Hacker News: chiph

New comment by chiph in "Watson Jr. memo about CDC 6600 (1963)"

chiph — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 18:38:04 +0000

They also had secretaries (even more-so at the executive level) who would proof-read the letter and return it to the boss for their revision and/or signature. Contrast that with today where it's easy for someone to click send and off it goes, incomplete thoughts and grammar errors and all.

If you want to improve your communications - when you finish writing your email, leave it as a draft for 30-40 minutes. Then go back an re-read it with a fresh viewpoint.

If I can suggest - the USAF has a manual for this, which guides you in being clear, concise, and specific:

https://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_aa/publi...

New comment by chiph in "OKI Develops 124-Layer PCB Technology"

chiph — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:43:30 +0000

If you haven't clicked the link .. that is one thick circuit board. They didn't give a dimension, but it looks to be at least 1cm.

New comment by chiph in "The "Windows XP Box" (2003)"

chiph — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:43:37 +0000

Especially since the systems of the time used wide ribbon cables to connect the hard drive & CD-ROM.

New comment by chiph in "How did AMD Ryzen get 50% faster in two years?"

chiph — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:52:29 +0000

I was thinking that for this new generation, "Superscalar" doesn't cover it anymore, except as a generic term for the design technique. "Ultrascalar"? "Superscalar Pro"?

New comment by chiph in "GPT-6 Astra Solves a WWI German Radio Cipher"

chiph — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 16:05:44 +0000

I had heard of MC Frontalot but never listened to any of his raps - But I should have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVm8oZx9WSM

Also relevant to today's AI concerns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWnV3HVro_0

New comment by chiph in "IBM Quantum Nighthawk R2"

chiph — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 15:04:43 +0000

It's still mostly a research tool. Don't be too harsh on an early system like this. One day it (may) become widely available and used by millions.

New comment by chiph in "The Computer Museum of America reclamation project"

chiph — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:26:07 +0000

I regret not having the time to stop by the Connections Museum in Seattle when I was there. They're working on a new museum in Denver.

Their YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ConnectionsMuseum

New comment by chiph in "Stop Making TUIs"

chiph — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 17:12:37 +0000

Depends on whether the devs included keyboard accelerator mappings. With the rise of "touch focused apps", it's becoming rare.

New comment by chiph in "Stop Making TUIs"

chiph — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 17:11:29 +0000

I saw the same thing at Best Buy. They switched from a traditional cash register to a web application on a PC. And all the clerks carefully (and slowly) navigated their mice to click on everything.

What was worse was their mouse platform wasn't level. So every time they let go, it would drift downwards and they'd have to go through the "where's my mouse pointer" wiggle again.

New comment by chiph in "Beware Management Consultants"

chiph — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 20:52:12 +0000

That's pretty shocking.

New comment by chiph in "The deep history behind the Road to Nowhere inside the Great Smoky Mountains"

chiph — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:00:43 +0000

If you want to visit, here's the location.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tvGDn6rruL5HKH5LA

You might also want to visit the Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel in SC (about 2 hours away because mountain roads are scenic but not fast). It was started being dug by hand before the Civil War as a railroad tunnel to connect Charleston SC to the Midwest but never completed.

https://visitoconeesc.com/stumphouse-park/

Clemson University used it for a while to age their blue cheese. They have more info about the history of the tunnel on their site:

https://www.clemson.edu/bluecheese/history.html

New comment by chiph in "Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake – 5 km S of San José del Palmar, Colombia"

chiph — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:53:44 +0000

They sound that way to be unique and attention-getting. They have to cut through the background noise of 21st century life.

Here's a (totally unsafe!) demo from the 80's of why sirens sound the way they do. Do not attempt at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsfczwy3KOE

New comment by chiph in "The Grid That Doubles the Strength of the Ground"

chiph — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:12:57 +0000

I'm sort of OK with this use of plastic. Unlike all the single-use plastics we make (bottles, forks, food-wrap - the list is endless) this is going to be in use and providing value for decades. And can likely be made from recycled HDPE.

