Hacker News: bodantogat

New comment by bodantogat in "We can't have nice things because of AI scrapers"

bodantogat — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 22:41:44 +0000

I feel the pain — it’s very difficult to detect many of the less ethical scrapers. They use residential IP pools, rotate IPs, and provide valid user agents.

New comment by bodantogat in "Bots are getting good at mimicking engagement"

bodantogat — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:55:21 +0000

Some of the bots I see use residential proxies, rotate IP address, countries, as well as fire-up a real browser.

New comment by bodantogat in "Bots are getting good at mimicking engagement"

bodantogat — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:47:31 +0000

Not really surprised. I spend a ridiculous amount on time banning bots every week.

New comment by bodantogat in "Ask HN: What Are You Reading?"

bodantogat — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:34:22 +0000

Oh and also listening to an audiobook - Mythos by Stephen Fry. Liking it so far.

New comment by bodantogat in "Rereading books"

bodantogat — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:31:09 +0000

I get that! I usually don’t feel that end-of-story sadness strongly enough to make me reread. For me, jumping into a new world is just too exciting, so the “leaving one behind” feeling doesn’t stick around too long.

New comment by bodantogat in "Ask HN: What Are You Reading?"

bodantogat — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 19:50:08 +0000

I mostly read science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve just started Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It follows a scientist sentenced to a prison camp on a planet teeming with bizarre lifeforms. So far, it hasn’t drawn me in the way Children of Time did, though I’m only about a quarter of the way through.

New comment by bodantogat in "Rereading books"

bodantogat — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:57:07 +0000

For me, rereading just feels like missing out on the excitement of finding something new. A fresh story, a different perspective, an author I haven’t met yet. So I usually skip rereads and pick up something new instead.

New comment by bodantogat in "Why Did the Novel-Reading Man Disappear?"

bodantogat — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 16:00:06 +0000

Reading has a higher barrier to entry than most media. Doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman—it takes time, focus, and mental energy. And unlike scrolling or streaming, books aren’t always cheap. A new paperback can be $18–$30, and that adds up fast. It’s just harder to get started.

New comment by bodantogat in "Cloud Run GPUs, now GA, makes running AI workloads easier for everyone"

bodantogat — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:34:09 +0000

I had the opposite experience with cloud run. Mysterious scale outs/restarts - I had to buy a paid subscription to cloud support to get answers and found none. Moved to self managed VMs. Maybe things have changed now.

New comment by bodantogat in "Lucene University"

bodantogat — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 22:36:32 +0000

Cool. I haven't had time to go through all the examples but I plan to. This will be useful (I recently moved away from ElasticSearch and embedded Lucene in a SpringBoot app directly)

New comment by bodantogat in "The Mensa Reading List for Grades 9-12"

bodantogat — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 14:05:01 +0000

I completely agree. The joy of reading comes from discovering stories that you truly connect with—not from checking off titles on a set list. While some reading lists can be helpful for inspiration, I find the “100 books you must read” type a bit off-putting. They can unintentionally suggest there’s only one right way to be a “good reader,” which just isn’t true.

New comment by bodantogat in "Standard Ebooks: liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover"

bodantogat — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 12:50:13 +0000

Is there an API or downloadable catalog of the titles? Happy to feature them on meetnewbooks.com so more readers can find them.

New comment by bodantogat in "Show HN: Nue – Apps lighter than a React button"

bodantogat — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:38:36 +0000

This happened to a team I know. They built a flashy SPA dashboard because it was easy to copy-paste from templates. It worked great—until a real-world requirement, like a data grid, came along.

New comment by bodantogat in "Show HN: JavaScript PubSub in 163 Bytes"

bodantogat — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 13:52:13 +0000

Incredibly useful, especially with React, where the Context API, state lifting, and prop drilling often feel clunky. That said, it can lead to messy code if not carefully managed.

New comment by bodantogat in "Next.js version 15.2.3 has been released to address a security vulnerability"

bodantogat — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 18:38:46 +0000

I’m curious too. I self host on a server, no issues so far.

New comment by bodantogat in "Show HN: MeetNewBooks – Book recommendations for those who read for fun"

bodantogat — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:18:22 +0000

Thanks for getting back to me!

Brave New World is actually quite popular on MeetNewBooks, and its recommendations include Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Animal Farm, and others [1].

For Honoré de Balzac, I do have several of his works, including Père Goriot. The top recommendations for that include authors like Gustave Flaubert, Stendhal, and Émile Zola [2].

I'll check if I have a more complete catalog of Balzac's works—some of this data can be tricky to source. If you have specific old or lesser-known books you're looking for, let me know!

[1] https://www.meetnewbooks.com/suggest-book/57277/Brave-New-Wo... [2] https://www.meetnewbooks.com/suggest-book/83435/Pere-Goriot-...

New comment by bodantogat in "Show HN: MeetNewBooks – Book recommendations for those who read for fun"

bodantogat — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:03:40 +0000

Can you give me some examples of the books you’re looking for? I might have them, but sometimes I don’t have enough data to display them properly on the app/site.

As for the differences—MeetNewBooks is a recommendations-first app rather than a tracking or social platform. I suppose it depends on what you read, but Goodreads' recommendations didn’t work for me.

New comment by bodantogat in "Show HN: MeetNewBooks – Book recommendations for those who read for fun"

bodantogat — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:06:40 +0000

Fanfiction recs are a whole different beast, and things can get pretty wild in fanfic! I know a few fanfics that are really popular, so I definitely get the appeal

Show HN: MeetNewBooks – Book recommendations for those who read for fun

bodantogat — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:50 +0000

Hi HN,

Like many projects here, this started as something I built for myself. I shared it with a few friends, and it grew from there.

MeetNewBooks is a book recommendation app—a "find your next read" tool rather than a book tracking app.

How it works:

By Title: Enter a book you enjoyed, and we’ll suggest similar books. Depending on the book, you may see a mix of recommendations based on themes, genres, or tropes—combined with what other readers have enjoyed.

Search by Keywords (Genre, Theme, Trope): Browse recommendations using filters like "epic fantasy," "coming of age," or "billionaire romances." No vectors or embeddings—just a straightforward Elasticsearch implementation.

Suggestions Based on Recent Browsing: After you’ve looked at a few books, we’ll recommend others based on your browsing history. A "bulb" icon in the top right corner will show these suggestions.

Personalized Recommendations (free, but requires signup): Save and rate books, and we’ll tailor suggestions as soon as we have enough books to work with. We also compare your shelves with other readers to surface books you might love. If you don’t like a recommendation, you can mark it (or the author) as "Not Interested," and we’ll refresh your list.

There are no quizzes or questionnaires to fill out. And while this isn’t a book tracking app, many users have requested those features, so I’ve been gradually adding them.

We also have iOS and Android apps. I’d love to hear your feedback!

As a side note—after years of working on enterprise software with grumpy traders, it’s been a joy to build something for people who love reading as much as I do. Users report bugs, suggest features, and have been incredibly patient as I work through the backlog.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43116432

Points: 1

# Comments: 6

New comment by bodantogat in "Before Squid Game, there was Battle Royale"

bodantogat — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 21:59:47 +0000

An animated show might work! Will Wight's Cradle series raised over $1M on Kickstarter for an adaptation

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/anima...