Hacker News: strongpigeon

New comment by strongpigeon in "Debug Project"

strongpigeon — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 21:26:06 +0000

This is cool, but wasn't this a "Verily" project about 10 years ago? What is new here and what has happened since then?

New comment by strongpigeon in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

strongpigeon — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:33:43 +0000

It's a luxury tax that only affects people wealthy enough to have a second home in NYC. These people, by virtue of not living there, aren't paying income tax and thus don't contribute as much as someone who is.

New comment by strongpigeon in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

strongpigeon — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:25:49 +0000

> The rates sound a bit steep.

Agreed, but you also have to keep in mind that those people don't pay NYC income tax.

New comment by strongpigeon in "New York passes pied-a-terre tax"

strongpigeon — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:23:01 +0000

This specifically targets people who don't live in New York though (and thus don't pay income tax).

New comment by strongpigeon in "Cloudflare Flagship"

strongpigeon — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:19:02 +0000

I really liked Google Domains, but alas…

New comment by strongpigeon in "The real cost of owning a home"

strongpigeon — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:24:29 +0000

I think some of it is due to the lay off, some of it due to the supply situation not being as bad as SF (though construction has slowed recently), and a lot of it due to interest rates making "effective prices" much higher.

New comment by strongpigeon in "Stack Overflow’s forum is dead but the company’s still kicking"

strongpigeon — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:47:06 +0000

> but it always was that way.

I don't think that's true. I remember the very early days of Stack Overflow and it felt much more fun and friendly than it did 6-7 years later. I have so many 15+ years question/answer that somehow get revisited by a "moderator" that decides that maybe we should close this.

But was that the cause of Stack Overflow's demise? I agree that it most likely isn't. It's most definitely because of LLMs.

New comment by strongpigeon in "The real cost of owning a home"

strongpigeon — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:31:38 +0000

> You don't have to worry about rent increases

I'd also argue there are financial advantages (on top of the psychological ones) to the price stability as you don't have to hedge against your housing cost shooting up as much.

New comment by strongpigeon in "The real cost of owning a home"

strongpigeon — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:26:03 +0000

HOAs can be a big variable cost, yes, especially in the case of underfunded condos associations with a lot of delayed maintenance. Insurance can vary a lot, but is usually a much smaller amount than your mortgage payment (though I only have experience with the PNW).

But yeah, for a single family home in a not-too-flood-prone area it'll be very predictable.

Wi-R: Using the human body as a "wire" for inter-device communication

strongpigeon — Sun, 24 May 2026 21:34:58 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ixana.ai/blog/wi-r-technology-white-paper

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48261229

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Gemini Omni

strongpigeon — Tue, 19 May 2026 18:05:21 +0000

Article URL: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-omni/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48196904

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by strongpigeon in "A Meta employee gets real about the horror of working there"

strongpigeon — Sat, 16 May 2026 15:10:12 +0000

Unlike a startup that pays with illiquid RSUs, Meta paid its people extremely well for its bets though. I dont think Zuck is a great leader at all, but he’s definitely willing to pay for talent.

New comment by strongpigeon in "Making the news available at no cost is a victory"

strongpigeon — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:23:22 +0000

To add to this, I would assume that advertisers are more diverse and numerous than donors are, therefore reducing the influence any single one of them can have.

Blue Origin may need external funding to hit ambitious launch targets

strongpigeon — Wed, 13 May 2026 19:26:15 +0000

Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/blue-origin-may-need-external-funding-to-hit-ambitious-launch-targets/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126289

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by strongpigeon in "Googlebook"

strongpigeon — Tue, 12 May 2026 20:11:44 +0000

Calling it "just a speculative research project" is severely underestimating how big of an effort Fuschia was. At its peak it had a couple hundred eng IIRC.

New comment by strongpigeon in "Meta's embrace of A.I. is making its employees miserable"

strongpigeon — Sat, 09 May 2026 20:56:42 +0000

Not that I disagree with you, but I’ve heard of such tactic being used in some orgs at both Google and Microsoft as well.

It seems like a common conclusion from a management that wants to push for AI adoption. I doubt it’s super effective, but we’ll see how it turns out.

New comment by strongpigeon in "Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable"

strongpigeon — Sat, 09 May 2026 20:48:01 +0000

Having worked in big tech, I can almost guarantee you you’re overthinking this.

New comment by strongpigeon in "Cloudflare to cut about 20% workforce"

strongpigeon — Fri, 08 May 2026 03:59:49 +0000

I’ll never forget how when I was at Google, every email with subject line “An update on X” meant X was getting axed. Like, just say so in the subject line…

New comment by strongpigeon in "Life During Class Wartime"

strongpigeon — Wed, 06 May 2026 22:34:37 +0000

Wow, exempting people over 60 from property tax is such a fiscal self-own... The way to do it is to provide a deferral with interest which becomes a lien on your property. This way you can still live in your house, take advantage of your asset appreciating and the county still gets its taxes in the end (and can better handle the delayed cash flows). King County in WA does this for example.

New comment by strongpigeon in "AI's Economics Don't Make Sense"

strongpigeon — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:45:11 +0000

> That's 600 million per year in revenue.

According to your math, that's $600 million per day