Hacker News: observer987

New comment by observer987 in "Claude Fable 5"

observer987 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:27:55 +0000

I too am on the $100 plan and I second this.

I had it analyze a project I was working on with Opus 4.8, and it blew through 23% of my session limit in one go. Does not portend well for my budget.

New comment by observer987 in "Tested: 1981 Datsun 280ZX Turbo (1981)"

observer987 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 03:48:56 +0000

My 17 y/o self (living in small-town Oklahoma) lusted heavily after this car. For a few weeks, I would drive down to the dealership in my parent's car in order to drool over it in person (yeah, I was stupid kid who loved this car). Anyway, one day I managed to convince a salesman, who wasn't much older than me and obviously bored, to take a test drive in one. We got into the car and he told me that he first was going to show me what the car could do before letting me drive it and so, I had to wear the seatbelt (which was unheard of back then). Soon, we were on the highway and he put it through its paces - demonstrating the acceleration and handling, but he got a bit overconfident and then wound up putting it into a spin. By an extreme amount of luck we managed to avoid hitting anything. After he regained control we pulled over to the side of the road to inspect the car, and much to our relief (and astonishment on my part), there wasn't any visible damage on it. To his credit, he let me drive it back to the dealership were I shook his hand and thanked him for not killing us. Just as I get over to my mom's car, the sales manager shows up to try to close the deal - but when he got a look at my 16 y/o self, his demeanor changed from optimism to mild disappointment. I said I had to discuss with my father before I could consider buying it (but the look he had on his face was that he knew I was full of crap)

New comment by observer987 in "FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems"

observer987 — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:37:00 +0000

Years of budgetary neglect have lead to this situation and it’s going to cost a huge amount of money to effectively fix it.

New comment by observer987 in "TL;DW: Too Long; Didn't Watch Distill YouTube Videos to the Relevant Information"

observer987 — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 22:13:07 +0000

Nicely done! Thanks for open sourcing it as I've been able to run it locally and experiment with the prompt.

New comment by observer987 in "America's first bird flu death reported in Louisiana"

observer987 — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 23:19:29 +0000

I am not going to panic about it at this point. But, if it does develop into a pandemic, I am quite certain that the initial response will be more along the lines of "let's just see what happens. Gotta keep the economy going, right?"

New comment by observer987 in "Mike Lynch's co-defendant in fraud trial 'fatally struck' by car while jogging"

observer987 — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 08:12:01 +0000

sunk by a freaking tornado at that...

New comment by observer987 in "Reddit Post Outage"

observer987 — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 22:26:13 +0000

same here

New comment by observer987 in "As an Employee, You Are Disposable (2023)"

observer987 — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 08:56:22 +0000

“Shareholder value” reigns supreme in this late-stage capitalistic world. The executive class lives extraordinarily well off the fruits of the enterprise while the rest lives off the scraps.

New comment by observer987 in "Gilead shot prevents all HIV cases in trial"

observer987 — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 00:29:42 +0000

The paradox of living in this day and age is witnessing astonishing advances in science, while enduring the increasing levels of anti-intellectualism that pervades society like a cancer.

New comment by observer987 in "I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business"

observer987 — Thu, 30 May 2024 13:43:33 +0000

What are the tax implications of selling a bootstrapped business?

New comment by observer987 in "Euclid telescope spies rogue planets floating free in Milky Way"

observer987 — Fri, 24 May 2024 12:04:20 +0000

Poor rogue planets - one day orbiting their birth suns with their brethren planets - the next day cast out into the universe due to circumstances beyond their control … cursed to wander the universe alone potentially forever in a freezing dark vacuum …

New comment by observer987 in "FAA reveals flaw in Boeing 777 that could result in fuel tank exploding"

observer987 — Fri, 24 May 2024 11:57:53 +0000

You’re far more likely to die due to pilot error than from an accident caused by the fuel tanks exploding.

New comment by observer987 in "No more free ride. Returning stuff you buy online is about to get expensive"

observer987 — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 14:40:58 +0000

I have to say that I don't find the tightening of return policies too onerous. I just don't want the pendulum to swing too far the other way where it's nearly impossible to return anything.

New comment by observer987 in "Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts"

observer987 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 04:51:45 +0000

New York now has the lowest apartment vacancy rates in 50 years. But there’s a lot of empty storefronts and office space for lease - especially in the older office buildings. One could say that those should be fast tracked for conversion to residential properties - but those are a multi-year projects. So no help for housing in the short term.

New comment by observer987 in "The Hobbes OS/2 Archive logs off permanently in April"

observer987 — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 15:55:04 +0000

"if ain't broke, don't fix it" - unknown

New comment by observer987 in "United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing"

observer987 — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:34:33 +0000

I'm really disgusted at what's happened at Boeing over the years to lead to this situation. But it's systemic in the boardrooms across the country that profits come before anything else.

In a more ideal world, the people in management responsible for this mess would be brought up on criminal charges and forced to disgorge their performance-based pay that was based on fraudulent practices that harmed passengers, the workers of the company, and the economic growth of the USA. But, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is civil lawsuits brought by shareholders that will settle for a fraction of the economic damage wrought.

Undoubtably the FAA will be increasing its scrutiny of the company. But that will probably fall by the wayside if the Republican Party regains control of the government. The decrepit management team will probably pursue a sale of the assets at fire sale prices so that they can prop up their stock price and retire to a golf courses in "anonymity".

New comment by observer987 in "Ask HN: How iPhone saves you from being forced to unlock with face ID?"

observer987 — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 20:24:07 +0000

I have never activated Face ID on my iPhone. I do have an Apple Watch that displays notifications and allows me to use Apple Pay independently of the phone.

New comment by observer987 in "Startup Heatmap Europe 2023"

observer987 — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 12:16:13 +0000

Access denied….

New comment by observer987 in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2023)"

observer987 — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 16:37:16 +0000

SEEKING WORK

Location: New York City/Dublin Ireland

Remote: Yes (hybrid cool too)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: C#, SQL, C++, WPF/XAML, IIS, React/next.js, NodeJS, Typescript, Python

Résumé/CV: Available upon request

Email: folder.koala_08@icloud.com

Greetings,

I have 20+ years experience in the Microsoft stack writing transaction processing applications such as kiosk point-of-sale systems, brokerage order management systems, investment bank portfolio accounting systems. With those, there was also the implementation of ETL and monitoring systems.

Lately, I’ve been working on upgrading my skills with react/next.js on vercel and tying in LLMs to boost productivity - but that’s still work in progress.

Looking for short-term projects.

Thanks!

New comment by observer987 in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2023)"

observer987 — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 16:20:52 +0000

Location: New York City