Hacker News: pards

New comment by pards in "AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart"

pards — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:00:52 +0000

Guns N' Roses blazed this trail in 1986 with their faux live EP titled Live ?!@ Like a Suicide [0] which was reissued as the B-side to G N' R Lies in 1988.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_%3F!*%40_Like_a_Suicide

New comment by pards in "The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing"

pards — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 13:38:02 +0000

> the business is already pretty profitable

As of March 2026, OpenAI generates annual revenue exceeding $12 billion. However, the costs of running ChatGPT are around $17 billion a year.

Source: https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026

New comment by pards in "The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing"

pards — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:43:29 +0000

> Take away the agent, and Bob is still a first-year student who hasn't started yet. The year happened around him but not inside him. He shipped a product, but he didn't learn a trade.

We're minting an entire generation of people completely dependent on VC funding. What happens if/when the AI companies fail to find a path to profitability and the VC funding dries up?

New comment by pards in "Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It"

pards — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:15:44 +0000

> And in coding, L.L.M.s take away the drudgery and leave the human, soulful parts to you.

Strong disagree. Coding was the fun part. Reviewing PRs is not.

New comment by pards in "Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It"

pards — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:48:09 +0000

https://archive.is/S2nMA

New comment by pards in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

pards — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:29:56 +0000

The 47 Lansdowne bus in Toronto has this problem with at least three locations (on the short section of the route that I take):

1. In the Dundas/College triangle, there are are 2 stops less than 100m apart. 2. At the Queen St turnaround, there are 4 stops all within 150m of each other 3. At Bloor St, there are 2 stops 100m apart

These are all within a single 2km section of the bus's 10km route.

New comment by pards in "You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account"

pards — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:09:16 +0000

I encountered this on the NYC subway trying to buy 4 metrocards with one credit card. No bueno.

New comment by pards in "The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026"

pards — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:11:36 +0000

One of my large enterprise clients currently requires all tech staff to complete 18h (yes, eighteen hours!) of "agile training", in addition to speed-running 14 separate mandatory online courses.

This time would be much better spent watching these 9h of lectures.

New comment by pards in "We mourn our craft"

pards — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 12:44:22 +0000

> They prefer working to non-working.

This sums up many things perfectly. I'll be stealing this.

New comment by pards in "Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself"

pards — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 13:37:47 +0000

It sounds like you didn't have a very good coach. My first coach wasn't very helpful, my second was amazing. Keep looking!

Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.

New comment by pards in "Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself"

pards — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 13:34:52 +0000

Got any youtubers you'd recommend?

New comment by pards in "Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself"

pards — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 13:32:05 +0000

Ed Sheeran used to be bad at singing [0]. So was Jon Bon Jovi.

In-person vocal lessons and consistent practice have dramatically improved my voice from terrible to half-decent.

[0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/I05Ahr0tpAc

New comment by pards in "I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams"

pards — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:40:54 +0000

I assume all social media ads are also scams.

New comment by pards in "List animals until failure"

pards — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 18:11:53 +0000

Yep - dodo worked for me

New comment by pards in "A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks"

pards — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 12:22:51 +0000

> I happen to rent and can't keep

This is my fear - what happens if the AI companies can't find a path to profitability and shut down?

New comment by pards in "A list of fun destinations for telnet"

pards — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:24:26 +0000

My first introduction to the internet was through the telnet-based EW-too talkers like Foothills (Boston U) and Forest (UTS). I have very fond memories of staying up late talking to people from all over the globe. It was truly amazing to me.

The best part was how the users moderated behaviour - bad actors were ejected swiftly but rarely permanently.

New comment by pards in "I'm 34. Here's 34 things I wish I knew at 21"

pards — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 12:49:59 +0000

This represents a fork in the road that becomes apparent by your mid-40s.

Those who ignore it will be overweight, unfit, and on daily meds. Those who change their lifestyle will not.

The fix is:

> Leading a healthy life is simple: sleep well, exercise three times a week, have an active social life, eat a variety of vegetables and whole foods, avoid sugar, processed foods, alcohol and drugs. That's 90%. Everything else is optimisation.

New comment by pards in "Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15"

pards — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 13:19:34 +0000

A 1980s Toyota Hilux would give it a run for its money

https://youtu.be/Yl1FNX08HFc

New comment by pards in "On Getting Hacked"

pards — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 12:10:58 +0000

Name and shame

Tangerine (formally ING Direct) in Canada only has 6-digit PINs and SMS 2FA

TD Canada Trust only supports SMS 2FA

PC Financial only supports SMS 2FA

New comment by pards in "Introduction to Software Development Tooling (2024)"

pards — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:22:13 +0000

> The third, Build, will teach you about how to reliably build your software with Make.

Make? In 25 years as a professional developer I have never encountered make in the enterprise.

At least cover the various generic _models_ behind a few of the modern build tools so students can understand both the commonality and the differences between say NX, NPM, Maven, Gradle, go build etc.

Maybe a class on CI/CD pipelines, too.