Hacker News: scottmcf

New comment by scottmcf in "How was the Universal Pictures 1936 opening logo created?"

scottmcf — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:06:55 +0000

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was just incredibly innovative. I spent a long time learning about them and their techniques as a music student.

New comment by scottmcf in "Show HN: I open-sourced my AI toy company that runs on ESP32 and OpenAI realtime"

scottmcf — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 19:46:08 +0000

> This is a good point to me as a parent -- in a world where this becomes a precious toy, it would be a serious risk of emotional pain if the child experienced this scenario like the death of a pet or friend.

We've already seen this exact scenario play out with "Moxie" a few months ago:

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/10/moxie-kids-robot-shuts-down

New comment by scottmcf in "CERN scientists find evidence of quantum entanglement in sheep"

scottmcf — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 13:28:44 +0000

Ah, I see it's useless internet day, catch you all tomorrow.

New comment by scottmcf in "Show HN: Learn where countries are on the world map with Spaced Repetition"

scottmcf — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:04:15 +0000

This is an absolutely excellent way to learn, I am surprised at just how effective it was. I'd love a "manual" mode that let me discard countries/mark them to stay in rotation.

New comment by scottmcf in "What we know about LLMs"

scottmcf — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:03:59 +0000

I agree, if it delivers on the kind of demos they showed off here:

https://news.microsoft.com/reinventing-productivity/

It's going to be an absolute "killer app".

New comment by scottmcf in "“Our paying customers need X, when will you fix it?”"

scottmcf — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 16:42:08 +0000

I fully agree. The original request can be read either either with a neutral/oblivious tone or a negative demanding tone. This is the wrong way to ask someone to do free work for you regardless if it's reasonable or not, and the issue is compounded by highlighting the financial aspect.

The followup email proves that taking a negative reading of the original request is the more reasonable read of the writer's intention.

New comment by scottmcf in "Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Office installs"

scottmcf — Sat, 21 Jan 2023 19:15:41 +0000

There was a full screen popup prior to login after an update earlier this week pushing the benefits of the "new" Microsoft 365 subscription.

New comment by scottmcf in "I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it"

scottmcf — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 04:45:47 +0000

Your insurance company also likely requires the test to cover the surgery.

New comment by scottmcf in "HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know"

scottmcf — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 04:14:23 +0000

HR don't decide any of those things, they're instructed to do those things by management.

New comment by scottmcf in "Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?"

scottmcf — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 16:34:09 +0000

Don't they often take their passports and prevent them from leaving?

New comment by scottmcf in "I built that “so-and-so is typing” feature in chat (2014)"

scottmcf — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 23:49:41 +0000

Yeah, tools like Salesforce/etc. make this absolutely trivial.

New comment by scottmcf in "Vermont becomes 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana market"

scottmcf — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 04:42:26 +0000

Arizona, Mississipi, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota are all voting on recreational or medical ballot measures.

New comment by scottmcf in "Law firms pay Supreme Court clerks $400k bonuses – what are they buying?"

scottmcf — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 01:01:50 +0000

Eric Trump.

New comment by scottmcf in "We need physical audio kill switches"

scottmcf — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:38:44 +0000

This is something I'll rant about whenever given the opportunity. Car UI is completely awful.

New comment by scottmcf in "Reddit's website uses DRM for fingerprinting"

scottmcf — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 05:35:40 +0000

Not all quarantined subs got caught in the banwave. I'm aware of MGTOW still existing, I'm sure there are others.

New comment by scottmcf in "You can bypass YouTube ads by adding a dot after the domain"

scottmcf — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:32:49 +0000

I've had arguments with friends on the topic who see this as stealing content without paying for it.

New comment by scottmcf in "Ask HN: I'd like to learn vocals, any suggestion on how I can do this?"

scottmcf — Sat, 30 May 2020 22:36:28 +0000

Agreed. I trained under an opera singer in college, which couldn't be further from the genres of music I play in, but the underlying principles of bel canto singing were transformative for me.

New comment by scottmcf in "Ray tracing in notepad.exe at 30 FPS"

scottmcf — Wed, 20 May 2020 19:58:17 +0000

It really says a lot that kids are so easily able to use/understand what is going on with Cheat Engine, despite how powerful it is.

New comment by scottmcf in "US Secret Service: “Massive Fraud” Against State Unemployment Insurance Programs"

scottmcf — Sun, 17 May 2020 19:41:14 +0000

It can also be related to your insurance and employer's choices when setting up the benefits.

New comment by scottmcf in "You don't want quality time, you want garbage time"

scottmcf — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 15:55:41 +0000

I've got a teenager. This is very, very not the case.