Hacker News: goatforce5

New comment by goatforce5 in "Tim King, AmigaDOS developer, has died"

goatforce5 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:05:08 +0000

I dropped out of a decidedly average university to do customer support for the first ISP in Australia. After a couple of years of that, I got itchy feet and found myself in London, England. The plan was to follow the footsteps of many thousands of Australians before me, and get a job in a bar (note: I had zero experience in bar work), and get enough money to hang out in London for a while, and maybe do some side trips into Europe.

It was '96 or '97, and the dotcom boom was just getting started. Deciding to try my luck, I picked up one of the trade papers to look at the job listings. I bought myself a suit at Marks and Spencers and jumped on a tube to go to my first job interview. I took the tube home, and by the time I got to the other end I had a message waiting for me saying I got the job.

I found myself reporting to the brilliant Jack Lang (https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/news/farewell-jack-lang), tweaking software developed by Tim King's company, Perihelion. I really was just making minor tweaks to a bunch of perl scripts, so I managed to stumble through it and not make a total fool of myself. Even though I was working with folks with extremely impressive bodies of work behind them and I was just some scruffy backpacker dude, they were always kind and generous to me. I met some great people there.

I never did get a chance to learn how to pour a beer.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated"

goatforce5 — Fri, 08 May 2026 22:23:14 +0000

To be fair, that's exactly the sort of thing a dead person would say, if they were trying to trick you into believing they were alive.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated"

goatforce5 — Fri, 08 May 2026 22:18:03 +0000

If this post from Cliff was a cunning strategy to increase sales of Acme Klein Bottles, well, it's worked.

I too just ordered one (having been meaning to do so for a good number of years at this point).

New comment by goatforce5 in "Building a TB-303 from Scratch"

goatforce5 — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 21:12:14 +0000

I, too, have a TB-303.

It seems like there might be a disproportionate number of 303 owners here on HN.

New comment by goatforce5 in "MacBook Neo"

goatforce5 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:21:24 +0000

At some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student.

"Umm, I kinda look like a student."

"Good enough for me!"

I got a student discount.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores"

goatforce5 — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:47:23 +0000

You can use the Apple Store app to purchase physical items at Apple retail locations (smaller items like cables or cases). I've used it a couple of times, and I feel very awkward using it, so much so that I'll walk out kinda waving the receipt/acknowledgement screen around so that staff/security can hopefully see I'm not nicking something.

New comment by goatforce5 in "‘Bluey’s World’: How a Cute Aussie Puppy Became a Juggernaut"

goatforce5 — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 23:48:36 +0000

I came here to say this. Dave McCormack and Custard were in a popular indie band in Oz in the 90s. A couple of years ago he performed a couple of songs with The Wiggles, and came out on stage saying "Hello everyone, it's me! I'm from the 90s!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEeEjEdTqqk

He uses his normal speaking voice for Bandit, and you can very clearly hear the same voice when he's signing most of the Custard stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_LSm7FjRI

Wisenheimer and Wahooti Fandango are still both great albums (...and then I moved overseas and drifted out of the Custard orbit). For anyone with kids firmly in the Bluey demographic, I bet you could really confuse them by playing Custard at them.

I'm surprised they (i.e. record companies) haven't been trying to push Custard more, given there's a large fan based just waiting to be tapped. It would be fun to see Bandit do karaoke of a Custard song, or sing a few lines when he was in the shower, or just doing chores, etc.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Why don't we know how antidepressants work yet?"

goatforce5 — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 17:07:59 +0000

Or it might be a case of situational depression:

https://www.webmd.com/depression/situational-depression

New comment by goatforce5 in "Google testing facial recognition technology for security near Seattle"

goatforce5 — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 20:20:34 +0000

> His personal security cost was part of his “All Other Compensation” which amounted to $6,802,824 in 2023, and also consists of his 401(k) or Roth plan, and personal use of company aircraft or car.

https://qz.com/google-amazon-apple-tesla-nvidia-ceo-security...

I suspect a large part of that $6.8m is the cost of operating private aircraft.

e.g. A previous slide in the above link states that Apple's board requires Tim Cook to use a private aircraft for personal and business travel.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Nvidia is about to pass Apple in market cap"

goatforce5 — Wed, 29 May 2024 20:45:26 +0000

Can US auto makers (or even non-Tesla automakers generally) manufacture EVs at sufficient scale? Tesla seems to be far ahead of their competition:

https://caredge.com/guides/electric-vehicle-market-share-and...

BYD and Xiaomi in China seem to be catching up to Tesla far quicker than the US/European auto makers are.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Google fires more workers after CEO says workplace isn’t for politics"

goatforce5 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:14:59 +0000

You can disrupt an office without entering the office. Just stand outside and block the entrance, yell at people trying to enter the office, or bang pots and pans and create a disturbance.

(I have no idea what happened at Google. The article is behind a paywall for me.)

New comment by goatforce5 in "Software glitch saw Aussie casino give away millions in cash"

goatforce5 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:59:42 +0000

Where were you in Australia? And what sort of gambling machines are we talking about?

> The laws regulating the use of gaming machines in Australia are a matter for state governments, and as such they vary between states. Gaming machines are found in casinos (approximately one in each major city) as well as pubs and clubs in some states (usually sports, social, or RSL clubs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machines_by_country#Austr...

New comment by goatforce5 in "The Boring Phone"

goatforce5 — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 18:22:28 +0000

Useful for people who primarily use their phone for phone calls.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Show HN: Aldi Price Map"

goatforce5 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:35:20 +0000

I popped into an Aldi in Portugal ~6 months ago, and I noticed they had some Trader Joe's products on the shelves. Unsurprisingly, Aldi Portugal is owned by Aldi Nord.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases"

goatforce5 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:36:01 +0000

I believe a share of revenue is not uncommon in shopping mall leases. e.g.:

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent....

New comment by goatforce5 in "Airlines will make $118B in extra fees"

goatforce5 — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 22:19:32 +0000

Google Flights will allow you to select how many carry-ons and checked bags you have (depending on the route).

e.g., on an imaginary trip to Las Vegas, the cheapest carrier changed when I added a checked and carry on bag (and the price difference from a budget carrier to a mainline carrier shrunk considerably).

New comment by goatforce5 in "OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman"

goatforce5 — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 21:26:36 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave

New comment by goatforce5 in "Olive oil soars, and thieves go after century-old trees in the Mediterranean"

goatforce5 — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 18:17:28 +0000

I was there ~2 months ago, near Faro. Our driver said they had had very little rain in the past 3 years. He showed us empty creeks and rivers, etc. And the area certainly looked very dry.

It looks like it rained quite a bit in the past month, though, so if that has turned things around for them, then I am very pleased.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Las Vegas Sphere reports $98.4M loss; CFO quits"

goatforce5 — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 16:58:32 +0000

While all that is true, I try to avoid breaking the law when visiting foreign countries. I wouldn't want to make future travel unnecessarily complicated.

New comment by goatforce5 in "Olive oil soars, and thieves go after century-old trees in the Mediterranean"

goatforce5 — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 16:22:58 +0000

Just to echo what you said:

I was in Portugal a couple of months ago, and our local tour guide said the drought conditions meant we should expect to pay 3x the price for olive oil over the next year or two.