Hacker News: thecombjelly

New comment by thecombjelly in "Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain"

thecombjelly — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:22:13 +0000

A potentially good idea got corrupted by vendors, password managers, browsers, etc trying to assert control. I'm also an engineer and I find the UI around passkeys entirely unclear, but it doesn't have to be that way. It seems like everyone wants to be _the_ password manager for all your passkeys. They don't want to make it easy to understand that is what they are doing though, they just happily offer to "handle it for you".

My non-technical friends are extremely confused by passkeys and if they should use them and how to use them and I honestly don't have very good answers. It is a mess. I don't believe an inherit mess, but one created by the companies and projects trying to take advantage of the new system.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)"

thecombjelly — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:12:38 +0000

Very cool project! It looks nice and the technical aspect of how sharing/CRDT is implemented is a really great idea! I would definitely be interested in the ability to change the relay; ideally to something self-hosted.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2024)"

thecombjelly — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 17:54:37 +0000

Opt Health | Mid Full-Stack Engineer | Remote | Full-Time | US

We are a small startup focused on creating optimized health outcomes by connecting patients to doctors and supported by regular lab testing. I'm hiring to build out our core engineering team, which I lead.

* I care deeply about creating a healthy work environment that supports and enables all team members to meet their own goals

* Opportunities for mentorship from a small but very experienced and skilled team

* We greatly value diversity and seek to build and understand from all perspectives

* We value high-quality, sustainable work

* JavaScript, NodeJS, React, Postgres

* You have at least a few years of experience engineering web applications at small companies

* You would enjoy the challenge of helping to improve a difficult codebase :)

* You would be ok working under HIPAA compliance and dealing with health-related integrations

* Salary $130K+

Interested or questions? contact: thomas.hintz at getopt dot com

Are You a Good Programmer?

thecombjelly — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:06:07 +0000

Article URL: https://thomashintz.org/articles/are-you-a-good-programmer

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22311075

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by thecombjelly in "Lumen: A Lisp for Lua and JavaScript"

thecombjelly — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 21:00:45 +0000

Looking through the docs it seems a very nice lisp. Clean, simple, yet covers all the basics without a lot of legacy warts. let with less parens and limitless if branches are very nice. Definitely one of the nicer looking JS lisps I've seen.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Banks and Retailers Are Tracking How You Type, Swipe and Tap"

thecombjelly — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:17:44 +0000

I think you make a great point. We _should_ question whether it's a good idea to make the word processor. I'm not saying it shouldn't necessarily be made but we should think about how it can be used and if the potential for harm is too high or if it can be mitigated. My point is these things should always be kept in mind and we need to not be afraid of not making the technology.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Banks and Retailers Are Tracking How You Type, Swipe and Tap"

thecombjelly — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 16:38:44 +0000

This is abuse and wrong. Just as it is abuse and wrong for every website or app that does something similar. And this couldn't exist if we as software creators didn't make it. We as the creators of software need to look at everything we create for its potential to be used against people and if it could potentially be used to abuse someone, like say exposing interfaces that can be used for biometrics, we need to refuse to make it. People have survived for ages without your software and they might be better off if it stays that way. Don't be a part of this.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2018)"

thecombjelly — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 05:53:13 +0000

SEEKING WORK | San Francisco Bay Area | REMOTE-only

I'm a Frontend Javascript web consultant specializing in React.js. Whether you're just getting started with a new React app, or transitioning from a different architecture, or in the middle of React development, I can help. Unlike many others I also have product management and founder experience. This helps ensure that the technical side is addressed while also meeting your business goals.

I've worked on Frontend heavy web applications with millions of monthly uniques as well as prototypes for startups. See some of my work here https://thomashintz.org/my-work

More info: https://thomashintz.org

Contact: contact [at] thomashintz.org

* Note that I typically work on a flat project rate with a minimum of $5,000, and most projects in the range of $10K-$70K. If the scope is undefined or the project is openended, I’m open to a weekly rate as well.

New comment by thecombjelly in "The Bullshit Web"

thecombjelly — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 20:05:15 +0000

I do all my browsing with uMatrix with everything blocked by default but first party CSS. It really makes the internet a more enjoyable place to be. Pages load much, much faster and it's often easier to find and read the content. On mobile it saves a boatload in bandwidth costs. For example, loading a NYTimes article takes 90KB and DOMContentLoaded is in 69ms. Truly much of the other stuff loaded is bullshit because a significant amount of the web is more usable without all the crap.

