Hacker News: ghaff

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:56:19 +0000

Totally. I'm not going to go to a gym, not going to go to the pool, I might get some more takeout if it were a 5 minute walk away. But I'm not going to the theater once a week. I've actually lived in Manhattan and it just wouldn't be for me.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:44:20 +0000

There are some places in the US--probably Manhattan most obviously--where there's a culture that doesn't have the expectation that you have a car. But, while people living in most other cities can basically do a post-university lifestyle without one even in cities with relatively good public transit, a lot of their friends probably live outside the city, a lot of activities depend on cars, etc.

I do know an adult couple in SF who gave up their cars but I'd observe that they rely on Ubers and various rentals a lot. I don't think I know anyone in the Boston/Cambridge area who doesn't have a car. Of course, they exist but I don't know one.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:31:19 +0000

And part of the problem in the US is that the US census has a very binary definition: urban and rural. Myself and two neighbors live on about 100 acres (not counting adjacent conservation land). We're considered urban. because we're about an hour drive of a fairly large city.

But a lot of people will pop up and say that 80% of the US is urban with the implication that 20% of people are living in the back of beyond in Wyoming and it's simply not true.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:25:43 +0000

I'm not sure that's actually true in a typical park. It may very well be true for a bunch of noisy kids in a shopping mall which exists and is paid for for the purpose of people, well, shopping.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:15:24 +0000

Yeah, it depends on your definitions I guess. I'm certainly not in classic suburbia. I think ESRI says I'm in an exurb. In any case, I'm certainly not walking anyplace except down to the river or to a couple adjacent neighbors or conservation land within a 100+ acres total. Where I grew up was similar. This is considered urban by the US census by the way.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:09:51 +0000

I don't really disagree. One hour each way starts to seem like a lot. 30 minutes isn't walking next door or downstairs but seems pretty doable in general. Even within a large city with decent public transit, it's not hard to get up to close to a half-hour commute to get into an office. Most people who don't work from home don't live a 5 minute walk from their workplace.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:57:18 +0000

I guess.

I have a season ticket to a theater about an hour away. There are also local concerts/theater out where I live. I see theater when I travel. I actually have decent restaurants out where I live but don't use them much.

I guess I'm also not sure how this running into philosophers and musicians works. Maybe if I were actively involved with a university which I actually am to some degree.

Of course, different people have different preferences.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:07:13 +0000

It depends on the infrastructure as well. I'm about a 7 minute drive from my local commuter rail but it's essentially unwalkable as that 7 minutes is basically along an interstate. I do take the commuter rail if I'm going into the city 9-5 on weekdays but that's very rare.

New comment by ghaff in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:03:14 +0000

Historically, probably more people had to work in cities and many of those people had a preference for not having a long commute. Those dynamics have doubtless changed to some degree. But, if I had to commute daily to the nearest large city, I'd seriously consider living there. But I don't have to so I live rurally/exurban or whatever you want to call it.

New comment by ghaff in "IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 00:37:28 +0000

I won't argue with that. There's photonics, there's trapped ion. Need to dive back in.

New comment by ghaff in "IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry"

ghaff — Tue, 26 May 2026 00:30:41 +0000

There seem to be fixes available for crypto. The issue is getting people to implement those fixes. Which, of course, is the issue with getting people to implement a lot of security fixes more broadly.

New comment by ghaff in "IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry"

ghaff — Mon, 25 May 2026 13:43:56 +0000

I don't have the same level of cynicism with quantum that I had with enterprise blockchain. (Hey, I spent a number of years getting sucked into things that didn't pan out along with some that did in a big way.) I pretty much agree with respect to quantum. Practical value is probably further away than a number of folks were betting on at one point though I still believe it's there.

New comment by ghaff in "IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry"

ghaff — Mon, 25 May 2026 13:30:37 +0000

I've been out of the space for a bit. IBM has been betting on the engineered superconducting approach, which makes sense given their background, but there are other options, often for potentially different problem areas. Need to dive back in.

New comment by ghaff in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"

ghaff — Sun, 24 May 2026 14:08:12 +0000

This has been a political issue in the past--mostly with respect to Spanish--but there's essentially a de facto English requirement for most purposes.

New comment by ghaff in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

ghaff — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:21:26 +0000

Or it just decays without a real owner.

New comment by ghaff in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

ghaff — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:20:35 +0000

Luxury malls in cities aren't really my thing and there are even some higher-end suburban malls where Apple stores seem to have become an anchor store in this day and age that I would have laughed at once upon a time--shows how much I know.

I will say I have walked into some malls in Vegas and only half-hyperbolically thought I couldn't (and/or wouldn't want) to have afforded pretty much anything.

New comment by ghaff in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

ghaff — Fri, 22 May 2026 12:45:53 +0000

Yeah, I walked by the block-long line of people a couple months ago and pretty much crossed it off my mental list. Didn't need another physical book and there is no shortage of cafes in Paris. Also didn't even make a special trip there. I like to stay in the Latin Quarter and happened to be walking by.

I agree it's not exactly the random indie bookstore though as it's probably listed in every Paris guidebook.

New comment by ghaff in "Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods"

ghaff — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:29:57 +0000

And, in the north, you have snowstorms. I'm glad to not be in a situation where you were pretty much expected to drive into office jobs every day whatever the conditions any longer. But that used to be the case barring the rare state of emergency.

Yes, there were certainly plows. But driving was still somewhat dangerous and you saw cars off roads on a regular basis. Driving into work on one of those daysz, I picked a pregnant woman off the median of a road whose car had gotten stuck.

New comment by ghaff in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

ghaff — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:14:58 +0000

The general theory of most malls was that you had anchor stores. My local one has a couple of stores adjacent to the mall (a local chain supermarket and and Home Depot) that are very busy, almost too much so. The mall itself is pretty much dead and has been on the market for ages. The anchor stores--JCPenney, Sears, and Macy's are all long gone. Haven't been in the actual mall in ages but I assume it's pretty sad and there seem very few cars in the lots.

Oh, yeah, the Toys 'R Us in the complex is long gone too.

New comment by ghaff in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

ghaff — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:09:40 +0000

If it's empty and crumbling, I doubt it's all that valuable to be repurposed for housing or anything else. I did note the other day in the very small downtown of a nearby minor city that the the ancient travel agent is now a party supply store. But, really, there's not a lot in that downtown.