Hacker News: mattw2121

New comment by mattw2121 in "“Your frustration is the product”"

mattw2121 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:09:14 +0000

Somewhere along the way, we lost the original vibe of the Internet. There was a time when it was fundamentally a community. People hosted things for the sheer joy of doing it and for the satisfaction of contributing.

If I loved King Crimson, I might create a site expressing that love and also host lyrics to their songs. Not to generate ad revenue. Not with any expectation of being reimbursed for hosting costs. I did it because it was fun and because sharing knowledge felt like the point.

I would actually flip your statement around. Today, many people feel entitled to be paid for sharing things on the Internet. In that sense, they are the newcomers. The original ethos was about sharing information simply because it mattered to someone else, and a few of us still believe that value has not gone away.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Give Django your time and money, not your tokens"

mattw2121 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:37:18 +0000

I disagree with that. I can easily tell when my non-native English speaking coworkers use AI to help with their communications. Nine times out of ten, their communication has been improved through the use of AI.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Darkrealms BBS"

mattw2121 — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:02:59 +0000

As someone else mentioned, the community is gone. But, I think there's also the feeling of victory from when you actually connected. You may have needed to autodial for hours to get onto the BBS. There was a huge amount of anticipation that led up to getting connected. Once you were on, it felt more special that it does today with the instant connection.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal"

mattw2121 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:18:27 +0000

I created a basic site to do some similar things as well: https://homemaintlist.com/

Need to revisit it and update it based on a lot of feedback I've received.

New comment by mattw2121 in "OpenMower – An open source lawn mower"

mattw2121 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:34:40 +0000

I have one of the best looking lawns in my neighborhood. I cut it whenever is most convenient for me. That might be any time between 9AM and 7PM. I cut it no matter the outside temperature. The only thing I avoid doing is cutting it while wet.

New comment by mattw2121 in "FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12"

mattw2121 — Wed, 07 May 2025 12:14:20 +0000

Can we get this applied to Turo? Find a car for 100/day. Try and book for 5 days. Ends up being $1000 once Turo adds its fees.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Strengths Are Your Weaknesses"

mattw2121 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:19:03 +0000

Sorry for the late reply. The Manager Tools podcast definitely talks about both sides of feedback. Everything they teach is predicated on building strong relationships, through weekly 1x1s, and starting off with positive feedback only after multiple months of conducting 1x1s.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Strengths Are Your Weaknesses"

mattw2121 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 14:11:20 +0000

The is exactly the advice that one of my favorite podcasts, Manager Tools, would prescribe. Don't give feedback about emotions or internal feelings, give feedback about behaviors. Telling someone they are acting like an asshole can be met with, "but, no, I'm not acting like an asshole." Telling someone, "When you cut off people mid sentence and speak loudly, you will have people complain about you." gives them actionable ways to change their external behavior in the future. It doesn't matter if they are still an asshole on the inside.

New comment by mattw2121 in "In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants"

mattw2121 — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:54:20 +0000

After reading your comment, one might come to the conclusion that Europeans see Americans through the lens of reporting and social media, just as Americans see Europeans through the same lens. Both sides believe characterizations of the other.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Show HN: I built a fair alternative to Product Hunt for indie makers"

mattw2121 — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 23:18:22 +0000

Great idea and execution. Agree with all the points you've made about Product Hunt.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Show HN: New search engine and free-FOIA-by-fax-via-web for US veteran records"

mattw2121 — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 13:26:47 +0000

As someone trying to piece together family history, after most of my family has died, I really appreciate this. Any and all efforts to make records available helps with clues. Building an accurate family history is a process of "one more document". This effort is definitely helpful to me. I've already utilized your service to submit a request for my grandfather's records. I'll be spending time searching for other relatives as well. Thanks!

New comment by mattw2121 in "Show HN: Handwritten Christmas Card for Hacker News"

mattw2121 — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 19:38:56 +0000

We all know what that will devolve into...

New comment by mattw2121 in "FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness"

mattw2121 — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:56:33 +0000

Yes I have. An altercation between two people in a parking lot is different than a school shooting.

Have you looked at the other items listed where there are victims? Multiple times I see that it was an altercation in a dorm room of a college. Sorry, I would consider that an altercation in a residence, not a school shooting. Here's another one that a kid shot himself in the leg and it's counted as a school shooting.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3092594

These stats from GVA are inflated with respect to school shootings.

New comment by mattw2121 in "FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness"

mattw2121 — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 16:40:16 +0000

USA Today's reporting is wrong. There are not 971 cases of school shootings. There are about that many "school incidents". Some of those incidents, like the one listed below, are where police responded to a report of someone with a gun and never found the person or gun.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3096236

Additionally, some of the 112 that did have a victim didn't even happen on campus. See this linked incident.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3091356

New comment by mattw2121 in "Inside the War Against Headlight Brightness"

mattw2121 — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 18:24:18 +0000

I am similarly irritated by loud vehicles and wonder why they are allowed to persist. Would this be better enforced if it didn't rely 100% on officer testimony? I wonder if there is a market for a "sound camera" that could be marketed to police departments. The idea would be that you point this thing at cars, like their radar gun, and it captures video, sound, and the # of decibels. Only thing I don't know is if there is a way to attribute particular sounds to particular objects found in the video. This would, potentially, give them the hard evidence to ticket these cases. If there is an easy way to make money off these, the police would be sure to enforce it.

New comment by mattw2121 in "What we know about CEO shooting suspect"

mattw2121 — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 13:43:31 +0000

This is my story, just replacing "mom" with "dad". Thanks for telling it and sorry for your loss.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?"

mattw2121 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:35:27 +0000

Same. I used to run my own email servers and do all the per domain things. It was just way too exhausting. Switched to Gmail and haven't looked back. Don't even worry about email at all now. I just wish I had jumped on Gmail earlier to have a better username.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Dookie Demastered"

mattw2121 — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 18:44:28 +0000

As a former North American Punk, they were posers, not punks.

New comment by mattw2121 in "The Naming of America (2023)"

mattw2121 — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 12:56:21 +0000

"This generous, patriotic, and enlightened people will take into their own hands the case of America Vespucci. They will procure for her that home which she desires among us. They will do ail that Congress is forbidden to do, and infinitely more than she asks or desires, and demonstrate to the world that the name of America, our country’s name, is dear to us all, and shall be honored, respected, and cherished in the person of the interesting exile from whose ancestor we derive the great and glorious title."

I, personally, read into those final lines that she was, indeed, given land, but from private donors.

New comment by mattw2121 in "Most gamers prefer single-player games"

mattw2121 — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 18:00:12 +0000

I love playing multi-player games when there is a well built economy. Frankly, that economy doesn't even need to be built into the game. I've played multi-player games where the marketplace was outside the game (but still all done with in-game items).

What I hate about multi-player is when you have to play the game with others to be successful (exceptions made for those very few big bosses). I'm mostly a MMORPG player. I don't want to be in a clan or guild. I don't want to find other people to play with. I just want to log on whenever I want and play for as long or as little as I want. But, I want to be able to buy stuff in an economy.