arthurjj (u/arthurjj)

arthurjj commented on Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux himthe.dev/blog/microsoft... · Posted by u/bobsterlobster

arthurjj · 16 days ago

Had a similar experience in around ~2017 and switched over to Linux. At the time I didn't have the time to build my own and bought a mid-range System76 laptop.

Best computer decision I've ever made. I'm not a heavy gamer so the machine is still running fine. I've only had one time in the last 9 years where I had to drop everything and fix my computer vs Windows where it felt like once a year

arthurjj commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026) · Posted by u/david927

Curzel · a month ago

A system-agnostic language for magic spells with a compiler capable of producing the magic wand movements, incantation, hand signs or magic circle required to perform the spell

arthurjj · a month ago

Is this so you can automate the spell casting via robotics?

arthurjj commented on enclose.horse enclose.horse/... · Posted by u/DavidSJ

arthurjj · a month ago

My 10 year old loves this game. He started playing it Wednesday or Thursday of last week and basically all of his screen time. Both trying to optimize and the level design scratch an itch that few games do

arthurjj commented on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell · Posted by u/cvbox

crobertsbmw · 2 months ago

I’m still selling Computer Engineering for Babies. And I just launched a new book called Simple Machines Made Simple on Kickstarter a month or two ago. Both books are basically just simple interactive demos for kids and adults.

https://hackylabs.com

arthurjj · 2 months ago

It makes me so happy to see this genre taking off. We did "ABCs of Programming" [1] when our son was 2 at least partially because there weren't any real kid's books talking about what "dad does all day". Funnily enough it wasn't selling that well until I posted an article [2] on HN about my experience writing it. Then it did steady business for a few years

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548489778 [2] https://arthur-johnston.com/hacker_writes_a_childrens_book/

arthurjj commented on Instagram chief orders staff back to the office five days a week in 2026 businessinsider.com/insta... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

rendaw · 2 months ago

There's a 100% chance that you can't work in person with your full team, so if you think in-person work is important I'm not sure how overall it can be better value, since you won't get that.

arthurjj · 2 months ago

You still get in person for 1-1s, small team whiteboarding and pair programming.

arthurjj commented on Instagram chief orders staff back to the office five days a week in 2026 businessinsider.com/insta... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

kkolybacz · 2 months ago

"We're also offering the option to transfer from the MPK to SF office for those people whose commute would be the same or better with that change."

So wait, you'll be able to switch offices even though your team might be in the second one? What's the benefit of working remote from your team but next to random, noisy people?

arthurjj · 2 months ago

My RTO'd team of 13 is distributed across 3 office and not evenly distributed (8, 4, 1) so the probability of the person you need being in the same physical office is ~43% instead of the 0%. So overall it's better if you value in person and I say this as the 1

arthurjj commented on Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/... · Posted by u/smartmic

piva00 · 3 months ago

How are Netflix, Hulu, Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitch compared to YouTube? It doesn't make sense, they aren't the same niche, you won't find Numberphile, 3Blue1Brown, on those platforms, you won't find reviews of appliances, tech, nor tutorials for how to fix your dishwasher, etc. on those platforms.

YouTube has a whole vast amount of independent production (and some now independent-looking but owned by private equity) which it has cornered into the platform, nowhere else you can find the sort of content that exists in there.

You are just conflating "streaming video" into a single homogeneous market, it's not the case.

arthurjj · 3 months ago

I've definitely watched repair videos on tiktok. And one of my favorite (indie) tv shows was only on YT for some reason instead of Hulu or Netflix. My kid watches videogame playthroughs on YT, not twitch. And that's completely disregarding you can listen to music on YT.

When defining a monopoly you can't just say "only this subset of the market is the market we're considering" you have to look at everything it does. As the FTC just learned

arthurjj commented on Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/... · Posted by u/smartmic

bogwog · 3 months ago

Google is a monopolist. They have no real competitive pressure, so they're incentivized to extract as much value from you as possible rather than waste time trying to retain you as a user (cuz where are you gonna go lol). Forcing short form video on you could be seen as either an attempt to get you addicted to the format, or just a way for some product manager to fluff up their metrics for a promotion.

No matter what you decide to do, they're going to profit off of you. The only remaining question is "how much".

Personally, I don't want to make it easy for them. That's why I like to use alternative YouTube frontends that limit data collection and block ads. I sure as shit don't pay for premium. Whatever effect that has on their business is likely negligible, but it at least makes me feel better about the situation.

arthurjj · 3 months ago

But Youtube isn't a monopoly. It's competing with Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu Instagram, Tiktok and Twitch off the top of my head. So they do have to make Youtube competitive

Your theory of

> just a way for some product manager to fluff up their metrics for a promotion.

is the most likely culprit

arthurjj commented on Short Little Difficult Books countercraft.substack.com... · Posted by u/crescit_eundo

tkfoss · 3 months ago

I don't know about the first one, but Art & Fear is one of the lightest books on my bookshelf. Why do you consider it difficult?

arthurjj · 3 months ago

It's likely I projected the complexity onto the Art & Fear. Reading it every few pages I thought about how what it was discussing applied to creating software. But that's not really what the author intended, it's more the mindset I brought to the book

arthurjj commented on Short Little Difficult Books countercraft.substack.com... · Posted by u/crescit_eundo

arthurjj · 3 months ago

He's upfront that it's novels only but I really enjoy short difficult non-fiction more.

* Exit, Voice and Loyalty - about how organizations and people work. Easily the best social science book I've ever read

* Art & Fear - gives a much better model for creating software than most books