Hacker News: jwx48

New comment by jwx48 in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

jwx48 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:21:51 +0000

I’d love to know how Mercer County, West Virginia was chosen. I grew up there.

New comment by jwx48 in "White House defends sharing AI image showing arrested woman crying"

jwx48 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:04:51 +0000

There was, I believe, a hairdresser rounded up by ICE and sent to CECOT with images/video of his head getting shaved and audio of him crying for his mother. I think about him all the time, and wonder what happened to him because it's so horrific. He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would survive a situation like that, and yet nothing on his status, or his family, has noticably trickled out as information in the last nine or 10 months. My short little comment here will do nothing to encompass the context of the situation, but to have this humiliating experience documented and highlighted only to have it disappear so quickly and easily it's downright depressing.

New comment by jwx48 in "ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree"

jwx48 — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:45:27 +0000

It is. Pretty much anyone who actually believes the “millions of illegal immigrants” line is detached from reality.

New comment by jwx48 in "Deloitte to refund the Australian government after using AI in $440k report"

jwx48 — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 10:05:58 +0000

Bingo. Therein lies the difference between a “client” and a “customer”.

New comment by jwx48 in "Beginner Guide to VPS Hetzner and Coolify"

jwx48 — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 11:32:06 +0000

This is the best example of documentation I’ve seen posted here in a very long time.

New comment by jwx48 in "Tesla Cybertruck deliveries on hold as trims are flying off 'bulletproof' truck"

jwx48 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 10:51:36 +0000

I think of this every single time I see or read about a cybertruck.

New comment by jwx48 in "The year I didn't survive"

jwx48 — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:11 +0000

Good one. I’m going to add that to my list of metaphors and analogies. Some people just don’t understand the experience, and this seems helpful.

New comment by jwx48 in "Show HN: A blocklist to remove spam and bad websites from search results"

jwx48 — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:20:25 +0000

Because corporate blogs are predominantly nothing but marketing fluff that dominates search results so thoroughly that they drown out any actual useful information.

New comment by jwx48 in "New theory suggests time is an illusion created by quantum entanglement"

jwx48 — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:15:23 +0000

> Now imagine for a second, that the whole universe was a big cycle, and that you are going to be repeating this very same life in a “future” cycle, and maybe infinitely many times

I've heard this called 'Eternal recurrence of the same' in a past life (pun not intended). It fascinates and terrifies me at the same time.

New comment by jwx48 in "Tell me your most exotic selfhosted solution"

jwx48 — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 20:36:53 +0000

Litter box cleaner: A kinect, a digital weight scale, a couple of cameras, a robot arm, a litter box, an internet connection and I would pay 25c for people using Amazon's Mechanical Turk to manipulate the robot arm and clean the litter box for me. And people would wait in line to take the job.

This blows my mind, and I love it. What sort of limits did you put on the Mechanical Turk service to keep people from farming the... you know... turds.

New comment by jwx48 in "Why Aren't More People Buying Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids?"

jwx48 — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:14:52 +0000

I need hearing aids. I even want hearing aids. After finally getting to see an audiologist I looked at the $5000US price offered by the in-house shop and could not stomach it (in part because they were not covered by my insurance). This was back in February of this year, so OTC hearing aids were officially a thing, and I'd hoped against hope that the prices would reflect that. After surveying the OTC hearing aid landscape for the past 10/11 months I may just go ahead and get them, because I've not found any good sources of information on them. Just lots and lots of marketing copy.

New comment by jwx48 in "Why we’re dropping Basecamp"

jwx48 — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 17:47:37 +0000

Could you expand on this? I'm genuinely curious because I'm a former academic librarian, emphasis on 'former'.

New comment by jwx48 in "Benzodiazepine"

jwx48 — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 19:02:24 +0000

I believe he did, but I'm not convinced it went as well as he'd hoped. I'd read something to that effect, but am unable to recall what and where.

New comment by jwx48 in "Benzodiazepine"

jwx48 — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 19:00:54 +0000

Yep. 3 x 0.5mg a day for over ten years. Started my taper in 2018 and it took 3 1/2 years. In retrospect even that was probably too fast, because things started to go very wrong in 2020 and went catastrophically wrong at the end of 2021.

Send me a DM (email in profile) if you have specific questions. I'm more or less an open book.

New comment by jwx48 in "Benzodiazepine"

jwx48 — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:56:18 +0000

If you've been on these long-term, I cannot stress enough how slowly you need to taper.

Edited to add that I wish I could contribute more to this conversation than lived experience, but saying that benzodiazepines "...are associated with an increased risk of suicide due to aggression, impulsivity, and negative withdrawal effects"[0] is like describing the sinking of the Titanic as a fender-bender.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine

New comment by jwx48 in "Building a Digital Audio Mixer"

jwx48 — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:48:57 +0000

Now this is something I would love to learn more about. I feel like I'm always tinkering with audio hardware, and if I can bring a Teensy into the picture, then even better.

New comment by jwx48 in "Tao Te Ching"

jwx48 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:39:26 +0000

Mitchell's translation of part 50, in particular, has long resonated with me:

The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to: no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work.

He admits (in the end notes, If I remember correctly) that this is not a literal translation; but comparing it to translations that do stick more closely to the original text I find that there's a lot here I prefer.

New comment by jwx48 in "Garbage In, Toxics Out"

jwx48 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:55:02 +0000

I've pretty much given up trying to recycle plastic, and instead throw it in the trash. It's toxic to make (I think?), contaminates food and water when you heat it, and--apparently--can not be recycled safely or efficiently. I realize I can't remove it from life entirely, but I'm actively avoiding it where I can and replacing it as opportunity permits.

New comment by jwx48 in "How too much daydreaming affected me"

jwx48 — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:12:49 +0000

Lol. I loved Calvin and Hobbes for many reasons, but one of them was definitely because I could relate. I need to read them again...

New comment by jwx48 in "How too much daydreaming affected me"

jwx48 — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 15:55:52 +0000

Whoa, this takes me back to 2nd grade when I did almost nothing but daydream during class. My daydreams were elaborate science fiction. I got in a lot of trouble for it, both with my parents and the (substitute) teacher. The teacher ended up paddling me for doing it, which was a terrible punishment for being so far ahead of my peers[0] that I had to find a way to compensate.

--- [0] I need to be very specific here: I do not think I was smarter than my classmates, or some special genius. I had just been afforded more of an educational foundation by that point in time.