Hacker News: shever73

New comment by shever73 in "I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA"

shever73 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:40:04 +0000

They manufactured their own hot dog manufacturing plant:

> "What we figured out we could do is build our own hot dog-manufacturing plant (in Los Angeles) and make our own Kirkland Signature hot dogs. Now we are doing so much hot dog business that we’ve opened up another plant in Chicago. By having the discipline to say, ‘You are not going to be able to raise your price. You have to figure it out,’ we took it over and started manufacturing our hot dogs. We keep it at $1.50 and make enough money to get a fair return."

https://www.425business.com/news/costco-ceo-craig-jelinek-on...

New comment by shever73 in "Crystals found inside wreckage from the first nuclear bomb test"

shever73 — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:16:29 +0000

Yes, there are lots weird remnants of the vigesimal system around in French. You can see it in names like the Quinze-Vingts hospital - literally "fifteen twenties" because it was designed to have 300 beds.

New comment by shever73 in "Strange crystals found inside wreckage from the first nuclear bomb test"

shever73 — Mon, 18 May 2026 12:42:37 +0000

I think the three-and-ten, four-and-ten way of expressing numbers is primarily an ancient Greek thing. The modern numbers are expressed differently (δεκατέσσερα / dekatessara for fourteen, for example). In a lot of older European languages 11 and 12 behaved irregularly. You could argue that they do in English too (we don't have oneteen and twoteen).

I haven't read of any particular reason for this, but I'd posit that numbers up to twelve were more commonly used in everyday life, so shorter, irregular forms were easier to use and remember. Much like many of the irregular verb forms in spoken language happened because they were so commonly used.

The ancient Greek system also gave us triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.

New comment by shever73 in "LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions"

shever73 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:44:39 +0000

This entire response is full of lies. Having done a cursory search of the extensions, you do target ones that are based on religious affiliation regardless of the DOM actions they take.

Your comment is disingenuous, insulting and has only served to make me check more extensions and only browse LinkedIn in a secure, private window.

New comment by shever73 in "The First Video Game Was Just a Box in the Corner of a Bar"

shever73 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:36:13 +0000

For some irrational reason this article annoyed me. It came across arrogant with an attempt at being high-brow, and included too much fluff. Describing the founders as "foundering figures" was amusing - I don't know if the image of taking on water and sinking was the author's intent, but I think I've just become guilty of the same thing I've accused the article of.

New comment by shever73 in "Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S."

shever73 — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 14:53:44 +0000

Thank you for the unexpected ATLA reference!

New comment by shever73 in "Jane Austen's Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood"

shever73 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 06:29:25 +0000

https://archive.is/4f3AY

New comment by shever73 in "Canal Boat Simulator"

shever73 — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 08:09:41 +0000

Glorious! I was also temporarily trapped by the intuitive “Start Game” UI. After that, it made me think of a weird version of Spy Hunter on a canal. I had to experiment to see if I could ride the tsunami all the way to the end.

Port it to the ZX Spectrum and it would be a classic CSSCGC entry.

New comment by shever73 in "For $595, you get what nobody else can give you for twice the price (1982) [pdf]"

shever73 — Sat, 10 May 2025 21:38:20 +0000

I was wowed when I first got home Internet in 1995 because it was so much more than the BBSs I’d been using up to that point, but nothing has recreated the sense of wonder I had on 8-bit machines in the 80s. Even when I bought a secondhand PC in the late 80s, going through the hand-labelled disks was like a treasure hunt. That’s how I first discovered Hack/Nethack, played Leygref’s Castle and started learning Borland Turbo Pascal.

New comment by shever73 in "Asking LLMs to create my game Shepard's Dog"

shever73 — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:14:27 +0000

After nearly 40 years, Shep has finally been released!

See the Crash magazine "Unclear User" parody. Page 125 of the August 1985 edition for context. [0]

[0] https://archive.org/details/Crash_No._19_1985-08_Newsfield_G...

New comment by shever73 in "On Bloat"

shever73 — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 08:49:01 +0000

> I guess your point about it feeling handcrafted holds, if you count the character encoding.

Magnificent!

New comment by shever73 in "Chrome does not have any way to stop video auto play?"

shever73 — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 11:52:39 +0000

Use the Brave browser and `brave://settings/content/autoplay` is all you need.

New comment by shever73 in "macOS menu bar app that shows how full the ISS urine tank is in real time"

shever73 — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 09:14:59 +0000

This has nerd-sniped me waaaay too much. Now I need to know the capacity of the ISS urine tank since an average adult urination is between 200 and 350ml.

New comment by shever73 in "macOS menu bar app that shows how full the ISS urine tank is in real time"

shever73 — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 09:06:54 +0000

Yes, the solid matter goes into waste containers that are burned up on re-entry of the supply craft. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a reading for the solid waste containers.

It makes wishing on a falling star less romantic, though, when you realise you could be wishing on flaming astronaut poop.

New comment by shever73 in "Threads of God"

shever73 — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 09:06:54 +0000

The 2022 BBC article goes into more depth: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20161014-the-secret-behin...

New comment by shever73 in "My Colleague Julius"

shever73 — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 22:58:51 +0000

This comment made my day. Thank you!

New comment by shever73 in "Want to book a Ryanair flight? Prepare for a face scan"

shever73 — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 12:53:58 +0000

> So, what you essentially demand is to NOT provide you with a user interface to interact with the system.

No, I’m requesting, or demanding if you prefer, the choice. An account is a user convenience, not a business necessity. I’m asking why it is reasonable to force customers to create an account to book a flight?

New comment by shever73 in "Want to book a Ryanair flight? Prepare for a face scan"

shever73 — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 12:09:14 +0000

Could you elaborate on why that seems reasonable to you? The airline will already have my passport and credit card details, home address and mobile number. In my opinion, it should be the user's choice whether they create an account or not.

New comment by shever73 in "Always go to the funeral (2005)"

shever73 — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 10:20:58 +0000

This is a very Irish thing. Funerals in Ireland are always well-attended and going to a funeral - even of someone you don't know - is important in the community (see this recent news article, for example[0]). I notice the author's surname is Sullivan.

As my grandmother liked to repeat: "If you don't go to someone's funeral, they won't come to yours."

[0] https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/crowd-shows-up-to-funera...)

New comment by shever73 in "They see your photos"

shever73 — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 18:11:09 +0000

I’d say we are about the same. He looked like he’d come out of a business meeting. I had even joked with him about being overdressed for walking around Parc Guell.