Hacker News Reader

justinatoron Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet’s revenue

I wouldn't call Chrome an acquisition, but it wasn't birthed at Google.

justinatoron The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)

Correct me if I'm wrong– I haven't check on THAT corpse– but couldn't you configure w TAB to be a shortcut for whatever you want (or make your own?).

justinatoron The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)

Try it. What's faster to type: one word with a total of 5 distinct letters, or one word with a total of 4 letters, three being distinct?

I understand the theory when writing, you know: sentences. Writing code ain't that. I'm also not typing on a model M. This laptop's keys press down like 1 or 2mm at most. You actually only need to press down twice -- just move your finger from "l" to the "o" depress/press again for another "o" and move right over to the "p".

Do you reprogram your keyboard so parentheses, square/angle brackets, etc can be typed with their respective hands? Naw. When people type numbers all day, are they delighted to use the row of numbers up top, or a numpad? Never have I ever.

justinatoron If-then-else had to be invented (2020)

"loop" can all be typed with one finger, as the letters are all together on the qwerty keyboard, and the "o" repeats itself.

"while" on qwerty is sort of a chore.

justinatoron MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch

I tend to rest my left hand on the keyboard while reading, etc. Sometimes my fingers move up to the touch bar and that causes some sort of action I didn't intend. That's very annoying. All the other buttons on the keyboard act buttons you have to press.

The top of the keyboard is literally the worst location I can think there to be a short, long touchscreen.

Maybe it's not a problem for people with tiny hands but I'm bordering on, "palm a basketball" size.

justinatoron Weight-loss drug reduces sleep apnea in two late-stage trials

Here's what's not stated in the article, but in the study itself:

Supported by Eli Lilly.

Eli Lilly produces the drug Retatrutide.

justinatoron Weight-loss drug reduces sleep apnea in two late-stage trials

>also lost an average of 12.5% of their body weight.

As far as I can tell, that's what's actually reducing the sleep apnea. The sleep apnea was caused by the participants starting out as obese,

>participants needed a body mass index (BMI) of at least 27

justinatoron PHP Foundation 'under-funded' with one full-time staff member, director says

I know AI gets the headlines but PHP is what's putting food on tables in this industry.

justinatoron PHP Foundation 'under-funded' with one full-time staff member, director says

It's used on Pornhub so it's both very useful and very important but excuse me princess if it's not on the next Mars lander robot.

justinatoron I built a drone with only one motor [video]

Yeah that's probably the coolest thing I've seen all month. How could you not like this?

justinatoron Gold is now the top U.S. export

No, I am comparing the amount of gold currently pulled from the Klondike. 11,000 ounces of gold from a (looks to me) single large operation pales in comparison to anything of yesteryear. 100 tons/year is quite the haul. Yukon currently is doing more like 3.5 tons/year in total. Nevada is just on a totally different scale.

Also Yukon (and that show) is majority placer, while Nevada looks to be hard rock? Hitting a rich vein means a massive payday, but even if not, the amount of rock they're moving is absolutely bonkers. Look at some of the massive craters they're digging out! 10, 20, 30 feet of topsoil to get to a few feet of pay gravel over a few dozen acres of ground is just not the same thing.

Dunno even what reclaimation looks like for a 1/2 mile deep crater. I'm guessing, "nothing lol deal with it"

justinatoron Gold is now the top U.S. export

All their properties are played out. They're scraping the bitter dregs from properties that used to produce a massive amount more gold using extremely primitive tech to do so. In some cases, they're just re-running old mining tailings and scraping the ground at the edges of areas they knew were good.

If the price of gold didn't go up several thousand percent since the Klondike Gold Rush, there would be 0 reason to be up there at all. The Klondike produced -- on the low end of estimates -- 10 million ounces of gold worth in 10's of billions of dollars in today's money.

justinatoron Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years

Works for me. If you are in America are you said "Let's go to the café", you'd go get some coffee.

Weed here you get at a "dispensary", which is a very unsexy term but apparently we also need to protect the ears of the innocent.

Out east you'd go get beer and wine at the "package store" or just, "packy"

justinatoron Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years

My memory is that my phone was always on me, and I texted a lot on the go, but most of the texts were about meeting up, getting directions, or coordinating. After that, if a phone was brought out it was to do more of that in the group setting "Hey Sally is going to be here in 15 brining Jake"), then put back.

Now we're all dopamine seeking doom scrollers.

I've been out with a group of friends -- some I just met -- once this year. It also doesn't help that meals and drinks seem hard to justify for the price. I'm waxing nostalgia, but $30 of tacos used to be maybe $8; my $10 beer today was $3.

justinatoron Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years

I remember when the iPhone first came out. I was at a bar, at a table with a few people I didn't really know. This was a pretty common occurrence.

You usually got a drank, talked. This was a kind of gothic-theme bar, all done up with spooky decorations, a good dj, interesting drinks. We'd host arts/culture slide show jams before the place really would get going for the night. The art was curated and swapped out monthly. There was a lot going on! The place did a lot to charge the space with energy and excitement, bringing a lot of different people together.

Then this guy at the table whipped out his phone and just ignored us all sitting there.

I knew right then and there that this was the beginning of the end.

justinatoron Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years

Wait until they find out "coffee shops" preceded "coffee at home"

justinatoron Example.com just launched the biggest redesign in decades

It's much faster just pinging 127.0.0.1 for such purposes. Try it!

justinatoron Replacement of petroleum based products with plant-based materials (2025)

guys have you heard of this ai thing?

justinatoron Why the Bronze Age Collapsed

Not sure why the downvotes? The number was really that high and this is the basic reason the Aztecs were defeated:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/16/mexico-500-yea...

Within five years as many as 15 million people – an estimated 80% of the population – were wiped out in an epidemic the locals named “cocoliztli”. The word means pestilence in the Aztec Nahuatl language.

justinatoron Why the Bronze Age Collapsed

>you should read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

That book has some many errors in it I actually suggest you don't read it.

justinatoron Why the Bronze Age Collapsed

More like 95%.

justinatoron Why doesn't anyone want to fix one of America's scariest roads?

Maybe this is a sign you spend too much shit posting on this site. It's your life and all, but;

justinatoron Why doesn't anyone want to fix one of America's scariest roads?

Most people in the World don't. Most people also know when not to make flippant comments on subjects they don't have much knowledge about.

But do continue your charade, I also believe in free speech.

justinatoron Why doesn't anyone want to fix one of America's scariest roads?

tAkE a DiFfErReNt RoUtE https://maps.app.goo.gl/uCsiUoZHs28pwb4Z8

justinatoron 28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

If you are, for a year, constantly hiring senior software engineers? That tells me you're just throwing engineers at problems, which is not how problems are solved elegantly. That's sliding into Brook's Law.

justinatoron 28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

>If we decide we're going to grow headcount by 10 senior software engineers, we don't copy and paste the same job listing 10 times.

I'm not confused that's just a red flag not to work for your company.

justinatoron 28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

n of 1 and all, but most jobs I've gotten that were worth getting were from personal reference. To the extent that applying through job sites seems like a real waste of time unless I'm really desperate.

And to reflect that, the jobs I've gotten were the ones you'd only accept if you were really desperate.

(Covid Times, man: Covid Times.)

justinatoron 28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

I was under the impression a large % of jobs posted on jobs sites are done simply for compliance reasons and because HR has some "bullshit jobs" parts to it and the companies will usually simply hire from within the company itself.

justinatoron What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

>Nothing short of a face-to-face security response will deter these criminals

Is this one of those, "US only First World country that has this sort of problem" problems?

I can only imagine why?