Hacker News: curlcntr

New comment by curlcntr in "How to post when no one is reading"

curlcntr — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:43:41 +0000

github, youtube posts, for my hobby have small visibility. Doesn't matter. I enjoy the project for fun of creating and building.

New comment by curlcntr in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)"

curlcntr — Mon, 26 May 2025 01:01:03 +0000

Open source hybrid piano. Been a very part-time hobby for several years.

New comment by curlcntr in "The power of admitting ignorance"

curlcntr — Sat, 02 May 2020 12:38:53 +0000

I put this on the back of my phone after completing my PhD.

"in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few" - Shunryu Suzuki

New comment by curlcntr in "The formula for pi buried in a hydrogen atom"

curlcntr — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 03:17:59 +0000

Great quotes!

I had an EE graduate degree (systems, dsp, control...) and returned to school for a physical chemistry graduate degree. Initially was nervous about my first QM class but as Hamming noted so much of the math is similar.

New comment by curlcntr in "Civilizational Collapse, Part 4"

curlcntr — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 13:44:15 +0000

And something else for any future intelligent species:

Today, fossils are dug up and flown around the world to museums etc. We publish but if that storage doesn't last or is undecipherable, future civilizations might have an interesting adventure trying to reconstruct the world of 100's of millions of years before our time.

I wonder if there has been any consideration of this or attempts at placing long-lived simple markings to guide?

New comment by curlcntr in "Debussy’s Radical Search for Simplicity"

curlcntr — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 02:57:19 +0000

Its interesting to see the influence of Debussy through time. For example the wonderful work of Bill Evans.

New comment by curlcntr in "TSA’s Roadmap for Airport Surveillance Moves in a Dangerous Direction"

curlcntr — Sun, 09 Dec 2018 03:58:22 +0000

This might be a stupid question, but, airplanes are computerized, can they be programmed such-that they simply won't fly into buildings, cities, restricted airspace, etc..

New comment by curlcntr in "Ask HN: What are you thankful for?"

curlcntr — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 03:38:45 +0000

My team at work. We are racing to an important deadline. Everyone is working well together. Its just fun.

New comment by curlcntr in "Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews"

curlcntr — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 20:22:31 +0000

And given the possibility some interviewers experiencing their own imposter syndrome, around being qualified to assess qualifications, perhaps that could explain some of the questions too.

New comment by curlcntr in "Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?"

curlcntr — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 03:54:20 +0000

"naming is the origin of all particular things" - Tao Te Ching.

That quote, first page, stopped me in my tracks for a long time. I often recall it when I'm tempted by the naming (categorization, abstracting, ...) of some X imagining I understand more about it than I actually do. Similar to as you note, I think.

New comment by curlcntr in "Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?"

curlcntr — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 03:36:26 +0000

Yeah, my first exited to $0 as well.

New comment by curlcntr in "How America lost its love for the stick shift"

curlcntr — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 02:56:16 +0000

With you there. My '68 Camaro, small-block, and requisite Muncie 4-speed. Can't imagine it any other way.

New comment by curlcntr in "Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young"

curlcntr — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 16:22:07 +0000

Yeah, back then we would spend massive amount of time hanging around with friends, with few distractions. Cruising was popular, confined to one block, and lots of people, because if you strayed from those physical locations, there was little way to reconnect with the group.

I don't know how it is today.

New comment by curlcntr in "People start hating their jobs at 35"

curlcntr — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:00:06 +0000

I wonder if mid-30's could be a point of going either direction?

At 34 I discovered a career passion around serving others, whereas previously the orientation was mostly toward myself.

Nothing changed in my daily work, just a perspective.

New comment by curlcntr in "The physics of infinity"

curlcntr — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:03:54 +0000

"There is a duality between zero and infinity, expressed in the elementary identity 1/0 = ∞ . If one side of the duality does not occur in nature, also the other side ought not to."

It wasn't clear to me that the second sentence was sufficiently proved. At first glance it seems reasonable, but the authors went a bit too fast past that claim for me.

New comment by curlcntr in "Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs"

curlcntr — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 19:45:11 +0000

My company has a tuition assistance program that allowed me to complete an MS and PhD, while working full-time. Took 10 years. Loved it!

And, it wasn't just the money that helped, it was also that they supported continuing education.

New comment by curlcntr in "Ask HN: What would you work on, if you had enough free time?"

curlcntr — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 16:27:32 +0000

I enjoy combining piano and computer programming and have so many musical composition and animation ideas but they are all fragments of completion. For the past year I've been trying to finish some and put on youtube but would enjoy doing more. Then I might actually improve too!

By chance I just put one up this morning

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

New comment by curlcntr in "What I would do differently if I was learning to program again"

curlcntr — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:43:43 +0000

I learned to program on my own then studied EE and hard sciences in school. Figured I already knew everything about programming. Hubris of my youth. I'd have taken more CS courses in college.

New comment by curlcntr in "Ask HN: Pros and cons of working at a startup in 2018?"

curlcntr — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 20:14:30 +0000

I worked as an engineer at a startup early in my career (looong time ago). Company went under, stock => $0.

However, I am extremely grateful for that time. It taught me a wide range of non-technical skills that have proved invaluable throughout my career.

Most of those non-technical skills revolved around leadership opportunities, being given huge responsibilities vs. my skill/age (and having to figure it all out on my own), and getting to participate in many aspects of the business.

It ingrained in me ownership; and I've never been able to shake bringing that startup mentality to everything I do at a larger company.

Just my experience. Much of this perhaps is achievable while at larger companies, depending on the situation.

New comment by curlcntr in "Mindfulness may have been over-hyped"

curlcntr — Wed, 09 May 2018 02:15:54 +0000

I have the book the author of that article wrote (The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw). Its an interesting book. Historical perspective on ideas is fascinating.