frenchman_in_ny (u/frenchman_in_ny)

frenchman_in_ny commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2025) · Posted by u/whoishiring

Sigh. I know I'm not the "right" industry for HN, but I find the news & discussion here interesting and that's why I'm here. I really trying to keep my head up when I see these "who's hiring" posts & stay optimistic about the job market. The reality is I've been searching for 2+ years and the market is challenging for what I've done for ~20 years (credit underwriting / LBO / M&A).

  Location: NYC, NY
  Remote: Open to in-person, hybrid, and remote
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: credit underwriting / LBO / M&A
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephane-lautner-233674a/
  Email: In resume

Hi - I'm Stephane. I spent ~20 years originating, structuring, and syndicating loans to a variety of mostly PE-backed companies of all sizes & in all industries. A lot of that work is focused on understanding corporate structure, cash flows, and valuations. Most recently, I had pivoted to underwriting bespoke loans to founders / C-suites of privately held companies. Open to (fractional?) COO / CFO and FP&A type roles.

frenchman_in_ny commented on Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights jameshard.ing/pilot... · Posted by u/jamesharding

frenchman_in_ny · 2 months ago

Very cool. One nit is because of the graph smoothing, it looks like you have negative hours P2 time 2014-2015 and Heavy time 2021-2022.

I thought the ICAO "Heavy" designation applied to aircraft above a certain MTOW instead of time? Wouldn't the time designation be as acting as relief captain/FO?

In any case, great visualizations.

frenchman_in_ny commented on Show HN: Patio – Rent tools, learn DIY, reduce waste patio.so... · Posted by u/GouacheApp

keerthiko · 3 months ago

I used to live in Berkeley, CA circa 2013. They had a tool library, which was part of the local public library system, and tools were free (!) to rent. I miss it everyday, as it was a godsend for broke new grads who still wanted to do some quick but heavyduty DIY.

I now live in NYC, and my local Home Depot rents out power tools for $20-30/day. The typical tool would pay for itself in 2 days at these rates, but it's still worth it to me as these 2 days are often 2-3 years apart and I'd rather not store these tools in my cramped 1BR.

What I would love is a community-run tool rental service where we can donate a tool + pay a nominal membership fee, and borrow tools for free. I am happy to donate a $120 circular saw/impact driver if I can rent 10x different tools once each for $5/mo for the next year. The closest thing I have now is my local hackerspace, which is great, but I often have to work on my projects at the space, which limits the kind of home DIY I can do.

frenchman_in_ny · 3 months ago

We have a large ~20K person BuyNothing community in my area (also NYC), and a few of us have thrown the same idea of a tool library around. We always hit a wall on the discussion of liability & liability insurance. Any ideas on how other organizations solve this?

frenchman_in_ny commented on Tesla Solar Sales Declined for 4 Qtrs. Then Tesla Stopped Publishing the Numbers cleantechnica.com/2025/04... · Posted by u/elsewhen

youngtaff · 5 months ago

UK electricity prices are set by the highest priced generator which is normally gas

Eventually more green energy will overcome this issue

Many of the commercial solar and wind farms run on a contracts for difference price - they're guaranteed a price for the energy they produce and when the market price goes over that a rebate get's paid to a Quango and should eventually feed into bills payers prices

frenchman_in_ny · 5 months ago

Re "UK electricity prices are set by the highest priced generator which is normally gas"

Worldwide, electricity prices are set by the highest priced generator at the given moment of needed generation -- it's the dispatch curve. And generally, the generators that are the fastest to spin up to meet that incremental load are natural gas fired generators.

As to the GP's point, my intuition (happy to be proven wrong) is more that natural gas, and therefore electricity, is cheaper in the US, simply because it's more abundant in the US.

frenchman_in_ny commented on Sailing from Berkeley to Hawaii in a 19ft Sailboat potter-yachters.org/stori... · Posted by u/protonbob

satori99 · 5 months ago

I recall reading Kay Cottee's account of her solo unassisted circumnavigation in 1988. She was the first woman to do so.

Part of her preparation was removing the labels from all tinned food, and then re-writing what was in the can with a permanent marker on the lid, before fully immersing each can in laquer. Presumably this was done to help deal with corrosion problems.

frenchman_in_ny · 5 months ago

I think a big reason why cruising sailors would remove the labels is that there's a belief that cockroaches & other bugs would lay eggs in the paper / glue [0], and having an infestation on a sailboat is then challenging to deal with while at sea.

[0] https://www.spinsheet.com/cruising/sailors-offer-tips-long-t...

frenchman_in_ny commented on U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat theatlantic.com/politics/... · Posted by u/_tk_

frenchman_in_ny · 5 months ago

In the banking world, employees have been fined significant sums, or even forced from their jobs [0], for unauthorized use of messaging platforms. And here, it's barely a shrug. Unbelievable.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/morgan-stanley-hit-...