Hacker News: marginalien

New comment by marginalien in "Decathlon Germany adds Wero payment option to decathlon.de website"

marginalien — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 05:27:51 +0000

Yes, and I read till the end. The article quotes a presse statement in which they say:

„EPI is currently working to reduce its dependency on non-European suppliers. The market has evolved significantly in recent years, and we are now building on this progress to drive this transition forward.“

New comment by marginalien in "Decathlon Germany adds Wero payment option to decathlon.de website"

marginalien — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:42:52 +0000

Update: migration to EU cloud is in progress:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Sovereign-payment-service-Wero-...

New comment by marginalien in "Decathlon Germany adds Wero payment option to decathlon.de website"

marginalien — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:58:12 +0000

I think EU citizens are excited mainly because of winning back their digital sovereignty, nobody said this would be cutting edge technology. Actually the simplicity of the solution is key (Wero is based on EU’s proven SEPA Instant Payment rails).

That being said, what I do not like about Wero is that some parts of the infrastructure is based on AWS and or Google cloud; hopefully they will switch to European clouds, soon.

New comment by marginalien in "Decathlon Germany adds Wero payment option to decathlon.de website"

marginalien — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:42:11 +0000

If European retailers manage to link Wero payments to loyalty schemes, then everyone will benefit and this could eventually become something. Still, no thread to legacy credit card rails (Mastercard, Visa) for many years. The industry doesn’t expect hockey stick growth AFAIK

New comment by marginalien in "The Software Development Lifecycle Is Dead"

marginalien — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 20:57:47 +0000

The requirements aka intents, where do they come from? Today, there are PMs interacting with customers, analyzing data, reading the regulation, connecting insights/demand with business strategy to come up with requirements. This is now all done by the engineer who out of the blue just has the right intent to instruct the agent to code? Please explain me like I’m five.

New comment by marginalien in "East Germany balloon escape"

marginalien — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:06:40 +0000

This is so impressive. Survival of the fittest at work.

New comment by marginalien in "I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach my son music discovery"

marginalien — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 22:31:54 +0000

Found it, never mind

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73417684/spotifyapi-in-s...

New comment by marginalien in "I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach my son music discovery"

marginalien — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 22:05:10 +0000

Does anybody if would be possible to link NFC tags with Spotify links THAT AUTO-PLAY? It’s the latter which I‘m struggling with. Normal Spotify links still require to tap play on the device, correct?

New comment by marginalien in "Making a font of my handwriting"

marginalien — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 05:41:32 +0000

This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. I am currently preparing for a workshop with children in which I want to let them “draw” their own website/web-apps. So far I did not plan to let them create their own fonts, as I did not know how to, but now I know. Thanks to you!

Ps: if you have any other ideas how to make such a workshop for children more exciting, please let me know! For instance, I wanted to let them create paper prototypes and then turn them into working click dummies so to cross the bridge between analogue and digital in way that feels natural to kids. Btw, by “kids” I refer to children at the age of 8-10 years old.

New comment by marginalien in "I've acquired a new superpower"

marginalien — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 11:03:10 +0000

Absolutely not, at least if you don’t think in terms of personal fame but impact you have on the people you live with. It’s something that becomes super apparent when you have kids. You pass on so much and that will live on forever, in a million remixes. I love that idea as it gives a lot of meaning and purpose even on the small little moments and things in life.

New comment by marginalien in "Americans see their savings vanish in Synapse fintech crisis"

marginalien — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:31:10 +0000

Apparently, the problem is not that the money would be gone but that it’s just somewhere else because only BaaS middleman Synapse has access to the actual reconciliation how these funds distribute across individual fintech end users. According to the article, this is because of „very large bulk transfers“ which did not identify ultimate creditors. I am still puzzled how that can be. If end users top up their digital wallets, they typically send money by means of a real bank transfer to a client money account at a real bank. So at least at this initial point in time it was clear to the underlying banks who owned the money. Apparently, end users then spent money through user-facing fintech apps (I.e., „Yotta“) which is where the problem must have started as reconciliation of funds sat with Synapse only but not with the underlying banks…?

It would be great if someone with more background could comment to clarify as this case is potentially relevant to many other fintech / banking-as-a-service offerings out there.

New comment by marginalien in "Why won't some people pay for news? (2022)"

marginalien — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 09:05:00 +0000

I do get the point that following news constantly all day long is a bit like doom scrolling and doesn’t add much to a good life. However, I would not go as far as saying „complete waste of time“. It is Saturday morning and I just read a long interview with Wladimir Kara-Mursa, one of the Russian opposition politicians who was recently released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange. In the interview, Kara-Mursa talks a lot about his time in Russian jails, Putin‘s system, and being a opposition politician in Russia. Does it to relate my everyday normal life here in Germany? Well of course it does not at first glance. But at second and third glance it does and most importantly it helps me appreciate what I consider my normal everyday life in a democracy and it informs my decision making when it comes to the upcoming elections and the way different parties position themselves towards Russia and the war in Ukraine.

