Hacker News: boznz

New comment by boznz in "Every novel is boring until it isn't"

boznz — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:29:36 +0000

Not putting any action in the first 10% of my first novel was a big mistake, the reason is a lot of people these days "Read a Sample" and if they are not hooked then they just go to the next. Yes, the book may have ended with civilizations rising and falling but it started with a couple of uni students making a startup.

New comment by boznz in "Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil"

boznz — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 01:48:39 +0000

New Zealand has already done it. Rocket Lab may have rebranded as American but it still builds and launches from NZ every few weeks

New comment by boznz in "Can AI design circuit boards yet?"

boznz — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:20:21 +0000

I have tried to use AI on this from GPT3, documenting a few of the attempts on my blog. They know the datasheets and the theory enough to be extremely useful at the start, but the most recent ones are becoming scary good. Routing a PCB is certainly a bit more than joining some wires, you have to accommodate power traces, ground loops, component overlap and all the various RF tricks and tips, but I do believe we are less than a year from prompt to full assembly including enclosure.

New comment by boznz in "I ran Photoshop on a £0.60 computer chip"

boznz — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:23:45 +0000

I'm currently building a RP2350 board with the HDMI/USB and I2S Audio I have also added the 16MB SRAM and higher vCore for overclocking which the RP2350 supports for a similar personal project to this. My first PCB had a few newbie mistakes which due to my lousy hand/eye coordination I wasnt able to fix so I am spinning up a V2 to go to JLPCB in the next week or two (https://rodyne.com/?p=3999). Your post resonated with a lot of why I am doing it so keep up the good work.

New comment by boznz in "Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)"

boznz — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:45:21 +0000

I stopped viewing all news media companies five years ago. Real news will get to you pretty quickly by other means such as HN which I still frequent a couple of hours a week. Modern news is re-hashing even the trivial in the worst possible way and inviting the extreme idiots on both sides to fight it out in the comment section, I can honestly say I am missing nothing and still find myself informed and happier.

New comment by boznz in "PostgreSQL for Everything"

boznz — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:32:15 +0000

Another rule of thumb. Use what you are comfortable with until it stops doing what you want.

New comment by boznz in "Ornith-1.5: From Self-Scaffolding to Self-Improvement"

boznz — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:03:23 +0000

..And there lies the problem.

New comment by boznz in "The Amazon tax"

boznz — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 21:14:40 +0000

> How would I break through, if not ads?

You wouldn't, your product would languish in obscurity and unless the searcher knew the exact actual product name forever be on page 200 of the search results (As a Sci-Fi book author I found this out the hard way). Influencers and having followers can also help your product break through, but that's about it. Self promotion of your product is usually actively discouraged or banned by many forums.

New comment by boznz in "Duress Codes and How to Use Them (2024)"

boznz — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:39:20 +0000

A Duress Password would be a good idea, so if you are ever asked to unlock your PC or phone you can use it to provide a sanitized sandbox view of your data or alternatively scramble/delete anything that would compromise you.

New comment by boznz in "I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music"

boznz — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 21:29:03 +0000

Nice design. I have done similar projects for myself and my friends, aesthetics is always the key to a make and forget music system you will actually use daily. My last one re-purposed a pioneer amplifier https://rodyne.com/?p=3380

New comment by boznz in "How to Block Some of the Bots"

boznz — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 21:13:43 +0000

I expect >99% of my web traffic is bots or agents and I was actually considering removing the page counter as it is pretty meaningless and makes my site look far busier than it is. I am reluctant to however do anything about it just in case it accidentally stops a genuine human reading it or downloading my books.

New comment by boznz in "How to write English prose (2023)"

boznz — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 21:05:01 +0000

Writing styles like this actually gets in the way of reading a story in my opinion and, I also assume, is also some high-brow writers way of getting around for the need for an actual story anyway. Many of the books I had to read at school, and that "cultured" friends read are like this, but truthfully they put me off reading, and is the type of writing I (as an author) go out of my way to avoid unless the character implicitly demands it.

New comment by boznz in "The relay market powering token resellers and fraud"

boznz — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:54:24 +0000

The relays sound also like a nice source of monitoring for whoever controls them.

New comment by boznz in "Americans – including many Republicans – are losing faith in capitalism"

boznz — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:05:32 +0000

All governments are corrupt even poster children like here in NZ, its all about degrees of corruption. however one system of politics allows you to call this out and potentially vote out the perpetrators, the other will suppress you, lock you up and, once you've fallen down that rabbit hole, never vote again.

Choose your poison.

New comment by boznz in "FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers"

boznz — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:20:30 +0000

Lots of the comments here are about porting to older kindles or eReaders, but the firmware is currently for the ESP32 chipset which none of these use.

New comment by boznz in "UK confirms pay-per-mile tax start date for electric vehicle drivers"

boznz — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:38:22 +0000

Already happens in NZ, we got a few years grace, but now we pay the same as diesel vehicles up to 3.5T weight NZ$76/1000KM (US 7 cents/mile), and NZ$38 for plug in hybrids. I don't personally mind paying so long as it does go on maintaining the roads.

ASI May Require a Level of Trust We're Not Willing to Give

boznz — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:29:52 +0000

Article URL: https://rodyne.com/?p=4070

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48976321

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by boznz in "Book prizes don't work how you think"

boznz — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 22:15:44 +0000

Good post which basically states the f*cking obvious about how any "prize" or "winner" of any subjective category works.

New comment by boznz in "How to read more books"

boznz — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:28:57 +0000

When I write a character, I picture not just the character but the voice, same with reading, and going from a paper or eBook to an audio book usually breaks both. Books I write rarely include characters from Manchester (UK), so reading voices with my strong accent would definitely break a lot of my books. It is also the reason I sometimes don't enjoy movies if I have read the book. It is not a one way street though, some really good narrators can improve the experience a lot, same with good directors.

New comment by boznz in "SimPolitics: America’s quest to solve politics with computers"

boznz — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:07:38 +0000

Thank you for this, I'm going to give it a read.

I am unfortunately very bearish on politics in general. All politicians think short term, look after themselves, their families, their friends, and their interests first; Facts, and working simulations just get in the way. (I am still looking for a politician that is an exception to this rule) Human nature is unfortunately real, and the only way I can see to "solve politics" is to remove human's entirely, but that comes with a whole new set of issues and is another book I guess.