Hacker News: jppope

New comment by jppope in "How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)"

jppope — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 13:59:58 +0000

To quote Christopher Nolan: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

New comment by jppope in "Anthropic S-1"

jppope — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 20:17:05 +0000

...such as Renaissance Technologies which has only been beating indexes by double digits for 4 decades. Probably just a fluke.

New comment by jppope in ""I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math"

jppope — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:54:36 +0000

the rallying cry 10 years ago was "learn to code" ironically.

New comment by jppope in "Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years"

jppope — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 15:15:32 +0000

In my experience this is not true. People of all ages would pop off for a pint after work or cut out a little early at many places I've worked. It was never hanging out for hours. It would be like an hour and you would usually just talk about the stuff at work that you're frustrated about. Not everyone would go, but high performers were usually well represented.

I think the demographics of HN would explain why this seems like hollywood fiction when it is/was very normal behavior.

New comment by jppope in "Cloudflare acquires Deno"

jppope — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 01:28:33 +0000

It wasn't that long ago that Nodejs was the new kid on the block, and companies were worried it would go under.

New comment by jppope in "Cloudflare acquires Deno"

jppope — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:10:59 +0000

This is a real bummer. Work never adopted Deno but I love their model, security posture, and the standard library. I've been less interested in typescript recently, but it has turned into the default for frontend.

On the plus side, cloudflare will get access to some fantastic talent, who can hopefully put their effort into building a better web.

New comment by jppope in "Apple and a hacker's future"

jppope — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:11:30 +0000

I think the observation Ben is making, is that Apple no longer has a grasp on the future purchases in the market. He makes it explicit with this quote: "I can, for the first time, envision a future where I don’t buy Apple by default." It used to be a given that we would refresh every 3-4 years, thats probably no longer guaranteed.

Observationally, I would argue we've all been expecting this for this for a long time. Every year Apple has raised the price of allegiance and every year we've paid it, waiting for products like the framework laptop or certain linux distros to become mature. We're still not there yet, but how much longer until there is real competition in the personal computer market?

New comment by jppope in "Suits Are Better Tech Than Modern Clothes"

jppope — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 16:44:19 +0000

For me it was 2014... so pre-Covid? And you can have a suit "bought off the peg" and have those tailored. Its usually like $100

New comment by jppope in "Suits Are Better Tech Than Modern Clothes"

jppope — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 06:12:31 +0000

100% agree. Its a tragedy that most men only wear suits for special occasions. When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly... its basically like walking around in pajamas in how it feels, but you look way way better than casual clothes. Sadly I like sunshine so I moved away from places where wearing a suit was normal, to a place where people offer their condolences if you're in a suit (either a wedding or a funeral)

New comment by jppope in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

jppope — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:22:33 +0000

Good observation. Off the top of my head all the 37 signals stuff (which started as blogs) were great when they became books. Morgan Housel too.

New comment by jppope in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

jppope — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:31:28 +0000

This is my K2. Grapes of Wrath is my Everest. I've started it ~7 times and never made it past 120 pages. Good Luck!

New comment by jppope in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

jppope — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:30:20 +0000

I read 3/4 of "The Soul of a new Machine" and thought it was good, but I sort of fizzled out. What makes you recommend it so highly (trying to understand if I should go back)

New comment by jppope in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

jppope — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:26:18 +0000

"Exhalation" was very good. Not every story was great, but as a whole is was lovely

New comment by jppope in "Ask HN: What are you reading?"

jppope — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:25:42 +0000

"Collapse" - A friend gave me the book in a bag he was going to donate. its been great. Theres obviously a huge undertone of preachy "humans struggle with sustainable resource utilization" but the views into failed societies are just fascinating. Really enjoying it, though I've slowed down and might not finish.

"7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy" - Recommended by @pc in an interview. I'm ~50 pages in and not really blown away. Its a nice accumulation of Alpha creating strategy... but I think its really missing some nuance. I do LOVE that they take an economist approach and actually provide the math/algorithms behind the concepts. Theres some good stuff in here but so far it feels like 30 pages stretched out to make a book.

"Monetizing Innovation" - dropped this book, do not recommend. I was expecting a really nice accumulation of how pricing should work with companies who are innovating... and it came no where near that hopeful concept. The case studies were weak, the hypothesis were weak, the writing was weak.

New comment by jppope in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

jppope — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:06:42 +0000

Espaliers and different pruning techniques can have you up and producing fruit in 3-5 years. Totally popping under 10.

New comment by jppope in "13 Months Sober (2025)"

jppope — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:15:22 +0000

Probably the most interesting concept in there was how the author admits that Alcohol was a "net-positive" in life. Which adds a whole different flavor to the article. The decision to stop drinking alcohol takes a different meaning when a person can be intellectually honest about the situation.

I'm personally interested in society's relationship with alcohol now. There has been a huge change over the last decade and I don't think anyone fully understands it. Alcohol consumption is down from what I understand, but so is ALL risk-seeking behavior - which can include things like pursuing romantic relationships and starting businesses. Meanwhile there is a massive downturn in psychological well being.

Does anyone have any unbiased studies on this phenomenon? Has there been a more thorough investigation on the matter?

New comment by jppope in "Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chairman, Names Son to Replace Him"

jppope — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 19:30:15 +0000

true he drove the same old car for years, however he traveled via private jet for most of his milage. Which brings me to a fun story:

Buffett originally called corporate private jets an "indefensible" luxury. When he did eventually buy a jet he named it "The Indefensible", later changing the name to "The Indispensable."

The guy has a great sense of humor.

New comment by jppope in "Salesforce Global Outage"

jppope — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:28:54 +0000

Say what you want about the product and leadership... they do throw a good conference.

New comment by jppope in "Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior"

jppope — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:06:27 +0000

I guess the good news here is that I can just buy an expensive car and become part of the higher social class.

New comment by jppope in "Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior"

jppope — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:03:56 +0000

5-10 year old used Bentleys are ~50-60K well within the realm of a normal middle class individual.