Hacker News: bumby

New comment by bumby in "Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?"

bumby — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 18:57:25 +0000

>It's genuinely a simple task

Eh…like the saying goes “there are levels to this sh*t”

If you just want to play around as a hobbyist, sure, it can be treated as a simple task. But if you’re working on, say, space avionics it is much more detailed and complex.

New comment by bumby in "Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?"

bumby — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 18:52:04 +0000

If you’re wanting to get really serious, there are certification classes. For example, the “j standard” classes are pretty detailed.

https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-sol...

There are some open source documents that can help you understand the difference between good and not-so-good work. Eg https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA

New comment by bumby in "U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications"

bumby — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 21:55:34 +0000

I think that depends on your perspective of work, and what constitutes value of work.

Do you think all jobs of equal moral value? I think most people feel that some work is more "humanizing" than others

New comment by bumby in "U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications"

bumby — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:01:53 +0000

Even if machines could do it, it doesn’t mean they could do it at or below the equivalent cost.

I also disagree with the automation point regarding what humans should do. As we see with current AI, many creative tasks can be automated but it doesn’t make them unfulfilling human endeavors.

New comment by bumby in "How I use LLMs to learn complex topics"

bumby — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 02:55:01 +0000

I’m curious where you get the estimate that humans hold “like four” parameters in their mind at once?

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 12:21:02 +0000

Right. As you said, sqlite was developed to fill a specific need, therefore it’s applied research and not basic research. (I wouldn’t even consider it research, but more development, but I’m trying to be generous to the discussion)

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 03:01:06 +0000

I took “basic research” to mean “fundamental research”. Sqlite is not fundamental research. It’s an exception that proves the rule. It was literally designed for a solving a specific problem. Somewhat ironically, it also comes from the industry that originated the term “self-licking ice cream cone”. An occasional useful offshoot doesn’t justify massive amounts of otherwise less useful busywork

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:48:51 +0000

I don’t agree, but understand the sentiment.

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:21:36 +0000

It’s not basic research in the vast, vast majority of business cases you’re describing. They aren’t Bell Labs doing novel work, they’re usually doing busy work on mundane apps. I’m not going to move our understanding of financial physics forward playing around with a social media or CRUD app. Hell, most work isn’t even testing a hypothesis other than “I hope this change doesn’t break shit”

It comes across as “everyone else’s work is trivial and low value but my, MY, work is difficult and important”. We shouldn’t be so precious.

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:34:38 +0000

Yeah, I see this. I think in that case, both the sales and development team are deadweight (ie self licking ice cream cones)

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:37:06 +0000

What about charging people for electronic books? From an IP perspective, code is just a really bad book.

New comment by bumby in "Software is about people, not code (2020)"

bumby — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:32:32 +0000

A less cynical take is that sales connects the people who need a problem solved to the people who can solve it.

New comment by bumby in "Turning a dumb AC unit smart (without losing my security deposit)"

bumby — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 02:28:54 +0000

Isn’t that what they advertise as a “feature” on their website?

New comment by bumby in "Turning a dumb AC unit smart (without losing my security deposit)"

bumby — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:10:34 +0000

As someone else mentioned, a software-oriented solution is likely to introduce more failure modes because of the number of dependencies, updates etc.

New comment by bumby in "Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s"

bumby — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:35:57 +0000

Is the fouling functionality more complicated than one would assume? From a naive perspective, it seems like it would just be a simple photo-eye sensor

New comment by bumby in "Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources"

bumby — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:45:19 +0000

You can make even more money if you make sure you have accurate data while your competitors do not.

New comment by bumby in "Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources"

bumby — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:38:09 +0000

As long as it’s properly addressed to avoid abuse, I don’t have a problem with private companies and individual citizens both benefiting. You could easily put rate limits if you think it’s a major issue while still maintaining the free service for smaller users. I personally don’t like the privatization of profits while also maintaining the narrative that companies don’t benefit from public works.

New comment by bumby in "Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources"

bumby — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:31:19 +0000

I don’t follow. I would rather the government manage the API, like what NOAA does/did.

New comment by bumby in "Climate.gov was destroyed. Open data saved it"

bumby — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:30:23 +0000

Depends if the accuracy is counter to profit. Not to say governments don’t have their own biased incentives, but they tend to be of a different kind.

New comment by bumby in "Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources"

bumby — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:26:37 +0000

As a counter example, the government manages and collects all kinds of weather station data. But the trend is for private companies to get contracts to privatize the dissemination of that data through fee-based APIs etc. I would rather the government provide it instead of taxpayers having to pay twice to enrich some rent seeker.