Hacker News: nickd2001

New comment by nickd2001 in "The looming college-enrollment death spiral"

nickd2001 — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:13:28 +0000

In the US there've historically been great work and wealth-generating opportunities that weren't as readily available in Europe. That seems to come at the price of less safety net if something goes wrong e:g health problems, disability, job loss. In recent times Europe has become more like the US in the sense of cutting safety nets while being more entrepreneurial. I think this'll lead to less people choosing to move to the US from Europe, compounded by US now having possibly less opportunities and an administration that makes even well qualified legal immigrants feel unsafe. Which will become self-fulfilling, the opportunities of the future will increasingly be outside the US. As to why more Americans haven't historically moved to Europe, my guess would be its simply unawareness of how actually for a lot of people it'd give a better quality of life.

New comment by nickd2001 in "I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to"

nickd2001 — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:33:55 +0000

Colorado is a great example of this. Rocky Mountains national park is good but a bit of a tourist trap and there's so much more to see in CO than that.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?"

nickd2001 — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:08:11 +0000

Am using Claude to attempt to do refactoring and find bugs. Sometimes its fantastic, finding issues instantly that'd take a lot of trawling or insider knowledge otherwise. Other times it gets obsessed about irrelevant things, makes suggestions that for some other obscure but non obvious reason don't work in practice. The generated code sometimes has excellent ideas I wouldn't have thought of. Other times it has places for bugs to lurk e:g if a directory isn't there, make it. Er, no thanks I want you to blow up if the dir isn't there because if it isn't , something else major went wrong. The trick is knowing when its going to be good and when hopeless and take you down a rabbit hole. Perhaps that is a meta skill on the part of the human developer. But I'm not optimistic about things improving, its the nature of how it is. The AI doesn't know personally the previous devs on the team, their programming tastes, the discussions they had at planning etc. Its got no context.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Study: Human brain is not capable of performing two tasks simultaneously"

nickd2001 — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:54:15 +0000

If this is true how then does James Morrison manage to accompany himself playing trumpet with the other hand on the piano ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

nickd2001 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:42:47 +0000

Follow the above advice as its great :) People need each other. Volunteering, apart from being worthwhile for its own sake, is one of the best ways to meet people and put your own life in perspective. There's a ton of stuff in the world that needs doing, that capitalism leaves un-done as there's no money to be made in it. It can either be directly helping people such as providing food, resources, support for homeless, supporting people with disabilities to participate in activities, generally helping others in some sort of need. Or things like tree-planting which helps everyone. Some of, either the people you help, or fellow volunteers, or both, will become great companions. Can also be a great way to find another partner ;) Some of the most happiest most stable couples my wife and I know, met volunteering - its a good foundation for a relationship, that both people sought to go out and help others even before they met each other.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Pope tells priests to use their brains, not AI, to write homilies"

nickd2001 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:31:35 +0000

If they're struggling for ideas to put in homilies, they could always ask for some input from people that are one or both of (a) female or (b) married. Might get a fresh perspective ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"

nickd2001 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 18:03:48 +0000

Indeed! e:g - looking after elderly and/or disabled people, to give their family carers respite. Which is a minimum wage job seen by many as "drain on the taxpayer", ignoring that apart from being worth providing for its own sake, it can enable the family carers to be also economic contributors and pay tax themselves.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Canada"

nickd2001 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:06:43 +0000

Being completely car dependent is to me a fundamental problem in much of both countries, and the advantage USA has is that the cost of running a car (or often 2 especially for a family) takes a smaller part of a middle class salary. In UK , Europe, many countries outside of N America you're just not forced to own a car in the same way. That's not just extra costs when you've got a family, but a source of isolation for people that are old or disabled. (Not to discount the many other wonderful fantastic things about life in N America. :) )

New comment by nickd2001 in "I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?"

nickd2001 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:39:08 +0000

If its any consolation, perhaps there might've been a few other highly intelligent capable sensible people in existence over the last few... shall we say, millennia, who, weren't really listened to either ? ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "FreeMDU: Open-source Miele appliance diagnostic tools"

nickd2001 — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 13:37:31 +0000

Cautionary tale from here in UK. We had a Neff (same company as Bosch and Siemens) dishwasher which we used heavily for 10 yrs then it started to leak because they'd used plastic in the base which got warped with heat. So, ditched a perfectly running machine due to a design flaw. Replaced it with a Miele in the hope that'd be better. So got a nice-and-simple base model, about £750 I think (as opposed to £400ish you can pay for another Neff). Turns out its made in Czech, not Germany. Although apparently Germans are cynical about their own factories these days, and it may be same quality. So far, it has a design fault that the drain detector is over sensitive. If bits of food fall on the base it interpets that as its still got water in and perpetually keeps trying to drain unless you pour a jug of water in to disperse food bits. Also depending how you close the door sometimes it seems to not engage, have to open and re-shut to make it work. One of the solenoids somewhere sounds a little rattly / not totally healthy, but that may be nothing. Quality of cleaning, and ease of stacking, appears less good than the Neff was. Suffice to say, I reserve judgement on whether paying extra for a Miele is worth it. They claim they're good for 20 yrs but if you read the small print that's at only 5 runs a week or something , not every day. So it may not actually be much better than the Neff in the end. But the Neffs now look cheaper and tackier than the ones from 10 yrs ago. Not an easy decision. Our best appliance purchase ever was a "Tesco value" microwave, which is Chinese cr*p that's still running fine almost 20 yrs later. ;) Good luck with your purchase ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "What is “good taste” in software engineering?"

