Hacker News: newmac

New comment by newmac in "Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?"

newmac — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 19:07:25 +0000

Our house has a commercial style HVAC system. The controllers for everything (relays) are very simple. The run on a protocol called BACNet that is unauthenticated and pretty straightforward.

I was able to read in all the data points and then use the weather forecast and a few other data points to make changes to my HVAC system. The comfort different has been very drastic. Our house doesn't overheat on hot days and doesn't get cold fast when the temperature drops. (I am in the Northeast where there are big swings).

New comment by newmac in "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Lex Fridman Podcast [video]"

newmac — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 19:15:25 +0000

I rolled my eyes when I saw your comment, then I watched the video. The lips and cheeks are distinctly botox'd.

Ask HN: Did you take paternity leave?

newmac — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 22:08:04 +0000

My wife is unexpectedly expecting.

My startup is seed funded with a very small (<5) team. I am the CEO.

I feel extremely torn and am unsure what to do. In an ideal world I would take a lot of paternity leave, but I feel like I really can't take any. I just don't see how to fill the gaps that my taking time off would leave.

I'd love to know what others here have done in the past.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35224190

Points: 2

# Comments: 3

New comment by newmac in "Tracking the Fake GitHub Star Black Market"

newmac — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 11:16:11 +0000

It is worth noting that it is trivial to buy fake stars for a project you are not affiliated with. The reason someone might do this would be to "test" the purchasing of fake stars without risking contaminating their own project.

New comment by newmac in "Tracking the Fake GitHub Star Black Market"

newmac — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 10:43:38 +0000

I think the most interesting thing would be to run this test against the list of Launch HNs, sorted by votes, grouped by class.

New comment by newmac in "Tracking the Fake GitHub Star Black Market"

newmac — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 10:35:26 +0000

FWIW a smug doctor usually corrects people that they are a Physician.

New comment by newmac in "Silicon Valley Bank unmasks the hypocrisy of libertarian tech bros"

newmac — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:06:16 +0000

David Sacks wants to run for President. He watched Trump's election closely. He wants to be the smart guy that uses the idiot's playbook. He is working hard to get placed on as much media as possible as a commentator. He is connected to many of the richest and most powerful people in the country.

He is, at the end of the day, a bored billionaire with some very pedestrian ideas. He does go to great effort to shout them louder. He does seem to have some serious ego issues, but I guess what politician doesn't?

I think the hilarity of Calacanis literally tweeting his own similar ideas is that it was a transparent attempt to be louder. ie: he just didn't feel heard about his ideas, so they needed amplification.

People wonder why clothing has changed so much

newmac — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 02:12:37 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/FromKulak/status/1635319287618609152

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35146442

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

newmac — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 12:01:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/influencer-parents-children-social-media-impact

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35134484

Points: 264

# Comments: 230

Even Wealthy Landlords Are Skipping Payments on Office Buildings

newmac — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 03:35:10 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-09/work-from-home-shift-spurs-office-building-defaults

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35104958

Points: 18

# Comments: 3

New comment by newmac in "Developer marketing for early-stage startups – what we’ve learned"

newmac — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 03:35:55 +0000

One I saw recently was "With developer signups from the world’s leading brands" and then a wall of logos under it. Felt like a stretch to use a company's logo when all that happened was someone downloaded your open source code.

Open-Source Subscription Billing and Payments Platform

newmac — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:59:46 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/killbill

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34780376

Points: 14

# Comments: 0

New comment by newmac in "Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?"

newmac — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 13:24:21 +0000

I have a friend who is going through something eerily similar. To be honest I had to do a double take because a fossil fixation was a part of their breakdown too.

It sounds like you are aware of the impact it had on your family, I would just encourage you to very actively try to demonstrate to them that you understand it and want to make sure their life improves as yours does.

In my friend's case, I think pride has kept them from fully acknowledging just how shitty they made the lives of those around them. Everyone stuck by them because we love them. Their spouse in particular feels like they put up with hell and now that the person is healthy again they don't want to spend time making up for "the past".

It's not easy, but if you have the capacity for it, I encourage it.

Other than that, congratulations on getting through and getting back. A lot of folks come out of a break like that and do not reenter work or past hobbies in any meaningful way.

New comment by newmac in "PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever"

newmac — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 19:33:17 +0000

I do this so often now it's embarrassing. I have always had a problem with tone. Even on email where people don't expect much tone, I manage to come off as an asshole. Now I just write out my points and ask Chat GPT to rewrite it based on whatever criteria I think the receiver would prefer. I get responses in a fraction of the time I used to get them in.

New comment by newmac in "Apple HomePod 2nd Generation"

newmac — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 14:40:02 +0000

I would love to hear the inside story about why the old one was discontinued and it took so long for the v2.

The HomePod mini is the "first device" we have given to our children. No screen, I am comfortable with apple privacy, access to music and podcasts, etc.

The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is.

New comment by newmac in "Heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future"

newmac — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 21:17:28 +0000

Agree, ducts are wonderful! If you don't have ducts, go ductless for sure.

New comment by newmac in "Show HN: ToolJet 2.0 – Open-source alternative to Power Apps and Retool"

newmac — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 17:40:24 +0000

My question is a bit of a non sequitur, but I noticed that your project took off pretty quickly out of the gate. Congrats!

I am curious what non-HN places have resulted in that level of interest in the project?

New comment by newmac in "Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market"

newmac — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 15:54:47 +0000

This is a society set up for this sort of thing. You are physically isolated both at the home level and the community level. There is nobody you can run to. It is a physical taking of your passport. Your desire to get it back or any words you might have in you don't change the fact that your passport is gone and you are isolated.

There is a "breaking" period for most of these workers where they are demoralized as well.

New comment by newmac in "Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market"

newmac — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 15:51:22 +0000

She cannot get her old passport. If her "employers" know she is leaving, they will stop it.

I won't post about how we plan to get her out but I believe it is a good one and it has very littler risk to her or their brother. Perhaps when it is all done will feel ok posting more.

It is costing us a lot of money in the end, but the woman we employ is part of the family at this point and it's important to us that her sister is safe. We will employ the sister on her landing in our country and will do so for at least a year.

New comment by newmac in "Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market"

newmac — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:00:15 +0000

We have a Filipino woman who works for us. She has been a citizen here for 25 years and has worked for us for 12. Her sister went to Qatar 15 years ago and has been miserable. We have just finished preparing a sponsorship for her in our country and now need to extract her.

It involves having a replacement passport printed for her in the Philippines, her brother flying to Qatar under his Canadian passport and then bussing her to a neighbouring country to fly out of.