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hoodoof

6,291 karma · joined May 11, 2011

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hoodoof··on If Github ends up selling itself one day, Microsoft will be the buyer (2014)
It's not prescience or genius..... almost no matter what happens, someone somewhere predicted it was going to happen. And with the Internet, it's on record so can be looked up.

Whenever there is a financial crisis, someone goes back and sees who predicted these exact circumstances, which of course someone did because that's statistics for you. But it doesn't make then a genius or prescient.

It just means they are the person who happened to guess what did actually happen. And I tell ya, it aint hard to predict which of the big companies will buy some other highly successful smaller company because there ain't that many acquisitive really big tech companies.

If you want to look like a genius in the future, Tweet a few predictions about random([amazon, google, microsoft]) will buy random([jetbrains, atlassian, twitter]). No one will notice if it never happens but when it does you can stand tall as a true crystal ball gazer who "really called it".

Here's when "The Simpsons" predicted the Trump Presidency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcYMvzZ7jk Same thing.

Here is when some other guy predicted - right here on HN - and way back in 2008 - that Google would buy github https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=262460 Now that guy is a genius! Oh wait now he wasn't, it was someone else who made a different guess.

And when those aliens arrive.... you'd better believe there will be a long queue of people lining up to take their title as "genius" and "prescient" and "called it".

hoodoof··on Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Milky Way at 5 million mph
Could this have planets?

Well not planets, but my question is more general - could a star moving this quickly have a planetary system - obviously this one would not if it got shot out of a supernova.

hoodoof··on Cool Backgrounds
What are you using to make the menus pop and slide?
hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
I'm just saying heck I wish I could take my own advice.

I am empathizing with the OP about how hard this point of a project is.

Perhaps I'm being too dry.

hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
Hey wow that's great advice I think I'll learn from what you say here.
hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
With the possibility of the worst form of judgement - disinterest/ambivalence.
hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
Are you me?

Programming feels like productive work, and indeed it is, up until just about the point you are at. Now it is not productive work any more, in fact, once the product is finished, programming is counter productive work. Other things need to be done and you don't know how to do them and if you do, are not in the habit of doing them. IOt is easy to get up in the morning and write code, harder to do unfamiliar things.

--> self sabotage (deeply seated need to actually not succeed)

--> fear of the unknown

--> avoidance of a change in work habit - from programming to...... ? what does one do post launch

--> fear of the likely outcome which is zero feedback, zero users

Curious - how close are you to launch, what remains to be done, and what does the software actually do?

Can I suggest perhaps be really ruthless about the remaining tasks - likely many of those launch tasks just are not important, even though the completionist in you thinks they are. For example - terms and conditions document? Ditch it until users are interested. Privacy document? Same. Purchase? Drop it.

See what I mean? If people like what you have built and use it, then the world will not come to an end because you did not have those things... and user interest will motivate you to implement them.

It's incredibly hard to work on something with no user interest. Just dump what you have built out there and see what happens.

hoodoof··on From Java to Kotlin and Back Again
val list = listOf("Saab", "Volvo")

val map = mapOf("firstName" to "John", "lastName" to "Doe")

The above seems a really strange decision for a "new" language - why would you not just use the most common structure, being JSON?

hoodoof··on Doug Engelbart's advice to a young software developer [video]
I love the weird, awkward social situations in the video at the tapwithus website, featuring people interacting with the tap keyboard secretly while they are talking to other people - magnificently strange.

The police will arrest you for wearing brass knuckles if you are caught using this device.

This seems to be capturing finger movements that would otherwise map to a keyboard. I wonder if there is an even more optimal way to capture finger movements and map them to input, if the idea of mapping to keyboard finger movements is discarded.

hoodoof··on What Sucks About Erlang (2008)
I seem to recall the author of the old post ditched Erlang at some later point.
hoodoof··on How to Come Up with Profitable Business Ideas
Can I ask a little more please?

How much of the company did you own when you sold it?

How did the sale happen - did someone just turn up and offer you money, or did you go find a buyer?

Was there negotiation from a higher price down to $10M?

Did they buy the entire company from you or just buy the software assets?

How long did the sale take from when the buyer turned up till money in your account?

How much money did you end up with after paying tax on the sale?

What did you do to celebrate?

What did you do next - another business, get a job, sit at home watching TV?

Would you have handled the sale process differently if you could do it again?

hoodoof··on How to Come Up with Profitable Business Ideas
Hw many people in the world do you estimate would want such a thing?
hoodoof··on Intel Shows Xeon Scalable Gold 6138P with Integrated FPGA, Shipping to Vendors
What's the use case of an integrated FPGA?
hoodoof··on Chinese tech giant ZTE ceases operations after ban on using U.S. components
Combine this sort of thing with China's increasingly aggressive military stance, and in the long term, maybe medium or short term, world trade is going to be completely reshaped.

Reliance on other countries now looks risky. If you manufacture in China, you're crazy if you don't have a backup plan for your operations being shut down as an outcome of government action on one side or the other.

hoodoof··on Ask HN: How to deal with a dysfunctional relationship with a 50/50 co-founder?
The only solution is open, factual, non emotional discussion about the situation, backed up with both attending a marriage counsellor. I'm not kidding.

Discuss issues with the behaviors, not of the person.

