Hacker News: nickbauman

New comment by nickbauman in "Let's consign CAP to the cabinet of curiosities"

nickbauman — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:15:08 +0000

Having worked at a couple of banks, this is absolutely true.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022)"

nickbauman — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 19:33:57 +0000

Comment was not meant to cover Lydia; just generally how money emerged. And this is a "cartoon" version of the story.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022)"

nickbauman — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 19:29:31 +0000

Huato doesn't seem to have read the first line of page 22, as Graber actually refutes the claim that money and debt co-emerged. As far as the Cato institute's criticism is concerned, that section is almost entirely free of specificity, unsurprisingly considering how right-wing Cato is in general. All accounts are flawed to some degree, these criticisms you point to are almost entirely ideological or non specific.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022)"

nickbauman — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 23:24:20 +0000

David Graber's book "Debt, the first 5,000 years" goes into this in great detail. Highly recommended.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022)"

nickbauman — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 23:04:40 +0000

Thanks for posting! Burke uses the term "barter", which is wrong. Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022)"

nickbauman — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 22:56:28 +0000

Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them) were invented to facilitate war. They were given to soldiers to allow them to participate in the economy of the conquered. Since the free peasantry wouldn't trade with them (unreliable: they "died for a living"). The ruler demanded to be paid taxes in his own coin. This solved several important problems: reduction of military unrest against the ruler, free peasantry became a reliable source of goods and services, and the ruler could make war as needed. A market economy emerged as a side effect.

New comment by nickbauman in "Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus"

nickbauman — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:35:44 +0000

This is interesting. I sat next to a German manager of DaimlerChrysler (which really dates me, I know) on a flight. He agreed with the idea of worker unions being inside the company and having a seat at the table. He also disliked the practice of building cars "offshore" because, he said "the knowledge of building the car leaves the country".

New comment by nickbauman in "Alpine.js"

nickbauman — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:29:18 +0000

JSX has an Async "tag"...

Let that sink in.

New comment by nickbauman in "Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus"

nickbauman — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 16:52:26 +0000

The most radical are Co-Ops. The workers own the company. They're called Worker-Owners. Where management is a skill, not a rank. The problem with this model is three-fold:

• Outside investment can undermine the Co-Op's autonomy (many don't allow it) • Raising capital is hard; usually you're bootstrapping (worker-owners must divert some of their income) • Sometimes worker-owners get caught up in the democratic process of collective decision-making and get frustrated

On the other hand:

• A real Co-Op is real community. They exist to support the humans through work. You're all in this together. You can be "kicked out" by vote, but when you do, you give up your share and all that share money accumulating is yours. • You are "The Man" in the worst and best way you can imagine If something is wrong with the company, you can change it. • No more perverse mgmt incentives.

The biggest Co-Op is the Mondragon. They are very successful, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

New comment by nickbauman in "Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus"

nickbauman — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 16:35:03 +0000

What's the title?

New comment by nickbauman in "Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus"

nickbauman — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 16:32:21 +0000

The big German companies invite the unions in because they are a source of innovation too. And managing the connection between the people who actually build the cars and the people who design/plan them is important.

New comment by nickbauman in "Alpine.js"

nickbauman — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 16:44:25 +0000

I was just going to say this too: JSX is a DSL. And a particularly screwy one!

New comment by nickbauman in "Show HN: I built my own PM tool after trying Trello, Asana, ClickUp, etc."

nickbauman — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 17:26:18 +0000

I'm sure this has some amazing features that really help with project and personal productivity mgmt compared to other systems.

But let me ask you a question. If I want to get your attention, which one of the following techniques will work best:

1) Write you a snailmail letter 2) Send you an email 3) Send you a text 4) Write it on a yellow post-it note on your refrigerator

The answer is 4. Because it's the most difficult to ignore and leverages our ancient human physiology. It's not an accident that Kent Beck (Author of "Extreme Programming: Embrace Change") used post-it notes stuck to a wall that had every story written on it that mattered to the team within eyesight of every developer.

The problem is that when we get together to put information into a Jira or a Trello or whatever, we're making THE TOOL happy. What matters is the state of the tool, not the state of the system you're working on.

New comment by nickbauman in "The Forgotten Operating System That Keeps the NYC Subway System Alive (2019)"

nickbauman — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 20:10:59 +0000

I believe your comment might be a bit too broad for the claims you're making.

Arguably, the most advanced "tech stack" for moving trains around rail systems today (at scale, with the highest safety rating) is based around the Sicas ECC electronic interlocking by Siemens.

However, this article is merely about the technology used for collection of fares for the NYC metro rail system.

New comment by nickbauman in "How far can you go by train in 5h?"

nickbauman — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:09:26 +0000

I believe this as well. And I happen to know of one of the largest rail systems in North America changes its topology weekly. I'm not sure "throughput over latency" is as much of a mindset as those here who say it is.

New comment by nickbauman in "How far can you go by train in 5h?"

nickbauman — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:05:45 +0000

This is a perfect example of path-dependent policy. Because the decision was to select for freight, other kinds of rail are "unfeasible". I'm using scare quotes to suggest that it's not really unfeasible, it's a choice.

And since trucking capacity has been maxed out in the US for quite a while (Amazon is the big mover for this situation, even before covid), you can bet this path dependence is biting us now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

New comment by nickbauman in "How far can you go by train in 5h?"

nickbauman — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 16:10:10 +0000

No it doesn't have a world class freight rail network. The North American rail infra is incredibly primitive. Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe. I used to write rail automation software for a German firm. They were appalled at the state of affairs here. One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!

New comment by nickbauman in "Reference count, don't garbage collect"

nickbauman — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 14:04:26 +0000

Yes; I have a friend who is part of a small team that wrote a very successful stock market trading gateway in Java. Turns out the JVM's GC can be tuned in very specific ways based on your needs. And there are ways to avoid having to do JVM GC in critical areas of the code as well.

New comment by nickbauman in "Shortsightedness has become an epidemic"

nickbauman — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 13:28:41 +0000

I thought the increase in nearsightedness originated in kids not playing outside as much (and thereby not focusing their eyes over longer distances) resulting in eyesight that's more attuned to shorter distances.

New comment by nickbauman in "Small Modular Reactors Exacerbate Challenges of Nuclear Waste"

nickbauman — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 17:35:03 +0000

Our nuclear storage problem will not change whether or not we build more nuclear power plants or shutter them. The problem will remain "forever" regardless.

So I am for new nuclear power projects because we will need generations of people that can steward the waste regardless. And it's important to keep the ability and technical expertise with these materials for centuries. If the industry is abandoned the risk of a mishandling the waste will increase every year.