Hacker News: patmcc

New comment by patmcc in "Tell HN: I'm a PM at a big system of record SaaS. We're cooked"

patmcc — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 22:56:37 +0000

Because as a huge enterprise you want stability and ability to check the boxes you need to check far more than anything else.

I'm at a medium enterprise and this is true. If I go with e.g. Atlassian I can get everything checked off, even if it's expensive and kinda dogshit. But I know they have a support system, I know they read CVEs and issue patch notes, I know I can find the info for audits and SOC2 cert and everything else.

Oh, some startup offers better software for a tenth the cost? Great. It'll be 30% more work for me to track down all that bullshit? Ok then, complete non-starter, I'll stick with Atlassian.

New comment by patmcc in "AI is killing B2B SaaS"

patmcc — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 18:06:50 +0000

Yep! We sometimes have a choice between the gold-standard and commonly updated open source solution to X and a two-bit hacked together proprietary solution that has 24/7 support at high cost...and we choose the one with support, because that's what our audits basically require. Because then we can say "yes, it's still within the support contract, we have an escalation point".

New comment by patmcc in "Proof of Corn"

patmcc — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 20:08:13 +0000

That still doesn't seem autonomous in any real way though.

There are people that I could hire in the real world, give $10k (I dunno if that's enough, but you understand what I mean) and say "Do everything necessary to grow 500 bushels of corn by October", and I would have corn in October. There are no AI agents where that's even close to true. When will that be possible?

New comment by patmcc in "Stunnel"

patmcc — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:12:36 +0000

I mean...fair. All I can say is it's still very critical and in production. I guess it's just worth pointing out that horribly outdated things still need support :)

New comment by patmcc in "Stunnel"

patmcc — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 03:32:55 +0000

No joke, it just came up at work as a possible solution to something. We have some legacy systems that talk over TCP in plaintext. It's all within well-secured networks on locked down machines, so fine. But now we want to move things to Megaport, and their agreement says "btw don't put anything in plaintext ever, we guarantee nothing". So stunnel will probably be the fix.

New comment by patmcc in "Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades"

patmcc — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:58:30 +0000

An undervalued company is one that everyone else thinks is a loser but actually isn't - if you can identify that (and maybe make some adjustments to it) you can make a lot of money pretty quickly.

New comment by patmcc in "Ask HN: My family business runs on a 1993-era text-based-UI (TUI). Anybody else?"

patmcc — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 19:01:17 +0000

I worked at a big-box retailer before figuring out a career. They had an old-school TUI that was incredibly fast and well designed. Function keys to do all kinds of lookups and adjustments, advanced menus when you needed them, overall just a well designed system. People took a week or so to get the hang of it but then the skill ceiling was insane, people could get fast.

A few months before I left they switched to a "modern" GUI. It was shockingly bad. The speed of every transaction lowered. Even with optimal use it just took longer. So much time wasted.

New comment by patmcc in "What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?"

patmcc — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:14:11 +0000

I think this is a strange and very modern conception of weddings. Weddings are not just about the bride and groom; they're about the bride and groom and the community of their friends and family. That third part is a key component! It's why we invite people to weddings, so they can witness and help the couple in making and keeping the commitment of marriage.

New comment by patmcc in "What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?"

patmcc — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:12:11 +0000

I think everyone agrees that some rules for guests are fine, and some are silly. "No flash photography or leaning into aisles during the wedding procession" is a reasonable rule, "No taking photos when we're dancing and having fun" seems silly to me.

Just like a dress code for a wedding is fine, but if they said "also you need to wear blue cotton underwear" I'd think that was a bit inappropriate to require.

New comment by patmcc in "What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?"

patmcc — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:07:32 +0000

Yes, that's an asshole move.

I think it's also pretty weird to ask people not to take photos though.

edit: "no photos during the ceremony" is different than "no photos the entire event", obviously

New comment by patmcc in "What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?"

patmcc — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:06:09 +0000

Historically at least, it's not that weddings are in public places, but that they're inherently a performance for the community. Like the reason for having a wedding is to make a commitment publicly in front of your friends and family. That doesn't mean it needs to be open to all who want to wander in, but it's strange to think of it as a secret event.

