Hacker News: dpb001

New comment by dpb001 in "The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs"

dpb001 — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 02:20:56 +0000

I think the 14 year old nephew has been around for every iteration of technology - there are probably clients now threatening to just have their nephew vibe code the thing you're trying to spec out.

Once, when fed up with this during a discussion on a small moonlighting job I said "Yeah, kids are pretty good with this stuff these days, Tell you what - have him get started and I'll be available to give him any help he needs at 2x my rate".

New comment by dpb001 in "Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset"

dpb001 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:18:45 +0000

I’m a blue state resident and will not argue the point about overall quality of life. But a quick look at net inflow/outflow rankings by state show there’s already a migration in the red state direction. There are many factors involved, but the cost of living is certainly one. Taxes are a large component of the cost of living. Increasing them on a segment of the population that has the resources to move elsewhere can only result in some additional migration. Whether that results in a net loss of tax revenue remains to be seen.

New comment by dpb001 in "Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset"

dpb001 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 04:50:10 +0000

The union of states arrangement has the side effect of putting the states in competition with each other for things like new/expanding businesses and residents. It's relatively easy to relocate (or even remain in a state while legally "residing" elsewhere). So there are diminishing returns to raising the tax rates significantly on the upper brackets at the state level. I'm not a believer in the trickle down theory but beyond a certain marginal rate many people would just move to a state with a lower rate.

New comment by dpb001 in "ICAO issued new power bank restriction on flight"

dpb001 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 09:49:14 +0000

Coincidentally, I just checked in early for an upcoming Air Asia flight (first time on this airline, not China) and see that among other restrictions they require power banks to "be carried on your person or in the seat pocket in front of you" and "sealed in a plastic or insulated pouch or kept in their original retail packaging to prevent short circuits".

Agree that China TSA equivalent > US TSA.

New comment by dpb001 in "ICAO issued new power bank restriction on flight"

dpb001 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 02:56:49 +0000

I flew Cathay Pacific late January and power banks were prohibited in both checked luggage and overhead bins. Of course the overhead bin restriction would have been difficult to police and enforce. Also prohibited to use them for charging devices or to be charged from the onboard USB outlets. But the onboard outlets were good enough for anything I needed to do during the 15+ hour flight.

New comment by dpb001 in "The Brand Age"

dpb001 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 03:51:03 +0000

I don't doubt your experience, but out of curiosity, what led you to the conclusion that branding is "absolutely necessary"? It seems to me that the presence of a name on black rectangle wouldn't matter to the average consumer. I get that there's a percentage of the consumer market that wants to advertise that they're rocking an Apple/Samsung/whatever device, but I would think that price/performance would be the major factor. Of course, that's probably why no one has ever put me in charge of marketing strategy.

New comment by dpb001 in "The wonder of modern drywall"

dpb001 — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 01:36:28 +0000

My experience (South and NE US) is that walls are painted and ceilings are textured. More labor is required to produce a good finish on a drywall ceiling and knockdown and popcorn finishes arose to reduce construction costs.

New comment by dpb001 in "Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle"

dpb001 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 01:33:50 +0000

A company I worked for in the mid-80’s used a PC based CAD package with this kind of copy protection. IIRC the cost of the software was about $5K, and engineers using it probably made around 50K/yr. This level of expense required a lengthy capex justification approval process. There was a category of users who didn’t need the software full time and since the software was tied to the dongle it was common to have the package installed on multiple workstations and borrow the dongle when needed.

The nature of our business was such that there was a lot of logic analyzers and signal tracing equipment in the lab and the dongle was reverse engineered and cloned after a couple of “where’d my dongle go” incidents.

New comment by dpb001 in "Does our “need for speed” make our wi-fi suck?"

dpb001 — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 13:27:30 +0000

We just moved from a 70's-era house where I spent some time with a fish tape running cable to a 2025 three story townhouse (drywall already finished when we purchased).

