Hacker News: mech4bg

New comment by mech4bg in "This blog is written in en-GB"

mech4bg — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:06:09 +0000

I wish US english had a term as good as ‘twig’ for when someone doesn’t get something.

New comment by mech4bg in "How to talk to anyone and why you should"

mech4bg — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 23:20:58 +0000

I'm the same - work persona is curious, engaged, loves to talk to new people. Off work sometimes this bleeds over, but generally I retreat to my more comfortable introverted self.

It's a valuable skill, so I do sometimes practice trying to adopt the work persona at home, but it really doesn't come naturally.

New comment by mech4bg in "New Work by Gary Larson"

mech4bg — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 19:43:10 +0000

Neither did Homer if it makes you feel better.

https://youtu.be/LjfkynJ4hbI?si=rMrpX7VChQMX23_I

(Obviously not the only one if not getting Far Side comics made the Simpsons!)

New comment by mech4bg in "Porting Python to a $3 smartwatch [video]"

mech4bg — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 18:59:05 +0000

My friend wrote Micropython so I’ve passed this along to him! Very cool.

New comment by mech4bg in "How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment"

mech4bg — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 22:28:18 +0000

I saw some people wondering if there will be more shows - my kids use the iView app and a VPN to watch Bluey (which has been handy to get access early to new episodes!) and they've been advertising they'll be doing a long-form 28 minute episode this year.

New comment by mech4bg in "We reduced our iOS app launch time by 60%"

mech4bg — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 22:59:24 +0000

Not an unfair point, although it is alarming at work how many bugs end up being reported directly from customers.

New comment by mech4bg in "We reduced our iOS app launch time by 60%"

mech4bg — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 18:04:36 +0000

>At DoorDash, we take app startup speed extremely seriously. We are obsessed with optimizing our customers' experience and making continuous improvements.

I wonder if they actually believe this? They make it almost impossible to report bugs in the app, and when I have customer support's reaction has been "there's not really anything I can do about this."

My Writing Finances, 2022

mech4bg — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 18:32:43 +0000

Article URL: https://dmoren.com/2023/01/05/my-writing-finances-2022/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34536353

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by mech4bg in "Non-ECC memory corrupted my hard drive image [video]"

mech4bg — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 23:44:12 +0000

My 4 year old Mac Mini had been showing some flakiness and finally I got an error about "hash mismatch detected on volume" - ran memtest and sure enough the RAM had gone bad. I rely on this machine for all my media, backups, etc, goodness knows what data I may have lost while the RAM was bad. It's a moderately common problem, found plenty of people with the same issue.

New comment by mech4bg in "Bolt Financial's loans come due"

mech4bg — Fri, 27 May 2022 01:10:39 +0000

That’s not true. It depends on the RSU structure. We’ve had both types at my company.

Also FWIW the company can withhold some shares as they vest but max 22% for federal.

New comment by mech4bg in "Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations"

mech4bg — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 19:52:35 +0000

Off topic, but this is the first time I’ve seen your username. I would love to compare sometime how we both came to such similar kinda odd usernames, haha.

New comment by mech4bg in "I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app"

mech4bg — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 18:42:05 +0000

FWIW I've noticed on a lot of airlines removing the screens have phone holders in their place and always have a USB charger.

It's a moderate weight saving, there are some details in this article: https://www.fastcompany.com/3034196/airlines-are-tossing-sea...

New comment by mech4bg in "I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app"

mech4bg — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 18:17:39 +0000

>It’s becoming somewhat of a popular trend in the airline industry to cut costs by having the passenger bring the hardware, and as an added bonus they get to force their way into your coveted list of installed apps.

TBH I see this as a positive - less weight on the plane, less fuel consumed, less waste when these screens are junked, etc. I personally always take a ton of videos with me and just watch my own stuff, I would never trust that the in-flight stuff is working (although I admit I overprepare and it's still important to provide this). And when you're flying - having the app installed is a net positive, it has maps of the airports (with great directions, which is super helpful when you're making a connection), can manage your ticket, etc - the videos are a bonus.

My Writing Finances, 2021

mech4bg — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 23:21:05 +0000

Article URL: https://dmoren.com/2022/01/03/my-writing-finances-2021/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29788520

Points: 37

# Comments: 3

New comment by mech4bg in "Apple Music is the last library focused music service"

mech4bg — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 04:56:57 +0000

I was scared of turning the subscription off, but no, it's fine. My own library is still there. They used to have a terrible matching algorithm for Apple Music, different to iTunes Match, but switched it pretty early on. I've had no issues for a number of years now.

New comment by mech4bg in "Atlassian fired me while I was taking care of my wife who is fighting cancer"

mech4bg — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 04:32:48 +0000

As just one example, a few years ago our company changed parental leave to 4 months from 6 weeks. Is that making them the same or more money?

I think companies do things like Unlimited PTO because although it may mean some people take more leave than before, other people take the same or less and there's no liability, so it may net out roughly the same but sounds better to new hires.

I don't think every company is extremely cynical as you're suggesting. As others here have mentioned, it depends where you work - we don't bat an eyelid if people are using 4-6 weeks plus holidays, in fact we check to make sure people are actually using their PTO.

New comment by mech4bg in "My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade in the software industry"

mech4bg — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 20:02:35 +0000

This is amazing. I now work in consumer SAAS web development, but I worked for a long time in finance and for 7 years of that exclusively focused on FIX, writing a real-time, highly performant market interface. I would have _loved_ to have had something like this while I was working on it. Have you thought of commercializing it? Do you get to use it in your day-to-day work?

New comment by mech4bg in "“We're Shutting Down Our 3G Network”"

mech4bg — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 20:39:27 +0000

I have no idea what is going on at AT&T but I've definitely seen their customer service slide dramatically in the last few years, to the point that I finally left the network after 9 years. I don't blame the reps - there seems to be complete organizational chaos, and lots of cost-cutting going on making the issue even worse.

This solution of just force-mailing out new phones blows my mind. Phones are such a personal choice, and these replacements seem pretty sketchy on the whole, what a phenomenal waste of resources. Surely a better solution would be to give people a voucher to use with AT&T that would at least cover a cheap phone with comparable specs and could also be used against future phone bills if you want to upgrade yourself?

New comment by mech4bg in "Instagram Has Become SkyMall"

mech4bg — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 03:22:49 +0000

That’s not true. It forces reels on you now (maybe feature flagged?), all kinds of random people you don’t follow. Instagram has become a hot mess.

New comment by mech4bg in "Portland passes low-density zoning reform"

mech4bg — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 18:51:10 +0000

I was a little confused by this, but correct me if I'm wrong but the 2500 sq ft limit is just for R5 lots correct? Larger lots, like R10, can have much larger dwellings on them still.