Hacker News: rfarley04

A bizarre Commodore 64 peripheral, a mime, and some pretty bad ads

rfarley04 — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:23:51 +0000

Article URL: https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/spartan-and-the-mime/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575859

Points: 97

# Comments: 12

No GrapheneOS for Pixel 11 phones because Google cut a key security feature

rfarley04 — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 06:36:49 +0000

Article URL: https://www.androidauthority.com/no-grapheneos-google-pixel-11-3704622/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49518689

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by rfarley04 in "Welcome Claudeforce"

rfarley04 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:45:55 +0000

The video is just people typing into a chatbot window and then Claude building them something. Salesforce is totally irrelevant to that workflow except as the place where you store your data.

Another video claiming that AI can do anything and everything, but it needs a human babysitter. Another video claiming that working with a CRM will be fun. Another video claiming that we can finally trust AI. God why does Salesforce still exist at all.

New comment by rfarley04 in "The Absolute Pleasure of Tim Curry"

rfarley04 — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:30:02 +0000

We'll never forget you, Anatoly Cherdenko.

"Commander! You've rained on my glorious parade! For this, I'm sending everything I got at you, but I won't let you have the satisfaction of catching me. I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... space!"

New comment by rfarley04 in "Bookshelf – Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"

rfarley04 — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 02:07:40 +0000

I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks. And I currently use it for my epubs, but it does not handle that particularly well. It doesn't save progress consistently and the UI for page flipping leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely going to check out how OP's library works

New comment by rfarley04 in "Show HN: Reproof – A non-linear writing app for perfectionists"

rfarley04 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 09:48:08 +0000

Yesssss a wordcount tracker for daily stats that ignores pasted text, only counting things you typed yourself. I built a very hacky and unreliable word count tracker of my own. This looks way better

Database-less link shortener and compressor

rfarley04 — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 03:25:01 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/p2r3/ha.mr

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49326244

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by rfarley04 in "Six months of action gaming alters brain networks and improves visual attention"

rfarley04 — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 05:46:13 +0000

Then why can't I see the ketchup bottle sitting front and center in the fridge

New comment by rfarley04 in "Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)"

rfarley04 — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 02:38:02 +0000

Author here, from another issue I sent about my definition of bad ads for this newsletter:

"tl;dr While I do exaggerate the “badness” of 80s tech ads to make things more fun, a nostalgic ad is not the same thing as an effective ad. What we see in advertising today is so depressing because it is often so bland AND more effective than its more playful predecessors."

They are fun to look at now. And soooo much more creative than marketing crap from today. But they're still 12-page long marketing gimmicks. I'd still take them over today's ads any day of the week, and that's why I spend dozens of hours every month tracking them down and learning their stories

https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/bad-ads-define...

New comment by rfarley04 in "Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)"

rfarley04 — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 14:49:01 +0000

You're right! That was a not entirely clear enough reference to Gateway 2000's first ad, in 1987, which famously used the headline "Computers from Iowa?"

https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/gateway-2000-p...

Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

rfarley04 — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 12:31:11 +0000

Article URL: https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/gateway-2000-part-2/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49221220

Points: 122

# Comments: 100

New comment by rfarley04 in "Do It 14,000 Times Slower with This One Trick"

rfarley04 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 04:07:04 +0000

Haha damn, you beat me to posting it. Such an accurate description of my writing process, which, despite being super slow, pays the bills!

New comment by rfarley04 in "Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions"

rfarley04 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 03:58:58 +0000

Not disagreeing on that front. But the article I saw on /new and the spacedaily one, regardless of their accuracy, certainly looked like wholly AI generated writing to me

New comment by rfarley04 in "Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions"

rfarley04 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 03:28:49 +0000

Seemingly unrelated, I just saw some post on /new that was saying Dunning-Kruger had been debunked by some recent study. It looked pretty sus so I kagi'ed it and lo and behold guess what came up:

https://spacedaily.com/j-v-the-dunning-kruger-effect-mapped-...

New comment by rfarley04 in "Ask HN: Are we having a substantial increase of "Show HN" since LLM aided coding"

rfarley04 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 06:47:12 +0000

Yes we are. I wrote about it last July:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44463249

And there have been some other attempts to quantify it:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47864393 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47045804 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47039478

New comment by rfarley04 in "Examples from sci-fi of voice interfaces that stay on task"

rfarley04 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 04:35:11 +0000

Saw this immediately after listening to a chapter of Player of Games. The Culture series is full of voice interfaces (Minds and drones) that are always on task

GDID Windows – Cut the tracker that follows you even under VPN

rfarley04 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:22:11 +0000

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/10/you-cant-fully-disa...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991984

Points: 131

# Comments: 101

New comment by rfarley04 in "I Do Not Recommend Google Hardware"

rfarley04 — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 10:39:37 +0000

I'm writing this on a Pixel 8 and it's the worst phone I have ever used. The wireless chip is basically dead. And the battery can't make it to 3pm. Annoys the hell out of me that so many reviewers I thought I could trust speak so highly of this phone.

New comment by rfarley04 in "Renting a sewing machine from the library"

rfarley04 — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 01:16:38 +0000

That's my library system too! I go to tualatin and it has a dedicated room for their makerlab and have classes every day for all kinds of stuff. Whenever I go in its pretty well attended.

A doomed marriage and a bad ad for Corvus Systems' drives

rfarley04 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:32:34 +0000

Article URL: https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/corvus-systems-omninet/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570325

Points: 2

# Comments: 0