Hacker News: wespad

New comment by wespad in "I want to live like Costco people"

wespad — Fri, 08 May 2026 05:52:18 +0000

In San Diego, we have a discount store called GTM that buys Costco closeouts and scratch-and-dent items and resells them for less. It has a loyal base of bargain shoppers, and it feels a bit like a treasure hunt.

You can buy normal or even individual quantities, like a single roll of paper towels, with no membership required. I imagine other big cities have similar stores, probably in lower-income areas, that fill a similar role.

New comment by wespad in "Nobody should be a "content creator""

wespad — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:03:03 +0000

I agree with you on hip-hop. It's very important to me. And it's great that it's become so ubiquitous. But it wasn't always like that. Early hip-hop was just music created extemporaneously at a party or a park jam. It wasn't even recorded. It didn't fit the format of "about 4 minutes and some seconds." And the whole mixtape era was music of the moment, not even an official release, mostly a promotional product.

New comment by wespad in "Nobody should be a "content creator""

wespad — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:16:19 +0000

These forms of media were work-for-hire projects owned by the publisher, paid at a rate per word or page. Assignment turned in and paid for (or not) and on to the next assignment. A volume game.

New comment by wespad in "Nobody should be a "content creator""

wespad — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:19:07 +0000

Comic books, original paperback books (crime/detective stories, westerns, science fiction, etc.), hip-hop,... all intended as disposable entertainment—the commodified, created content of its day.

New comment by wespad in "The Coleco Adam: An 8-Bit Personal Computer Failure"

wespad — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 04:20:01 +0000

This was my first computer. I got it for Christmas when I was 9 or 10. Can't remember if it was 1983 or 1984. Mostly used it, and its particular flavor of BASIC, to create graphic images, pixel by pixel. I remember making a fantasy sword picture. What a memory!

New comment by wespad in "Public Domain Day in Literature"

wespad — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 19:39:49 +0000

Standard Ebooks is my go-to for beautiful, well-formatted Public Domain books. The 2025 page is a wonderful gift to start the year. I'm off to read Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. Happy New Year!!!

New comment by wespad in "Why won't some people pay for news? (2022)"

wespad — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 02:07:35 +0000

> The news isn't going to mow my yard, politics won't change a single thing about my life which couldn't be changed through more hard work.

Ain't that the truth.

New comment by wespad in "Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection"

wespad — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:50:36 +0000

Indeed they do. At least the Debian-based distros, like Ubuntu and Mint.

New comment by wespad in "Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection"

wespad — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:30:46 +0000

Every general purpose Linux desktop I setup gets Simon Tatham's puzzles and all of Kenta Cho's and Jason Rohrer's games.

New comment by wespad in "IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free"

wespad — Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:40:41 +0000

https://www.freetaxusa.com/ and their parent company https://www.taxhawk.com/

They charge $14.99 for the state filing. Usually a coupon code available. Or go to the state's website (CA at least), and file that for free, too. But for the convenience of not having to input my info again, I'll pay their fee.

New comment by wespad in "Batch Box Rocket Stove: Ergonomic, Efficient Wood Combustion"

wespad — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 20:56:19 +0000

This is up there with one of my favorites from Hacker News: The Microhydro Plant

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6895582

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20075110

https://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html

New comment by wespad in "Hercule Poirot turns 100: The strange case of the Belgian detective"

wespad — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 22:04:57 +0000

https://outline.com/6yf9UP https://archive.vn/YylTa

New comment by wespad in "Are There Laws of History?"

wespad — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:21:17 +0000

Usually we think of history as what happened, but it's really more historiography, the story we tell about what happened. In college we would read 4 different academic sources about an event, and try to determine why they were so different. We'd start with the author's bio, see what university they teach out and try to determine their influences and models of interpretation.

New comment by wespad in "Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine"

wespad — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 00:19:43 +0000

My favorite Hacker News story of all time, about a guy who builds a small, water turbine power plant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6895582

https://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html

New comment by wespad in "Want to Build a Side Business? Just Buy a Great Domain Name"

wespad — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 02:09:09 +0000

Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13366216

New comment by wespad in "Mathematicians are hoarding a type of Japanese chalk (2015)"

wespad — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 21:28:54 +0000

This reminds me of a story I read about 10 years ago of a Japanese manufacturer of a very specific type and format of scientific lab notebook that ended production. I think about the story every now and then and go on a deep dive, but can never find it. Buried in the web.

New comment by wespad in "Steve Jobs hired a career juggler to teach programming to developers"

wespad — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 00:43:32 +0000

My daughter (13) is a juggler. I am not. I'll just leave this here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggling_notation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siteswap

New comment by wespad in "How Stories Drive the Stock Market (2016)"

wespad — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:22:34 +0000

Buy on the rumor, sell on the news.

New comment by wespad in "Artists who survived brain injuries but found a new craft"

wespad — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 18:35:26 +0000

There's a great documentary about Frank Frazetta called Painting with Fire. Later in life he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right hand. He taught himself to paint and draw again with his left.

New comment by wespad in "What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us"

wespad — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 20:57:59 +0000

When ever I want to learn something on my own, especially a comparative study, I include the search terms "syllabus' and 'reading list'. I figure there must be a class somewhere that has already covered this ground.