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Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#511
post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bourgeois" is not defined by how much you make per year. It's defined by your relationship to the means of production.

Anyone getting paid 100k+ is also getting stock options.

Sure, and many people getting less still own stocks via 401(k) etc. The important question is whether a person can live entirely off their rents, or they have to work for someone else for a living.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#513
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's somewhat unfair. Facebook doesn't give you (and people around you) cancer.

Facebook doesn't cause cancer of course, but there's no shortage of evidence that it harms some of its users, as well as contributing to social phenomena that harm non-users. The Rohingya genocide is a prominent example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management_...

Hard to compare, in terms of what is worse, cancer or depression but I am also surprised more people didn't write here.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/feature-minimize-instagr...

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#514
post #59

My first job was for a sketchy knock off autoparts company that was a glorified drop shipper. I built a dozen websites and a database of a few million rows. I was proud of it at the time. Then I started reading customer support emails, took a few phone calls from disgruntled customers, and it turns out the company was just cycling cash. Would charge 100 orders and float the cash as it trickled out refunds. I ended up…

Was that just a very high return rate or an outright scam? If the latter how could they sell for anything?

it was half way an outright scam, but we built a database of parts and their suppliers for an otherwise unprovided for market in the US. That database alone was worth the cost (the new place got rid of the company and just used the database + domain names.)

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the requirement? My apartment building has lights in the hallways that are only on when needed, but they just use a basic infrared sensor.

* Minimize BOM cost. Only 1 in N lights would actually have the full sensor complement, so they needed to communicate. * Minimize installation cost. They just wanted to plug into a light socket, not run network cabling. * Push data logs to a central server. They didn't want to send a tech physically to each lightbulb to get data for e.g. energy usage certifications. plus other obvious requirements. All of that made i…

I am starting to think the requirements were crafted to push towards enabling surveillance without outright stating it.

PIRs are cheap and last basically the lifetime of the hotel. I would need to see some actual data to believe this whole project didn't actually cost more than installing a bunch of PIR lamps.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#516

Moving Murfie to Pine Bluff has been a disaster. The entire situation has been bad for Murfie users and myself. I'm coming up on 3 years now with very minimal progress on returning media to users and getting the site fully operational. There are a lot of places where in hindsight I could have made better decisions. At every point the best course seemed to stand out, only to sour with unexpected obstacles. At first I…

I just looked at your twitter, the amount of theft you have to deal with is just insane... hopefully they get those permits sorted for you soon.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was powerless to stop it. You could have found a new job, driving up their costs or delaying them slightly.

And what purpose would that have ultimately served?

Sending a message, driving up their costs and delaying them slightly.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#518

I built a distraction free writing app in 2012 to help me write, and it has been the single greatest distraction of all. it was successful, becoming the number one writing app on Windows store for years. I now have thousands of users, and it makes a tiny bit of money each month, and supporting and fixing bugs takes up most of my spare time. I have to date not managed to finish more than a sketchy first draft of a nov…

Do you regret building it because of the effect on your spare time or because you didn't manage to use it for its intended purpose?

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#519
post #61

Interesting that most posts here have to do with monitoring or surveillance of others. Privacy is important...

I doubt the one who put the 737-max into a dive, the one who but the A400 into reverse, the one causing the Toyota runaways, and similar cases are going to post.

You may be right. But there's a bit of a difference in your examples. Your examples are more like bugs in development versus consciously knowing you're building tech that is designed to invade other's privacy.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#520
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sad that you feel the need to rub salt into a wound.

Nah I don't think that's what I did. As another commenter said maybe that's how it came out (sorry), but not the intention.

Still seems unnecessarily condescending, but I've been guilty of that often enough that I am not going to hold that against you.
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