Hacker News: nsoldiac

New comment by nsoldiac in "Logo Programming"

nsoldiac — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:27:39 +0000

They taught us Logo at school in the early 90s in Lima, Peru. I'll never forget the aha moment of going from "forward 10, left 90" to "repeat 360 [forward 1 right 1]" and bam a circle! They had us bring a formatted 5in floppy disk (they were indeed floppy) to our first class; what was this sorcery?

New comment by nsoldiac in "Google co-founder reveals that "many" of the new hires do not have a degree"

nsoldiac — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:15:15 +0000

The type of roles w/ non-degree holders matters here. I'm sure Google offers a great career in any of its roles, but the article makes it sound like positions Stanford grads apply to (PM + eng) already have lots of non-degree holders. Pointing at company-wide stats to support that claim is weaksauce. Over a third of Google employees are not engineers/PMs (if this is true: https://www.unifygtm.com/insights-headcount/google). Who's to say the vast majority of non-degree holders aren't clustered in their sales and support org? I think the 77% stat is a great signal, love to see reduced gatekeeping in any job market. But, signaling you'll find folks without degrees in eng squads across Google doesn't seem obvious.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Ask HN: Those of you who've left the SWE world, what did you transition into?"

nsoldiac — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 22:15:03 +0000

I can share some real examples I've seen/heard of from trustworthy sources (I'm not there yet myself):

- Open an independent bookstore in a medium-sized midwestern city's downtown

- Get into the jewelry business (not sure if there was family business experience there);

- Open a coffee shop, this person had someone else manage it (must be nice);

- One past tech PM switched careers to become a traveling nurse and was loving it still ~5 years in;

- Wive's friend moved to montana and opened a dog grooming franchise

Note that virtually all require some money to either invest in opening a new business or re-train yourself in some new profession (college/grad school prob just means loans). Doesn't mean it's true for every option, but worth noting how often that's the case.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Oklahoma Stakes Its Claim to the Tallest Building in the U.S."

nsoldiac — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 23:42:09 +0000

It might light up clouds above Tulsa in the evening, maybe you'll see those.

New comment by nsoldiac in "FBI raids Atlanta corporate landlord in probe of rental market price fixing"

nsoldiac — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 02:41:21 +0000

I think the cartel protects itself from an abundance of supply, that's part of the problem. If supply is high it should naturally translate to landlords cutting prices to compete. Instead, a cartel can coordinate to keep prices high or withhold listings to artificially constraint supply. That should keep rents high even during an abundance of supply. I read somewhere they're accused of doing exactly that.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Jeff Dean: Trends in Machine Learning [video]"

nsoldiac — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 03:20:32 +0000

Hi, my partner worked in technology strategy for a large healthcare system where she saw many derm AI-based applications evaluated over the last decade. (Dis)Incentives aside, they all followed a similar\ story arc overpromising in their research findings and underdelivering in actual care delivery. They've been around for longer than you'd imagine. I hope they reach their potential, but suggest approaching them with healthy skepticism.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Ask HN: What are good books/blogs to read for a first time CTO?"

nsoldiac — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 15:44:55 +0000

not always a him

New comment by nsoldiac in "Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics"

nsoldiac — Thu, 04 May 2023 17:00:54 +0000

This. Not to say companies always get comms right, quite the opposite, but there's entire org structures filled with people dedicated to crafting these communications and the decisions about wording and audience are probably debated to death internally. My personal hell, but I have to acknowledge it's existence and purpose.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Andreessen Horowitz and 'zero interest rate phenomena'"

nsoldiac — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 04:22:06 +0000

Interesting thread, wonder if that was the internal backdrop for the decision to deploy their biggest deal ever in Adam Newman's new venture (which has several folks scratching their heads).

From Zero to A/B Testing (for startups and small orgs)

nsoldiac — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 03:59:16 +0000

Article URL: https://democratizeopportunity.com/from-zero-to-a-b-testing-2fffc3cb9030

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16645600

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by nsoldiac in "Alphabet considers Lyft investment of about $1B"

nsoldiac — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 00:19:01 +0000

the "L" in the alphabet puzzle?

New comment by nsoldiac in "It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code (2015)"

nsoldiac — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:23:14 +0000

I'm surprised no one has raised the problem of senior managers and VPs underestimating and oversimplifying the complexity and LOE of work. It causes unrealistic timelines for others who do have to adhere to a release process (which is never perfect but certainly necessary). "Yes CEO, of course we can get that in by tomorrow, no problem."

When the work misses the impossible deadline the feedback usually points to an underperforming organization and rarely to unrealistic estimation.

New comment by nsoldiac in "How Web Scraping Is Revealing Lobbying and Corruption in Peru"

nsoldiac — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 02:15:17 +0000

It would be interesting to see the volume of visits by government office year over year. I have a feeling that periods around elections might look very different. Also would be interested to see distribution color-coded by industry. Mining and contracting should pop up for certain time periods and government agencies.

New comment by nsoldiac in "How Web Scraping Is Revealing Lobbying and Corruption in Peru"

nsoldiac — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:15:40 +0000

Carlos, super buen trabajo, felicitaciones!! Llevo tiempo estudiando temas relacionados a tecnología vs. corrupción desde acá en Berkeley. Tengo testimonios interesantes de contactos que han vivido el cambio post-tecnología en el gobierno. Perú tiene harto potencial en esta área. Si necesitas ayuda en cualquier momento feliz de apoyarte!

New comment by nsoldiac in "Drone Flies Into an Active Volcano [video]"

nsoldiac — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:00:48 +0000

I'm a Phantom owner and I'm skeptical about those flying time numbers. I get 15-18 minutes on the drone by itself, but if you add the weight of the gimbal and camera (~0.5lb) the flight time goes down at least 4 mins, AND the gimbal needs power from the drone's battery too. I've heard the Phantom's flying time with the working gimbal is more like 6-8 mins. But if you know what kinda shot you want, that could be more than enough, just get lots of extra batteries (and those have dipped in price, you can grab one for $12).

New comment by nsoldiac in "Peru To Power 2 Million Of Its Poorest By Solar Energy"

nsoldiac — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 14:40:45 +0000

Yup, topography influences energy policy greatly in most countries. Peru is special because of its diversity...China-like in a much much smaller package. Mountains are good because of potential for hydroelectric plants, but not good to build a grid ON them. Jungle has proven a great source of natural gas, but the Andes mountains severs the jungle from the population centers on the coast.

I think solar for the mountain population is very interesting. They don't have anything at all now, not like we're increasing their current energy bill. It's cleaner than most other options, and very low environmental impact for these typical rural communities.

New comment by nsoldiac in "Peru To Power 2 Million Of Its Poorest By Solar Energy"

nsoldiac — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:40:13 +0000

About time we got a perk -I'm Peruvian :). Seriously though, we've had more engineers graduating schools here and more money in state revenues, we're finally seeing that translate into smarter infrastructure projects.

New comment by nsoldiac in "iOS 6: Do Not Disturb mode stays on after scheduled time"

nsoldiac — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:35:39 +0000

Maybe they're pushing an update on the 7th

New comment by nsoldiac in "Gmail.com was down"

nsoldiac — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:45:23 +0000

First updates from Google's App Status Dashboard: http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=issue&ts=13...

New comment by nsoldiac in "Gmail.com was down"

nsoldiac — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:42:02 +0000

thanks HN-ers!