Hacker News: vgchh

New comment by vgchh in "Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz"

vgchh — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 03:11:45 +0000

Ultimately, it's an internal battle. A battle of bureaucracy+ignorance vs democracy+optimism+innovation. The side that weighs more wins. And the adversaries are hoping it's the former.

New comment by vgchh in "Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz"

vgchh — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:40:29 +0000

Irrespective of the political leadership, it's unlikely that USA military is completely oblivious about the new modes of wars - cheap drones, AI, rapid build-outs (e.g. in China). On the contrary, they are likely deeply aware of it. That being said, it is also likely true that USA has become more bureaucratic and there is a high chance of deer-in-headlights situation. USA remains the shining city on the hill, though probably not for long, unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.

New comment by vgchh in "Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps"

vgchh — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 11:37:06 +0000

I live in the New England and last year got a quote for replacing my existing boiler and furnace with two heat pumps. MassSave offers a good rebate program with $10k rebate. The problem is that the installers have bumped up the prices to the point where even after the rebate it would have costed me $35K. With that kind of price, and high electricity rates, I have no hope of saving money compared to my current setup.

New comment by vgchh in "WASM: Big deal or little deal?"

vgchh — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 12:48:21 +0000

Does anyone know where is official golang in its support for WASM? Last time I checked you had to use a fork of Go called TinyGo.

New comment by vgchh in "Passwords Are Fine"

vgchh — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 12:18:13 +0000

For a layperson, the passwords are easy to understand and provide enough ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Unless you are an expert, password hygiene can rarely be accomplished.

For a layperson, passkeys are difficult to understand, but provide out-of-the-box hygiene and security.

Passwords are not fine. What we need is better explanation/education of passkeys.

New comment by vgchh in "Ask HN: What are your favorite methodologies for organizing digital life"

vgchh — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 02:18:46 +0000

This will probably not work for everyone, but works pretty well for me. I simply use the "default" Mac OS/iOS apps:

- Photos (shared via iCloud)

- Notes

- Music

- iCloud for file storage

- I also use google docs for spreadsheets etc.

This pretty much covers my digital life and mostly meet my requirement to be on auto-pilot.

New comment by vgchh in "Meta says its new speech-generating AI tool is too dangerous to release"

vgchh — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:10:34 +0000

AI may be meta's only and real "grow out of newsfeed business" card. They should probably pivot, release their own version of ChatGPT/VoiceGPT, start charging for it and maybe rebrand (metai?). They are currently not being taken seriously, despite the chops they have, due to their stupid obsession with social and connecting people.

New comment by vgchh in "The US is building factories at a fast rate"

vgchh — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 21:25:54 +0000

It’s about time. We probably need to go even faster, like face melting faster to remain competitive/relevant. Frankly though, this is just one of the dimensions. There is also the “people will need to work harder” dimension. That will be a harder adjustment for people. Nevertheless this is a good news

New comment by vgchh in "Instead of your Life's Purpose (2021)"

vgchh — Sun, 14 May 2023 04:00:30 +0000

It’s hard to be an absolutist on such a big question. Everyone has distilled it in their own ways. I will throw mine:

There is no purpose of life. Life is THE purpose. To experience its full brilliance is the ONLY purpose. And only way to experience that is through a healthy mind and healthy body. So do what you can to take care of those.

New comment by vgchh in "Ask HN: Is Google Slowly Dying?"

vgchh — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 13:00:41 +0000

It’s hard to predict. Companies with good DNA can bounce back. Take a look at Microsoft. They were written off in Google’s hay days.

Google has a good technology DNA. I think they need an inspiring leader, maybe another insider who is a strong engineer and a leader.

New comment by vgchh in "Gordon Moore has died"

vgchh — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 11:36:50 +0000

I have never had any brush with the giant. But I have my own little story to share. Way back in 1998, I was a newly minted engineer in India and was visiting Bangalore. While roaming around on MG Road, I picked up a book named “Inside Intel”. It is through that book that I learned about Gordon Moore. On the 48 hour train journey back to Delhi, I devoured the book. It left an impression and I was in awe. It also ignited something in me. I wanted to become a better engineer, so I bought my first computer soon after. I wanted to be in the “Silicon Valley”. As the fate would have it, 3 years later, I landed there. Little did I know that this serendipity and random inspiration would weave my life story. I remain awestruck with the person and the impact that he left. RIP

New comment by vgchh in "Leaving China"

vgchh — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 22:59:44 +0000

Resident Alien - I think that’s how USCIS calls people who do intend to stay but not immigrate

New comment by vgchh in "Why Go and Not Rust? (2019)"

vgchh — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 05:18:47 +0000

Having recently started writing Java once again, i am horrified at the mess that it has become. Between reactive streams, completable futures, guice wiring, it feels like voodoo. It’s hard to even reason which code is running synchronously and what is asynchronous. Not to mention the upcoming lightweight threads. I crave for the simplicity of go routines and explicitness.

New comment by vgchh in "Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?"

vgchh — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 17:19:11 +0000

I am big fan of Elon Musk. But the way things are going, I predict he will end up in one of the following ways:

- end up in jail, as he has ruffled too many feathers. Someone will throw the book at him

- end up ousted from Tesla, because investors have had enough of his antics. Those have damaged the Tesla brand too much.

- he will keep digging a deeper hole and end up like Howard Hughes.

I wish none of this happens and would rather have him get back to his senses. But he seems be on the rock star track right now.

New comment by vgchh in "Pingora, the proxy that connects Cloudflare to the Internet"

vgchh — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 23:43:20 +0000

They don't say much on why not Envoy. It would be interesting to hear if there were concerns with it.

New comment by vgchh in "Ask HN: Why don't we have 3 day weekends yet?"

vgchh — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 20:50:54 +0000

This is likely going to be controversial. I am all for more time off. But the way the world is evolving, to maintain its competitiveness, America cants really afford to be slacking any further. Ultimately, it’s the work of the people that transforms a country and I am afraid, America is working less harder!

New comment by vgchh in "First images from James Webb telescope exceed expectations"

vgchh — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 16:26:20 +0000

A bit poetic, but suddenly the universe feels a bit more approachable, more within reach, a bit more sane. As if, through JWST, you can extend your hand and touch and feel and socialize with neighboring galaxies. Truly a window to our galactic neighbors.

New comment by vgchh in "Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?"

vgchh — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 11:46:07 +0000

It's all about digestion:

1. Eat your dinner at-least 2 hours before you go to bed

2. Don't drink water for 2 hours after the meal. Let the food digest

3. Eat more of easy to digest foods - fruits and veggies

4. Try to have a gap of 14 hours between your night meal and morning/noon meal

5. Don't snack all the time, even on nuts

New comment by vgchh in "How generics are implemented in Go 1.18"

vgchh — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 04:00:58 +0000

Well let perfect not be the enemy of the good. The reality is that Go is wildly successful in practice for good reasons that have been hashed numerous times. As a result tons of Cloud software is written in Go.

There is nothing Go needs to be ashamed on. Its mindshare is a result of a good choice people made at a certain point in time. A better language will win at its own merits.

New comment by vgchh in "My Personal Note Taking Journey"

vgchh — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:44:49 +0000

After having tried a number of approaches, including various VIM plugins, I decided to go with the Apple Notes. If you are bought into Apples ecosystem, it works incredibly well. Syncs to cloud. Available on both my desktop and phone. I recently went through a prep phase, which required tons of note taking with screenshots, pictures etc. it scaled beautifully.