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abadar

111 karma · joined November 20, 2015

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abadar··on Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows
I've been taking Windows only apps from github and having Claude rewrite them for Linux. It's been awesome.
abadar··on Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD
That was fun. Emma did a great job building Fruit Drop!
abadar··on Brain scans reveal 3 ADHD subtypes
I, too, experience that. I am anxious and I overthink and I am avoidant. Vyvanse helped a ton, but it was producing health complications, so I am taking something else that's not as good.

It's not a substitue for counseling, but consider talking to your favorite LLM chatbot. It will provide generic advice, but it will probably work 80% of the time. Sometimes being told what to do is good enough of a kickstart.

Or I can give you the crappy advice that works. "Just start."

abadar··on Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
Yes, Innovation can be very swingy and I love it. Drama is the most important aspect of board games for me.

Excitement = fun

abadar··on Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
I super recommend Innovation. If you enjoy nuanced gameplay like in TCGs, this is for you. Everyone starts in the Stone Age and the goal is to race to 4-6 achievements, advancing through technological ages. Cards represent technologies and they have powers, like drawing cards, forcing other people to give you cards, score points, etc. It's a great game of resource management, politics, and sabotage.
abadar··on Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
I used to play Pokémon cards competitively. It was fun going to local tournaments and flying with friends for Regional tournaments. I stopped to focus on night school, and I want to pick it back up with the card legality change happening Friday.

Pokémon Champions just came out, so I might give up cards for the video game. We'll see.

abadar··on Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
Thank you for making such a great tool. KCC got me back into reading manga and there are so many that are so great.

For anyone looking for recommendations, I really enjoyed Pluto, Yokohama Shopping Log, and Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games.

abadar··on Taste in the age of AI and LLMs
You make a really salient point about having a clear vision and using clear language. Patrick Zgambo says that working with AI is spellcasting; you just need to know the magic words. The more I work with AI tools, the more I agree.

Now, figuring out those words? That's the hard part.

abadar··on Ask HN: How do you handle marketing as a solo technical founder?
I'm in sales. This is going to sound shallow and tautological, but you find the people to interview for Product Market Fit by looking for the people you THINK are the ideal customers.

If you can't find your target market, you might want to consider a different demographic that you understand better. Most successful startup founders started a business specifically to solve the problems they dealt with at their last job. They understand their product market fit because they ARE their target market.

abadar··on Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all
Your experience of being better at editing than writing makes me think of advice from Alan Moore (of Watchmen fame) on writing. He says to also read bad books, because if you read only good books, you'll never realize if you unintentionally plagiarized. But if you also read bad books, you'll think, "Jesus Christ, I could write this shit," and feel liberated to analyze their writing and examine why their writing offended you.

I analyze the writing of my LLMs and I get really annoyed and frustrated and I think it's marginally improving my communication.

abadar··on The modern formatting addiction in writing
> First write with lots of formatting. > Then figure out how to remove it. > Then put it back, if you want.

In the fifth grade, we were required to write an outline for our research project essay. Imagine my delight when writing the paper was as easy as copying the outline and adding a couple extra words.

That value of formatting into bulleted lists reminds me of the McPhee method of writing, which was shared last year on HN. He manipulates physical note cards to write, and I was manipulating digital ones.

abadar··on I vibe coded my dream macOS presentation app
I am not a programmer.

I love how vibecoding has opened the door for hyper-custom apps and scripts that benefit an exact audience of One.

Last week, I built a dynamic map to track local Play! Pokémon tournaments. It uses leafletjs and an api for an ICS file of events. I don't know what most of those words mean, but I have something perfect for me and my local competitive Pokémon community!

abadar··on Open source is not about you (2018)
My latest apps are

* Cardsphere (Magic card trading website) wishlist to inventory comparer * Scryfall (Magic card database) search result CSV Downloader * Cube Tagger, an app to easily tag cards with function tags for easy categorizing in cubes (boardgamified collection of Magic cards)

The vibe coding part is wonderful because I can "make" the software I want. However, it always takes hours of runs to get to where I need it to be because I'm unpracticed at project planning. I constantly hit critical edge cases and UX problems.

abadar··on Open source is not about you (2018)
I get that. I am a non-programmer who vibe codes personal web apps for Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon TCG. I turn them into github pages for easy access for myself.

