Hacker News: jnsie

New comment by jnsie in "The future of version control"

jnsie — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:40:05 +0000

> It would be incredibly useful if before you were about to edit a file, the version control system would warn you that someone else has made changes to it already or are actively working on it. In large teams, this sort of automation would reduce conflicts, as long as humans agree to not touch the same file. This would also reduce the amount of quality regressions that result from bad conflict resolutions.

Bringing me back to my VSS days (and I'd much rather you didn't)

New comment by jnsie in "Data centers in space makes no sense"

jnsie — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 13:34:53 +0000

Ah, this old fallacy. There are myriad examples of the rich striving to be richer and the powerful fighting to gain even more power. Why would it be any different with Musk? If anything I suspect (this is absolutely an unverifiable opinion; I am not stating it as fact) that Musk's driving force is to become the first trillionaire.

New comment by jnsie in "An opinionated critique of Duolingo"

jnsie — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 23:44:27 +0000

> I totally believe that (some) people are achieving great results at the free tier. I am definitely not saying that Duolingo is useless or a bad (i.e, net negative) use of someone's time.

I definitely didn't mean to imply otherwise

> But even good things are not immune to criticism

100%

New comment by jnsie in "An opinionated critique of Duolingo"

jnsie — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 20:46:52 +0000

I think it's important for those responding about their Duolingo experience to include the tier that they are using. Specifically, I wonder if the conversations with AI, and the "explain this" feature in Duolingo Max change outcomes? I'm new to Duolingo, chose the max tier, and feel that I'm learning quite a bit specifically because I am having simple conversations in French daily (albeit with an AI that seems to me to have questionable hearing at times). I haven't used it long enough to provide insight or even judge the platform, but for those using the more expensive tier(s) I wonder your thoughts...

New comment by jnsie in "The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer"

jnsie — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:36:09 +0000

How reliable are UV indexes? Genuine question. The iOS weather app is far from 100% reliable and I wonder the margin of error regarding the UV index number it provides.

New comment by jnsie in "Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says"

jnsie — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:31:17 +0000

Why the disingenuous response. What I linked was an article entitled "New Report Exposes Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s Monopoly Control of Top Arenas and Amphitheaters Worldwide". The fact that they monopolize venues strongly discounts your suggestion that they will "slowly die or be replaced quickly by something better like an AI ticketing system".

New comment by jnsie in "Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says"

jnsie — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:17:57 +0000

> Now they'll slowly die or be replaced quickly by something better like an AI ticketing system.

I highly doubt it. The merger with LiveNation made them much more than a ticketing service. They now also handle artist management, concert promotion, and venue ownership. In fact "Live Nation-Ticketmaster maintains "monopoly control" over the top 100 amphitheaters and 100 arenas worldwide" [1]

[1] https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/new-report-ex...

New comment by jnsie in "The Sagrada Família takes its final shape"

jnsie — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 23:22:55 +0000

You missed out. The stained glass windows are absolutely stunning. I normally don't get too excited about stained glass, but they are truly beautiful as is much of the interior.

New comment by jnsie in "A computer upgrade shut down BART"

jnsie — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:54:06 +0000

> Honestly, within the US I can only think of NYC as having a better payment system as they were first movers on tap-to-pay adoption and it's basically fully adopted.

Chicago is pretty good too. IIRC they also have tap-to-pay. In fact, I think they had it before NYC

New comment by jnsie in "How we built Bluey’s world"

jnsie — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 14:22:42 +0000

It's not about the merit of the argument but rather the act of shutting down any argument by declaring something as a fact. It's completely unnecessary and quite off-putting.

New comment by jnsie in "How we built Bluey’s world"

jnsie — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 13:12:46 +0000

[flagged]

New comment by jnsie in "Figma will IPO on July 31"

jnsie — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 10:56:42 +0000

I love Balsamiq and it was great to see it mentioned here. While the wireframes are intentionally simple looking, the ease of creating a mockup is unsurpassed IMHO.

New comment by jnsie in "Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”"

jnsie — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 20:13:54 +0000

That reminds me - we're staying in an Airbnb later this summer and I've been meaning to research gadgets to detect hidden cameras. Now I guess I need to look out for microphones too. We're going in quite the dystopian direction.

New comment by jnsie in "Show HN: New Ensō – first public beta"

jnsie — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 23:31:00 +0000

There used to be a really neat application launcher called Enso. Is this related in any way?

New comment by jnsie in "What Happens When Hertz's AI Scanner Finds Damage on Your Rental"

jnsie — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 18:19:58 +0000

That's wear and tear and not down to negligence on the driver's part. It's abhorrent that a rental company would attempt to charge a customer to fix something like this.

New comment by jnsie in "Second study finds Uber used opaque algorithm to dramatically boost profits"

jnsie — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:24:08 +0000

A decentralized Uber is an interesting thought experiment. I imagine the processing power required is a big barrier to entry for the FOSS community.

New comment by jnsie in "Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs"

jnsie — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 12:03:10 +0000

I have nothing but respect for physicians but my experience is that each acts as a more narrow filter than the last and, beyond their direct expertise they have very little expertise in billing, pharmacy or anything outside of their direct domain, nor do they have the bandwidth for it. Add to that the advertising phenomenon of 'ask your doctor about X' and I suspect that anything beyond the immediate care you're receiving has very little chance of receiving thought/cogent answers.

New comment by jnsie in "DeskHog, an open-source developer toy"

jnsie — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:55:30 +0000

Post hog ergo propter hog

New comment by jnsie in "Show HN: Loodio 2 – A Simple Rechargable Bathroom Privacy Device"

jnsie — Wed, 28 May 2025 18:07:34 +0000

> I´d say those who feel the need for a device like this are guilty by association of farting and burping even louder than average, why otherwise get something to mask their clearly obnoxious and dare I say noxious emanations in the privy?

This seems like a jump. Social etiquette is important. A desire for visitors (or others) not to be subjected to the various sounds emanating from the bathroom is a form of politeness, not cover-up of something more sinister.

New comment by jnsie in "Show HN: Loodio 2 – A Simple Rechargable Bathroom Privacy Device"

jnsie — Wed, 28 May 2025 14:55:31 +0000

Living in a tiny urban apartment, this is a problem I am interested in a solution for. However, I always read that such solutions might block the noise for the toilet-user, but not for those outside of the toilet. I'm curious as to the efficacy of a white noise machine versus this device and, specifically, if either is really effective. It's an interesting solution, OP, an I commend you for your efforts - but I fear $150 is going to be a difficult sell.