Hacker News: macbem

New comment by macbem in "Scott Adams has died"

macbem — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 22:00:51 +0000

thanks for sharing, I think I needed to read this

New comment by macbem in "The next two years of software engineering"

macbem — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:15:33 +0000

No one is going to ask if you're willing to accept this - it's simply going to happen whether we like it or not.

New comment by macbem in "Dell admits it made a mistake when it abandoned XPS"

macbem — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 20:45:51 +0000

I had an XPS 9560 / 9570 or something like that. Top of the line spec, mind you.

It had a Killer WLAN network card that would frequently disconnect from wifi on any OS - so much that I had to switch it out to a different one. The speakers blew up within the first year and the cooling system had to be replaced too - thankfully warranty covered that.

I bought the XPS only because I couldn't justify the cost of a Macbook Pro back then (easily 30% more expensive and the XPS was already a stretch), but I regretted that since the first day I've had it. Bulky, unpleasant to use, frequent hardware issues. Never again.

New comment by macbem in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

macbem — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 22:55:24 +0000

And exactly who's going to pay for that?

New comment by macbem in "We Induced Smells With Ultrasound"

macbem — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:28:39 +0000

That's why I asked about comparison with friends etc. Senses are highly subjective, hard to describe and I'm not a matter expert so I'm not hoping for a quantitative answer, but despite all this I believe there still are some learnings to be had from such discussions. HN is mainly a curiosity-driven forum - without this, we'd just complain about AI eating the world ad nauseam.

New comment by macbem in "We Induced Smells With Ultrasound"

macbem — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 11:26:02 +0000

Out of curiosity, does lacking the sense of smell influence your sense of taste? Do some things taste wildly differently to you versus how your friends would describe them? I have a very weak sense of smell that comes and goes (sometimes I get weeks without being able to smell anything other than the strongest scents) and it definitely has an impact on my appetite and how much I enjoy certain foods. I have noticed that I'm much more sensitive to texture and mouth feel than others and I suspect it's because of this, but I also have AuDHD so I can't be sure.

New comment by macbem in "AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is"

macbem — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:46:44 +0000

The market is not so hot in Poland either right now, so I guess the flow to India continued or the funds have become more limited.

New comment by macbem in "Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees"

macbem — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 20:28:06 +0000

that's not always the case. I've seen situations where managers were forced to lay people off due to a company decision. When the company stabilized in a few months, managers reached out to these fired and they happily joined back. It's all a matter of treating people with empathy and honesty even in bad scenarios. That being said, this is most likely not one of these cases.

New comment by macbem in "After 20 years, math couple solves major group theory problem"

macbem — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:41:05 +0000

Anyone who's a bit different has a high chance of having been bullied at some point. It doesn't mean that society hates this specific group of people.

New comment by macbem in "How about trailing commas in SQL?"

macbem — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:57:26 +0000

even if it wasn't meant for humans and manual editing, it works reasonably well for these usecases

New comment by macbem in "Show HN: Turning books into chatbots with GPT-3"

macbem — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 12:38:55 +0000

Did you get the HN hug of death? I've tried asking it some questions about Atomic Habits, but I just get an infinite spinner after submitting a message and a HTTP 500 response.

New comment by macbem in "CBR 1000RR LEDs"

macbem — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 11:54:01 +0000

It really depends on the speed. When going slow, you need to control the motorcycle with your whole body and it'd be really hard to use your hands to signal - much easier on a bike.

Above 20-30 mph (32-48 km/h) it gets easier, because the bike balances on its own and you don't need to hold the handlebars at all (you should though, for emergency braking and saving yourself from potholes etc.).

Keep in mind that most motorcyclist don't support the bike with their feet unless they're standing still - it's a good practice to keep your feet on the pegs as much as you can. It's way better to tip over than to lose your foot to the chain.

TLDR: I'd pick using hand signals on a bicycle over using them on a motorcycle every time.