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GFischer

4,852 karma · joined December 30, 2009

Programmer / IT from Montevideo, Uruguay (South America), currently working for the travel industry after 15 years at the insurance & financial sector.

You can contact me at xargef on Gmail (x..@gmail.com)

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GFischer··on Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV
It makes 100% sense for a Mexican commute, or in other parts of South America.

I live in Uruguay and one of the best selling cars here is pretty similar, a friend has it and it's great for the daily commute:

https://bawauto.com/pony/

The best sellers are BYD models, which are a bit larger but still tiny by US standards.

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

EVs have displaced ICE cars in Uruguay, and we usually are ahead of the trends, so I expect that to be the case in Europe and other places in coming years.

GFischer··on Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV
I wanted to buy a Tata Nano but unfortunately didn't make it to my country at an affordable price.

I think the demand was there, the supply wasn't.

My country, Uruguay, leads in EV adoption, and some small EVs are absolutely selling like hotcakes, a friend has the BAW Pony and I'd buy it if I had a place to charge it (there's issues with chargers inside condos due to fire risks).

170 km is plenty for city and suburban driving.

https://bawauto.com/pony/

GFischer··on Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning
My grandparents were German and they always said all of that, TIL not all of it might be correct.
GFischer··on Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning
TIL. I see that in my country (Uruguay) the Dew point in summer is usually above 20ºc and some peaks above 26ºc (when temperature is above 30ºc with high humidity), no wonder it feels hot and oppressive (it's always humid, too).
GFischer··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)
Pretty cool... I dabbled into the idea of having a super simple tablet on a frame with a one-touch call function to family members - obviously with a camera and much different, but also revolving about the photo frame idea.
GFischer··on I wish people were more public
Discord feels like this generation's forums (and Reddit).
GFischer··on I wish people were more public
My father lived through the Uruguay dictatorship in the 1970s and avoids all social media whenever possible.

I was an infant at the beginning of democracy, so I haven't taken that much care.

Now, it seems he'll be vindicated once again, I do plan on visiting the USA and I'm hoping my social media won't be an obstacle (fortunately I don't think I have anything, but who knows, maybe I liked a meme or something).

GFischer··on I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone
It's thanks to Valve that I'm considering switching to Linux (I'll probably still need a Windows machine around for various reasons).

They really did a good job.

GFischer··on If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?
I don't understand why socialists or communists don't tax the means of production accordingly, if they don't have money, take partial ownership (or complete ownership and turn it into a co-op or something).

Owners of capital and means of production have succesfully gamed the system and most of the tax burden falls on us middle class idiots that pay taxes on our work.

GFischer··on Show HN: Gemini Pro 3 imagines the HN front page 10 years from now
This is great.
GFischer··on US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
Meanwhile I had a terrible experience with DB (Deutsche Bahn) during the European summer two years ago, although it was partly out of their control (weather related delays and cancellations), I had to take awful detours, had paid for 1st class on ICE and ended up on regional trains up and down and lost one day of my holidays. No compensation whatsoever, although maybe I had to fill some online form for that.
GFischer··on The $25k car is going extinct?
The used car pricing in the USA used to be bizarrely cheap, it's now corrected or overcorrected.
GFischer··on WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
Why? Isn't it a closed, non interoperable platform?

Android has 88% market share in Brazil, so it sounds like terrible advice.

GFischer··on WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
But it gained way more traction in other parts of the world, it's the default messaging platform in South America for EVERYTHING.

I have never seen an iMessage.

GFischer··on A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen
They're selling ridiculous numbers in Brazil and Uruguay and are opening a factory there.

I think they're the number one brand by sales some months in Uruguay.

GFischer··on Should more of us be moving to live near friends?
Not everyone, I was given the option to go to the US legally (L1 visa) and passed on it, the person that chose to go instead regretted it and came back.

I am from Uruguay though, which is the best Latin American country, so YMMV, if I was from Venezuela I'd move to the US 100%.

