Hacker News: in_absentia

New comment by in_absentia in "Giving up on smart rings"

in_absentia — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:30:54 +0000

I think the parent is talking about wearing two watches. But I'd guess that the overlap between people who like expensive (almost always synonymous with mechanical) watches and who want achievements for sleep patterns is pretty minimal. It's almost like a statement of two different life philosophies.

New comment by in_absentia in "Most people prefer traditional architecture"

in_absentia — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:06:24 +0000

> Architecture is optimizing for people inhabiting the building

For the most part, it's about optimizing construction cost. Everything else is secondary. The reason you don't see ornate stonework is mostly that skilled labor is a lot more expensive today than it was a century ago. Even if you want to spend 50% more to make an architectural statement, you still do it with prefabricated steel and glass.

New comment by in_absentia in "Over 12% of links posted to Hacker News are Show HN projects now"

in_absentia — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:44:06 +0000

Most everything took a hit. Roughly half of the front-page content throughout the day is AI press releases, AI product marketing, vibecoded projects, and essays about AI. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but there's not much room left for anything else.

New comment by in_absentia in "Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality"

in_absentia — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:14:49 +0000

HN is not a forum for the global IT workforce. It's a portal attached to a VC firm, populated to a large extent by people in the SF Bay Area who work in big tech or various VC-funded startups.

I've gotten some traffic from HN before and if I recall correctly, about 30% of it was from California, followed by Washington (Seattle) and then NY.

New comment by in_absentia in "Giving up on smart rings"

in_absentia — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 20:15:43 +0000

It is understandable in some narrow sense because you want the outer surface to be nick-resistant, so you need to make it out of reasonably thick metal. Plastic rings would look terrible after a couple of weeks.

But it's really hard to justify the big picture. It's hundreds of bucks + a monthly subscription for... what, exactly? Why does this need to exist? If you really want to gamify your pulse and sleep patterns for some inconceivable reason, a phone or a wristwatch can collect the same information in a more practical and safer way.

New comment by in_absentia in "Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality"

in_absentia — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 20:04:01 +0000

Having principles is about making choices that are difficult, not about making choices that are easy. "I didn't really want to build a panopticon, why didn't the government stop me" is not a particularly sympathetic position to take (even if true).

New comment by in_absentia in "Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality"

in_absentia — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:04:58 +0000

Many geeks are the embodiment of the "don't trust the government" / "don't trust corporations" counterculture, but when equity grants entered the equation, we architected much of the modern techno-surveillance state. Flock is an YC company. Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google.

We're always eager to say how much we dislike it, but there's so little self-reflection in our community.

New comment by in_absentia in "Why Personal Websites Are Coming Back"

in_absentia — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:00:23 +0000

I honestly don't know what explanation is worse when these pieces about the value of human expression are generated by an LLM. It's gotta be malicious trolling or complete delusion.