico — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 19:00:32 +0000

Maybe I've just gotten better at what I follow/comment on, but the mood feels like it's gotten a bit better over the past few years, more tolerant, more heterdox, less shrill, more interesting, less combative, less "performative", etc. Not perfect, but improving over a few years ago. It does feel like the average age of the commenter has increased though.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: Mistakes working with small local clients?"

Stronico — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 15:52:21 +0000

I've done a fair amount of that - some mistakes I've made -

1. Not getting money up front

2. Extending credit

3. Open ended meetings

4. Being insufficiently explicit about what is being delivered

5. Working on a handshake (seldom a problem with big clients actually) - get them to sign something

6. Not actually meeting in person at least once

7. Not being clear on who owns the code/technology (if you're going to do more or less the same thing for the person across the street then make sure to let the client know that they are getting a license (or something similar))

8. Scheduling meetings in their downtime, but your worktime

9. Not having a template, or even an idea of what a good referral would look like

10. Having a specified finish line - much more important for the smaller client than the larger ones IME

China’s ‘artificial sun’ burns five times hotter than the real thing

Stronico — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:44:24 +0000

Article URL: https://www.the-sun.com/tech/4376795/china-artificial-sun-experiment-five-times-hotter-real-sun/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29785506

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Burn the Universities and Salt the Earth

Stronico — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 16:30:23 +0000

Article URL: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/burn-the-universities-and-salt-the

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29626682

Points: 9

# Comments: 6

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?"

Stronico — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 19:50:13 +0000

Many things can be said but you will experience an emotional range like you've never felt before - the lows are really low and the highs are really high - plus a lot of your life will no longer be within your control, which always adds a bit of adventure to things.

New comment by Stronico in "The benefits of not belonging"

Stronico — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:00:33 +0000

It can be nice in big cities too, maybe a little harder, but still pretty easy - all you have to do is remove social media and the clickbait/outrage web and life becomes pretty normal.

New comment by Stronico in "Ask HN: How do you manage your personal documents?"

Stronico — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 15:05:53 +0000

Things I know I will need in the next month get scanned and sent to Notion - Tax Docs go to a folder on my desk

Everything else I place in a large pile on the side of my desk - once it looks like it's going to fall over I go through everything, throw out what looks useless and put the rest in a separate pile. Every once in a while I scan the separate pile documents to OneNote and shred them. It's worked surprisingly well for the past 15 years or so.

Ask HN: What is the best step by step guide to launching a product?

Stronico — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 17:33:55 +0000

My situation - I have an MVP of a product (a personal brand enhancer to people in the sales/business development industry), and a very large list of warm leads. I also have a dedicated staff member who, though not an experienced marketer/growth hacker, can accomplish much when given clear direction.

I would like to launch the product to the general public and then (say three months after) to my list of warm leads. Can anyone recommend a very detailed step by step book or guide (ideally one they have personally used) to marketing and launching a product that could be outsourced to an intelligent non-marketer?

I realize that what I am describing is not an ideal way to market a product, but the assets I have are what I have, and the perfect is ever the enemy of the good.

Thanks Everyone!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867349

Points: 15

# Comments: 6

New comment by Stronico in "Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores"

Stronico — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 21:53:51 +0000

Nice catch actually