And I presume of course that your shareholders contract defines how this situation will be handled in nthe event that the conflict cannot be resolved?

hoodoof··on [dead]
Why isn't there a subscription option?
hoodoof··on Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?
>> the main investors/advisors (from the 220k friends/family/fools round) pretty much feel like it's time to pull the plug

Given your statement above, there's really no question beyond this point. You promised riches and success to family and friends and it is not currently looking like you will do that, and their message is "stop please before its all gone". Do so.

If you still have money and it is from family and friends then stop right now - on Monday (tomorrow) and give back all that you can. If you burn the rest of that cash then for the rest of your life those relationships will exist for you only in the light of that money. It would be different if the money you had was from an angel or VC who are taking calculated risks.

Your family and friends relationships are worth infinitely more than any startup.

You should instantly kill all business costs, go get a job, and continue marketing what you have built on the side.

hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why can't I delete my HN account?
It could also be argued that comment quality could be improved by allowing people to delete comments at any time, not just for 2 hours after creation of that comment.

People should be allowed to look back on a discussion and say "hmmm.... seems an ill considered and negative comment, I'm going to delete it".

As it stands, an ill considered comment is set in stone after 2 hours.

hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why can't I delete my HN account?
That doesn't give the users the ability to delete their comments, which under some circumstances they want to.

Removing attribution to a username is not the same as deleting what was said.

hoodoof··on Ask HN: Why can't I delete my HN account?
Yes but times have changed and I think, depending on where you live in the world perhaps, that there is a growing expectation that you should be allowed to delete your digital tracks.

There's a certain level of hubris to an attitude in which a given site that feels it's needs are more important than users.

Saying you can't delete all your posts/account is the same as saying "you do not have the right to control your own posts here".

I think it should be OK on HN to delete all your comments on your account if you want. I appreciate that this would degrade the quality of impacted historical comment threads but hey that's the price for giving people back control over their digital lives.

It happens on Reddit and whilst every now and then I encounter a reddit thread with deleted items, in general it has not destroyed reddit, and I respect the right of those users to have deleted their digital comments.

I rate respect for user wishes over the importance of maintaining historical threads integrity on HN.

hoodoof··on Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook
100% agree - names matter.
hoodoof··on Facebook Is Forming a Team to Design Its Own Chips
I don't agree that because the primary supplier is a monopoly is justification for doing something as distracting and risky as designing your own chips.

So they need a second supplier? Do what the government do, and demand that there be a second source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source or you won't buy their product, or give money to some other company or companies for whom that is a core competency.

>> so it's critically important that one or both of them break the monopoly by becoming a fabless chip designer

You say this with great certainty, that almost got me on board, but saying something with certainty does not make it right. It's not critically important - what's the worst that can happen in the short term - they pay a bit more because of the monopoly? You make it sound like if the chip monopoly isn't broken then doom will befall them all. Piffle. If there is such great demand for these chips then there are plenty of other silicon companies who can be attracted by the smell of demand.

What would make sense is for Facebook to claim to be making their own to strengthen their negotiating position with the supplier, but with no real plan to design their own chip.

hoodoof··on Since 2016, Half of All Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died
Well if half died in the last two years there's probably a calculation to work out how much will remain when you get there.
hoodoof··on Since 2016, Half of All Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died
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hoodoof··on Tell HN: I'm going to stop using Twitter if it doesn't stop cryptocurrency ads
Not on the Twitter I'm using.
hoodoof··on Borderline BBS: A Commodore 64 dial-up BBS (2014) [video]
I wish I knew how to program then like I do now. So much time wasted playing games instead of making things and being creative.

Don't get me wrong, some games time was an absolute must, but maybe not 100% computer time as games time.

hoodoof··on Atlantic Ocean's Circulation Is Weakest in 1,600 Years
Why would you trust people in your "band"?

Won't you worry they'll knock you off in the night so there's one fewer person to share with?

hoodoof··on Atlantic Ocean's Circulation Is Weakest in 1,600 Years
There are many unselfish individuals in this world who work to fix things, but as a group, and a group of countries, we are so selfish that the problem of global warming will never be stopped.

Nor the many other gigantic crises that face the earth such as plastic pollution.

As there is no way the people of earth will unify to fix this, better start getting ready sometime in the next 20 years for a gigantic shift in where people see civilization is headed.

hoodoof··on Atlantic Ocean's Circulation Is Weakest in 1,600 Years
I'm going to try to locate the billionaire bunkers that I am sure they have all built deep into mountains and take refuge with them before battling my way across a post apocalyptic landscape fighting zombies, accompanied by a ragtag bunch of survivors. I figure the Bezos bunker must be part of his 10,000 year clock mountain http://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html

Of course I have no idea what to do because why the heck would you think about that unless you were an actual doomsday prepper?

Likely outcomes at that stage is gigantic food crisis and the catastrophe that would follow so you'd need to store quite alot of bags of rice to get through that.

hoodoof··on Atlantic Ocean's Circulation Is Weakest in 1,600 Years
Becoming a doomsday prepper edges further away from "flat out crazy" with every day of weird, weird weather.

Our climate has been extremely stable for a long time and I'm not expert but it is my understanding that chaotic systems can suddenly flip from stable to extremely unstable.

I think there will be a time, hopefully a long time away but possibly close, when the world realises that there' going to be disaster on an unprecedented scale and we all have reason to be very, very concerned.

If the entire Antarctic eastern shelf melts, there is enough ice there to raise sea levels by more than 70 meters. Some say this is 100 years away.... but ice doesn't melt all at once. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes alot sooner and what that world/civilization looks like I cannot imagine.

And if you have children, then 100 years away sounds very very soon because you know this is the world they will live in.

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