Hacker News: spaqin

New comment by spaqin in "How to Become a Person After Smartphones Have Rotted Your Brain"

spaqin — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 07:47:34 +0000

> Are there any ways [...] practice digital detox?

Outside of work you're free to do whatever you want, so you can get some tangible, real life hobbies. Even at work you probably don't have to use your smartphone and you can shut it off, focus on work.

My personal recommendation is not touching a screen for the first hour of your day - or at least, not engaging with the Internet, for however long you can manage.

New comment by spaqin in "Kirkland Roundabouts"

spaqin — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 03:33:15 +0000

In Europe most people don't indicate when approaching the roundabout; only if you're taking the first exit.

Roundabout is basically a straight road that loops itself, so there's no need for blinkers when you're on. You indicate when you want to leave, and that's how cars approaching from your exit know it's safe to get on.

Besides that I'm not surprised Americans don't know how to use them; while nowhere else in the world you'll find a 4-way stop...

New comment by spaqin in "Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures"

spaqin — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 05:17:18 +0000

Not sure about the technical reality here - until 2010s, singleplayer games didn't require an Internet connection, and for multiplayer ones you could download a dedicated server application, host it yourself. Only recently it became locked down for the corporate profit; the only party making it hard are the game developers themselves.

New comment by spaqin in "Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible"

spaqin — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:38:05 +0000

Your abilities, while not taken away, suddenly become close to useless as there's a far cheaper substitute, and rationally there is no point in hiring you for anything. Good luck earning your keep now.

New comment by spaqin in "What the Fuck Happened to Nerds"

spaqin — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:21:33 +0000

True, but that's not really a bad thing. It feels like the passion has been watered down, with less and less space for being yourself, with the need to self-censor for the sake of advertisers', with hopes of monetization of every interaction ruining everything.

New comment by spaqin in "Prove you're human by winning a claw machine"

spaqin — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:13:45 +0000

I'm tired of constantly having to prove I'm a human. Especially if it's trying to be lighthearted and fun on the surface, it just reminds me how Internet has fallen.

New comment by spaqin in "Software is made between commits"

spaqin — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:10:23 +0000

If you're just a middle man between your coworkers and the LLM, what's the value you're bringing to the team?

New comment by spaqin in "WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding"

spaqin — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:45:21 +0000

I thought part of the point was that the iPad would _not_ have internet connectivity. Nothing to distract you. No notifications to check.

New comment by spaqin in "Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony"

spaqin — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 01:03:00 +0000

> Closest feeling you can get to flying and a helluva lot cheaper.

Hah, that's funny for someone who got into FPV quadcopters recently and just passed his motorcycle license. I might have a problem.

New comment by spaqin in "You Can Run"

spaqin — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 01:32:09 +0000

Usually a book title is a little more descriptive. And there's a synopsis or some other blurb on the back of the cover, to try to make you care a bit more than three words on a link on the front page of Hacker News.

New comment by spaqin in "Retro-Tech Parenting"

spaqin — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 05:03:16 +0000

Well, that's a description of 90s tech. In lack of the new technology that serves the user, old must make do.

New comment by spaqin in "Toy Story 5 shows 'terror' of children's screen addiction, says Tom Hanks"

spaqin — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:10:41 +0000

Funnily enough, even with such emphasis on children, the problem is touching adults as well. And that's completely ignored. Movies in recent years have changed dramatically in subtle ways to work with impatient audience.

New comment by spaqin in "The Last Technical Interview"

spaqin — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:26:45 +0000

A personal tragedy of failing an interview has little effect on a multinational conglomerate. If the average employee is half decent, they will grow anyway...

New comment by spaqin in "Volkswagen blocks Home Assistant by requiring client assertion"

spaqin — Fri, 29 May 2026 09:58:39 +0000

We used to have them. Devices so simple anyone with a hammer could fix. Maybe not open source as we understand it today, but rather - trivially reverse engineerable, often with schematics included. Most complex would be rewiring the motor on a washing machine. Did their job fine, but you can't sell them forever, so more complex devices were introduced. Nowadays motorcycles would probably be the closest equivalent, they're often very simple to work on.

New comment by spaqin in "I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)"

spaqin — Fri, 29 May 2026 01:02:09 +0000

That's gonna be tough; as author mentioned, they're made and sold primarily in China, for 3$ a piece (no wonder they're popular). The clones also have a different PCB design (it doesn't say nice!nano on it), so they're not that easily mistaken.

New comment by spaqin in "Can we have the day off?"

spaqin — Thu, 28 May 2026 05:48:42 +0000

You can't really live like you're in the 60s. Food and accommodation and other basic costs are going up all the time. Young people in entry-level jobs can barely support themselves while renting a room with flatmates.

Standards of living are going up regardless if we like it or not, and costs as well.

New comment by spaqin in "Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?"

spaqin — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:19:17 +0000

> Communication is tricky because it isn’t just about the words, but how they land

Please mind that English is not my native language, but as I aged, I found that to be true less and less. Exact word choice does not matter as long as the intent is conveyed properly. With some leeway, maybe benefit of the doubt. And misunderstandings can be cleared up.

In this case, customers are unhappy with the decision. No amount of weaseling around with any kind of word combination is not changing the decision. Whatever tone he might have used here would not help anyone or clear up anything. There is no further misunderstanding.

New comment by spaqin in "Shunning AI is the human choice"

spaqin — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:18:13 +0000

Funny, growing up in the same world I'm coming to the exact opposite view - instead of unique poops and kids using limited tools in the most creative ways, we'll be getting rehashes of everything, looking mostly the same.

Yes, media production is not fun. And that's what we as humans value in art - the labor. Easy things don't impress us. And by sticking to the default, easy option, with barely any good reason to embrace the suck and learn the difficult tools and processes, I can only see decline.

New comment by spaqin in "Google officially announces that ads will be included in AI Mode search results"

spaqin — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:14:54 +0000

They really couldn't have waited any longer after announcing the shift to AI mode. Almost immediately. I'm sure the employees who worked on it must be terribly proud.

New comment by spaqin in "Dumb ways for an open source project to die"

spaqin — Wed, 20 May 2026 02:41:21 +0000

Mostly because CS career advice was always "have some personal projects to show off". Either fully single-person, or be a contributor. And over time, it has soaked some of the corporate, CV-driven development culture as well.