Hacker News: hermitcrab

New comment by hermitcrab in "Pirates, a naval warfare game inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates"

hermitcrab — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:59:27 +0000

Fun. Maybe you could add some random features for a bit more variety. Shallows, islands, fog banks etc.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism"

hermitcrab — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:32:06 +0000

Well done to the journalist that uncovered this. Makes a change from copying and pasting press releases that many 'journalists' seem to do these days (partly because journalist organizations have been so hollowed out by Facebook et al).

New comment by hermitcrab in "1worldflag: A blue dot on a transparent background"

hermitcrab — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:12:11 +0000

>Are not ~all flags made to express unity?

Usually the unity of some humans against other humns.

New comment by hermitcrab in "1worldflag: A blue dot on a transparent background"

hermitcrab — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:06:06 +0000

Someone made a flag to express unity and we've just all come here to argue about it. How very human.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Spherical Voronoi Diagram"

hermitcrab — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:57:48 +0000

I remember seeing something similar to https://www.jasondavies.com/maps/voronoi/capitals/. But the areas were weighted by the populations of the capitals. You ended up with something quite close to real political maps IIRC.

New comment by hermitcrab in "How turkey hacked the hair-transplant industry"

hermitcrab — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:46:59 +0000

Some people look great bald. Some don't. I am in the latter group, so I'm hoping not to go bald! If I do, I will probably buy a beret.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Ask HN: What Is the State of App Development in 2026?"

hermitcrab — Sat, 30 May 2026 17:36:30 +0000

>Will the complex apps be discoverable though

That is the real issue. How to get noticed in a sea of slop.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Sat, 30 May 2026 08:23:41 +0000

>The appeal to me of raising chickens for eggs is not having to slaughter them,

Doing that in your backyard with a few chickens sounds great.

>but reality is much uglier than that, of course.

Much uglier at any sort of commercial scale.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:04:59 +0000

And we've all seen what happened at Boeing when the MBAs and spreadsheet jockeys took over from the engineers.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:01:19 +0000

I feel we are engaged in the same race to the bottom in the UK, although it is not as extreme as it is in the US. One of the few constraining factors in the UK is that our car parking spaces are generally quite small and no-one wants to buy something they can't park anywhere.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:45:30 +0000

Why a chicken farm? The medium to large scale ones I have seen videos of look like terrible places, for both the chickens and the human workers. I expect they smell even worse.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:42:42 +0000

I've been programming for ~50 years and I still like it. When I retire I will probably do some recreational programming.

I was planning to write a book about how to start and run a small software business (which I have been doing for 20 years), but things are changing so fast recently that I am starting to feel a bit of a dinosaur and I'm not sure anyone would be interested.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:37:26 +0000

I'm less worried about being 'outcompeted' by clankers than the possibility that AI slop products become so numerous that it is almost impossible to get noticed.

New comment by hermitcrab in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:28:47 +0000

Same here. I am maintaining and enhancing several 100k of C++ I have written over 20 years. I use MS Copilot to write little snippets now and then. But I always modify them to fit my own style. It is challenging enough to navigate and understand all that code without letting an AI loose on it.

New comment by hermitcrab in "AI will be used to estimate age of asylum seekers from next year"

hermitcrab — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:47:27 +0000

How would you train a system like this? Presumably you are going to need quite a few subjects of each ethnicity. Where are you going to find these people? You can't use asylum seekers, as you can't be sure about their real age.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers"

hermitcrab — Wed, 27 May 2026 22:18:15 +0000

Hadn't seen that before. Bloody marvellous.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

hermitcrab — Wed, 27 May 2026 21:59:28 +0000

>One of the tools we use

Does it begin with A and end with X? ;0)

New comment by hermitcrab in "Canada to order military plane fleet from Sweden in shift from US suppliers"

hermitcrab — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:06:54 +0000

I guess insulting and threatening your allies isn't great for arms sales.

New comment by hermitcrab in "Earthion: A New Mega Drive-Style Shoot-Em-Up"

hermitcrab — Tue, 26 May 2026 09:55:21 +0000

For me the shoutiness outweighs any nostalgia. But I'm user I'm not the target market. ;0)

New comment by hermitcrab in "Ferrari Luce"

hermitcrab — Tue, 26 May 2026 08:07:20 +0000

>If you’re goofy enough to buy a Ferrari I expect you want people to really have to see that you’re driving a Ferrari.

Not a problem - because you'll also be wearing a Ferrari hat and jacket, just to make sure.