Hacker News: raintrees

New comment by raintrees in "This time is different"

raintrees — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:10:28 +0000

to me, ai seems likely to become a new user interface, just like gui did from cli.

abstract away a lot of the mechanics of working with data/information.

helpful, when literacy seems to be trending in a downward direction.

New comment by raintrees in "What Happened to Fry's Electronics"

raintrees — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:22:45 +0000

I learned early on not to trust anything with a sticker that claimed warranty supported by Fry's (that meant it was a return and tested No Problem Found and sold as is).

Too many return trips eats up any profit reselling parts to my clients.

But it was a blast back in the day when I could get shrinkwrap tubing, RAM modules, individual electronics components (resistors, capacitors, etc.) personal care items like combs, brushes, snacks, etc.

And then there were the books... With a cafe built into the store. I spent a lot of time and money at a number of the Silicon Valley Frys locations.

New comment by raintrees in "Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs"

raintrees — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 14:54:58 +0000

I hope Synology gets its act together, it has been a convenient product to resell for clients who down-size. Very simple, very low maintenance. And very simple to set up, versus all of the home-grown *nix boxes I have built over the decades.

New comment by raintrees in "The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public"

raintrees — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 17:12:09 +0000

"There ought to be a law" is why we have nanny-state government. I imagine that is why there have been "no spitting" and "no chewing gum" laws on the books.

People going to lord it over others in the pursuit of what they think is proper.

Society is over-rated, once it gets beyond a certain size.

Along the same lines, I am currently starting my morning with blocking ranges of IP addresses to get Internet service back, due to someone's current desire to SYN Flood my webserver, which being hosted in my office, affects my office Internet.

It may soon come to a point where I choose to block all IP addresses except a few to get work done.

People gonna be people.

sigh.

New comment by raintrees in "Successful people set constraints rather than chasing goals"

raintrees — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:04:11 +0000

Having constraints may also make something more achievable. It helps avoid issues like analysis-paralysis, and helps me focus on the path through the obstacles towards the destination I desire.

So for me, still goals, but made more efficient by constraints?

New comment by raintrees in "Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?"

raintrees — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 16:15:17 +0000

and an oldie: https://www.zerohedge.com/

New comment by raintrees in "Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?"

raintrees — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 16:12:31 +0000

An interesting collection: https://thedukereport.substack.com/

New comment by raintrees in "Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?"

raintrees — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 16:03:48 +0000

I think that just shows our different perceptions - I, too, see many HN posts as very left. Frequently seen in assumptions about values/ethics/morals...

Update: On further reflection, it is not HN that I am describing. It is the content of the posts that seem to lean that way...

I am outside both of the US parties, I think it is like being sober at a party of those partaking in alcohol. Different perception of the same situation.

New comment by raintrees in "Lessons from Harlem"

raintrees — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:49:47 +0000

Thanks for posting this. While craziness may reign in various places, parts of the world go on healing itself, one human effort at a time, and faster when more than one do so together...

New comment by raintrees in "Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)"

raintrees — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 18:10:20 +0000

This is also a good argument to me to continue working at being a generalist. The more disciplines I am aware of, even if not expert in, the faster I may come up with an "outside the box" solution that might work.

Details observance, combined with the facility to abstract, is probably what makes me a programmer of the caliber I am. Not that I am great (far from it, when I see and compare others' work) but I have products being used by clients successfully, so good enough, I figure...

Ah, another thought: Also conversations with others about a problem I am facing. My wife has an uncanny ability to suggest things that sometimes cause me to reconsider some of my assumptions, and have the blinding flash of insight that allows me to successfully navigate through whatever my current obstacle might be. And she does not try to keep up with my area of technical knowledge anymore, yet still so valuable!

New comment by raintrees in "Why Ruby on Rails still matters"

raintrees — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 17:40:23 +0000

"Developers choose Rails today because, 20 years later, it remains the most simple and abstracted way to build a web application."

Well, then there are those of us who use Django for similar reasons :)

New comment by raintrees in "'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised"

raintrees — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 17:35:00 +0000

I chose to use a flip phone over a previous Android phone around 10 years ago when ISPs/Phone providers showed that security lapse issues for them was just a cost of doing business. I used to store private client info in Exchange and sync it, but I could not, in good conscience, continue to do so with the knowledge of that information's exposure.

I recently worked with NetGear support to have a new router replaced after we determined the firmware was known to be problematic, and the only way the level 2 support person had of correcting it required their app.

So fortunately, there may still be ways around working with IT without a "smart" phone, and I will continue to blaze that trail as needed.

New comment by raintrees in "Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life"

raintrees — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:15:02 +0000

Both, for me. Memory not as sharp as it used to be, and more to be organized.

New comment by raintrees in "Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life"

raintrees — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:13:26 +0000

For me, that is the value of tags. No need to have duplicates to have items represented in multiple categories, yet each appropriate category gets a nod about the particular item.

Better Child Mental Care?

raintrees — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:32 +0000

A child psychotherapist thinks he is now much better at his job, because “increasingly I reject everything that I learned.” It’s dramatically thought-provoking: Psychodynamic Nonsense at Aeon.

https://owowi.com/psych

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43068998

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by raintrees in "Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs"

raintrees — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 15:27:48 +0000

Same, although I have been on a Linux distro (different over the years) for the last 18 years, I keep a virtual Win7 machine just to run Outlook.

I have been able to do pretty much everything I need to workflow-wise with LibreOffice.

And any office basic dev work, I just do on the client machine or a virtual machine now.

New comment by raintrees in "I'm Done with Ubuntu"

raintrees — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 15:21:30 +0000

FWIW: I am switching from Fedora to Debian. Fedora has what amounts to almost daily updates, I prefer more stability/less changes. My work flow is usually being up for weeks in between boots, multiple projects open at the same time.

New comment by raintrees in "Shifting Cyber Norms: Microsoft security POST-ing to you"

raintrees — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:20:07 +0000

"We may wonder also what fun a determined hacker could have with Microsoft running random bits of JavaScript on their servers and allowing these to talk to the world (or to Microsoft itself even)."

So maybe there might be a way to disincentivize this behavior?

New comment by raintrees in "Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?"

raintrees — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:48:28 +0000

For those who are not happy with the current state of social systems:

“We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.”

- Voddie T. Baucham Jr. (possibly among others)

One of the tenants of collectivism seems to be to replace the parent-child relationship with a society-child relationship "for the good of society"

New comment by raintrees in "Ask HN: How to learn marketing and sales as a solo entrepreneur?"

raintrees — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 14:50:36 +0000

Richard Grove offers an online course called Autonomy that teaches these skills and more. Good course, I took it a few years ago. One of the topics is how to sell without being cringy, in my words.