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ryanmercer

2,651 karma · joined May 29, 2017

Just a guy, find me at https://www.ryanmercer.com/
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ryanmercer··on New (LTE) Rotary Cell Phone [video]
Right? I didn't even know I needed this thing, now I do.
ryanmercer··on New (LTE) Rotary Cell Phone [video]
>It is fun! But I hate people with a lot of 8's, 9's, and 0's in their numbers. They take forever to dial :)

That's when you cheat and just input the pulses with the switch hook by pressing them quickly. 8 times in rapid succession for 8, 9 for 9, 10 for 0.

ryanmercer··on MTG Extended 1997
About 90 seconds after I closed this tab I discovered this "Magic the Gathering 1997 (Shandalar)" tutorial video that introduces Rhea Seahorn from Better Call Saul.

Wow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jp4tMSIr_U

ryanmercer··on The last person standing in the floppy disk business
I've been buying from him for a decade plus for both my 8-bit Atari use and Win/DOS use, my last order was a couple of months ago - bought two of the used Dell drives and some more 3.5s from him.
ryanmercer··on Want to found a startup? Work at one first
My wife and I are quite religious (LDS). We have 50~ nieces and nephews, 2 rooms full of books, a little over a half acre yard, grow a sizable percentage of our produce, and nature willing would like to have kids.

I still would like money though, lots of money. I need 600k-1 million USD to quit working just to live. With my current income, inflation, etc., I'll likely still be working until I physically can't though. If I magically had that 600k-1 million today to retire, I'd then be content on the money side. I would have the freedom to pursue whatever I wanted to do with my time, from volunteering way more to tinkering with crafts/considerably expanding our growing/YouTube/writing/whatever.

You can want a morally upright life with lots of personal relationships, and still want/dream of a nice little pile of money.

ryanmercer··on Want to found a startup? Work at one first
As someone that spent 15 and a half years working for FedEx and then jumped ship to join TrueNorth shortly after their Series B I've definitely found it interesting.

FedEx:

- an ancient dinosaur, using a LOT of ancient tech (I did my job in an AS400 terminal for 15 and a half years).

- A bureaucratic dinosaur, even backfilling positions could take 6 months just to get a posting and even simple office fun activities had to be kicked up the chain to corporate legal for approval

- You were a serial number, mine was 628254

- Everything I did was micromanaged to the second via time stamps

- Reviews were rigid, mechanical, impersonal

TrueNorth:

- Agile, even in the 6 months I've been there things have rapidly changed (and for the better) and that just blows my mind. I know it's normal for a startup but it's truly like magic to me.

- Not a bureaucratic dinosaur, our CEO is hands on in the trenches still. She's there asking questions, looking for feedback, keeping a decent working knowledge of everything that is going on. There aren't a dozen people between her and the lowest rung of the ladder.

- I'm not a serial number, I'm just Ryan. I'm treated like a human being.

- Reviews are typical for modern companies. I can also ask my boss for feedback any time and, unlike at FedEx, know I'm going to get actionable feedback and not have him scrutinizing everything I do for the next few days/weeks wondering what I'm trying to hide/cover up in my work.

---

I definitely see a lot at TN that is being done much better than at a dinosaur like FedEx, we have the ability to just try something if we think it's going to work better unlike at FedEx where it would have to be kicked up through multiple rungs of management, then non software engineers would be tasked to investigate it, then maybe 3-4 months later a very limited time study would get approved and done, and then that new process - regardless of if it was better - would get buried. At a startup it's just "sure, give it a try, see what happens" most of the time or a much more immediate feedback "actually, that is going to be an issue because of x, y, and z".

I did join TN when it was north of 50 people though. It had 2 years and change of operating before I joined so I did miss out on the truly chaotic bits but 100% I would say I'm now better equipped for either a brand spankin' new startup or a decades old company due to my time here. I absolutely think differently than when I started 6 months ago and I don't feel stifled by some antiquated system of doing business. If I have an idea I can go explore it, or even try it, I can grab 15 minutes from someone's calendar to ask why they're doing something a certain way and what about it is annoying/is awesome, and I can take that and maybe apply it to my work or even let my brain percolate on how to improve that for them.