GFischer··on 'I Don't Want to Die.' He needed mental health care. He found a ghost network
It was one of the biggest considerations that made me decide against moving to the USA.

One of my coworkers took advantage of the L1 Visa (which I can still qualify for) and she ended up moving back to my home country Uruguay even though she made 50% higher salary in USA.

She did live some of the worst stuff in USA like Texas electricity failures, 20.000 dollar healthcare bills, etc.

GFischer··on Just use fucking paper, man
You have somehow reinvented the USENET organization method :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Organization

GFischer··on Panasonic Toughbook 40
A family member has a Toughbook for sailing. There are no repair shops at sea.
GFischer··on If we want a shift to walking, we need to prioritize dignity
Humidity is the worst part, when it's hot but not so humid it's OK.

And at least here in Montevideo we're literally by the beach. I am two blocks away from being able to swim :)

I do complain a lot about the heat+humidity combination and I use A/C a lot.

GFischer··on If we want a shift to walking, we need to prioritize dignity
I'm from Montevideo, I wouldn't call it "tropical" but yeah, compared to an US city it's absolutely a million times more walkable.

We do have humidity and heat and I don't enjoy it and I use A/C several months a year.

There's a big push for more cycling-centric and more cycling lanes, and the bus infrastructure is obviously a lot better than the US. I don't have a car by choice.

I haven't been to Houston but I have been to Dallas and it was an extremely frustrating experience and it feels like an awful soulless city to me.

GFischer··on Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
The company I work for used Slack, we were happy, but higher ups were looking to cut costs and they noticed they had Teams for free, so guess what... bye bye Slack.

Absolutely a monopoly maneuver.

GFischer··on The damaging results of mandated return to office
I personally believe some sort of bonding period is great for remote people. I've worked in a kind of "worst of both worlds" setup where I went to an office 8-5 but I worked with a completely remote team (the office was basically a place for me to put on a headset and ignore everyone else).

But we met on a planned company trip (with the excuse of a Vegas trade show, we went and met one week early) and that helped immensely with bonding and team building.

If I manage a remote team, I'll push for a similar team bonding exercise whenever possible.

GFischer··on The best place to drink is the emptiest bar in the city
I heard of someone well off being a part-time Uber driver in SF because he got to interact with interesting people...
GFischer··on The end of the accounting search
One of the pieces of software I was most proud about was a data entry system for a P&C insurance company, the old policy subscription terminal-based system allowed for about 200 policies/hour by user, then they "upgraded" to a GUI that slowed them to about 20/hour and I built a desktop application that allowed them to go back to 200 policies/hour but with stuff like auto-filling, geolocation, error correction so the data quality was much higher.

I worked with the end users a lot to make sure the UI matched the workflow, iterated over several versions and it definitely paid off.

GFischer··on De-Stressing Booking.com (2019)
They're gambling, because there are actually fines for those sorts of behaviors if they don't clear the unused bookings in a reasonable time or if ARC (the Airlines Reporting Corporation) or the distribution systems detect a fraudulent pattern.

I'm actually building an internal tool for such fines (called "debit memos") for a company with several thousand travel agents, and they're not uncommon at all.

GFischer··on Airbnb removed my negative review
Anecdotal evidence, I have paid tourism taxes on both hotels and AirBnBs.
GFischer··on Lionel Messi Is Impossible (2014)
I loved milk but it didn't counteract Italian genes, I'm 5 foot 6 which is fortunately normal in my country (Uruguay) but would be short-ish in the USA.
GFischer··on Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?
Second the advice for Cognitive Behavorial Therapy, looks like the best fit in this case.
GFischer··on Someone is pretending to be me
I heard a story about this happening at an Indian subsidiary of an American company, the person interviewed by the US manager was not the person that actually took the role ! It was discovered a few months in as the quality was not as expected (the person was actually a developer but not nearly as good as the one that was interviewed, he hired the interviewed person to pass the interview).
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