Hacker News: sloaken

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Should AI credits be refunded on mistakes?"

sloaken — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:11:31 +0000

Interesting, you have just identified a potential market distinction. First we need a group (ala consumers report) to evaluate different services. Then different services would be motivated to perform the sub agent verification automatically as a Competitive Advantage,

New comment by sloaken in "Intelligence Cannot Be Trained?"

sloaken — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 03:14:11 +0000

I have heard, not sure the validity, that they believe the removing of lead from Gasoline, has stopped the suppression of intelligence caused by lead consumption.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: How Do You Relax?"

sloaken — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 03:11:18 +0000

Reading hacker news and playing civilization. Then a long walk.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Does anyone else notice that gas runs out faster than usual"

sloaken — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:48:52 +0000

Check tire pressure. I had a prius and milage would drop significantly (60 to 50) when the tires were low.

Of course tune up.

Have you changed gas stations / brands recently?

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: How did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?"

sloaken — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:11:04 +0000

Now having said that. It is great to follow a passion, but you need to feed yourself. So you have to weight the two 'what I love' vs 'what pays the bills'

When I finished school, I had a lot of biology major friends, who were real passionate about biology. At the time they could only get low paying jobs in a human waste water plant. They envied me for being smart to choose CS, they thought I did it for the money, not realizing it was passion, and I could have had the same problem they did.

Likewise When I was laid off, about half of the other who were laid off, claimed 'Oh thank God. I have always hated programming stuff'.

Once again, it is a balance. Very few get the best of both worlds.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: How did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?"

sloaken — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:05:06 +0000

I have heard, but have not read, 'What color is my parachute' is a great book for that.

There are a bunch of psychology based tests you can take to help decide on general career paths. I remember taking one 20 years ago. It had questions like: Do you enjoy working on your own. Does fame get you excited. Writing out direction cause you anxiety. Surprise surprise Software Engineer... Just what I love doing.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Why isn't the NSA categorized as an APT?"

sloaken — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:59:45 +0000

It is perspective. From the Iranian stance, NSA is an APT and theirs is not. Likewise the UK version, Russian versions etc.

Them / Us.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Why isn't the NSA categorized as an APT?"

sloaken — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:58:08 +0000

Thanks. Well that answers the question. Opponents are threats, your tools to counter are not.

As in: Your gun is a threat to me, my gun is how I defend against YOUR gun.

New comment by sloaken in "Tell HN: H&R Block tax software installs a TLS backdoor"

sloaken — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:45:23 +0000

Thanks for the warning.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: What was it like for programmers when spreadsheets became ubiquitous?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:06:14 +0000

I agree, and would push it further, that almost all professionals need to have a basic understanding of Logic and programming. At least to create a Sort routine (without copying it).

I believe schools should require a Logic (not just philosophy) class.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: What breaks first when your team grows from 10 to 50 people?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:02:46 +0000

Anything not documented is throw away.

Any given day someone can win the lottery, inherit a lot of money, or need to leave for some other reason.

Every complaint they had was a direct effect of failure to document. Well that or the other people are just complete idiots ... you decide.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Have you successfully treated forward head posture ("nerd neck")?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:03:15 +0000

Thanks for the advise. I appreciate the warning.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Have you successfully treated forward head posture ("nerd neck")?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:02:40 +0000

Thanks for the advise. I appreciate the warning.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: What was it like for programmers when spreadsheets became ubiquitous?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:35:16 +0000

A friend of mine who graduated in 1983 with a computer science and an accounting degree, had an interview for an accounting job. Accounting was his actual passion, but he also enjoyed programming. He was told at one interview:

'Your computer science degree is useless. With this spreadsheet program I can do everything. There is no longer a need for programmers'

I think he was wrong, just like Thomas J Watson (CEO of IBM 1943 quote: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.")

So when I hear AI will replace ... I think it will enhance and redefine.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: What breaks first when your team grows from 10 to 50 people?"

sloaken — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:33:12 +0000

This might not be the first to break, but it will eventually, and if corrected NOW will make things much smoother:

Your documentation of processes and procedures is NOT adequate.

'everyone used to know about are getting lost' - oh good thing your documentation makes this clear, because it is obviously their fault.

'New hires take forever to ramp up' - oh good thing you have complete ramp up plan and documentation, because it is obviously their fault.

'building on different assumptions' - oh good, your old assumptions are clearly documented, because it is obviously their fault.

So their is your self focus, please do good, and document well.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Have you successfully treated forward head posture ("nerd neck")?"

sloaken — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 13:54:29 +0000

Not that I know anything ... but I keep thinking about getting a neck brace and wear it when I work on a computer. Seems like a 'simple' fix ... but I have made that mistake before (as in think it is a simple fix).

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Last time you wrote code?"

sloaken — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 02:57:00 +0000

Thanks, I appreciate your sharing this info.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: Last time you wrote code?"

sloaken — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:38:02 +0000

Interesting, I just decided (well 2 days ago) that I want to learn Rust myself. What resource are you using to learn?

New comment by sloaken in "Comparing manual vs. AI requirements gathering: 2 sentences vs. 127-point spec"

sloaken — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 04:46:57 +0000

Thanks for posting this, this is useful research.

New comment by sloaken in "Ask HN: What happens to all the hardware when data centers upgrade?"

sloaken — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 03:32:26 +0000

In Orlando, if you go to disney and you are a techie, it is a must see, is a company called SkyCraft Surplus. They go to companies who are getting rid of old equipment and resell it. Some stuff is new, much of it unused. Brought a friend there (EE major) and he was fascinated by the fact that they had a lot of old Radio Shack chips, diodes etc.

Tell them I sent you and they will ... well nothing, but I am happy to support them, as it brings me much joy whenever I visit.