Hacker News: adamcrow64

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: What breaks first when your team grows from 10 to 50 people?"

adamcrow64 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:28:13 +0000

frontend broke first. Too many different styles and frontend personalities. When you bring new people in, they bring with them very different ways of designing and building things. Backend devs and devops were fine. But frontend had new technologies, different architectures etc . It was very difficult to get new frontend devs to adhere to the system architecture because they were more superficial in their design and not as CS trained.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "MinIO repository is no longer maintained"

adamcrow64 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:52:28 +0000

exactly

New comment by adamcrow64 in "MinIO repository is no longer maintained"

adamcrow64 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:51:50 +0000

We moved to garage because minio let us down.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "MinIO repository is no longer maintained"

adamcrow64 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:51:36 +0000

We moved to Garage. Minio let us down.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?"

adamcrow64 — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 04:29:56 +0000

Back in the early 90s I created a mosquito repeller page. Based upon the electronic mosquito repeller kits that emitted a frequency.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?"

adamcrow64 — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 04:28:55 +0000

Back in the early 90s I created a mosquito repeller web page

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: Lesser-known/underrated cool new web-oriented tech?"

adamcrow64 — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 03:18:01 +0000

A classic that seem to be lesser known... --> darthsim/imgproxy. (docker) , this is an image proxy. easily run under docker then you can fetch any web image through it and be able to resize on the fly and cache! Fantastic for auto creating user thumbnails etc and not needing to generate different size images. Thanks to the author (Sergey "DarthSim " Alexandrovich)

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: Why is it so hard to find a technical cofounder?"

adamcrow64 — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 02:15:18 +0000

I've cofounded a number of startups. I have found that a major rule is that you should NEVER let a non technical person lead a technical startup. They simply don't get it. It is way easier for the tech person to be the CEO/CTO and partner with a CMO/CFO who will get their hands dirty. There is a good reason that accountancy/legal,consulting firms are run by accountant thinkers and the big tech companies run by tech thinkers. I understand that the skill most represented in the fortune 500 CEO is technical.

So if you are looking for a tech cofounder you should look for them to be CEO.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in interviews?"

adamcrow64 — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 22:12:50 +0000

I like to know that candidates can recall their study. For engineers, one of the biggest mathematical learnings in their degree is the study and use of imaginary numbers. In Australia this is taught in year 11/12 and is taught to kids who show aptitude towards STEM. Identifying these early adopters has worked well for us. So the go to question that we use a lot is "What is the square root of minus one?".

This culls a lot of non mathematical people. (And we find that Mathematical people generally make for better STEM employees in a tech setting).

If they answer correctly (and many who get through the initial resume culling process do) then we follow up with a second question that is not important to answer but will show a candidates sense of curiousity (super important).

What is the answer to the first question to the power of the answer to the first question?

Fascinating answer to this second question that can delight the candidates we are after.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: How to build a desktop app in 2022"

adamcrow64 — Sun, 08 May 2022 22:52:38 +0000

Flutter. It gets the job done.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: Which algorithms based on biological ideas do you know?"

adamcrow64 — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 04:01:15 +0000

I used a genetic algorithm back in 1993 to calibrate a commercial 3D freight laser scanner. The problem we had was that the triangulation equations for the laser angle, camera pixel map, and distance between the camera and the laser axis were very difficult to solve using standard equation solving. In the end we created a calibration 'box' that we scanned. Without ANY hints our genetic algorithm found an optimal calibration set within 45 generations. Fantastic!

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: What kind of electronics would you stockpile for doomsday?"

adamcrow64 — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:15:21 +0000

Just a comment. You have to expect that at some point you may become invalid or disabled to some degree. Although you may not need stuff now, make sure you keep a set of reading glasses or short sight glasses. A walking cane. Look after your teeth! Flossing equipment. Lots of toothbrushes. Tonnes of suncream.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer?"

adamcrow64 — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 10:18:37 +0000

I notice that big tech companies are run by people who are technical. This allows you to talk to them far more efficiently. If I recall, the most common professional background of CEOs in the fortune 500 is Engineering

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: How do you foster strong engineering culture in your organization?"

adamcrow64 — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 03:17:27 +0000

(1) Highlight a code of professional ethics (e.g. IEEE) (2) Internal lecture sessions (like twunde advises) (3) Engineering is about application of systematic thinking to issues. Highlight measurements, automation, professional conduct, and cost management. (4) lead by example.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "What cool project can you do if you have a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Projector?"

adamcrow64 — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 13:01:16 +0000

Take a picture of the outside. use the raspberry pi to project it onto the wall. Also you can use the raspberry pi to project various bit patterns onto 3D surfaces and then by identifying the 3D pixels you can capture 3D surfaces.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?"

adamcrow64 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:21:29 +0000

A Plethera might be a better one.

New comment by adamcrow64 in "Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?"

adamcrow64 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:24:11 +0000

We're a startup here in Australia and we use Java extensively. It has been trickier to use than PHP but the extra effort has allowed us to produce a very sophisticated system.