Hacker News: jdshaffer

New comment by jdshaffer in "Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame"

jdshaffer — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:08:31 +0000

Yes. I developed hay fever after living here in Japan for a couple years. Was fine the first few years, though it was amusing to watch "yellow clouds of pollen" being blown from the trees with random gusts of wind. Now it's not so amusing. My car windows are dusted with a new layer of "light yellow" every couple days now (in season).

New comment by jdshaffer in ""cat readme.txt" is not safe if you use iTerm2"

jdshaffer — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 22:39:22 +0000

Is it a problem with "cat" or a terminal problem?

If I wrote my own version of cat in C, simply reading and displaying a single TXT character at a time, wouldn't I see the same behavior?

New comment by jdshaffer in "Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?"

jdshaffer — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:30:51 +0000

I remember back in 1995 or so being in a professor's office at Indiana University and he was talking about trying to figure out how to use Neural Networks to automatically track particle trails in bubble chamber results. He was part of a project at CERN at the time. So, yeah, they've been using NNs for quite awhile. :-)

New comment by jdshaffer in "Jurassic Park - Tablet device on Nedry's desk? (2012)"

jdshaffer — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:22:07 +0000

Why are people downvoting this? It's just a quote from the movie...

New comment by jdshaffer in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026)"

jdshaffer — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 23:48:41 +0000

Hey! I've seen bonsai before. Amazing work!

New comment by jdshaffer in "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"

jdshaffer — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 05:20:41 +0000

Thanks for the detailed reply, examples, and links! Yeah, I definitely rely heavily on bash script functions, but had never thought about using git to share or sync my scripts and little programs. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!

New comment by jdshaffer in "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"

jdshaffer — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 05:18:22 +0000

Thanks for the input! :-)

New comment by jdshaffer in "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"

jdshaffer — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:47:28 +0000

If you don't mind, I'd like to hear more about your setup. I have a bunch of bash scripts and python programs I've used to make working in the terminal easier (and more fun). Are you saving your dotfiles are a git project and then just syncing and pulling them down from there? I'm not an expert, just a tinkerer, but I like tinkering in the terminal. :)

Thanks in advance!

New comment by jdshaffer in "Some people can't see mental images"

jdshaffer — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 22:41:32 +0000

Mine was a little 4-wheeled buggy riding along the guardrails as we drove. Really cool to see other people had similar imaginations!

New comment by jdshaffer in "America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy"

jdshaffer — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:15:56 +0000

So, in the end, I guess only the affluent can read after all...

New comment by jdshaffer in "The Real Reason Endurance Sank"

jdshaffer — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 11:45:52 +0000

Interesting article, though I wonder why they didn't mention the Fram -- Nansen's ship that WAS designed to resist the crushing ice, and DID survive a trip across the northern seas purposely trapped in the crushing ice (but just missing the north pole)... If my memory serves, Shackleton knew about Nansen, and even talk with him before his (Shackleton's) expedition. shrug

New comment by jdshaffer in "Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026"

jdshaffer — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 11:17:25 +0000

If I remember correctly, this sound is part of Pink Floyd's song "Money"... part of the background rhythm. I wonder how many of the "Never heard of these" crowd would recognize it if they hard it in person... smile

New comment by jdshaffer in "From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens adjusting to the smartphone ban"

jdshaffer — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:10:55 +0000

I have three kids, now just turning adult. My wife and I took the point of view that we are modeling a healthy lifestyle for our children. So, we only used technology as tools -- looking up stuff, scheduling, reading PDFs, etc.... AND we made sure they could see what we were doing -- no "hidden" screens or hidden computer time.

After doing this for the last 15+ years, I think it's turned out well. The oldest two seem to have a healthy relationship with their devices (as tools) and are just as happy to put them down and go outside or spend time with other people. The youngest is similar, but still needs to use tech a lot for his studies (by curriculum design). However, he'd also prefer to go outside or watch a movie than be on a device.

New comment by jdshaffer in "The Little Book of Linear Algebra"

jdshaffer — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 23:17:50 +0000

Didn't know about Gaussian elimination until today. Really cool, and really useful! Thanks for sharing!

New comment by jdshaffer in "Price of rice in Japan falls below ¥4k per 5kg"

jdshaffer — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 05:21:46 +0000

I live in Japan, and have lived here for the last 25 years. Yes, bread is far more popular for breakfast than rice is. If you go to a Japanese-style Inn, they will serve rice and fish and miso for a "traditional" breakfast, but at home, many people eat toast. There's been an increase in jams and spreads to put on toast, as well. My family here in Japan (I'm American, wife is Japanese, kids are both), we've always eaten bread and yogurt with milk nearly every single day.

PS -- We nearly always have rice with lunch and dinner, though. Japanese-grown. IMHO, it tastes very different from imported rice, and we HAVE tried.

New comment by jdshaffer in "Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook"

jdshaffer — Fri, 30 May 2025 04:34:07 +0000

Looks nice! Purchased a copy. :-)

New comment by jdshaffer in "Building my childhood dream PC"

jdshaffer — Mon, 19 May 2025 00:17:23 +0000

Reminds me of my first computer... a 386 20Mhz black and white laptop. Ran DOS by default, but you could jump into Win 3.11 with the lovely "win" command. laugh I remembering so wanting a color monitor so I could play games...

New comment by jdshaffer in "Show HN: NoteUX – Fast and minimalist note-taking app"

jdshaffer — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 23:49:57 +0000

Wow! That's really cool. Thanks for sharing!

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

jdshaffer — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:27:09 +0000

"Farthest North"

In 1893, Fridjtof Nansen set sail in the Fram, a ship specially designed and built to be frozen into the polar ice cap, withstand its crushing pressures, and travel with the sea’s drift closer to the North Pole than anyone had ever gone before. Experts said such a ship couldn't be built and that the voyage was tantamount to suicide.

This brilliant first-person account, originally published in 1897, marks the beginning of the modern age of exploration. Nansen vividly describes the dangerous voyage and his 15-month-long dash to the North Pole by sledge. Farthest North is an unforgettable tale and a must-read for any armchair explorer.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30197/30197-h/30197-h.htm

New comment by jdshaffer in "Show HN: A real time AI video agent with under 1 second of latency"

jdshaffer — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:18:58 +0000

Very very impressive work! I tried the Hassan agent and the conversation felt pretty real, though he seemed to nod and move his head an awful lot. Starting to feel like he had neck problems. :-) Great work, though!