Hacker News: midiguy

New comment by midiguy in "Several injured in Boeing 787 nose-gear collapse in Frankfurt"

midiguy — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:04:47 +0000

So a plane which has withstood probably countless landings, had its nose gear collapse while sitting statically at a gate of all times and places? Weird.

New comment by midiguy in "Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)"

midiguy — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:44:49 +0000

It's not that everything has to be sweet, but rather that, for example, Coke really isn't Coke without sweetness and people just happen to enjoy Coke. And if you're going to enjoy a Coke, Coke Zero or Diet Coke is better for your health.

Of course there are other things like coffee that really are not defined by sweetness and can be perfectly enjoyed unsweetened.

New comment by midiguy in "Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line"

midiguy — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:43:14 +0000

I feel like I am exactly the target demographic. Love the taste of meat. Would eat it every day if there were no consequences. But I mostly cook vegetarian at home because my wife is veg and I do somewhat care about the impacts of factory farming ('ethical' meat being stupid expensive). For me Beyond burgers are a good way to scratch that itch a bit. I feel like there must be many more people like me because meat is both delicious and problematic but maybe that's my own bias.

New comment by midiguy in "Show HN: A real-time strategy game that AI agents can play"

midiguy — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:13:55 +0000

I am so glad we have automated away game playing so that I can just sit around and be a lifeless vegetable

New comment by midiguy in "Web dev is still fun if you want it to be"

midiguy — Sat, 31 May 2025 15:49:41 +0000

Tbh, I would be pretty frustrated developing any non-trivial frontend code without a type system. But I am interested to try dropping frameworks.

New comment by midiguy in "Was Sam Altman Right About the Job Market?"

midiguy — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:07:18 +0000

The techno optimism has morphed into VCs and tech founders lobbying Trumps governments to self-destruct the US government so they can lord over techno-feudal city states

The arrogance and narcissism of the Silicon Valley elite is going to result in horrible outcomes for just about everyone. These people do not know a single thing about responsible public administration, they can only see dollar signs.

New comment by midiguy in "How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop"

midiguy — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:57:05 +0000

The same thing is happening to jazz playlists. Spotify is cramming jazz playlists with bland interpretations of standards that they paid bottom dollar to desperate conservatory students for. As a long-term jazz fan, I know what I am looking for and it ain't that. But for someone new to jazz who doesn't know exactly what they are looking for, their attention is being diverted to this slop, and they may never discover any dimension of jazz music beyond it, which is kind of sad.

New comment by midiguy in "How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop"

midiguy — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:45:01 +0000

Lofi peaked long before the term lofi even came about

New comment by midiguy in "My Favorite Book on AI"

midiguy — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:09:51 +0000

Let's face it. Our world is currently filled with rogue states waging pointless wars, spying on their own citizens, launching cyberattacks, seeding disinformation outside their borders, etc. If they want to make it happen they will. It is a damn hard coordination problem.

New comment by midiguy in "Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds"

midiguy — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 16:47:33 +0000

I'm picturing scientists in another universe clenching their butts as the monkey goes to type the last letter of Hamlet..... and misses 't' for 'r' and the whole observation hall erupts with loud groans

New comment by midiguy in "Next.js, TypeScript are instant turn offs"

midiguy — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 21:46:26 +0000

Pretty much every issue with Typescript is actually an issue with Javascript. Typescript is purely an improvement.

New comment by midiguy in "Legalizing sports gambling was a mistake"

midiguy — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 18:04:52 +0000

Most dopamine producing activities are in some way beneficial in moderation to outweigh the negatives (sex, eating, exercise, even many recreational drugs). I don't know whether pointlessly bleeding money away to some greasy corporation counts there. That said I don't like telling people how they should waste their money but it seems there needs to be some form of a plan for problem gambling.

New comment by midiguy in "Legalizing sports gambling was a mistake"

midiguy — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 17:38:46 +0000

Poker is the only casino game approaching fair where a highly skilled player can be profitable as they are taking money from other players and not the casino (casino just collects their rake on every hand). But that's why casinos hate offering many poker tables, it's just not as profitable.

New comment by midiguy in "Batteryless OP-1"

midiguy — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 23:19:16 +0000

And with the advent of Eurorack, not only do you need more instruments, but the instrument you do have is never finished either

At least lots of Eurorack builders are small passionate shops as opposed to big soulless corporations

New comment by midiguy in "Mark Zuckerberg unveils giant Roman sculpture of his wife – AP News"

midiguy — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:43:51 +0000

The difference is that Roman sculpture is revered for it's ingenuity and craftmanship at a time where that style of sculpture was being developed with the more limited resources they had back then, and it often depicted important motifs from religion, society, etc. Whereas this is just a copy of that with limited cultural relevance (no one is going to be talking about Priscilla Chan in 20 years, let alone a couple thousand).

New comment by midiguy in "We Should Stop Using JavaScript According to Douglas Crockford (2023)"

midiguy — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 19:58:15 +0000

The real culprit here is UI. Yes, there are many better languages and runtimes than JS without a doubt. But most of their UI libraries are just as terrible if not more terrible than HTML/CSS/JS. And that is because developing sensible but also flexible and easy-to-use patterns for user-reactivity and data-presentation is HARD.

So sure, start a clean new operating system with a clean language with a clean runtime. I don't look forward to using whatever mess of a UI toolkit that gets built on top of it.

New comment by midiguy in "Professional poker players know the optimal strategy but don't always use it"

midiguy — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:44:54 +0000

It used to be about playing people back when no one knew anything. Now that people study GTO, it's definitely more about the cards.

New comment by midiguy in "A brief interview with Awk creator Dr. Brian Kernighan (2022)"

midiguy — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 19:09:23 +0000

I agree it was an incredibly awkward interview

New comment by midiguy in "The flip-flop on whether alcohol is good for you (2023)"

midiguy — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 22:15:53 +0000

I'm one of those weird people for whom alcohol feels nice but also makes me incredibly sleepy to the point that I become way less social. Thus I will enjoy a beer at home but if I'm going out I will choose other substances (or abstinence).

New comment by midiguy in "The flip-flop on whether alcohol is good for you (2023)"

midiguy — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 22:12:33 +0000

Sure, it increases anxiety overall particularly when going through withdrawals or hangovers. But I have never heard of its usage directly triggering fully-fledged panic attacks as weed so commonly does.