I don't share them with my hobby communities because I don't want to hear feedback because I don't want these finished projects to become eternal projects.

abadar··on Doing the thing is doing the thing
I totally get that. I have a super corpo buddy who tells me every project is 80% planning and he uses that philosophy for his personal projects. That makes sense for a huge company.

I resist working like that because I am mega ignorant and I know I will encounter problems that I won't recognize until I get to them.

But, I also HATE having to rework my projects because of something I overlooked.

My (attempted) solution is to slog through a chat with an AI to build a Project Requirements Document and to answer every question it asks about my blindspots. It mostly helps build stuff. And sometimes the friction prevents me from overloading myself with more unfinished projects!

abadar··on ChatGPT conversations still lack timestamps after years of requests
I built a single page website that copies the current time to my clipboard and I paste it into my messages. It's inconvenient and I don't do it irregularly.

I'll have to look into the extension described in the link. Thank you for sharing. It's nice to know it's a shared problem.

abadar··on GPT Image 1.5
I really enjoyed your experiments. Thank you for sharing your experiences. They've improved my prompting and have tempered my expectations.
abadar··on Job mismatch and early career success
Thank you for sharing. This was a fascinating read.
abadar··on Ask HN: How are you making money on the side?
I spun off geek-themed speed dating to geek themed singles mixers. They have party games, couch co-op and vs games, karaoke, and get-to-know-you games to encourage strangers to talk to each other. A drink is included with the ticket.
abadar··on A receipt printer cured my procrastination
I tried creating my own loot box reward system where I earn points for completing tasks (literally spare change), and I can use the money to buy a die roll, with a d20 dictating what prize I got. Prizes would be things like permission to buy Pokémon cards or a full price video game, etc, with a guaranteed "high rarity" prize every X rolls.

Maybe it'd be fun to combine this with your receipts, where random tasks reward points to earn prizes.

Or maybe this is just more procrastination!

abadar··on Ask HN: How do I learn practical electronic repair?
I learned basic electronics repair from modding and building arcade controllers, aka Fightsticks. That eventually evolved into Game Boy repair, and iPod retrofitting, and electronics restoration. It's kind of like cooking; find something you want to make, then follow the directions, and then make something else, and eventually, you'll come across a problem that you have the foundation to solve.

The most basic core of practical electronics repair is that there are things that should be conductive and things that shouldn't be conductive and you need to figure out how to do either.

abadar··on AI Is Like a Crappy Consultant
Crappy consultant? That's redundant ;)

Seriously, though, within the context of software development, these are all issues I've encountered as well, and I don't know how to program: sweeping solutions, inability to resolve errors, breaking down all components to base levels to isolate problems.

But, again, I don't know how to program. For me, any consultant is better than no consultant. And like the author, I've learned a ton on how to ask for what I want out of Cursor.

abadar··on Remembering my friends´ faces using Flash Cards
As a singles mixer host and social interaction coach, I think everyone should do anything they need in order to ease social anxiety. Something is better than nothing.

For some people, memorizing names is effortless, and for others, it takes a sneaky glance at a name tag or using a celebrity-name mnemonic or asking for the 3rd time.

abadar··on Tell HN: Failed two times on Kickstarted – successful on third attempt
How much more marketing did you do for the 2nd and 3rd attempts vs the first?

And what did you do/do differently?

abadar··on Netflix's UX design is keeping people up at night
I heard an anecdote that there's a Feng Shui ritual to exorcise the demon that harms sleep.

They perform the ritual and then take the TV out of the room.

abadar··on Ask HN: What is your passive income 2019?
I'm new to hyperlinking on HN. My apologies.
abadar··on Ask HN: What is your passive income 2019?
People buy a subscription to get/give reminders to call their parents. Every first Saturday of the month I schedule 8-12 texts per US time zone.
abadar··on Ask HN: What is your passive income 2019?
I sell a web service that randomly texts your kids to call you. Or reminds you to call your parents.

https://www.callyourmomanddad.com

abadar··on New ventures should focus all their efforts on problem-solving
This strongly correlates with the fact that older (40-50+) founders tend to have more successful startups. It might be because a) they intimately understand the problem that needs to be solved and b) they have the network to sell to others with the same problem.
abadar··on New ventures should focus all their efforts on problem-solving
I really appreciate this insight. It's comforting to be reminded that no one cares how something works as long as it works.
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