New comment by thecombjelly in "The Imaginative Reality of Ursula K. Le Guin"

thecombjelly — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 16:20:40 +0000

I agree on "Left hand of darkness". "The Dispossessed" really is excellent though.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street"

thecombjelly — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 19:46:07 +0000

This seems like a good time to question if we really should have cars at all. Autonomous cars might be better in some ways but they are still tons of metal flying at high rates of speed. Accidents will happen and people and other animals will die on a regular basis. Cars also require tons of infrastructure that walking and biking don't. You also have the environmental destruction of GHG emissions and from the mining of rare metals needed for batteries, you have roads and parking lots destroying habitat and using up valuable space, air pollution and smog from tailpipes or energy generation, noise pollution, and more harmful effects. Autonomous cars might mitigate some of those things but most of it will still be there (or we'll just use cars even more and so we'll have just as many deaths total along with the rest of it?). What about doing research and testing a world without any cars? It will probably be a better one.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Triplebyte Raises $10M from Initialized Capital, Marissa Mayer and Paul Graham"

thecombjelly — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 22:37:36 +0000

They could but if part of the process is proprietary or hidden how can you know what it is doing?

New comment by thecombjelly in "Triplebyte Raises $10M from Initialized Capital, Marissa Mayer and Paul Graham"

thecombjelly — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 20:50:23 +0000

Do programmers love numbers and algorithms so much they want to be reduced to them? Programmers are people and should be treated as such.

Also, shouldn't we be concerned that giving one company's algorithms control over who gets hired will be too much power in too few hands? And algorithms are not neutral. The people that make the algorithms have biases and discriminations just like regular people do but at least if your company does its own hiring you can work on figuring out what those are and how to address them. How can you do that if you depend on some proprietary algorithm?

And what about disabilities? How does your algorithm handle those? Racial bias? So many unanswerable questions.

I have many issues with the way most companies interview but giving up that process to a proprietary algorithm seems like the worst solution. This is not news to be celebrated.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Join the Battle for Net Neutrality"

thecombjelly — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 17:27:13 +0000

Why are we still making appeals to corrupt politicians? We might not control the cables but we do control the content. Why don't we shut it down until we get what is right? Why not another SOPA blackout and this time it doesn't stop until net neutrality is safe?

New comment by thecombjelly in "America has a monopoly problem"

thecombjelly — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:47:47 +0000

At that point it seems you would have just promoted politicians in to the capital class without the middle-person, but again they now represent the capital class and all their non-politician capital class buddies at the cocktail parties, instead of representing those without much capital.

New comment by thecombjelly in "America has a monopoly problem"

thecombjelly — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:45:32 +0000

Yes, it fluctuates depending on numerous factors, including how unhappy those without capital get about the unequal distribution of capital. You see this when monopolies start getting broken up and some wealth gets passed back down. But inevitably the capital gets concentrated again because that's how capitalism works. And even when some of the wealth gets passed back down the people in power generally stay in power.

New comment by thecombjelly in "America has a monopoly problem"

thecombjelly — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:41:36 +0000

America has a capitalism problem. What the article fails to address is that the root cause is really capitalism. Under capitalism wealth and power always concentrates, which in the case of businesses, that eventually means bad monopolies. Under a representative democracy that also means politics will always be corrupted because those with money and power will always be benefited by controlling politics, and they have the money and power to do so (who owns the news media? who can afford to buy off politicians, whether they start corrupt or not?). While the power of monopolies ebbs and flows as those without capital get angrier, the monopolies will always come back because that's what capitalism does.

Monopolies are not inherently bad. It's entirely possible to have a monopoly and have a great thing that everyone likes and is happy with and which keeps innovating. But under capitalism the primary incentive is the accumulation of capital which rarely lines up with creating something great long term.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Petition for Smarter Infrastructure"

thecombjelly — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 19:50:05 +0000

Alternate proposal that would not destroy more of the earth, make a big impact on lessening climate change, and improve people's health: ban personal vehicles from urban and suburban areas. Then reallocate the resources from maintaining roads and sprawling infrastructure to mass transit, biking, walking, and new housing. Roads and suburban infrastructure take up an absurd amount of space that could be reallocated to housing or even more open space. It would also help tremendously if property owners were not allowed to have any vacancy. A ridiculous number of housing units are sitting empty that could be used.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Ask HN: Developers – How did you learn to say NO?"

thecombjelly — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 05:38:20 +0000

> and ask him what should be cut

Or her.

New comment by thecombjelly in "Ask HN: What is your best advice for a developer to write better code?"

thecombjelly — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 21:32:27 +0000

What do you mean by better code? Good design is totally different than small tweaks and style changes. I'd argue putting in the effort to learn how to create good designs is the best way to write better code but it takes a lot more time and effort but more than pays off in the long run.

And there is no silver bullet. Advice like "Strong typing" or "functional programming" are not always going to be the best code for the task at hand.