If I ever had an idea for a startup, I 100% feel better equipped to take stab at it now that I've worked for one. I definitely know what is working as far as communication, documentation, scoping, etc.

ryanmercer··on DJI Drone Flies over the Top of Mount Everest
It's crazy how far consumer, affordable consumer, tech has come.
ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How do you plan to archive all your digital content?
By letting it go. I used to horde, multiple formats and offsite... then I just let it all go. I've got a local copy of files on my machines plus a backblaze copy, that's it, I don't need tens of terabytes of data I'm almost certainly never going to use.
ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
I went through 6 months of his tweets and, yeah, he either doesn't have a grip on reality, has some sort of mental health issue, or is just constantly trying to run some angle.

- Yup, the free energy fonts and conspiratorial claims about video of his fusion reactor being suppressed

- It looks like he bought a bunch of people's property for pennies on the dollar, then raised funds from those same people to return their goods to them, then had them trucked across the country in shipping containers to be dropped at this derelict 'warehouse'.

- He claims to be solo creating a viable fusion reactor, which appears to be one of the umpteen intended uses of this warehouse

- Wonders why the town council isn't trying to help him, when in one of his own tweets admits that he didn't even bother to attend the meeting that was going to hear his issue.

- Thinks snipers are stealing from him.

- Apparently held a man at gunpoint

- Alleges, openly on the internet, that he's storing all sorts of valuable equipment and music media at this warehouse while admitting he isn't even in the state a good chunk of the time

- Tried to run for mayor of Provo, UT (population 117k) so he could "disincorporate the city"

- the whole benforbars thing

- Complaining about the inability to install minecraft on anything other than a linux machine (?)

- Various email/server complaints

Yeahhhh

ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
He made this site... he's offering people $100 per month per person they get sent to jail as long as they remain in jail http://bensforbars.com/

...

ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
This individual claims to have swooped into town and bought SEVENTY-SIX properties with no documented experience doing this sort of thing.

I see nothing wrong with the fact that he's having trouble doing what he wants, he probably isn't coming close to remotely following proper procedure and clearly lacks experience, as he stated that he could barely even afford the first property - a 220k square foot warehouse he bought with apparently no business and no experience owning warehouses.

Given it's a town of 40k people, I doubt there's rampant corruption and more OP just doesn't have any idea how anything works at all. If any of his statements are true, this guy needs to stop what he's doing and learn how to adult.

ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
>It took me about 4 minutes to find out that he was robbed for the ~15th time,

You do realize between his comments here, and a cursory look at his Twitter, he's told about 57 tall tales too many, right? If it was such a bad experience, why did he go on to buy an alleged SEVENTY-FIVE more properties there for starters?

Because the bulk, if not all, of this is probably entirely made up.

I mean, the guy claims he's developed a fusion reactor, all by himself apparently, for crying out loud. https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1488959967235219458

ryanmercer··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
>Curious why the city is so reluctant to support new businesses.

I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to. Anther person pointed out in a comment that comment chain OPs twitter had posts about about holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration. To me it sounds like OP knew absolutely nothing about commercial real-estate, absolutely nothing about local laws, and plopped down a bunch of money on a property without doing some homework.

ryanmercer··on Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
Exactly. Economies of scale + the simple fact of things like a roof for 2+ story block of apartments is going to be far cheaper to replace than a roof for the same number of houses as units.
ryanmercer··on Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
No, throughout history people have waged war over consumables (food, ore, oil).
ryanmercer··on Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
I don't see owning a residential property as any more of a right than I do owning a luxury sportscar or private aircraft. Having access to an affordable roof over your head yes, owning that roof no.

Even if someone gave land to an individual, many would lack the ability to actually have a home constructed without saving for many years simply due to the cost of materials.

ryanmercer··on Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok
>How's the housing market in Indiana?

Well... ya know. Things have been weird lately.

My wife and I bought 20 months ago with me making 39k and her making upper 40k. We bought this house with zero down at 170k and it's now estimated at 240-250k per the mortgage company and Zillow. We have about 1200sqft on the ground floor then about 1200 in the basement with a little over half of an acre, we're 30 minutes outside of Indy. House is 1960s.

A new construction house in Plainfield, immediately adjacent to Indy, you get 2 bed, 2 bath, 2 car garage, basically no yard with the house at 1504 sqft is starting at 290k right now and can get a 3 bed with similar sqft for closer to 300k. If you picked the neighborhood well, and were ok with not having the latest and greatest features, a single person could still probably pull a mortgage in a safer neighborhood without issue.

