Hacker News: sarabande

New comment by sarabande in "Larry Ellison: "Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re recording""

sarabande — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:10:11 +0000

What happened then?

New comment by sarabande in "The Ask"

sarabande — Thu, 28 May 2026 08:46:08 +0000

This is extremely difficult to read. Can someone summarize the point?

New comment by sarabande in "America's Most-Spoken Languages After English and Spanish"

sarabande — Mon, 18 May 2026 07:37:45 +0000

It would be helpful to show n. speakers of those languages or at least grade based on % of remaining non-English, non-Spanish speakers.

My intuition is that German, for example, is much less active of a language in the US, where immigration peaked long ago, than Chinese, where immigration is active.

New comment by sarabande in "TSMC Risk"

sarabande — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 20:09:40 +0000

Could you please consider making your points without "you'd have to be insane/an idiot to believe X"?

Ask HN: Contract shops who can prepare codebases for internationalization

sarabande — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:25:49 +0000

Anyone have any recommendations for software contract shops who can prepare codebases for localization / internationalization? They don't have to do the translation itself, just the software work.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46133715

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by sarabande in "Why I code as a CTO"

sarabande — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 20:41:19 +0000

I found the article interesting, even given a large range of possible definitions of CTO.

I do wonder if it is possible to agree on a general definition of the CTO from the perspective of the job to be done, rather than how they do it.

For example, we could say the job of the CTO is to ensure the company remains technically competitive. If they do it by means of building an organization then so be it. If they rather do it by writing code themselves, then why not?

New comment by sarabande in "Why I code as a CTO"

sarabande — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 20:30:37 +0000

I really appreciated this blog post, John, to know that you're doing what I've been doing without a guilty conscience.

I'm a VP eng/research at a startup and also feel like one of the few people apart from the founders who can push major technical initiatives by just doing it themselves, due to: business context, technical chops, architectural judgment, grit, and seniority to pull in cross-functional stakeholders to help out.

However, I have often questioned if it is correct that so few people in the org can do this and if I shouldn't be enabling others to do it themselves instead.

How have you been able to navigate not having any direct reports? Who does your engineering org report to and how are you able to manage conflict between org builders and your technical vision?

New comment by sarabande in "Why We Need Arabic Language Models"

sarabande — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 20:06:50 +0000

Does anyone know if they published the dataset?

New comment by sarabande in "Five years as a startup CTO: How, why, and was it worth it? (2024)"

sarabande — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 21:25:41 +0000

I'm curious about the simple, lightweight change management process listed in the article. Anyone have any tips on doing this well? I kind of hate the part of having to convince everyone of something "obviously better" :)

New comment by sarabande in "Nine things I learned in ninety years"

sarabande — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 08:50:35 +0000

I enjoyed this piece, including references to the Stoics and Spinoza. It preaches serenity, goodwill, composure, etc.

As someone in their 30s with children, work and a generally busy life, I wonder if anyone can recommend some pieces with more direct application - that is, in this vein, but perhaps an operational / how-to guide. Sometimes, it's hard to translate principles to action.

New comment by sarabande in "Show HN: Companies use AI to take your calls. I built AI to make them for you"

sarabande — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:06:35 +0000

Consider outbound AI calls as a weapon against inefficiency. What is the game-theoretic equilibrium when faced with adversaries like call centers & other businesses with labrynthian customer service?

I bet it leads to more efficiency for everyone. When inbound robocalls deluge a business, the business pushes to cost-optimize its own service.

Business replaces humans with similar AI solutions to handle the phone modality, but hopefully then reverts to great service via email/API to reduce costs further.

Then, humans using AI voice services can "de-escalate" and revert to email/API AI, e.g. going from:

1. Business: AI (Voice) or Human | Customer: Human

2. Business: AI (Voice) or Human | Customer: AI (Voice)

3. Business: AI (voice) | Customer: AI (Voice)

4. Business: AI (Text) | Customer: AI (Text)

Ask HN: How to generate product docs E2E?

sarabande — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 19:04:36 +0000

I have an existing handwritten knowledgebase with screenshots of an app, a codebase with standard CI/CD pipelines, and an API whose docs are autogenerated against an OpenAPI spec.

Is there a convenient way these days to chain software together so that product documentation, including screenshots, is completely autogenerated on new codebase commits? Anyone tried some chain of tools, including paid ones, that works successfully in the wild?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44483136

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by sarabande in "Show HN: I made a site to tell the time in corporate"

sarabande — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 12:45:21 +0000

Can you add calendar week and fiscal year start

New comment by sarabande in "Show HN: Mandarin Word Segmenter with Translation"

sarabande — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:23:49 +0000

I used the example sentence from your link.

New comment by sarabande in "Show HN: Mandarin Word Segmenter with Translation"

sarabande — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 21:42:15 +0000

纔 in this case should use the definition of 才 (cai2) not (shan1) which is extremely uncommon. Otherwise, cool app!

New comment by sarabande in "Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?"

sarabande — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 15:26:38 +0000

Can you share more about your experience regarding how management at a small company lead to management at a big company? Was the switch voluntary, and how did you do it?

Ask HN: Romanian Salary Data

sarabande — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:20:42 +0000

Does anyone know where I can find reasonable salary data for Romanian positions? It's fine if it is not exact, I just don't know what "rules of thumb" are in this country I am unfamiliar with and I'd like to hire there.

I'm interested in Support Engineering, Software Engineering, DevOps, etc.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39849105

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by sarabande in "Clear wants to scan your face at airports – privacy experts are worried"

sarabande — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 22:12:55 +0000

"Absolutely ruined"? We still get value from flight, just now trade wait time and privacy for security. It's clearly still worth it for the vast majority of the world, see global flight stats.

New comment by sarabande in "Clear wants to scan your face at airports – privacy experts are worried"

sarabande — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 22:10:07 +0000

Multiple EU airports like Schiphol already do facial scanning+passport for automated entry for citizens of select countries; so does CBP on US entry from abroad. What's the issue, that it's a subcontractor?

New comment by sarabande in "Ask HN: What's your seniority, location and notice period?"

sarabande — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 12:22:18 +0000

[This is not legal advice]

Not a good sign. Most DE-based eng contracts max at 3 months, or the default per § 622 BGB.

6 months likely means the company fails to retain good staff. Negotiate for asymmetric § 622 BGB notice for yourself, and 3 months notice from the company.