Hacker News: billev2k

New comment by billev2k in "Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others"

billev2k — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:03:09 +0000

Please: Not "a few notches". All the way. Black. That is if you actually care if people read your posts.

New comment by billev2k in "Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993"

billev2k — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 12:09:16 +0000

I personally think that "peak computing" was around 2005. Maybe 2006.

New comment by billev2k in "Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs"

billev2k — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 18:44:29 +0000

Like Boeing. And look how well that's worked out.

New comment by billev2k in "Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move"

billev2k — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:35:02 +0000

The Android Developer Blog called it "an ID check at the airport which confirms a traveler's identity but is separate from the security screening of their bags."

From the mouths of rubes, I guess. The ID check at the airport has zero to do with safety or security and everything to do with the airlines' business model (no secondary market for tickets), enforced by government.

New comment by billev2k in "Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders"

billev2k — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:52:51 +0000

I'd prefer a greater difference between ( ) and { }, and between : and ;

But that's for using it as my daily driver, which doesn't seem to be the actual motivation.

New comment by billev2k in "Show HN: ZeroFS, the Filesystem That Makes S3 Your Primary Storage"

billev2k — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 03:37:40 +0000

I had to laugh out loud: "In practice, you'll encounter other constraints well before these theoretical limits, such as S3 provider limits, performance considerations with billions of objects, or simply running out of money."

New comment by billev2k in "Show HN: I made my own TRMNL e-ink device"

billev2k — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 16:13:21 +0000

Speaking of a beautiful turn of phrase: "...more piles of electronic parts in my cupboard of broken dreams."

New comment by billev2k in "Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong"

billev2k — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 21:52:24 +0000

REJ-exs

New comment by billev2k in "Doge Social Security Closures: Recipients Need to Visit Offices to Get Benefits"

billev2k — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 21:10:37 +0000

MFA is often painful for me, and I've been a dev since we were called "programmers".

New comment by billev2k in "Time for a Change: The long, contentious history of time shifts"

billev2k — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:22 +0000

By all means, get up early if that fits your internal clock! But please, let's keep the clocks as close to the sun (ie, clock noon at solar noon) as practical.

New comment by billev2k in "Apple's Software Quality Crisis"

billev2k — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:08:05 +0000

That, and the effects of allowing "new feature demos" at WWDC. The various groups MUST come up with something that demos well. "See how easily I can...", and now the slightest breath does something dramatic, and usually wrong.

New comment by billev2k in "The A.I. Monarchy"

billev2k — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 14:24:29 +0000

tl;dr: AI and capitalism are both cancers, existing for no reason other than to further propagate themselves; hegemonistic. And Thiel is a cancer-causing agent.

I agree re capitalism. And Thiel. AI is TBD, but not looking so great.

New comment by billev2k in "The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story"

billev2k — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 04:49:53 +0000

I was a sophomore EE student when these came out. There were debates about whether to allow calculators in the classroom, somewhat irrelevant to me, since the price was out of reach anyway. Then the ME department made a deal to order in bulk, answering the debate, and making the marvelous machine somewhat affordable. I begged my father, and he fronted me the $271.40 (the HP-45 had just come out, so the 35 came down in price). Glorious days!

New comment by billev2k in "DOGE employees don't understand the basics of SQL"

billev2k — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:49:17 +0000

Though it doesn't matter how fervently you believe. The universe doesn't care.

New comment by billev2k in "A Minimalist TypeScript for C"

billev2k — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 17:49:11 +0000

Crazy usage of "+". Using "+" as a synonym for "var" seems pretty pointless. Suffix "+" to mean stack allocated (vs not yet allocated?), unless it's an array, in which case "+" means objects not pointers. Or so it seems.

And allowing the minus sign as an identifier character is just asking for errors.

Some nice ideas (member functions!). Love to see the next evolution.

New comment by billev2k in "Show HN: I built open source file sharing solution using AWS S3"

billev2k — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 16:19:29 +0000

I'm pretty leery of making the "access key" and "secret key" so public (like typing them into a web page, or setting them in environment variables). Of course it adds significant friction to set up an IAM identity for every user, and "low friction" is one of the key requirements here.

New comment by billev2k in "An 'earthquake' at Volkswagen – and a crisis for Germany?"

billev2k — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 14:05:12 +0000

VW’s current lineup of cars is pretty unattractive to me. Time was they looked efficient and a bit sporty. Now they look like Buicks.