Hacker News: mattsimpson

New comment by mattsimpson in "Government agencies buy commercial data about Americans in bulk"

mattsimpson — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:37:45 +0000

Not enough people are talking about this. It seems to me like the vast majority of people just don't care, primarily because they don't understand the ways it could dramatically impact them in the future. Short term thinking is a scary phenomenon.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

mattsimpson — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 02:52:54 +0000

https://mattsimpson.ca is my personal blog that I've been maintaining for years. I document the things I figure out, recommend some things, post my talks, display my Mastodon feed. I like it. It's my little corner of the small web.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Let me pay for Firefox"

mattsimpson — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 19:30:39 +0000

I would definitely pay for Firefox. Like the author, I voluntarily pay for lots of good open source software. Happy to pay Mozilla for Firefox.

New comment by mattsimpson in "The 90% Gravity Problem: Why We Tend to Quit Right Before the Finish Line"

mattsimpson — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 03:14:06 +0000

100% I do this. Damn near every time. Years ago I had a successful project that stalled at version 0.9.5. If it wasn't for the kindness of a user who paid me to finish it to a 1.0 release, I would have never got there. Also, it wasn't the money that was the biggest motivator, it was the commitment I made to her that I'd finish it and the avoidance of shame I'd feel if I didn't get it done.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Apache ECharts"

mattsimpson — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:31:00 +0000

How did I not know about Apache ECharts?!? Thank you HN. This is awesome.

New comment by mattsimpson in "This Month in Ladybird February 2025"

mattsimpson — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 05:45:18 +0000

I love following the Ladybird development news. Keep up the good work and keep posting updates on HN!

New comment by mattsimpson in "Show HN: Libredesk – Open-source customer support desk. Single binary app"

mattsimpson — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:50:39 +0000

Damn impressive start. Kudos! I am sure that if you posted a to-do list and roadmap to 1.0 you would get traction from the community to help finish it off, if you want. Hell, at a solid 1.0 I might be able to justify a switch from a popular commercial app and use that budget to fund a bit of development towards the project.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel"

mattsimpson — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 12:03:59 +0000

This is exactly what I came here to say as well. Whoever wrote this fundamentally just doesn't get it.

This whole thing is honestly what I've suspected/expected owning this car, but it's somehow still surprising to see. My guess is no car company does this really well right now, and makes me want to drive a 1998 Acura Integra instead.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after labeling error"

mattsimpson — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 02:33:48 +0000

We got an urgent notice today from our central IT group warning of this catastrophic screw up of epic proportions, and I could hardly believe it.

This is way worse than the Crowdstrike debacle.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Being Raised by the Internet"

mattsimpson — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:37:11 +0000

Yep, same here. People sharing and me wanting to learn saved me too. It kept me (mostly) out of trouble, and ended up with me having a successful career in IT, software development, and hopefully soon, security.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Yes, NASA could bring Starliner's astronauts back on Crew Dragon"

mattsimpson — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 10:41:57 +0000

Super interesting ordeal to follow. Tough decision indeed. Why not have Starliner fly back to earth autonomously, get reset and ready, then autonomously fly it back to the ISS when ready to pickup the crew and return again?

New comment by mattsimpson in "Ask HN: Interesting TUIs (text user interfaces), maybe forgotten ones?"

mattsimpson — Thu, 09 May 2024 02:24:08 +0000

Thanks for posting this. Learning that Charm exists just made me so happy. I can't wait to build something.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?"

mattsimpson — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:38:51 +0000

https://mattsimpson.ca

I have been blogging before it was called blogging! Ha. Mostly just random technical musings, with a bit of book/movie reviews. There is always room for improvement and more, but I like my little slice of the web.

New comment by mattsimpson in "Gping – ping, but with a graph"

mattsimpson — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 22:23:11 +0000

This immediately made it into my toolbox. Very handy; thanks for the work and the post.