Hacker News: firmretention

New comment by firmretention in "Qwen3.8 Max now ranked as the best overall model by agentic index"

firmretention — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:05:36 +0000

Imagine how much it must have cost to have him read your comment! I hope he sends you an invoice.

New comment by firmretention in "Quake – 30th Anniversary Update"

firmretention — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:05:36 +0000

Dang it, sold out :(

New comment by firmretention in "Three Six Mafia – Data about "6/6/6 dating" (2024)"

firmretention — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:07:10 +0000

Not really. The exercise needed is minimal and the rest is just calorie management. Now having said that it's not easy - simple, and not particularly time consuming yes, but psychologically very difficult unless you naturally tend towards leanness.

New comment by firmretention in "The title cards in Blade Runner are amazing"

firmretention — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:27:28 +0000

I still enjoy some of his later works. James Cameron on the other hand - boggles my mind that he wants to waste his remaining years on that Avatar dreck.

New comment by firmretention in "The title cards in Blade Runner are amazing"

firmretention — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:15:22 +0000

This is definitely a thing. I remember buying the Metallica black album tab book and there was one section in there with a chord that was literally impossible to play as written. I can't remember exactly where it was, but it was a two note chord on adjacent strings with an impossible to cover distance between them.

New comment by firmretention in "Let's all meet up in the Y2K"

firmretention — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:47:06 +0000

I'd be more than happy to take your place on death row.

New comment by firmretention in "When random.bytes() runs but doesn't work"

firmretention — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:38:08 +0000

While I agree self-custody is too onerous for the average person, Coldcard's own documentation had a section on generating secure seeds with dice and why that's more secure. It wasn't some esoteric knowledge - anyone who RTFM on the device they intended to store their savings on was fine. That's not an absolution of Coldcard of course, but it's not "new cope".

New comment by firmretention in "Why DNA damage from smoking and UV rays cause cancer in some but not others"

firmretention — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:55:04 +0000

I found the physical addiction much harder to kick. I switched to no-nicotine e-liquid and felt very little in the way of withdrawals. But months later I was still reaching for a phantom vape to puff on. It's been almost two years now and I never think about it anymore.

New comment by firmretention in "'Crush this lady': how eBay harassment campaign led to $56M payout"

firmretention — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:16:10 +0000

Yeah, now you pay $30 in real shipping to have everything routed through ebay's hub and have your package take three times long to get there.

New comment by firmretention in "Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)"

firmretention — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:22:36 +0000

I was on the web in the late 90s! I don't recall seeing anything like this, although it certainly may have existed. Animated cursors yes (CometCursor!), but not little animations chasing your cursor.

New comment by firmretention in "Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)"

firmretention — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:21:29 +0000

I remember CometCursor and the like, but nothing that chased the cursor itself.

New comment by firmretention in "My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded"

firmretention — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:22:35 +0000

I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.

New comment by firmretention in "Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)"

firmretention — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:29:07 +0000

On the list of extremely annoying things you can put on a webpage, a cat constantly running after my cursor is definitely a new one for me.

New comment by firmretention in "Just Let Me Write Digits"

firmretention — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:01:08 +0000

My most hated one is not allowing me to right-click to open a context menu, or even worse, making right-click act the same as left-click, redirecting me to some page I never intended to go to.

New comment by firmretention in "Sam Neill has died"

firmretention — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:33:27 +0000

Ivanhoe is a story about a Russian farmer and his tool.

New comment by firmretention in "Amazon without the knockoffs"

firmretention — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:47:23 +0000

I used to do this more often, but I find the gap is narrowing a lot. Most of the time I find I don't save enough to justify getting it in two weeks over 1 day.

New comment by firmretention in "How Alberta Eradicated Rats"

firmretention — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 16:33:07 +0000

Yup. My house is 50 years old and a townhome. I was killing 3-4 mice a week at one point! Got the entry points sealed and it's down to 2-3 a year. Will probably never get it down to zero because they can get in through my neighbors and find their way here somehow.

New comment by firmretention in "How Alberta Eradicated Rats"

firmretention — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:07:40 +0000

I never really saw them until I started working around Vanier. Seen some huge colonies near dumpsters.

New comment by firmretention in "How Alberta Eradicated Rats"

firmretention — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:05:22 +0000

Yeah, without sealing entry points, they just keep coming. Not only can they can squeeze through tiny holes, they leave a trail of pheromones behind them letting other mice know where to come in. Mice infestations are awful. Hate the buggers.

New comment by firmretention in "If you are asking for human attention, demonstrate human effort"

firmretention — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:40:35 +0000

People are not generally answering interview questions based on instinct, but rather based on what they think the interviewer wants to hear to get the job. I would have interpreted this is as a leetcode style algo question and started by treating it as such, even though IRL my first instinct would be "get a lib that does it". Awful, awful strategy.