Hacker News: deathbyzen

New comment by deathbyzen in "Appreciating Exif"

deathbyzen — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 18:08:48 +0000

that sounds endlessly frustrating

New comment by deathbyzen in "Canada’s Bill C-22 would weaken protections on private messages"

deathbyzen — Sun, 17 May 2026 19:27:04 +0000

too many words and the design is all over the place - you want people to listen, try shortening the length by about 80% and stop with the font changes, block text and then you have text boxes, dumb little AI headers... jesus christ

i get the message and agree this sounds awful but holy shit.

Ask HN: Online resources for Perl?

deathbyzen — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:14:31 +0000

I'm doing a little project for my employer. Basically, I'm converting something from Perl into php (It's for work, I have no choice in that matter). I've found some good php resources online, but not much for Perl other than some rather verbose books. Just wanted to know if there were any quick and dirty online resources/references for learning Perl. Thanks in advance.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140403

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

New comment by deathbyzen in "Crazy or viable?"

deathbyzen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:03:36 +0000

Either way, it is damn ugly.

New comment by deathbyzen in "How To Split Up The U.S."

deathbyzen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:46:11 +0000

New comment by deathbyzen in "What personality is that blog?"

deathbyzen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:28:55 +0000

New comment by deathbyzen in "Why do so many sites prevent special characters in passwords?"

deathbyzen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:20:30 +0000

I recently received a registration email from a website that I had never been to before. Apparently, a person with my same name beilieved HE owned $firstname.$lastname@gmail.com

It sent me his log-in credentials in plain text and I was able to contact him via his phone/address to warn him not to use my email.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Is Facebook Really Just AOL 2.0?"

deathbyzen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:53:30 +0000

Other similarity: I've used Facebook free for 1000 hours.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Android: float GRAVITY_DEATH_STAR_I"

deathbyzen — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:57:40 +0000

Well theres so much material in the Expanded Universe including a book called "Death Star" that tells the story of the Rebel Alliance victory from the perspective of people who worked there. So, I would just have to assume that they went over the specs/dimensions/weight of the Death Star at some point.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/deathstar/?id=eu

New comment by deathbyzen in "Michael Crichton has passed away"

deathbyzen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:05:17 +0000

Man, when I was in middle school I was so proud of myself for devouring The Lost World in like 4 days. I loved his work, and though I haven't read one of his books in some time, I will miss him greatly.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask YC: How to Build the Perfect Voting Machine?"

deathbyzen — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:10:23 +0000

Video at the polling booths might be illegal with our current laws.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Tell HN: If there is one shocker on election night, it's Georgia."

deathbyzen — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:48:16 +0000

Not to put too fine a point on it, say I'm the only bee in your bonnet!

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:56:47 +0000

Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:55:30 +0000

You've given me some things to think about and I appreciate it.

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:55:09 +0000

Thanks!

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:53:31 +0000

Thanks!

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:53:09 +0000

I appreciate it!

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:50:32 +0000

It does and it echoes something a friend of mine told me to do. He said the same thing you did which was to get experience working at the Geek Squad or something similar to see how its all done. Thanks for your input.

Ask HN: Have you ever been a one man Geek Squad? (Of course you have)

deathbyzen — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:12:37 +0000

I'm planning to go into business for myself (a "startup," surely you've heard of them) and providing the local citizens with an alternative to the Geek Squad. For those who don't know, Geek Squad is owned by Best Buy and they provide home installation and support of various electronics. Problem is, they suck. Or, at least, I know I can do it better.

Essentially, I want to be the computer guy for people who have little or no computer experience, but also provide support for people who know what they're doing but don't want to get ripped off by the Geek Squad. You know, a computer handyman with an old-timey-doctor feel. Walking in with my stethescope and big medical bag of tricks, telling the user to use Firefox instead of IE and to drink lots of fluids.

The problem I'm running into is that I know the "What" but not the "How." My starting point will probably be to see what the Geek Squad charges. Then, I'll see if there are any other local computer handymen and what they do and what they charge. Then, when I'm sure how to go about it I'll get the word out.

My question is how did you/would you go about it? If you've done it before, what was the experience like? What problems did you/do you run into? Are there any books/websites that you would reccomend for first-timers managing their own business?

Feedback is much appreciated.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=325380

Points: 8

# Comments: 13

New comment by deathbyzen in "Ask YC: Review my app (pycmds, a web-based command line)"

deathbyzen — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:39:36 +0000

1)Why require brackets? They seem superfluous. Unless theres something in the design of your code that requires them, I see them doing no good. 2)Shorthand versions of commands. "wiki stargate" instead of "wikipedia stargate" 3) The UI is nice. It took me a second to realize it wasn't a plug-in/extension like Ubiquity, but I had to type in commands at the bottom.

What are you reasons for making this app? I like it, but I can't see myself using it every day.