Hacker News: gullywhumper

New comment by gullywhumper in "Dostoyevsky isn't difficult"

gullywhumper — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 14:04:05 +0000

My wife had a grandfather with the first name Bill and middle William. After 12 years together, I'm still not sure if she's just messing with me.

New comment by gullywhumper in "Worldwide Sidewalk Joy: Adding whimsy to neighborhoods"

gullywhumper — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:39:42 +0000

The park across the street from me in Minneapolis has a stick library. It's well-stocked and popular with both dogs and little kids.

New comment by gullywhumper in "How often do full-body MRIs find cancer?"

gullywhumper — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 01:10:43 +0000

2.5 years in of regular PET scans. At this point, I’m almost humored by what gets flagged as suspicious by the radiologist - usually mosquito bites and stomach bugs (kids in daycare means I’m almost always sick). I have a scan Monday and two weeks ago had a re-excision so there’s a two inch gash healing on my back. This week I got three vaccines. And then tonight my toddler bit me hard enough to draw blood. I had asked the oncologist if it made sense to delay the scan because of the re-excision and he said not to worry because he’d know why there’s inflammation in that area. I’m thinking the bite and the shots will probably get flagged too. I just hope I don’t forget any other maladies or mishaps that might get flagged that I can’t explain.

New comment by gullywhumper in "New California law restricts HOA fines to $100 per violation"

gullywhumper — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 02:19:50 +0000

Should the government of California lead by example and also limit the maximum level of fines levied by any entity within the state (state, county, city, or other org)?

Why is a fine levied by an HOA any different than an org at one of those other levels of governance from the perspective of democracy?

Seems to me, many of the same people cheering this law, also bemoan 'attacks on democracy' from the federal gov't. So what is the right level of democracy?

New comment by gullywhumper in "New California law restricts HOA fines to $100 per violation"

gullywhumper — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 01:56:59 +0000

I live in a city where people are shot and killed every week (no exaggeration) and car jackings weren't even tracked until the last couple years. The city government can't manage things that are getting people killed or brutally beaten, so where should late-night noise rank on their priorities? I can still hear the gunshots when I'm going to bed, but in my HOA at least I don't have to worry about my immediate neighbors causing too much trouble. There's at least some level of local accountability, despite the tradeoffs.

New comment by gullywhumper in "New California law restricts HOA fines to $100 per violation"

gullywhumper — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 23:04:15 +0000

But why obviously? Is city really the best level? Seems to me much easier for people to move between neighborhoods than between cities. When I was younger, I had no problem with loud neighbors in a louder neighborhood - older now with kids and very happy to pay for quiet despite other trade offs.

New comment by gullywhumper in "New California law restricts HOA fines to $100 per violation"

gullywhumper — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 22:43:07 +0000

Sure, but which government body - city, county, state, federal?

I don’t particularly like my HOA, but I could live elsewhere and at least feel like I have more say in my HOA than any of those other bodies.

New comment by gullywhumper in "I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens"

gullywhumper — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 17:01:25 +0000

Visiting my parents this summer with my kids, I was excited to find that the zoo served beer. That definitely wasn't an option for my dad when I was growing up.

New comment by gullywhumper in "Ask HN: How many of you are working in tech without a STEM degree?"

gullywhumper — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:49:22 +0000

History major. First job was managing inter-modal shipping in a giant Excel spreadsheet and emailing it to our India office every night. At the time, I thought Excel was so cool because it seemed like I could do anything with it. I didn't know anyone who wrote code. I had no no idea what was out there.

11 years with R/Python/SQL in a very small team. The last 5 years over 1500 web scrapes running everyday, and then aggregating, categorizing, and analyzing that data.

I've only interviewed a handful of times since starting. It's not come up in any of them, but I've often thought a good response to a "what's one of your weaknesses" question, would be to say that I'm self taught. Nobody has ever reviewed any of my code. I have no pretense of it being elegant or the best way to solve a problem, but it's simple, it works, and I'm determined to solve the problem in front of me.

The AI Scraping Fight That Could Change the Future of the Web

gullywhumper — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:28:52 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-news-website-scraping-e903eb23

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44509821

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by gullywhumper in "A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce"

gullywhumper — Fri, 23 May 2025 00:44:14 +0000

I haven't read this in a while, but remember this Malcom Gladwell article discussing why other ketchups haven't had much success:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-co...

New comment by gullywhumper in "The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: Science and Sacrifice in a City Under Siege"

gullywhumper — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 03:58:52 +0000

David Benioff’s (Game of Thrones show runner) City of Thieves is a very entertaining book set during the siege. It was an inspiration for The Last of Us video game (and later HBO series)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_(novel)

New comment by gullywhumper in "Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things"

gullywhumper — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:25:31 +0000

EB Sledge - With the Old Breed is the account of a combat infantryman in WWII in the Pacific. It's about the fear, misery, and despair soldiers faced as they struggled to survive the horrors of war. It was the basis for HBO's The Pacific (successor to Band of Brothers).

New comment by gullywhumper in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)"

gullywhumper — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 00:12:09 +0000

When my first kid was born, I committed this poem and about a dozen more to memory. In the middle of sleepless nights, and zombie stroller walks, they kept me sane because I felt like I could focus on so little outside of work besides the all-consuming kid. I worried for a little bit what passersby thought when they heard me rambling to myself in the park, but that concern didn’t last long. Almost 4 years later, I’m typing this as I rock my second to sleep, thankful for the reminder to go through my list of poems - surprised how quickly they all came back - and still desperately trying to stay sane. Though it is easier this time around.

New comment by gullywhumper in "Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world"

gullywhumper — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:21:59 +0000

The museum also includes the battleship USS Alabama, a good collection of aircraft, and then some tanks, artillery, and other equipment. My grandpa took me there every summer as a kid and I could never get enough.

New comment by gullywhumper in "Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return"

gullywhumper — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 02:24:23 +0000

I've been seeing more and more places also include the taxes and other fees in the total used to calculate the suggested tip. That seems pretty slimy to me.

New comment by gullywhumper in "The Minneapolis Street Grid: Explained"

gullywhumper — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 14:19:30 +0000

My mom grew up in what was then mostly farms northwest of Detroit. When Eminem's Eight Mile came out, I immediately connected it with the street we turned off to get to my grandparents' place but never thought it could actually be the same road Eminem was referencing. Very different worlds.

New comment by gullywhumper in "Appalachian Trail Hiker Photo Archive"

gullywhumper — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:58:40 +0000

Wow - thank you!

New comment by gullywhumper in "Why are Texas interchanges so tall?"

gullywhumper — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:28:32 +0000

I lived in Dallas for a couple years, and while driving the Hive Five interchange (mentioned in the article) always seemed a little crazy, what really blew my mind was that a specific interchange could warrant its own Wikipedia page. For some reason that more than anything else really underscored its scale.

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

New comment by gullywhumper in "Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road"

gullywhumper — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:02:52 +0000

The alcohol really surprises me given how meticulous they are about everything else - especially sleep monitoring. After a big win, it's not uncommon for the entire team to have sparkling wine or beer that night. Maybe not a big deal for one day races, but with stage races they usually have another hard race the next day. On the podium during stage races, victors will often drink sparkling wine/beer too. After winning a stage at last year's Vuelta a España (one of the major multi-day stage races) Sepp Kuss took a huge long chug on the podium - and then went on to when the entire race [1]!

Some riders used to drink during races too. Freddy Maertens was able to do it and still win [2].

[1] https://www.atwistedspoke.com/sepp-kuss-champagne-supernova/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Maertens#Alcohol