That being said, I don’t think it makes much sense to follow any type of news all the time all day long, but I would really miss it if it was no longer available as it helps me put things / my life into context and make more informed decisions at the ballot box. And sure I am willing to pay for that type of journalism.

New comment by marginalien in "European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls"

marginalien — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:27:09 +0000

I have been driving an ID.4 for almost three years by now. I consider much of what others criticize here in terms of UI, touch-sensitive buttons etc. to be „not great“ either but it did work for me. I didn’t really care to be honest.

What did not work for me was the re-charging experience on longer trips. I do not want to „subscribe“ to anything just to recharge my car in a reasonable amount of time. But even with a hypercharger it still takes way too long and without the „right“ subscription you feel like they steal your money from you. This is the worst from my POV when it comes to EVs, this is where they felt like inferior technology and business model to me as a consumer. Guess what, even though I was always a fan of EVs and hybrids (even drove three different models of Toyota Prius prior to my ID.4) my next car will be a traditional one (Hyundai Tucson to be precise).

New comment by marginalien in "Why time seems to pass faster as we age"

marginalien — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 08:00:49 +0000

3 bullets on „what I‘ve learned today“, followed by 3 bullets on „what I will do next“.

This makes sense to me because a) content-wise I consider learning / making sense of what I experience in my life to be both intellectually and emotionally interesting and b) text-length-wise 6 bullets force you to really boil things down to the core

Ask HN: Is There a HN for Design?

marginalien — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 23:10:02 +0000

Besides tech, I really like design - but most design communities I know (think dribbble, behance) are just repositories of design / art without much debate/discussion like on HN. Do I miss out something? Is there a HN for design?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38032817

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by marginalien in "Ask HN: Marketing/Branding Programs"

marginalien — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 20:27:08 +0000

Have a look at reforge. I once participated in their course on retention and really liked it. Most of the courses are at the intersection of product/engineering/marketing, a good interdisciplinary mix I believe. However, every cohort and course is different and I also experienced a not-so-good one as well.

New comment by marginalien in "Launch HN: Fuse (YC W19) – Unified API for financial data aggregators"

marginalien — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 18:22:28 +0000

An aggregator that aggregates other aggregators? Actually it’s even more complex, as many of the established aggregators already collaborate with each other behind the scenes.

Very meta-meta-ish. Exciting, but also a lot of dependencies. Good luck!

New comment by marginalien in "Maybe treating housing as an investment was a mistake"

marginalien — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 21:00:51 +0000

Interesting read. However, the author misses some important motivations why people choose to buy instead of renting. For example, I don‘t expect it to generate much value for myself, but for my kids, as they will inherit it one day. Imagine not having to choose between renting or buying a home in the first place. That’s the start I want to provide my kids with. I thinks it’s a good one.

The other reason why I chose to buy is self-discipline. Yes, renting typically leaves you with some money at the end of the month that you can use to invest in the stock market - which oftentimes yields more benefits in the long run over buying (and financing) a home. But that’s just theory. In practice, many people (and I’m including myself here) will use the extra money not to invest in stocks etc. but to consume at a higher level - to buy the more expensive car, to take the more expensive trip, eat out for dinner a lot etc. Knowing that I rather chose to buy and finance a home because that way I am forced to spend my money in something that even my kids will benefit from rather than consuming it.

New comment by marginalien in "Ask HN: Is there a Tinder for book readers?"

marginalien — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 19:55:38 +0000

Thanks for the responses. I will try to reach out via my local library to find some people. However, surprised to see there is no fancy social app for that purpose since local community members might not necessarily share your book prefs, so an app to match people that share similar reading interest would be a plus.

Ask HN: Is there a Tinder for book readers?

marginalien — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 12:49:42 +0000

What is a good app / place online to find people to read a book with? Think Tinder for book readers.

Now that I got your attention, here is my list of books that I would like to read with somebody. My goal would be to read 10 pages / day (I got kids…) and then meet once a week to have a conversation what we have learned, what notes we took, etc. Let me know if you would be interested!

1. Man’s search for meaning (Viktor Frankl) 2. The power of strangers (Joe Keohane) 3. How emotions are made (Lisa Feldman Barret) 4. Atomic habits (James Clear) 5. Strangers to ourselves (Timothy D. Wilson)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34195998

Points: 2

# Comments: 3