Hacker News: halper

New comment by halper in "Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer to energy shocks"

halper — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:27:16 +0000

During the most expensive month in recent years, the price has (on average) been <150 öre/kWh.

Like prices of dinosaur soup at the pump, the majority of the cost for an individual end consumer is not the electricity itself. On top of the market price, you pay fixed two fixed fees, transfer tariffs, surcharges, sales tax (moms), energy tax and other things I have forgotten.

New comment by halper in "I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years"

halper — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 09:28:12 +0000

I am also quite interested in psychology, but at least in my realm it would take something like 5–7 years of studies etc to become a licensed psychologist, if you want to work directly with humans. That is quite the investment and I am not sure that I have a long enough personal runway for that.

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: Would engineers be interested in a technical prep consultant?"

halper — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:10:48 +0000

Through luck and happenstance, I have rarely needed to look for a job before; I have always come across new opportunities through my network. Usually it has been a recommendation/referral + one or two interviews and then I have received an offer. This has worked for 20 years, but after a relocation I have been searching for my next thing recently, the traditional way. I am now in the situation where I am someone "off the street" instead of someone warmly recommended by a current or former employee. At least where I am looking, the market is definitely not great, and even getting a first reply at all is rare.

During my professional life I have interviewed hundreds of people. Among other things, I have built teams from the ground up, I have managed people remotely across three continents and I sometimes meet up with people I "managed" 15+ years ago who claim that that team was one of the best they ever worked in. But when I sit on the OTHER side of the table, it is evident I am really, really, REALLY rusty: it happens at least a couple of times per interview that my mind basically blanks when I get a question that I should be able to answer. Naturally, as soon as I step out of the interview, my helpful brain provides me with the answers.

I was just thinking, on my morning walk today, that I should be looking for someone who may want to inflict a couple of mock interviews upon me...

New comment by halper in "Don't become an engineering manager"

halper — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:55:24 +0000

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend developer" than a "staff engineer". I have recently interviewed for a number of roles with titles like CTO, engineering manager, tech lead etc and there is so much overlap that they seem to be one and the same. Have worked at companies on three continents, in organisations ranging from 6 people to 10k+, so have seen a few titles.

New comment by halper in "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)"

halper — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 05:15:53 +0000

Wonderfully written. If I have had too much caffeine I also look forward to the time when it burns off: "finally the tension on the harp strings eases, and one returns to the relaxed, meandering, simple-minded and cryptogamous life of the retired bourgeoisie."

New comment by halper in "New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes"

halper — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:12:11 +0000

It is probably even a hyphen-minus, so called because on most early keyboards one character had to do to represent both a hyphen and a minus. In Unicode, there is a separate code point for an unambiguous hyphen. There is also a non-breaking hyphen as well as the various dashes discussed here.

And "--" is absolutely just two hyphen-minuses, not an em-dash (—).

New comment by halper in "Every company building your AI assistant is now an ad company"

halper — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 13:54:21 +0000

Vodka that expires must be the epitome of enshittification!

New comment by halper in "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"

halper — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 04:49:10 +0000

I always thought it was because it is more obvious how to pronounce "postgres" than "PostgreSQL".

New comment by halper in "Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?"

halper — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 06:47:35 +0000

Well, methamphetamine is very rarely (never?) prescribed for ADHD. Ritalin is methylphenidate.

New comment by halper in "30 years ago today "Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript""

halper — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:49:55 +0000

It is a proper noun, in contrast to the other internets. If there is a guy called Guy you would not call him guy.

New comment by halper in ""Many students are simply refusing to do anything.""

halper — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 07:01:02 +0000

I am not so sure that the schools necessarily should make it their problem. Sure, compulsory primary schools should try pretty damn hard to drag pupils along. However, once one gets to the tertiary level of education, one should (1) have the academic credentials/prerequisites needed for the chosen program of study (otherwise the admission process has failed or the grades have been inflated/made up) and (2) desire to learn.

Of course, be a good human and reach out a helping hand to those that seem to struggle but, if you have students who truly do nothing, want nothing and try nothing then just move on? If they fail in their first semester then they are not there the second.

