Hacker News: taxcoder

New comment by taxcoder in "Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture"

taxcoder — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 03:52:56 +0000

Because no farmer ever will tell you he had a good year. He should have sold a month earlier than he did, or held on a week longer. Just the way it is, I guess.

In my business I see their books. Good years and bad years. Some things are more volatile - dairy can swing between losses and significant profits. Layers are pretty steady if you are on a contract, as long as you don't get the avian flu. Produce farmers rarely have a loss year, but their high income years are generally not as high as crop farmers, who sometimes do show a significant annual loss. More risk = more reward.

The last few years have been pretty good overall, for my clients.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)"

taxcoder — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:17:19 +0000

Reminds me of Emacs for Excel nerds. I like it! Do you plan to open-source it?

New comment by taxcoder in "Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs"

taxcoder — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 13:25:41 +0000

On a per individual basis, I think most individuals would prefer to overpay mortgage fees slightly rather than lose the entirety of the money they wire.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: What are some unpopular technologies you wish people knew more about?"

taxcoder — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:31:56 +0000

Upvoted for Ocaml. They are making progress on using on Windows.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Ways to make side income as a SWE?"

taxcoder — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 02:04:19 +0000

I know accountants who work between 80 and 100 hours a week for 3 months every year. Is it miserable? Yes. Is it impossible to work that number of hours and turn out quality work? I don't think so.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Where do you all invest your money?"

taxcoder — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 12:53:11 +0000

And the Richest Man in Babylon.

New comment by taxcoder in "Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitor's business?"

taxcoder — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 20:21:23 +0000

Here, desktop for online services, flip phone when traveling, VOIP for most phone usage.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: How do you store cables?"

taxcoder — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 13:48:34 +0000

Coiled, coil held with twist tie/s depending on size of coil, in one of several boxes depending on type, boxes on closet shelf above server and network equipment, closet in office behind desk, office in west end of home.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Why is Adobe the only company capable of editing PDF files?"

taxcoder — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 15:23:07 +0000

We spend our days in a Microsoft world, the ribbon is familiar. I'd be happy if it was more keyboard driven but most others would complain.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Why is Adobe the only company capable of editing PDF files?"

taxcoder — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 12:28:44 +0000

I spend a lot of time in Nitro PDF. The feature set I use is comparable to Adobe. We switched for better price with perpetual license and preferred interface (ribbon vs. whatever Adobe's is called).

https://www.gonitro.com/

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: I achieved my dream of being a self-taught dev. I hate it. Now what?"

taxcoder — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 22:13:16 +0000

The university is part of the reason I have not done more than look in from the outside. With no credits at this point and a life and family to support it isn't a great time for a change.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: I achieved my dream of being a self-taught dev. I hate it. Now what?"

taxcoder — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 01:50:06 +0000

I never wanted a desk job, but health and economics said otherwise. I did ease into it over several years and have gotten more used to it. It took a few years to get used to less "people time". Going from working on two to five man crews to sitting in an office by myself did weird (and not good weird) things to my head. It didn't help that I tried sales for the first year or so and that was emphatically not a good fit. That's a long ramble, just saying I've been there. Since you have the GI bill it might be worth trying something else. Or perhaps you are like me and want something else once you master the challenge in front of you.

Check out land surveying. Haven't done it but it looks interesting from the outside, good mix of inside research and outside work.

Another reply mentioned engineering. I met a man who had been a site engineer, responsible to make sure construction projects were accomplished according to plan.

When you find the answer we'd love to hear.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: What is the most efficient way to do good?"

taxcoder — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 22:25:06 +0000

Along with that, ask the charity what percentage of donated funds go to the cause or what percentage is used for overhead.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend?"

taxcoder — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 11:39:20 +0000

Sugar water. The ph isn't perfect but it beats having them starve over the winter from not having enough honey. Some of the big producers will feed sugar water or high fructose corn syrup and sell the result as honey, from what I hear.

As far as the mechanics, this time of year 2:1 or so sugar to water. Sometimes you can open feed in barrels or buckets with a float of some sort for the bees to land on. You can also put various containers in the hive. Sometimes I open feed, but this time will put a sealed, inverted jar or bucket in the hive on top of the frames of honeycomb. A few tiny holes to allow droplets retained by surface tension to form and the bees will happily store it away for the winter.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend?"

taxcoder — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 03:59:14 +0000

Saturday:

  Milk new cow
  Keep working on fixing my pickup
  Move cattle fence
  Feed bees - *didn't get this done*
  Study for church responsibilities tomorrow

Sunday:

  Church
  Keep my son occupied for the day, solo since my wife is away
  Go to nursing home to sing
  Read for a few minutes
  Maybe visit my parents

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Which web browser do you use and why?"

taxcoder — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:05:59 +0000

Firefox, for the illusion of privacy it provides over Chrome, without requiring much effort on my part.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Best book to learn C in 2022?"

taxcoder — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:03:48 +0000

Agreed. The tool chain help in here is very useful for a beginner.

New comment by taxcoder in "Don’t think to write, write to think"

taxcoder — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:35:55 +0000

My employees don't seem to understand why I prefer they email questions to me instead of calling. The clarity writing often brings aids the conversation. I frequently call once I have the email.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Has DuckDuckGo suddenly gotten worse?"

taxcoder — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:02:46 +0000

Haven't noticed any problem here. A poor A/B test, maybe? I find DDG's results superior to Google's 99.9% of the time, anyhow.

New comment by taxcoder in "Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?"

taxcoder — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 21:37:15 +0000

Agreed we need to help the sick, I didn't make that clear enough. I was trying to understand if the previous poster thought it was wrong to say "Here is housing and a program. You can't have the housing without the program."

After working with foster and adoption of two preteens from an unhealthy home situation my opinions have changed a bit as well. Compassion is hard - it should push us to do. Now if I can just work on being less blunt ...