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katzinsky

-12 karma · joined August 7, 2024

I don't use my real name on the internet anymore (in retrospect it's crazy everyone did that for a while to begin with.) If you want to collaborate you're welcome to post your email in a reply to one of my comments

I've worked for multiple startups and three large publicly traded tech companies. I am currently in the process of monetizing one of my side projects.

I'm technically homeless since I live out of a vehicle. I can more than afford rent I just don't feel like I get the appropriate value out of my money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k

I have some unpopular views (some are extremely controversial.) When I post I sincerely mean what I say (sometimes I'll write bombastically because I understand how bizarre they sound in our neoliberal context and I kind of enjoy the surrealism of it.) I am here for good faith arguments, not just to poke at people. I for one still believe in the utility of the dialectic and public discourse although that seems to be a dying belief.

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katzinsky··on Toasts are bad UX
Email is nice.

>But I don't want so many mails in my inbox

Then write mail rules. It's really easy and personally I couldn't survive at work without them. That's a big part of why it's nice: You can choose how it works unlike practically everything else these days.

katzinsky··on 2024's Hugo Award Winners Announced
If you pay enough attention to metapolitics it will ruin most media going back as far as the 70s even.

Asimov himself was a communist and it shows in a lot of his work. I try to just ignore it.

katzinsky··on Mike Lynch's co-defendant in fraud trial 'fatally struck' by car while jogging
As someone with a sailboat who sails just about every week (since I live on it and have to keep moving) I'm also having a pretty hard time understanding this one.

In high winds removing the mast should make it less prone to capsizing just like reefing would.

EDIT: Oh I see they're thinking it's the waves not the wind.

katzinsky··on Mike Lynch's co-defendant in fraud trial 'fatally struck' by car while jogging
I can't imagine having bought one recently enough to have it still working. Those things are such garbage.
katzinsky··on Toasts are bad UX
My main complaint is that on Firefox on Linux anyway they actually steal the mouse position along with keyboard focus. So if you're using something like instagram's IM it's really hard to type while getting replies.
katzinsky··on Homebound: The Long-Term Rise in Time Spent at Home Among U.S. Adults
Good riddance. As someone who still had third and even fourth places now I can focus on those.
katzinsky··on Parsing protobuf at 2+GB/s: how I learned to love tail calls in C (2021)
Given some of the other scheme-like features GNUC has it's surprising they're lagging on this one.
katzinsky··on Climate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heating
I don't think you're interpreting those statistics correctly.

Most Americans can agree climate scientists think the climate change is man made while still thinking we don't have an effect on it.

katzinsky··on The secret to good government? Actually trying
Jailing old ladies for voicing criticisms online isn't a symptom of good government.
katzinsky··on Peter Thiel says he is thinking about leaving the US
It's very clear the future of the US looks like something between Mexico and South Africa if we don't outright have a civil war.

I'd live too if I had somewhere to go.

katzinsky··on The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android
The complaint is "if we have to put up with your crap at there should at least be a reason beyond 'just because.'"

The argument you get from Google is that downloading APKs is dangerous so everyone should use the store. When they don't police the store anyway then it's obvious they're just abusing everyone.

katzinsky··on NASA acknowledges it cannot quantify risk of Starliner propulsion issues
>Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now.

As long as the paychecks don't bounce they're probably more worried about their individual KPI than the actual results.

katzinsky··on Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable
You mean like most Linux distros?

Yeah it's great.

katzinsky··on How to De-Google your life: List of private Google alternatives
I'm a big fan of easymail.
katzinsky··on Google took three months to remove scam app that stole over $5M
This computing model generates profit for Google but doesn't result in a pleasant computing experience.

Everyone short of those capable of practically building portable devices from scratch is stuck with it.

katzinsky··on Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
Man I miss PDAs. My dad worked for 3com so I had a palm since about when I learned to read.

I was early with smartphones because I thought they'd essentially be PDAs with a modem ("They're just working out the kinks.") Smartphones have to be the most disappointing thing that's happened to consumer computing.

It's kind of funny that with pervasive networking I miss having to be mindful and sync everything I wanted to take with me.

katzinsky··on "Us vs. Them" language shapes the Apple ecosystem narrative
>each link on HN would have a 'bad ux flag' button

Do they check the github for PRs? That might be worth learning Arc for.

katzinsky··on Ask HN: Chances of immigrating to the US through a multinational company?
I think you should really ask why you want to be here. The "tech scene" is really all online. I've lived in "tech hubs" and it's not what it looks like from the outside.

