Hacker News: jpatten

New comment by jpatten in "Reimagining the mouse pointer for the AI era"

jpatten — Wed, 13 May 2026 00:03:41 +0000

haha that's right I'd forgotten about that one!

New comment by jpatten in "Reimagining the mouse pointer for the AI era"

jpatten — Tue, 12 May 2026 18:57:10 +0000

Reminds me of Put That There https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RyBEUyEtxQo

New comment by jpatten in "Strange CW Keys"

jpatten — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:43:18 +0000

Love these! On the record player, would be fun to play Morse code “records” where the message was encoded by selectively removing spots of copper from the rotating plate.

New comment by jpatten in "I run a full Linux desktop in Docker just because I can"

jpatten — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 14:41:48 +0000

I use Thinlinc. It's free for under 5 concurrent users

New comment by jpatten in "Open source BOM management (for me)"

jpatten — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 09:31:23 +0000

Thank you for sharing this! The part of this problem that I’ve found most challenging over time is keeping quantities up to date. I wonder about a function where you could say “I built 25 of these modules” and it would deduct the quantities for individual parts accordingly (optionally adding an extra percentage for the 0402s you dropped on the floor) Or, while I’m dreaming, a feature that parses a DigiKey/mouser/etc. order (or reads the barcodes on the bags!) and updates quantities for you.

Would also be curious about how best to support different storage approaches, like reels on a shelf etc.

New comment by jpatten in "iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras"

jpatten — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 10:59:58 +0000

I’m sure that Apple did tons of A/B testing, focus groups etc. with different image processing parameters to arrive at the settings that their phones use for photos, and from these comments it’s clear that a lot of people prefer the iPhone photos. When I was in grad school (in the pre-iPhone era) I photographed lots of weddings on the weekends, and one thing I noticed during the process was that people often have a set idea of what good photos look like. This idea of a “good” photo is often not tied to what the scene in front of them looks like. For example a “good” photo that includes a sunset will show a highly saturated orange/red sky, even if that’s not what the sky looks like at the moment the photo is taken.

Personally, I carry around a Ricoh GR3, and shoot random shots with the iPhone, but when it really matters I’ll use the Ricoh. The way the iPhone flattens the lighting is what bugs me the most. Recently I was at a kid’s birthday party and each kid had a cupcake with a candle in it. The room was a bit dark, and the Ricoh photo showed that each kids face was illuminated just a bit by the candle in their cupcake… The color temperature of the candle light is warmer than that of the room light. The photo makes you feel like you’re really there. My friend shot a photo on her iPhone at the same time and we compared afterwards. In her photo, every kid’s face is well lit and the candle effect is gone. She likes her shot better and I like mine. Some people want a shot that reflects what they saw, and some people want a shot that looks like what they think good photos look like.

New comment by jpatten in "Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith"

jpatten — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 16:23:01 +0000

I'm biased but I think the most interesting opportunities involve software that interacts with the physical world in some way. These projects will definitely involve some electrical + mechanical engineering, product design etc., but I'd guess that in terms of number of hours worked, they are still more software engineering than any other single discipline. Probably with a very different set of tools than those used on the web.

New comment by jpatten in "Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith"

jpatten — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:59:26 +0000

Yeah I agree. The market for companies that do something in a web browser may be saturated, but outside of that world it feels like there are more opportunities than ever. For example in the space of AI + robotics we’ve barely scratched the surface.

I wonder if part of what’s happening may be a generational shift in how people in and around the startup world view work/life balance. In my limited experience, GenZ folks tend to place a premium on reasonable working hours, so it’s not surprising they would evaluate the trade offs between startups and big tech differently.

New comment by jpatten in "True Defamation [pdf]"

jpatten — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 16:44:33 +0000

Skimmed it, so perhaps I missed something, but what is the purpose of reputation if negative facts can never be incorporated into one’s reputation?

Seems like the harm caused to a person through true defamation is outweighed by the benefit to society of holding people to account for bad behavior.