Hacker News: williamsmj

US TV viewers embrace rogue streaming boxes

williamsmj — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 14:48:04 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theverge.com/streaming/873416/piracy-streaming-boxes

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46886451

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

Zillow Removes Climate Risk Scores from Home Listings

williamsmj — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:58:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/climate/zillow-climate-risk-scores-homes.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46107468

Points: 10

# Comments: 1

American dads are spending more time with their kids since Covid

williamsmj — Fri, 02 May 2025 00:52:29 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/opinion/father-child-care-pandemic.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43865074

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by williamsmj in "Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?"

williamsmj — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:32:12 +0000

They introduced levels 2.5 years ago. Almost all existing engineers were converted to L5 at that time (I was told ~90% during a recent job interview there). A very small number of L6s were created when they introduced levels (something like 20 according to my interviewer). L4s are post-9/2022 hires.

All of which is to say, the fact that most people are L5s, including people who've been there for a long time, is due entirely to the very recent introduction of leveling and the high bar for L6. It tells you nothing on its own about whether L5 is perceived as a terminal level.

You'd know better than us if you work there, and reading between the lines of your comment it sounds like maybe it is?

New comment by williamsmj in "Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?"

williamsmj — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 14:43:08 +0000

Bloomberg. The terminal level on their IC ladder is "Senior". They have no formal concept of Staff or Principal engineer. People spend decades there.

New comment by williamsmj in "Twitter.com – Is Twitter Down?"

williamsmj — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 16:11:31 +0000

https://www.wired.com/story/x-ddos-attack-march-2025/

Seems like they forgot to put some services behind Cloudflare. CTO should be fired then. Oh, wait.

New comment by williamsmj in "Twitter.com – Is Twitter Down?"

williamsmj — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 18:16:37 +0000

His claim is that it's a DDOS attack.

Not my area of engineering, so forgive me, but: is an external DDOS a plausible threat for competently engineered public service in 2025? I kind of got the impression those were solved problems in practice?

New comment by williamsmj in "Roald Dahl on the death of his daughter (2015)"

williamsmj — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 14:42:38 +0000

Were the "various overblown controversies" when he said "There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason"?

Or when he said the United States is "utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions over there"?

Or when he said "I am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic"?

Or are there others?

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/07/opinion/l-roald-dahl-also...

New comment by williamsmj in "Hyperspace"

williamsmj — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:47:46 +0000

Fair. Deleted.

New comment by williamsmj in "Hyperspace"

williamsmj — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:28:09 +0000

Deleted comment based on a misunderstanding.

New comment by williamsmj in "New Tesla Model Y"

williamsmj — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 03:29:28 +0000

Looks like a 2016 Nissan.

New comment by williamsmj in "Potoooooooo"

williamsmj — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 19:16:35 +0000

I was the owner of the domain potooooo.ooo from June 2020 to July 2021. I was pretty bored during early lockdown. I let it lapse. whois tells me someone else has now fallen into the trap of the $30 dad joke.

Americans are now spending more time alone than ever

williamsmj — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 15:08:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/american-loneliness-personality-politics/681091/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42635015

Points: 16

# Comments: 1

New comment by williamsmj in "A Private Life – Nikolai Tolstoy Remembers Patrick O'Brian"

williamsmj — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:46:55 +0000

For what it's worth, the use case that caused me to finally "get" chatbots was as a support while reading the Aubrey-Maturin series. The first conversation in my Claude history is me asking it "Compare the relative strengths of cannon and carronades. Which was more accurate?"

(But if you prefer a book, https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-OBrian-Muster-Book-Aubrey-Mat... is very useful.)

My brand new digitizing workflow using a 25 year old film scanner

williamsmj — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 16:49:32 +0000

Article URL: https://blog.vladovince.com/my-brand-new-digitizing-workflow-using-a-25-year-old-film-scanner/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42308234

Points: 123

# Comments: 60

Why your house is a terrible investment

williamsmj — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 15:56:43 +0000

Article URL: https://jlcollinsnh.com/2023/03/02/why-your-house-is-a-terrible-investment/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42164828

Points: 6

# Comments: 14

Pointing and Shooting

williamsmj — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 13:05:28 +0000

Article URL: https://www.markslutsky.com/archive/something-good-104-pointing-and-shooting/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156215

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

We Are Living in a Golden Age of Apples

williamsmj — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 13:28:37 +0000

Article URL: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apples-have-never-tasted-so-delicious-heres-why/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41945068

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

The Low Stability of High Income

williamsmj — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:33 +0000

Article URL: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/the-low-stability-of-high-income/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41854309

Points: 39

# Comments: 15

New comment by williamsmj in "PEP 760: No more bare excepts"

williamsmj — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 19:31:26 +0000

Again, python does not use semantic versioning. 3.12 and 3.13 are different major versions. The deprecation policy is documented and public. https://peps.python.org/pep-0387/.