I feel like it's pretty strange (and mildly rude) to insist no one take/post photos of a wedding, and also very rude to take/post photos when asked not to.

New comment by patmcc in "I ditched Docker for Podman"

patmcc — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:34:19 +0000

It's not the cost, it's the headache. Do I need to worry about setting up SSO, do I need to work with procurement, do I need to do something in our SOC2 audit, do I need to get it approved as an allowed tool, etc.

Whether it's $100/year or $10k/year it's all the same headache. Yes, this is dumb, but it's how the process works at a lot of companies.

Whereas if it's a free tool that just magically goes away. Yes, this is also dumb.

New comment by patmcc in "We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that"

patmcc — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 20:35:41 +0000

SMS 2FA is good enough for most people most of the time. It's very bad at preventing high-skill targeted attacks against individuals, but it's perfectly good at preventing mass brute-force attacks.

It's popular because it solves the problem (not ALL problems, but the one they're trying to solve) and it's easy and low-barrier to implement and use.

New comment by patmcc in "Do the simplest thing that could possibly work"

patmcc — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 21:59:17 +0000

The problem with this is no one can agree about what "at scale" means.

Like yes, everyone knows that if you want to index the whole internet and have tens of thousands of searches a second there are unique challenges and you need some crazy complexity. But if you have a system that has 10 transactions a second...you probably don't. The simple thing will probably work just fine. And the vast majority of systems will never get that busy.

Computers are fast now! One powerful server (with a second powerful server, just in case) can do a lot.

New comment by patmcc in "The Deletion of Docker.io/Bitnami"

patmcc — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 16:02:43 +0000

I think it's perfectly fair for them to say "we're not doing this any more". The sketchy part is deleting the public registry at docker.io/bitnami rather than just no longer updating it. Why can't docker.io/bitnami become the 'legacy' registry, receive no future updates, so at least folks who don't hear this news won't have pulls suddenly fail?

edit: like if I have a package on NPM and I want to stop offering it, I think it's shitty to just delete it. That breaks builds.

New comment by patmcc in "Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act"

patmcc — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 17:07:49 +0000

>>>Others didn't even know what was going on at the time and were let into the capital building by police officers and were arrested anyway.

If you're part of a mob and the police get out of your way that's not them "letting you in", that's them falling back as opposed to causing more violence. I think J6 folks were treated extremely gently, all things considered. If the guy in front of you breaks down a door and then you walk in behind him, you're also doing something wrong.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/capitol-police-waving-vide... for a specific fact check to the "police waved them in" claim.

>>>The Democrats in the UK

Those aren't the Democrats. I do think the UK is going too far with their speech controls and their "online safety" laws.

New comment by patmcc in "Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act"

patmcc — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 23:30:02 +0000

Wow, people who walked near the capital were thrown in prison. Really? Just walked near the capital. Didn't break in, attack cops, destroy property. Really. Just walked near the capital.

Wow that's crazy.

New comment by patmcc in "Open Sauce is a confoundingly brilliant Bay Area event"

patmcc — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 23:32:57 +0000

From the POV of anti-abortion folks, the idea of "oh just let other people have abortions if they want" is as silly as saying "oh just let other people have slaves / kill their infants". If you think a fetus is worthy of similar moral protection as a 2 year old of course you'd be against all abortion, in the same way you're against all toddler murder.

(I don't think a fetus, especially <20 weeks or whatever, is a full moral person, but I understand those who do)

New comment by patmcc in "Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope"

patmcc — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 23:11:05 +0000

They may both be damaging, but currently we have a lot more porn than censorship, so it looks like it's causing more damage. If we flip to having a lot more censorship we'll feel that damage more clearly. Or we won't, depending how successful the censorship is.

New comment by patmcc in "AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more"

patmcc — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 23:28:36 +0000

I think the risk here is Taiwan being invaded by China, in which case having some US-based production helps a lot.