Hacker News: kurttheviking

New comment by kurttheviking in "The death of the brick and mortar toy store"

kurttheviking — Fri, 22 May 2026 01:52:44 +0000

I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that spoils in the very short term). When I've got a bit more time I want to try that idea and see if it works as a way to revitalize otherwise charming old downtown areas with vacant retail space and communities wishing to bring back their main street. Giving this idea away in case anyone else has tried or wants to try sooner than me and report back.

New comment by kurttheviking in "The happiest I've ever been"

kurttheviking — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 05:46:44 +0000

I started coaching my son's little league baseball team a few years ago, mostly because that was the only way I could keep him interested it and I just wanted him to keep playing a team sport. But, that first season showed me how incredibly rewarding the whole process can be. Every practice, every game, you see them improve. And the more you work at designing a good practice, helping each player develop skills, the better they get! And, the joy...the pure, unadulterated joy of a short stop making a a clean throw to first for an out, a hit into the grass with a quick slide into second for a double, a dash across home after a wild pitch rolls into the cage for a run on the steal! I don't get paid, of course, but it's the best job I've ever had.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking"

kurttheviking — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:24:32 +0000

Most Substacks have an RSS feed (I'm not sure if one can disable it or not); in this case: https://samkriss.substack.com/feed

New comment by kurttheviking in "Anthropic Economic Index report: economic primitives"

kurttheviking — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 23:06:53 +0000

agree, was similarly hoping for something akin to a total factor productivity argument

New comment by kurttheviking in "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"

kurttheviking — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 23:10:21 +0000

This is the way. I've been dual booting with Ubuntu for almost 20 years now and my main finding these days is just how easy it has become and how rarely I need to switch to Windows. Sure, it happens and the option is always there, but Ubuntu as a daily driver is solid.

New comment by kurttheviking in "I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]"

kurttheviking — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 01:50:29 +0000

My issue is the pods fail to dissolve ~5% of the time and leave a gunk that clogs the dispenser which again requires time and effort to clean. I'm convinced by the video to try powder again but I've had the filming issue with almost every powder I've tried. So, we'll see what happens...

New comment by kurttheviking in "Tell HN: Azure outage"

kurttheviking — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:56:00 +0000

I am unable to load this article...presumably for related reasons

New comment by kurttheviking in "My trick for getting consistent classification from LLMs"

kurttheviking — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:45:12 +0000

Out of curiosity, what embedding model did you use for this?

New comment by kurttheviking in "Tesla market share in US drops to lowest since 2017"

kurttheviking — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 02:02:48 +0000

I thought the Rav4 had been outpacing it for awhile now. (Plus, that's also artificially limiting total vehicle sales which are, unsurprisingly, still trucks.)

New comment by kurttheviking in "George Foreman has died"

kurttheviking — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 05:14:30 +0000

This was exactly my reason when I lived in a tiny apartment in Boston having no exhaust or fan in the kitchen itself. Put the Foreman Grill by a window with some burgers cooking, job done.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2025)"

kurttheviking — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 16:07:36 +0000

Cerebras Systems | Product | Sunnyvale, Toronto, Chicago | Full-Time

We specialize in building high-performance AI hardware, including the world's largest chip, the Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE). We are making significant software and hardware investments to deliver unprecedented speed for ML tasks.

Our product team is looking for several experienced, technical PMs:

- Principal Product Manager, ML (https://cerebras.ai/careers/?gh_jid=5858417003)

- Senior or Staff Product Manager, Cluster Management Solutions (https://cerebras.ai/careers/?gh_jid=6338040003)

- Senior Product Manager, Cloud Console (https://cerebras.ai/careers/?gh_jid=6319881003)

- Staff Product Manager, ML Platform (https://cerebras.ai/careers/?gh_jid=6332816003)

It's a fast-paced, late-stage startup with plenty of challenging and rewarding work.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Why is printer ink so expensive?"

kurttheviking — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 15:37:08 +0000

im in the market for a printer, mind recommending one?

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:18:45 +0000

yeah it wasn't an option for a variety of reasons. for instance, landlord of the prior location will subdividing and reletting the space and that work will take time to complete. another consideration is remaining inventory tends to be the stuff that doesn't sell well anyway and even at a steep discount that inventory occupies valuable shelf space.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:46:43 +0000

yup...it's razor thin. the ones that we found doing well are very, very good at community engagement in events and partnerships with local schools, community colleges, etc.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:45:30 +0000

yeah, it was the same for us. really one day we woke up, talked about it, and agreed, why not. worst case, i'll work a few more years than i had originally planned or whatever. best cast, we have delivered a valuable service to the community and can work on it for many years. my wife will be full time and it's very much her dream too. i hadn't thought of the newsletter but that's such a good idea...stay tuned, i might dm you.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:34:31 +0000

yes exactly, my wife and i are the same way. some of the other shops we talked to were surprised at the amount of foot traffic from people who for one reason or another just happened to be in the area. anyway, we will have a full 8x13' room for scifi/fantasy; that's my section too...we could probably use more space for that. :)

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:26:48 +0000

we have a really great local library system where i live so what we're working on is definitely more a local store. we'll have a mix of titles based on our knowledge of community preferences (my wife is also a writer and knows much more than me about the local scene), seasonal titles (e.g. featuring new and old horror titles in october), plus events like author readings and educational seminars.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:12:18 +0000

thanks! my wife and i both really like local bookstores and often stop into them when we travel. and you know, you only live once...so why not.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:11:14 +0000

at full retail price, you're often looking at 40-50% for books...but then everything goes on sale at some point. sideline merch (think the stuffed animals in the kids section) can get 60%+. but after rent, expenses, etc. we're just hoping to break even in year 1. the math suggests its possible but we're about to find out empirically. in the end, most evidence also suggests there are a lot easier ways to make $30k net a year. but it's a community project as a much as a business.

New comment by kurttheviking in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?"

kurttheviking — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:05:07 +0000

my wife and I have a new side project: we're opening a bookshop! the last local store is closing due to retirement and we figure the community demand is still there. we're negotiating the lease, sorting out how to order a lot of bookshelves, and source the initial inventory. i'm currently figuring out how to connect our point of sale system to our accounting software. good times. :)