New comment by halper in "Inside Rust's std and parking_lot mutexes – who wins?"

halper — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 07:52:56 +0000

Is that not because there is not much to do, and therefore people use .unwrap() — because crashing is actually quite sane?

Correctness trumps ergonomics, and the default should definitely be poisoning/panicking unless handled. There could definitely be an optional poison-eating mutex, but I argue the current Mutex does the right thing.

New comment by halper in "Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies"

halper — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 06:40:09 +0000

If we are talking about BNW, which was written in 1931, then that book predates benzodiazepines by 25 years or so. Perhaps you are thinking about barbiturates?

New comment by halper in "The last European train that travels by sea"

halper — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 05:30:49 +0000

I travelled on that train for a bit somewhat later, in 2018. The immigration officials remained, but very few of the refugees.

New comment by halper in "Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update"

halper — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:45:51 +0000

Between phases, it is 400 V; between phase and neutral, 230 V. There are five "lines": three phases, one neutral and one ground.

New comment by halper in "The last European train that travels by sea"

halper — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 10:01:39 +0000

Ah, sweet memories. Grumpy German border guards boarding to loudly demand papers, but if you were slow to pull the ID card out they just kept walking. Semi-open border policy ;)

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)"

halper — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 04:07:55 +0000

Have been sketching on what sounds like some of your concepts: recipes as trees with actions done to ingredients with timing and so on. I will sign up as a beta tester! :)

New comment by halper in "McKinsey wonders how to sell AI apps with no measurable benefits"

halper — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 14:04:26 +0000

How is that hard? They put 90% of their estimated revenue as net revenue (post-McK tax) in the budget? Seems about as hard as the underlying problem, which is guessing ("forecasting") the revenue.

New comment by halper in "How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer"

halper — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:16:16 +0000

I liked how you phrased that: "promises of future … you can't compete with". That happens so often, and strangely the argument that those promises have never become real the previous 26 times never works. The glorious future sure is amazing!

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2025)"

halper — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 03:37:47 +0000

SEEKING WORK | Europe ‣ Sweden ‣ Stockholm | flexible time and place

Founding engineer, team lead, technical consultant, manager ────────────────────────────────────

Relocation: no, but some travel

Tech + skills: software/architecture design/development; performance-critical code, distributed systems; Rust, Node.JS, RoR, Python, Java etc; custom data structures, algorithms.

With a background as a founding engineer, team lead and manager, I bring the expertise and experience you need to go from concept to production. While I have worked in organisations ranging from tiny through huge, my forte is working in smaller teams with meaningful technical challenges, where I specialise in delivering robust high-performance minimal-dependency solutions that operate unattended for months and years. I have built teams from the ground up, creating productive and inviting teams with clear goals and well-functioning processes.

In short, my experience can be summarised as:

   ◆ 20 years as a programmer, developer and architect;

   ◆ 10 years in roles leading and mentoring teams and individuals; and

   ◆ 5+ years in 100% remote mode.

I work best in small teams where communication paths are short, where there is—by necessity—minimal overhead and where responsibilities are clear. You are primarily concerned with what we can build together, and not with the technical details. While I am looking for interesting technical problems, you are looking for someone to take responsibility for the whole solution.

I am open to discussing part-time contracts and/or non-standard arrangements.

My CV is available on request.

comics-nitrate3w@icloud.com

Hacker News: halper

New comment by halper in "Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer to energy shocks"

New comment by halper in "I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years"

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: Would engineers be interested in a technical prep consultant?"

New comment by halper in "Don't become an engineering manager"

New comment by halper in "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)"

New comment by halper in "New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes"

New comment by halper in "Every company building your AI assistant is now an ad company"

New comment by halper in "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"

New comment by halper in "Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?"

New comment by halper in "30 years ago today "Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript""

New comment by halper in ""Many students are simply refusing to do *anything*.""

New comment by halper in "Inside Rust's std and parking_lot mutexes – who wins?"

New comment by halper in "Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies"

New comment by halper in "The last European train that travels by sea"

New comment by halper in "Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update"

New comment by halper in "The last European train that travels by sea"

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)"

New comment by halper in "McKinsey wonders how to sell AI apps with no measurable benefits"

New comment by halper in "How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer"

New comment by halper in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2025)"

New comment by halper in ""Many students are simply refusing to do anything.""