Hacker News: robbyking

New comment by robbyking in "NASA had to train Apollo 11's astronauts to not use profanity (2019)"

robbyking — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 20:32:09 +0000

It's funny as a parent, because I'm expected to tell my son that he shouldn't curse even though his mom and I do. And all of our friends. And coworkers. And my boss. And his boss. And our CEO. And the fucking president.

It's ridiculous.

New comment by robbyking in "Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac"

robbyking — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 19:00:51 +0000

> What is the threshold for running something in the cloud?

To be fair, this was just the keynote -- details will be revealed in the sessions.

New comment by robbyking in "Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman"

robbyking — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 00:38:16 +0000

I think a lot of people don't understand how anonymous sourcing works in jounalism.

New comment by robbyking in "The Tech Gold Rush Is Over. Where's the Next One?"

robbyking — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 22:03:18 +0000

The US economy has proven this pretty decisively. There's a reason we don't have single payer healthcare, or mandatory living wage, Super PAC contribution limits, or an ability to close tax loopholes for the rich.

New comment by robbyking in "The Tech Gold Rush Is Over. Where's the Next One?"

robbyking — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 22:01:14 +0000

I agree 100%!

A couple years ago I would have guessed that it would take us decades to get where we are now. The new Copilot integration into Office 365 (I can't believe I'm saying this!) looks fantastic, and even though a lot of my coworkers are skeptical, I really like using AI to help me with dev work. It doesn't do tasks for me, but it definitely helps speeds things along.

I think there's going to be a huge demand for engineers who can help integrate AI into software, regardless of the field its used in.

New comment by robbyking in "The negative impact of mobile-first web design on desktop"

robbyking — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 16:38:54 +0000

I'm sorry, if Wix and SquareSpace can figure it out for their templates, a site with dedicated UX designers should be able to figure it out, too. The smartphone is 15 years old, designers know what to expect.

New comment by robbyking in "Halfsies"

robbyking — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 19:03:21 +0000

What's interesting is I found that the less time I spent on an estimate the more accurate I was. (5 perfect cuts, 97% accuracy total.)

New comment by robbyking in "My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions"

robbyking — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 17:31:04 +0000

There really are two different version of the internet, and which one you use depends on how how well your ad blockers are configured.

I was using my mom's laptop over the holidays, and it took me a minute to realize why every site I visited looked so _different_. What I quickly realised is almost every site I visited was wallpapered in ads: banners between every paragraph, sidebars full of ads, and background images selling things. A lot of sites were unrecognizable from what I was used to.

New comment by robbyking in "iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus"

robbyking — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 18:32:55 +0000

I'm in the same boat. I was planning on upgrading my iPhone 13, but TBH it's pretty much in perfect shape so it feels wasteful.

New comment by robbyking in "Google was founded 25 years ago today"

robbyking — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 23:04:30 +0000

It was closer to 15, but still...

New comment by robbyking in "Weight-based motor vehicle tax"

robbyking — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:04:40 +0000

That's been my frustration as well. I live in city and only drive on weekends, so I'd absolutely love a little 4 door AWD electric hatchback, but the US car market pushes people like me into hybrid crossovers like RAV4 and the CRV.

New comment by robbyking in "Weight-based motor vehicle tax"

robbyking — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:02:17 +0000

What's interesting to me is that in my experience most car enthusiasts feel the same way.

Even though I don't have a lot of interest in car culture, I'm a big fan of the Smoking Tire Podcast, and the host -- who has his own Porches, Lamborghinis, etc. -- has said multiple times that he thinks most people who drive trucks would be better off in a station wagon, and most people who drive SUVs would be better off in a sedan (edit: he actually said minivan, not sedan). (His daily driver around LA is a scooter.)

Obviously there are exceptions, but it makes sense to commute in a commuter car.

New comment by robbyking in "Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share"

robbyking — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 08:05:09 +0000

What is your primary language? I’ve worked at some pretty well known tech companies over the last couple of decades, and it’s been nothing but Macs for at least the last 15 or so years.

New comment by robbyking in "Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share"

robbyking — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 04:52:22 +0000

It’s the year of the Linux desktop!

New comment by robbyking in "Firefox address bar"

robbyking — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:57:54 +0000

This plugin: https://apps.apple.com/app/keyword-search/id1558453954

New comment by robbyking in "Firefox address bar"

robbyking — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:56:45 +0000

And IIRC, Chrome copied this from Opera. It's a shame Opera never found its audience (or more specifically, a revenue stream), they pioneered a lot of browser features that we consider to be standard these days, like tabs and support for extensions.

New comment by robbyking in "Apple forced to make major cuts to Vision Pro headset production plans"

robbyking — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 17:24:47 +0000

Absolutely! I feel like VR is still in its Napster phase.

New comment by robbyking in "Apple forced to make major cuts to Vision Pro headset production plans"

robbyking — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 16:18:06 +0000

I agree about VR, but I'm really excited for advancements in AR!

I'm a really avid mountain biker, road cyclist and snowboarder, and I'd love some basic telemetry displayed in the goggles or glasses I'm already wearing. Nothing kills a ride faster than having to stop to pull out your phone to see if you missed a turn or to figure out which unmarked trail you're supposed to take. (Not to mention all of the information we current have to look down at our cycling computers to see: HR, watts, cadence, etc.)

New comment by robbyking in "How my children (n=2) acquired absolute pitch"

robbyking — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 20:17:49 +0000

Why did you feel it necessary to include the family's race?

New comment by robbyking in "Ask HN: Alternatives to Reddit"

robbyking — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 18:14:41 +0000

I haven't really had any luck yet. I was a Farker back in the day, but went to Reddit while a lot of other people were going to Digg. Back then I loved Reddit as a social news site, but now I really dislike it because it's mostly a meme and image aggregator. (IMO it was the memes, image macros (Advice Animals) and meta references that killed that site.)

That said, I like PinkBike.com for MTB stuff and Hacker News for tech stuff. Those are really the only two forums where I actually leave comments these days.