Hacker News: cguess

New comment by cguess in "Sequoyah’s syllabary created a written language for the Cherokee"

cguess — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:36:41 +0000

Just to expand on this:

"ye" in "ye Olde mill" is actually just "the" but originally "þe"/"þee". The first printing presses to England were imported from Germany, which never used þ, so printers used something that looked sorta similar, thus "y".

"Ye" was a different word, the 2nd person non-formal version of "you" (which was historically formal: see-Shakespeare and how he played with "ye" and "you"). Thorn was on its way out along with "ð" both of which were in Middle English. The sounds didn't leave English, but we merged it into one letter cluster "th" (think "that" and "the", which have different th sounds).

New comment by cguess in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

cguess — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:18:00 +0000

Even in NYC you could get by pretty much just fine without a phone (a credit or debit card is pretty much required though). The hardest part would be losing contact since expectations of how people organize and meet up are completely mobile phone centric, and plans are almost expected to be modified in real time.

New comment by cguess in "The iPhone's Last Stand?"

cguess — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:01:02 +0000

Personally I hope you can also type to Siri, which is what I'll use WAY more than voice. I work from home and live alone, but even then I don't want to basically be talking to myself all day. I also live in a major urban city and while random people talking to themselves on the sidewalks certainly isn't unheard of it's not a great look, much less on a subway or cafe.

New comment by cguess in "The IRS Moved IT and HR Staff to Process Taxes. It's Not Going Well"

cguess — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 02:18:31 +0000

Don't just limit it to the US, it's going very well in the UK too!

New comment by cguess in "Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee"

cguess — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 01:49:22 +0000

This one actually certainly is, it just hasn't shown up in court because no one's dumb enough to enforce it.

The Constitutional Convention discussed a national language at length in 1789, and adamantly didn't include a language requirement on purpose.

New comment by cguess in "Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee"

cguess — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 01:47:26 +0000

Again, this is a hiring issue, not a legal one. You want to make it against the law for your boss to hire bad managers?

New comment by cguess in "Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee"

cguess — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:52:33 +0000

This is a hiring issue, not a legal one. The US has no official language, and no language tests, so requiring English in law would be dicey to put it mildly. What if I'm hiring someone specifically to work at a Spanish language news outlet?

New comment by cguess in "Apple WWDC 2026"

cguess — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:09:48 +0000

This has been a thing for all tech companies for years.

According to what I was told by some FANNG people (I've never worked for them myself) some employees were/are were sent to public speaking classes after being hired specifically to teach socially awkward programmers how to talk on stage, and this is what they teach them, weird hand movements and all.

New comment by cguess in "The American Missile Crisis"

cguess — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:45:50 +0000

And the US having 30,000 (or whatever absurd number) makes the world safer?

New comment by cguess in "The American Missile Crisis"

cguess — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 04:09:46 +0000

Before discussing anything related to nuclear missiles *[Command and Control by Eric Schlosser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)) should be required reading.

More missiles do not make the world safe, and due to human fallacy it almost always make us less safe.

New comment by cguess in "Apple rejected my dictation app for using the accessibility API"

cguess — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:12:48 +0000

I'mm exactly the same. Fluent in Linux, but you'll pry my MacBook out of my cold dead hands.

New comment by cguess in "SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)"

cguess — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:51:43 +0000

SimCity 4 has a native Mac build, it's on Steam. Most of the modding community uses Windows now though since the .dll hacks became feasible.

New comment by cguess in "Breakthroughs for batteries could soon make them better"

cguess — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:43:13 +0000

Trains are absolutely better but France also outlawed most of those short haul flights. https://www.euronews.com/2024/07/06/frances-short-haul-fligh...

New comment by cguess in "Breakthroughs for batteries could soon make them better"

cguess — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:40:06 +0000

Most trains are diesel-electric, so they already have batteries? For those unaware, in this type of engine the diesel engine is actually a generator which charges the batteries and then the electrical power is used to drive the train. It's actually more efficient for the torque needed.

New comment by cguess in "Going full AI engineer, not touching code anymore"

cguess — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:50:58 +0000

It did atrophy, but more importantly understanding what's going on below the code you are writing, even if your project isn't assembly, also atrophied. When you're coding an Electron app with Javascript you're so far removed from any concept of the efficiency a modern CPU can achieve you stop caring about optimization. Speed and memory management don't matter and then you get... well, the modern web.

New comment by cguess in "New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges"

cguess — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:29:39 +0000

Yes, they're handheld.

New comment by cguess in "Joby kicks off NYC electric air taxi demos with historic JFK flight"

cguess — Fri, 01 May 2026 01:27:09 +0000

I'd absolutely splurge $200 on a lot of things (a date just the other day for instance) but there's many options at least as convenient, remembering you still have to get to the helipad, as this.

As a New Yorker I don't want these things with zero failure ability anywhere near me. At least a helicopter can autorotate.

New comment by cguess in "Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop"

cguess — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:44:45 +0000

As someone who lives alone, I very much wanted to want it (I do much of my life by myself anyways since I WFH and live in NYC where all my friends have very different schedules). $3500 just couldn't justify it for me though, $1000 less... maybe.

New comment by cguess in "Joby kicks off NYC electric air taxi demos with historic JFK flight"

cguess — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:22:08 +0000

I live in NYC and make quite a bit more than $80k and would still never splurge $200 for a trip to the airport. JFK by car (when I'm in an emergency) is already $100 and I get irrationally angry at it. Not to mention I'd have to actually get to a helipad, which are only on river fronts, an basically no train goes to those either, so I'm still in a cab.

New comment by cguess in "If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?"

cguess — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:04:18 +0000

Oh boy, you're not paying attention or you're in a bubble. Not usually distended belly-famine starving, sure, but malnutrition is rife in many rural and impoverished counties in the country.