For some reason the cable service entry is on the third floor in the laundry room. Ethernet and the TV signal cable runs from there to exactly one place, where the TV is expected to be mounted. Nothing in the nice office area on the other side of the wall.

My guess is that the thinking these days is that everyone's on laptops with wifi and hardwired network connections are only of interest for video streaming. Probably right for 99% of purchasers.

New comment by dpb001 in "Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio (2024)"

dpb001 — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 13:44:03 +0000

In the early 2000’s there were efforts to provide broadband over power lines (BPL). I think one of the biggest obstacles was the radio frequency interference it generated.

New comment by dpb001 in "Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?"

dpb001 — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 14:34:21 +0000

I think John Bolton would disagree with you.

New comment by dpb001 in "Did California's fast food minimum wage reduce employment?"

dpb001 — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 12:24:25 +0000

Better yet, serve alcohol and call it Bar/No Bars.

New comment by dpb001 in "My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]"

dpb001 — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 12:12:21 +0000

I am old and thankfully out of the getting hired game. I was cleaning out some files (paper!) recently and ran across correspondence from old job searches. As you said, single visit and decision. I was also struck by the number of letters from companies thanking me for my resume and politely telling me they were passing but would keep me in mind for future openings. It was not uncommon to receive a letter directly from the hiring manager thanking me for coming to an interview.

New comment by dpb001 in "Melbourne man discovers extensive model train network underneath house"

dpb001 — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 13:26:07 +0000

In the US the quality has varied widely over the few houses I’ve purchased over the years. I’m also skeptical of their aligned interests. In the US most home purchases take place with a real estate agent involved. An inspector that adds friction to the process won’t get recommendations from agents.

New comment by dpb001 in "The Barbican"

dpb001 — Tue, 13 May 2025 13:09:52 +0000

High demand in Iran (if it was a 405): https://www.theautopian.com/why-tuner-cars-in-iran-have-rear...

New comment by dpb001 in "Accountability Sinks"

dpb001 — Sat, 03 May 2025 11:50:00 +0000

In the US we don’t have a single DMV, but rather 50 separate DMV’s with varying degrees of efficiency and online capabilities. But in my state most routine things no longer require a physical visit. Licensing is pretty tightly controlled because in the US the card serves as a primary source of identification in the absence of a national ID card.

New comment by dpb001 in "How to Recognize Woodpeckers by Their Drumming Sounds"

dpb001 — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:30:34 +0000

We had the variety that was able to grab onto the edges exposed by the seams in our vertical cedar siding and so had holes at random places in the wall, far away from perching locations. Owl and crow decoys plus reflective discs dangling in the wind seemed to help but it’s hard to do A/B testing for this. The house was due for another coat of stain and after that they’ve stayed away - the new color is less tree-like so maybe that helps.

New comment by dpb001 in "Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI"

dpb001 — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 12:31:07 +0000

I would tell the interviewee that I want to continue the interview with the other person since their answers indicate they’d be a good fit for the position.

New comment by dpb001 in "HP avoids monetary damages over bricked printers in class-action settlement"

dpb001 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 14:41:51 +0000

Well, my replacement cycle is > 1 year and I have found that the suppliers on Amazon have a shorter life than that. I've ordered a full set of replacements twice and the last was from a seller named CMYBabee. After about a year the magenta started transferring toner to whatever I was printing. I was in the middle of printing tax returns and just went to the nearest Best Buy and bought an HP replacement.

I should add that I sent a note to the vendor about the problem and they were eager to send a replacement. I didn't bother since I was already set.

New comment by dpb001 in "HP avoids monetary damages over bricked printers in class-action settlement"

dpb001 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:07:58 +0000

m255dw owner also. You only have to swap the chips if you want the level reporting functions to work. I’ve used a couple of different third-party cartridges out of the box and just replaced them when empty. But, I have found that the reliability of the lowest cost cartridges is poor.