nickd2001 — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 10:15:29 +0000

This is something I wrestle with. Objectively, it'd seem true that say, a Henry Moore sculpture is of "better taste" than Disneyland. ;) But I 100% wouldn't wanna criticise anyone who preferred Disneyland. Its up to them, they don't have "poor taste" for preferring that... its arrogant indeed to make such a judgement, but then again... surely.. Henry Moore, Disneyland... there's no comparison? ;) so I go around in circles... ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "What is “good taste” in software engineering?"

nickd2001 — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 10:03:01 +0000

+1 to limiting braggadocio. Maintaining code written by someone with humility, and consideration for the subsequent maintainer (including themself, as they don't assume they're super(wo)man and will understand their own code immediately after time away) is much easier than code written by someone with a large ego who likely thinks anyone who doesn't understand their code is "dumb" / "a wimp" etc

New comment by nickd2001 in "What is “good taste” in software engineering?"

nickd2001 — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 09:52:33 +0000

And the tragedy is that authors of such code often (usually?) don't receive recognition for saving time and effort on others' part by following KISS principles. For whatever reason its apparently opaque to others. And so there are entire jobs or even teams in the tech industry whose purpose is to work with and/or maintain systems that have needless complexity.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK"

nickd2001 — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:57:23 +0000

Some research on the subject here : https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20180905-how-genes-infl.... Personally I question how one can definitely prove to what extent genes are the factor as there are so many other factors in play, but those researchers know more than I.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK"

nickd2001 — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:39:03 +0000

To me, the whole Oxbridge education must be distorted by this fierce competition to improve one's "personal brand" by getting a prestigious school on your c.v /resume (or misperception that going to Oxbridge gets you in contact with the best people to learn the subject from, which is clearly untrue, as for starters many great academic staff stay away, unable to afford a family home in such areas). It just means your peers will be rather "type A" , pushing very hard. but does it mean they're actually brilliant minds with novel ideas? Some of them for sure but Oxbridge hardly has a monopoly on that. There must be people whose parents sent them to amazing private schools, and they got pushed towards Oxbridge and one day they wake up and say "I've no idea why I'm doing any of this, its not making me happy and I wish I could be around normal people" ;)

New comment by nickd2001 in "Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK"

nickd2001 — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:10:05 +0000

There's a stereotype, possibly unfair but somewhat amusing, that Durham attracts some people who are less clever/bright than they and their families believe, who failed to get into Oxbridge despite expensive private education, personal tutors, every other privilege under the sun. Sometimes known as "rahs" possibly? ;

New comment by nickd2001 in "Ask HN: I don't think I want to work in tech anymore?"

nickd2001 — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 10:58:31 +0000

Sure, tech is a relatively privileged career. Doesn't mean "Corporate hellhole" isn't a thing though ;). So don't feel guilty. :) The 50-60% pay cut far less stress jobs DO exist, but more in the public sector e:g government, academia. Even being a IT tech for a high school or something might be fine if you've nice people to work with and never get told "m'kay, yeah I'm gonna need you to come in on sunday, too". (or at least not without a day off in lieu in the week). Consider also, go be a ski bum in a McJob at a ski resort for a season or two. That's a break from tech, nice change of scene and fun times, but you still get paid something, so, maybe don't build up debts meanwhile. The Q then is can you get back into tech later after such a break, if you want. Which maybe depends on a few unpredictable factors. Back in the day I did that and many others here on HN have. Good luck :)

New comment by nickd2001 in "Children and young people's reading in 2025"

nickd2001 — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 19:02:44 +0000

Fantasy kids books, e:g Tolkien, CS Lewis (Narnia), Joan Aiken, Edith Nesbit are timeless though right? Then there are books set in a different time, that kids still enjoy e:g Just William series 1920-60 (which contains some stereotypes about race or gender roles which can actually lead to a healthy discussion about to what extent we've moved on and "don't say those sorts of things" nowadays) . So, books set in the current decade are great but kids can have a lot of fun reading older stuff if that isn't available. Ours read quite a mix of old and new.

New comment by nickd2001 in "Children and young people's reading in 2025"

nickd2001 — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 18:52:48 +0000

you might find this interesting : https://www.morethanascore.org.uk Says a lot of what you're saying, with some statistical evidence to back it up

New comment by nickd2001 in "Children and young people's reading in 2025"

nickd2001 — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 16:05:01 +0000

These are fairly current: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Rider. Aimed at teenage boys although I only know about them cos our daughter loved 'em.