Unless you plan on being homeless (which is complicated and very hard even if you're not an immigrant, I know from experience) the high salaries are not going to make up for the high cost of living (especially in SF or NYC) and that would be assuming you had a professional job here (which you don't otherwise you'd have a visa.)

If you're just looking for urban culture there's nothing the US has that France doesn't other than a lot of stuff that's been on television. Maybe take a vacation to Marseille. I always wanted to go there when I was a teenager.

katzinsky··on Microsoft begins cracking down on people dodging Windows 11 system requirements
They're jealous of the platform Apple has created where they can sell the users rather than sell software to them. This requires cryptographic hardware like the TPM.

Obviously it's not going to work because the only advantage Windows had was being the last popular platform that didn't work this way^ but the admins in charge of the decisions probably don't understand this.

^There also used to be compatibility with early y2k apps and familiarity of users from school but both of those have been quickly eroding.

EDIT: Out of replies

Trapping 20% of tech illiterate users would be a loss considering they currently have upwards of 80%.

katzinsky··on Musk's financial woes at X have Tesla bulls fearing he will liquidate more stock
It's a little too late for it to matter. My understanding is Twitter was bought with debt secured by TSLA. If the debt gets called the stock gets liquidated regardless of Musk.
katzinsky··on More young men are becoming NEETs than women
If participating doesn't help you achieve your goals why would you participate?

This is a question a lot of people are unwilling to even consider.

EDIT: out of replies for today, here's what I would have written.

I can say as someone who's been employed at multiple large companies, modern employment does not necessarily (if ever?) provide that (something to work towards.) Who wakes up in the morning and thinks "Ah yes, I just live for the CICD/security patch treadmill. I can't wait for scrum!" Serious carrier jobs these days are largely administrative in nature and I've found that I have to have side projects and hobbies to fulfill the need you're talking about. None of these are particularly expensive and during periods of unemployment I've continued them completely uninterrupted (in fact I did much better since work wasn't sucking away my emotional energy.)

For bell-cot:

Employment doesn't have great prospects either. For marriage and family formation very few men are even dating now and almost everyone gets divorced which in most place means losing half of what you've worked for. The women have destroyed themselves so a lot of men are wondering if they're even worth pursuing.

As far as purely economic goals go modern employment doesn't really provide stability the way it used to and shelter is so expensive saving is extremely hard for most people and home ownership is right out until maybe your mid thirties. In many ways most men except the long tail of ambitious/skilled ones may actually be able to expect a more stable life just living with their parents.

katzinsky··on DOS's Last Stand on a Modern ThinkPad: X13 Gen 1 with Intel 10th-Gen Core CPU
I'm pretty sure FreeDOS could even connect to the internet OOTB on my modern laptop via the 3g modem because of the USBDOS CDC support along with something like dospppd (the modem just speaks ppp over a usbcdc port normally even on Linux. You dial it just like old modems with AT commands)
katzinsky··on The world will lose $4.7T of revenue in the next decade to tax havens
>the money is generally used to fund the basic functioning of society and benefits all citizens

That's a very bold claim. I think in most developed countries almost the opposite has been happening. In the US it's been going toward "defense" companies and foreign countries as well as mass hordes of foreigners who hate us but like the free money.

Maybe half of the tax revenue goes to maintain infrastructure and to help old/poor people who didn't immigrate here survive.

katzinsky··on Getting back into C programming for CP/M
Yeah C does not work well on these odd 8-bit ISAs. Pascal, basic, and PL/M (and fortran?) seem to have been way more common and Pascal environments on these were really on the edge of what the contemporary hardware could handle.
katzinsky··on We do not know how to stop population decline
Financialized retirement (public or private) is pretty obviously a major part of the problem.
katzinsky··on Why your website should be under 14kB in size
How much JS do you actually need? 15k is a lot of code for a static page.

HN is an app/forum and only has 5k of js.

katzinsky··on We do not know how to stop population decline
The problem is that it's declining in all the countries that have nice things like women's rights and freedom of religion while it isn't in countries where rape and violence is commonplace.

The world is going to be a much less pleasant place in the future if this problem isn't solved.

katzinsky··on [dead]
With what army? Oh robots. That's a bold strategy.

There is not will among the fighting age male population in the US to fight another war, certainly not another pointless middle eastern war. That's a good way to get the country torched.

katzinsky··on Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
The whole point of a credit card is that you can give the number out. You're nesting solutions here.
katzinsky··on How to get from high school math to cutting-edge ML/AI
It's just linear algebra and the chain rule. Both of these are taught in highschool.
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