Hacker News: foobarian

New comment by foobarian in "For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas"

foobarian — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:13:06 +0000

Dams are just too good a source to ban them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station 60 GW planned capacity!

New comment by foobarian in "The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)"

foobarian — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 01:14:01 +0000

And who gets paged when the Claude integration fails?

New comment by foobarian in "This year’s insane timeline of hacks"

foobarian — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:03:57 +0000

At least this site managed to not get shut down because it appears to foster timely communication to cybercriminals :D

New comment by foobarian in "Filing the corners off my MacBooks"

foobarian — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 15:31:46 +0000

The build quality and least-nonsense OS is why I like it. Huge caveat though, I keep it plugged into a KVM setup so I don't actually use it directly, but I do keep it open on the side of my desk for meetings.

New comment by foobarian in "Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers"

foobarian — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:41:07 +0000

Not sure how Hetzner works, but do they have IDRAC type access to their servers and/or remote hands available to fix stuff? Guess you'd be on the hook for that sort of thing here, making the Hetzner price more appealing if they do include that kind of functionality.

New comment by foobarian in "My Experience as a Rice Farmer"

foobarian — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:18:48 +0000

I got into software because being an introvert, I always had trouble dealing with people and here were computers that always unquestioningly and faithfully obeyed all commands and that level of control always appealed to me.

Yet I like planting stuff and gardening as well - why? I think it's a side effect of growing up with parents and grandparents who did that sort of thing as a hobby and I feel it's a bit of a comfort zone for me.

New comment by foobarian in "I Won't Download Your App. The Web Version Is A-OK"

foobarian — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:08:10 +0000

It's worth mentioning that in many cases there is also the incentive to get away from Google's stranglehold on incoming traffic. Every app install is a path to your product that does not go through Google's SEO or SEM funnel.

New comment by foobarian in "The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing"

foobarian — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:18:35 +0000

My cynical take is that the 20th century exhausted the major scientific discoveries that move various global needles, and now doing well at fostering science matters less.

In the past, if you neglected your institutes and academia, what happened? A rival state got electricity/cars/nuclear weapons first and you would be SOL.

These days, what happens? They invent faster phones? Higher res video?

This take may be a bit hyperbolic but I find it's a good thought exercise prompt.

New comment by foobarian in "Solar and batteries can power the world"

foobarian — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:56:11 +0000

> Batteries have gotten so cheap

Any pointers for a regular Joe Shmoe homeowner looking for a backup battery? The Tesla Power Wall stuff and similar costs are halfway to six figures.

New comment by foobarian in "The SpaceX IPO: retail investor notes"

foobarian — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:05:15 +0000

If they manage to bag a platinum asteroid all bets are off

New comment by foobarian in "DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market"

foobarian — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:20:33 +0000

You jest, but I ended up getting a lot of use out of being able to do this in software for a dimmable LED lamp. Dimming the LED required PWM, and the potentiometer resistance -> PWM frequency map ended up fairly intricate to make the knob "feel right."

Now what I would have loved to have done is come up with some crazy analog circuit to implement an arbitrary transfer function from potentiometer input to LED voltage, but I didn't know how to do this at the time and the dev cycle would be a lot more painful than with software.

New comment by foobarian in "DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market"

foobarian — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:08:57 +0000

I picture a scene with Richard Crenna knocking on our old fogey's cabin door to ask us to come out of retirement and help hand-optimize software in this new environment

New comment by foobarian in "Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz"

foobarian — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:32:39 +0000

> sink two or three tankers to shut the whole thing down.

How so? The narrowest point is still 20 miles wide. Is there a deepwater lane that's narrower than that, but still impacted with a wreck?

New comment by foobarian in "Nobody is coming to save your career"

foobarian — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:36:46 +0000

I stayed away from the management track but friends who didn't tell me one of the metrics they are graded on is retention, i.e. if your reports leave at a more than average rate you will have a problem.

New comment by foobarian in "I use Excalidraw to manage my diagrams for my blog"

foobarian — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:12:47 +0000

My favorite aspect of it is the keyboard shortcuts. It makes things so much faster.

New comment by foobarian in "South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots"

foobarian — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 01:25:56 +0000

But, isn't the albedo of a solar panel farm still way dark? It means the radiation is still being captured rather than reflected back up.

New comment by foobarian in "21,864 Yugoslavian .yu domains"

foobarian — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:25:36 +0000

I think the problem is every tribe/nation/area has a percent of psychopaths (the estimates are 1 in 25), and if they run unchecked they end up doing evil things. This can then echo as the other side seeks retribution, etc. It takes significant effort to stomp out the fire.

New comment by foobarian in "21,864 Yugoslavian .yu domains"

foobarian — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:21:09 +0000

Mi smo Titovi, Tito je naš!

New comment by foobarian in "21,864 Yugoslavian .yu domains"

foobarian — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:20:33 +0000

Kusturica's movie "Underground" captures the Yugoslav vibe quite vividly, highly recommend

New comment by foobarian in "A Faster Alternative to Jq"

foobarian — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:38:57 +0000

I can't take seriously any talk about performance if the tools are going to shell out. It's just not a bottleneck.