New comment by chiph in "IBM i (OS/400) the Database Operating System"

chiph — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:52:36 +0000

You can get IBM i (OS/400) running at home, but the hurdles are many. You need to have one of a specific set of PowerPC servers and need to "acquire" an operating system image. Which will be running in unlicensed demo mode. This YouTuber did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUwJk81YatA

It's long been said that the biggest obstacle to wider adoption of the AS/400 is IBM itself. They offer classes, but don't make it easy - you have to join COMMON (their user group) and/or be enrolled in a university.

https://www.ibm.com/university/power/ibmi/

New comment by chiph in "Working from home? That will be extra. Renters rage over new fee"

chiph — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:15:54 +0000

This is because of additional power & water costs? The landlord should install individual meters on the units. Or at least sub-meter, so they can be paid accurately by the residents. Offering unlimited utilities is a stupid mistake by a landlord.

New comment by chiph in "The coolest use for the Vision Pro"

chiph — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 20:26:27 +0000

I hired him last year to run Ethernet cable in my existing house and he did a great job (the original homebuilder did not make it easy on him!) At the time he was placing random icons so they'd protrude onto the next floor. I guess he got some development done to use color-coded bars instead, and it's much better looking/accurate.

He's in the Charlotte NC area.

New comment by chiph in "Making 768 servers look like 1"

chiph — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:32:32 +0000

Because if the business grows, then you will need to add servers, and reallocate each existing shard's min/max values. If you left room to grow (divide amongst 2^31 instead of 2^63) you can go a long way before you have to solve that problem. If the business turns out to be wildly successful, you'd probably set up a whole new pool anyway and migrate over (and get a new set of pre-allocated ID ranges).

This might be the perfect case to use an UUIDv7 as a key instead of a number.

New comment by chiph in "USAA closed 51% of home insurance claims without making a payment in 2025"

chiph — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:35:52 +0000

Note that there are four different USAA insurance companies. Your military rank and how you got referred for membership will determine which one you join (listed highest/best to lowest):

United Services Automobile Association - Officers and senior NCOs

USAA Casualty Insurance Company - Enlisted (E-1 to E-7) and children of the above

USAA General Indemnity Company - National Guard, Reserve

Garrison Property and Casualty - Extended family of the above

I can't get past the article's paywall to view the 51% rate, but I expect your claim process experience will vary based on which company is insuring you.

I have noticed that the quality of service has declined over the past 5 years or so (which lines up with Peacock's being CEO). It sometimes takes 2 or 3 calls to answer a question with my policies these days, as they now have high turnover in the call center.

New comment by chiph in "The Preemptive Draw and Preemptive Grip in the Cash-in-Transit Sector"

chiph — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 16:00:11 +0000

Story time: A relative of a former coworker had been laid-off from their bank job during the global financial crisis in 2008, but then picked up a position as a Colorado cannabis dispensary's CFO (their first).

When he arrived for his first day on the job, he discovered that employees were making cash pickups from the dispensaries using their personal automobiles. So they were having an hourly employee driving around in a Honda Civic with $50,000 or more in small unmarked bills the trunk. When they arrived back at the office, they would re-count the bills then store them in a plain steel filing cabinet. Like you'd buy at Office Depot.

The first thing he did was order some burglary-rated safes and got rid of the filing cabinets.

Then he called some of the armored car companies (cash-in-transit firms), and was surprised to find they didn't want his business! It turns out their main customers (banks and credit unions) were VERY concerned over getting his drug cash mixed up with their customer's cash through a mix-up inside the truck. Marijuana sales were (and still are) illegal at the federal level. Even though the cannabis business was legal in Colorado, banks are regulated at the federal level via the Comptroller of the Currency and they couldn't take the chance of their cash being intermingled.

To solve this problem he started a subsidiary armored car business and ordered new vehicles for it (had them painted with green leafs on them..) They would only be used to transport dispensary cash. He even called his counterparts at other dispensaries and sold them on using his new firm for their cash transport woes. This was successful and he now has competition in the transport business.

To continue on his entrepreneurial arc, he set up another subsidiary to manage their real estate transactions. They were having problems acquiring new locations for their dispensaries as real estate sales are also subject to federal scrutiny via the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

New comment by chiph in "Did my old job only exist because of fraud?"

chiph — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 01:28:30 +0000

That's because the bankers didn't realize they're not in the banking business anymore - they're in the IT business (which has a focus on tracking money).