Hacker News: jaredhallen

New comment by jaredhallen in "Open Chaos: A self-evolving open-source project"

jaredhallen — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 06:51:50 +0000

Not a developer by trade. But incidentally, today I took my first stab at "vibe coding". I wrote a little gui program to streamline a process that I've been doing for years. The code is an absolute wreck. But the program works and does what it's meant to do. I wouldn't ever expect anyone to maintain it, but for what it is, I can't complain. The alternative would have been for the tool to have not been written at all. The level of effort was so low that a) it passed the threshold of it being worth my time, and b) if it needs to be re-vibe-coded over again, then no worries.

New comment by jaredhallen in "JavaScript Demos in 140 Characters"

jaredhallen — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 04:39:48 +0000

Impressive, no doubt. But I think there might be a few lines of supporting code in the browser.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11"

jaredhallen — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 03:43:33 +0000

I love Linux. I've been using it for about 25 years now. I try to be a realist, and historically, it has always been my opinion that it is a less polished experience, suitable mainly for power users. But my opinion now is that many flavors actually do offer a superior desktop user experience for most use cases.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Locating a Photo of a Vehicle in 30 Seconds with GeoSpy"

jaredhallen — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 05:58:43 +0000

That seems like a pretty rare situation compared to any number of alternative use cases. Most of which are decidedly less wholesome.

New comment by jaredhallen in "What Happened to Abit Motherboards"

jaredhallen — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 03:55:01 +0000

Nice, I worked at one of those mom and pop computer shops in the late 90's. I built the computers, and I even went with my boss (the shop owner) to those shows a couple times. From what I remember, the show scene was pretty well declining at that point, at least in our area. I still remember the TV ads, though. "SUPER VGA! CD-ROM!!"

New comment by jaredhallen in "2025 was the year Xbox died"

jaredhallen — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 03:51:26 +0000

I can absolutely relate. I bought a series x at launch with the exact same idea, and have had the same disappointment. Minecraft and Borderlands have been about the only solid split screen titles on this whole generation. That being said, I do feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of the hardware. It just didn't play out like I was hoping. Also, I agree with the article's complaint about gamepass. I had ultimate starting when I bought the console in 2020. I don't remember what I paid at the beginning, but I think it was like $8/month. They lost me when they just upped it from $20-$30. I mean, $20 was already a stretch, but a 50% increase on top of that? Bye.

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

jaredhallen — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 04:51:45 +0000

dd = (D)oes what it says it (D)oes

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

jaredhallen — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 04:49:46 +0000

You know, this is true. And I've read any number of "you should never use dd, use this instead" articles over the years. But man, do I love me some dd.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Cassette tapes are making a comeback?"

jaredhallen — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:57:58 +0000

I mostly agree. Tapes worked pretty well. The big advantage of CD's from my perspective was the ability to jump straight to a track. Rewinding and fastforwarding was quite annoying. But CD's skipped like crazy on any mobile application, especially on the early hardware. Of course mp3's solved this. And there was a nice time, albeit short, time where we downloaded music and felt as if it was ours to own. Granted, a lot of this was probably pirated, otherwise maybe you ripped a CD. But still it represented a great state of solid technology (they just played for you without any fuss) and reasonable ownership. Then along came streaming. It does, of course, have its advantages, but they come with many significant drawbacks.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Is Gen X the Greatest Generation?"

jaredhallen — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 01:36:35 +0000

This is a very different take than my own. I do agree with the author on one point. I think trying to pinpoint a specific range of years to define a generation is missing the point. It's more about culture and the experience of your upbringing than it is about a particular date. I was born in '83, and I couldn't identify more with GenX. I listened to all the same music, experienced the free-range childhood, share the ideology, etc.

That being said, I don't view it in a negative light at all. Whatsoever. I don't feel that the adults let us down. I don't consider myself a trauma victim. And I never felt alone. I, too, walked myself home from school and found my own snacks. And then I took off again. On my bike or on foot. I met up with friends or cousins and we lived a life I could only dream about now. We built forts, played in the mud, shot our bee bee guns. Rode bikes, used tools, fixed things. We crashed, we got hurt, we solved our own problems. We lived, we learned, we built confidence, capability, and self sufficiency. We had a freedom that makes me want to weep yearning for it now.

Our parents, mine at least, didn't neglect me. They trusted me. And they didn't trust me not to fuck up. They knew I'd do that. They trusted me to learn from it.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros"

jaredhallen — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 19:26:19 +0000

Stranger than fiction.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Schizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for psychotic episode"

jaredhallen — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 21:25:58 +0000

There's a financial incentive if they're displaying ads or collecting and selling data.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Schizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for psychotic episode"

jaredhallen — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 18:24:59 +0000

Absolutely true. I bought a "dumb" Samsung around 2010. It still works to this day. In 2020, I bought a mid-range TV with Android. The computer in it died after 3 years, and I wasn't able to find a replacement at a reasonable cost. I sat on it for 2 years before finally ewasting it, because the wastefulness made me sick. I guess my main point is that it was the "smart" part that failed. If it was just a display, it would almost certainly still be trucking along.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Making tiny 0.1cc two stroke engine from scratch"

jaredhallen — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:09:28 +0000

Cox 0.049?

New comment by jaredhallen in "Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg"

jaredhallen — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 05:01:15 +0000

I agree that he came out blasting, and the language and tone, particularly at the beginning are pretty off-putting. That being said, having read the full post, I can't say I disagree with the motives and point of view.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Firefox 147 Will Support the XDG Base Directory Specification"

jaredhallen — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 17:43:19 +0000

Will it stop enabling dns over https by default?

New comment by jaredhallen in "Being poor vs. being broke"

jaredhallen — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 02:27:09 +0000

That only makes sense if you have the opportunity to make more money than you'd be paying the mechanic with the time you spent fixing the car. I'd venture to say that's true less often than not. Even if you day job makes more per hour than you're saving by repairing the car, it doesn't necessarily mean you can just choose to book more hours on the job. To make it more concrete, let's use the given example. Let's say the repair is $300 in parts, and $700 in labor. Let's call the shop rate $100/hour, to be conservative. So in order for it to make sense for me financially, I have to a) have a job that makes at least $100/hour and b) have the choice to work an extra 7 hours.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Apparently my Samsung fridge has ads now"

jaredhallen — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 04:38:39 +0000

My 20 year old GE doesn't.

New comment by jaredhallen in "The US reduced debt following World War II and what it would take to do so again"

jaredhallen — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 04:32:19 +0000

And an aging population isn't helping the situation.

New comment by jaredhallen in "Building a 2.5kWh battery from disposable vapes to power my workshop [video]"

jaredhallen — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 04:43:01 +0000

Agreed on the ridiculous page counts, but I don't find Stephenson's pages a slog. Exhausting, maybe. There's a lot going on. But he makes me laugh. I'd like to meet that guy.