Hacker News: bknight1983

New comment by bknight1983 in "Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case"

bknight1983 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:00:35 +0000

When you put something out there, there's a question of ownership for how people end up using it. - Some think that "if you use it incorrectly, it's your fault" and probably agree with the statement that Palantir is not an evil software and that one must "change the administration". - Some think that "if you use it incorrectly, it's the creator's fault" and then you have safety labels on everything (see Prop 65).

It's a spectrum of risk between the user and the creator. My opinion is that there's enough scientific evidence that social media to show that it has a negative impact on kids and teenagers as their brains are still developing. I think a social media ban on kids is a good thing (similar to a driver's license or age of drinking).

New comment by bknight1983 in "Landmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids"

bknight1983 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:54:19 +0000

Normally I don't see people walking down the street staring at their Doritos

New comment by bknight1983 in "Idempotency keys for exactly-once processing"

bknight1983 — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 23:27:04 +0000

I recently started using uuidv5 for ID generation based on a composite key. This allows a more diverse key set for partitioning by UUID

New comment by bknight1983 in "Global variables are not the problem"

bknight1983 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:11:05 +0000

For every example of a bug caused by not using a global variable I’m sure could find 10 caused by a global variable

New comment by bknight1983 in "OpenEMR: Open-source medical record software"

bknight1983 — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 14:38:04 +0000

It’s not about the clinical record; it’s about being able to bill insurance companies without getting the claim rejected. Clinical formats are all over the place (HL7v2, CCDA, FHIR) and the data is garbage. Claim data is clean because you don’t get paid if it’s wrong.

With Epic and Cerner, they offer the full white glove experience plus a reputation for quality billing; plus, they have a larger internal network to pull from for interoperability.

New comment by bknight1983 in "100 Years Ago, IBM Was Born"

bknight1983 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:49:30 +0000

Slightly different take - IBM, along Endicott Johnson Shoes, were companies in the Southern Tier of New York focused on creating a community outside of work. Many people were lifers. My first job out of college was Lockheed in Owego (formerly IBM Federal) and my boss was a 40+ year veteran of IBM/Lockheed. Sadly EJ has been defunct for decades and IBM is a shell of its former self. The Southern Tier also is a shell of its former self

New comment by bknight1983 in "How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment"

bknight1983 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 11:38:33 +0000

The beauty of Bluey is that, for me at least, all the games were games we played as kids (keepy uppy, shadowlands, mucking around in the stream). Now my kid wants to play these games (and not be on a screen) and I get to play again. Everyone wins

New comment by bknight1983 in "How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment"

bknight1983 — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 11:35:49 +0000

‘Rain’ is special to me because I would do the same thing as a kid, just trodding along and trying to build a dam to hold the water back. My daughter and I do it now when we have a big rain storm

New comment by bknight1983 in "Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban"

bknight1983 — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:56:16 +0000

Brings back great memories of my TI-83. Wrote my first program on it (text based SimCity). It’s somewhere on the 10s of 3.5 disks sitting in my closet

New comment by bknight1983 in "The History of Microsoft Encarta"

bknight1983 — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 10:16:48 +0000

My sister and I used to play Mindmaze for hours during the summer in the 90s. Encarta was such a great resource at the time.

New comment by bknight1983 in "North American English Dialects"

bknight1983 — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 10:40:52 +0000

I hope you agree then it’s not a water fountain but rather a water bubblah

New comment by bknight1983 in "North American English Dialects"

bknight1983 — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 10:38:58 +0000

Technically yes but in the context of the basketball team it’s only soft C

New comment by bknight1983 in "Stop the Medicare “Advantage” Scam Before Medicare Is Dead"

bknight1983 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 11:00:13 +0000

Wellness calls are also a starting point for shared savings and other value-based contracts

New comment by bknight1983 in "Is there a market failure in child care?"

bknight1983 — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 11:19:52 +0000

There’s also the debate around a corporate daycare (Bright Horizons, Goddard, Primrose) and at home daycare.

I was a child of at home daycare by one woman who is literally my second mother (was present for all the big moments and was there emotionally for me). It also means it was a single point of failure; if Penny was sick, on vacation, then my parents were SOL.

A more corporate daycare gives you the reliable daycare but at the cost of your child being a number.

New comment by bknight1983 in "The 83B Election"

bknight1983 — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:51:29 +0000

The risk is exponentially higher as the 409a goes up. That said, given your current life (single, 20s, with some cash on hand and truly vested in a company) and the total cost to exercise (maybe $1-2k) it might make sense. But a lot of things have to line up for this to be beneficial, otherwise you’re better put the money on a roulette table.

New comment by bknight1983 in "Tell HN: Salesforce is mandating RTO 3 days/wk for all employee"

bknight1983 — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 21:35:14 +0000

Elliott Management took an activist role at SalesForce recently, I suspect this is the first of many ways Elliott will look to remove people without the need of severence. This happened at athenahealth as well where the layoff date was spread about the office, resulting in a mass exodus of people. The resulting layoff was much smaller and thus less costly

New comment by bknight1983 in "Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?"

bknight1983 — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 22:06:51 +0000

Getting a CATIAv4 plugin to install on AFS on AIX across Lockheed. That’s when I learn anything is possible with sh (yes, sh, not bash)

New comment by bknight1983 in "EVs cost 22% less to service than ICE cars, new data shows"

bknight1983 — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 09:59:18 +0000

I live in the northeast with a Chevy Bolt (now with a battery that doesn’t explode). I did have to buy snow tires and have to swap them bi-annually. Still I agree with the OP that the number of things one must do to keep the EV going is much smaller than an ICE. Always read the manual on the maintenance schedule

New comment by bknight1983 in "Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?"

bknight1983 — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 09:57:19 +0000

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. Very centering and good way to lead life.

That or Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

New comment by bknight1983 in "Coming to grips with the American Civil War"

bknight1983 — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:03:01 +0000

Highly recommend reading “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz. It gave a better view of the South’s psyche around the Civil War