Hacker News: jsomau

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"

jsomau — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:06:44 +0000

I built a cooking timer that solves the mental arithmetic of roasting multiple things at once. Pick chicken legs, sweet potato, green beans, etc and it'll give you a simple plan telling you when to put things in, flip them and take them out. Trying to eat more veggies and home cooking so this has helped me a lot!

https://www.roastrack.app/

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2023)"

jsomau — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:11:52 +0000

Adobe Podcast | https://podcast.adobe.com | New York City, Bay Area, Remote | Full Time

The Adobe Podcast team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer with a passion for creating great product experiences. Be part of a tightly knit team developing cutting edge innovations in the world of audio on the web and help define the future of this medium as it takes over the world.

Senior Software Engineer, Web Audio Products & Services: https://careers.adobe.com/us/en/job/R138749/Senior-Software-...

New comment by jsomau in "3D Cellular Automata and GOL in the J programming language"

jsomau — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 16:01:53 +0000

Self plug but I used WebGL and the texture technique to build: https://www.doorsofdelirium.com/

Click on Random a few times to get a flavour. Uses the GOL concept as a brush to spawn cells combined with some fun shader techniques to colour.

New comment by jsomau in "Who rules Earth? Wild mammals far outweighed by humans and domestic animals"

jsomau — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:18:20 +0000

I like Carlin. I like the joke. The problem is we're taking a huge number of species with us. That is after all what makes Earth special compared to any other barren rock.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder."

jsomau — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:20:25 +0000

Adding to this:

> By the time I'm down in the weeds I've forgotten what I'm doing, what the purpose of the actual API call is.

If I can craft tests up front in terms of the higher level goals then when I finish a subcomponent or get distracted by something else the higher level test is there for me to fall back on to figure out what to do next.

Show HN: Doors of Delirium – Game of Life and Spotify Visualisation

jsomau — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 11:27:48 +0000

My ode to Game of Life as an interactive Spotify music visualisation app. Started out with pixel putting on canvas, ended with learning WebGL GLSL.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32317301

Points: 5

# Comments: 1

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are some must read books?"

jsomau — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:07:53 +0000

A Confederacy of Dunces is amazing. It’s in my top 5. Not in the same vein but I read Flowers for Algernon for the first time as an adult and it really touched my soul.

New comment by jsomau in "Show HN: My cofounder and I created a social platform for investment ideas"

jsomau — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 23:24:40 +0000

This new wave of social investment platforms is really exciting. Stocktwits is just noise. I'm still shocked Twitter hasn't capitalized on cashtags by at least showing market data. I've recently been a big fan of Commonstock: https://commonstock.com/ it actually allows you to link your broker through Plaid and shows a leaderboard based on actual % gain on positions.

That said, I like you bringing more competition to the scene!

New comment by jsomau in "Yuri Gagarin: Sixty years since the first man went into space [video]"

jsomau — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:48:40 +0000

If you're in to the space race, don't miss Public Service Broadcasting - Race for Space album. They have an epic track for Gagarin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY-kAnvOY80

The entire album is one of my favourites of all time.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 02:01:45 +0000

Surely you're joking, Mr ambivalents!

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:46:15 +0000

I just submitted a Twitter support request to figure that out myself :)

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:45:43 +0000

Thanks for trying it! So unfortunately I can't launch an extension popup over top of the checkout, it's just not in the browser extension APIs AFAIK. One alternative was to inject the popup in to the checkout page but I figured if this got any traction it's possible then a checkout page host could read the data (ie, your salary) from that. Thus, I landed on the intrusive redirect. Open to other ideas though!

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:40:09 +0000

I hear hardware startups are hard.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:37:50 +0000

The extension also shows you a random but helpful prompt to reflect on the nature of consumerism and happiness. Maybe it won't help everyone, but I hope that it reaches some.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:33:33 +0000

Thanks for your response. The extension itself won't solve global overconsumption, poverty or climate change in the same way that any one individual won't. I do believe that by being more mindful of our purchases it can influence other parts of our lives though - we start to consider "the machine", consider more closely our impulses against the negative impacts our choices have and perhaps then we begin to demand something more from "the machine". Maybe if enough people become mindful they will vote for politicians that represent an interest in saving the environment, drastically increase environmental protections and incentivize sustainable manufacturing which I hope in the long run benefits all.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:29:19 +0000

That is actually where I was going to start. Tracking the CO2 output for the production of millions of individual items across the internet is hard but I believe there are some services that can estimate CO2 for deliveries based on country + zip.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:21:58 +0000

It does not except in a single case. All the data is stored locally in the browser extension storage otherwise. As part of the onboarding flow you can choose to anonymously submit your money saved to the online tally at https://www.curbyourconsumerism.app/

You can also read the source code here: https://github.com/jsom/curb-your-consumerism/tree/main/src

I realize there have been browser extension authenticity issues recently with some sketchy things being published like The Great Suspender https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/issues/1.... I've got to spend more time investigating a way to remove this question for users, but my intent is to never collect any data beyond the anonymous online tally of the homepage which is opt-in only.

Sorry, I need to replace that email address it is unfortunately a placeholder. Side project has some loose threads. I'll do that tonight.

Edit: email fixed

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:22:16 +0000

This is an interesting idea. If people know they should not buy a trashy set of knives that they'll throw away in a year that would indeed reduce consumption. I'll think more on this. Thanks for the idea!

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:19:49 +0000

I'm stoked you connect with the idea. Feel free to reach out with any feedback.

New comment by jsomau in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"

jsomau — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:19:07 +0000

It also shows you a random but helpful prompt to reflect on the nature of consumerism and happiness. Maybe they'll decide to not buy all 3. Not guaranteed to save everyone or anyone.