>somewhere around 40k ~ 50k? (which is what high school teachers in the area seem to earn

So this varies wildly. My wife was getting the higher end of that at the rural school she was teaching at, she's moved one school district over and took a considerable pay bump - mind you she has like 12~ years of experience, and once she finishes her masters she'll get a 4-5k pay bump at her next (annual) contract renewal automatically.

ryanmercer··on Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok
>Programming jobs are the only type of technical job left that actually pays shit (well enough to buy a house and start a family),

Meh, in the Midwest plenty of jobs pay enough for that, 6-figure tech jobs put you at 3-4x the median income (31k here in Indiana), but plenty of other jobs absolutely pay enough to buy a house (teaching - my wife makes just shy of double median income as a high school teacher, nursing, law enforcement, fire fighting, all sorts of trades, etc).

ryanmercer··on Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format
As has been said lots of books are already out there as epub, there are many that are already in Amazon's file format too. I'd guess that most people torrenting books are using calibre anyway.
ryanmercer··on Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format
Agreed, "SHTF"/"EOTWAWKI" types too. Any good recent sci-fi recommendations? After spending 23 days without running water in July due to multiple well failures, I've lost interested in SHTF/EOTWAWKI and need to get back into sci-fi titles that I'm not listening to via Audible for the performers (Omega Force, Expeditionary Force, Undying Mercenaries, Bobiverse, etc).
ryanmercer··on Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format
>I would never have bought it myself since it costs €249 (!)

I bought my Oasis 2 around for closet to 299 EUR (309.97 USD) when I was making 30k USD a year, was 100% worth it to me while I still had a fully functional kindle keyboard and kindle paperwhite 3. If you're a casual reader, that might seem expensive, but if you are chewing through 1-3 books a week like I do (heck I read 3 books last time I flew from Indianapolis to San Francisco and 2 more on the return flights), it becomes a much better price.

I've been using it for almost 5 years now which has me at a cost of 17 cents per day with thousands of hours of use (about 8 cents an hour if I had to guess).

ryanmercer··on Instagram can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser
I assume any app can see everything I do if I use their in-app browser just like I assume every brick and mortar store can see everything I do inside their store.
ryanmercer··on Tell HN: Spotify Premium is full of Ads
Absolutely. I've found probably 20-30 great channels thanks to YouTube's recommendations successfully recommending me stuff I actually enjoy.
ryanmercer··on Write a note to your spouse every day
Not dead wrong, if you're marrying for tax/insurance benefits and think you need a prenup you probably shouldn't be getting married. Marriage is first, and foremost, a religious thing and if you're going into it thinking "this is going to fail and my partner is going to try and screw me over" you simply shouldn't be getting married.
ryanmercer··on US Gas Prices Fall Below $4 per Gallon; First Time Since March
It is in my neck of the woods, this is my wife's 3rd week of teaching here in Indiana.
ryanmercer··on Write a note to your spouse every day
My wife will point out in the evenings if I didn't text her much during the day, or even send me a message some point during the day asking if I'm alright. These days are few and far between, usually just meeting heavy days or when I really get sucked into a time-sensitive problem.
ryanmercer··on Write a note to your spouse every day
>I believe a well-orchestrated prenup,

If you think you need a prenup, you probably shouldn't get married.

ryanmercer··on Write a note to your spouse every day
Yet there are single parents all over the United States working multiple jobs to get by. Childcare exists without paying some boutique daycare tens of thousands of dollars a year.
ryanmercer··on What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
It's not the greatest book but it was one I do not regret posting. They covered it on the Mysterious Universe podcast years ago which put it on my radar. Same with The Vertical Plane although, fortunately for people now, it's been re-printed so you don't have to pay an obscene amount for a copy of VP like I did.
ryanmercer··on What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
>2. I became obsessed with Luna Park, an influential proto-Disneyland based in Coney Island 100+ years ago. It was so popular they ran light rail out there and hundreds of thousands of people went there every weekend until it burned down about a decade later. Took a book about it on vacation to Paris. Went to a random place to read, and it had a little concourse named Luna Park. Inside it was a random coin-op machine named Luna Park, not related to the concourse from what I could tell.

Not really related, and a bit of a "woo" book, but there's a book called Latitude 33: Key to the Kingdom by Walter Bosley that suggests SRI designed the original Disney Land in a certain way to harness some sort of "woo" energy on the 33rd parallel. There's a bit in it though (I'm 99% its in this book) that involves some peculiar man appearing out of time and place enjoying the park. I hadn't thought of that book in years but this triggered that.

As a work of non-fiction it is dubious, but it's a fun read as a work of fiction.

Now, wholly unrelated, but also a fun dubious as non-fiction but fun as fiction book: The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster which alleges that for 2 years in the 1980s messages from the 16th century and the future would appear on the author's BBC Micro computer with some interaction.

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