Top all-time · #13485
Steven Buccini
Personal blog · stevenbuccini.comculturecareer
Steven Buccini's personal blog at stevenbuccini.com covers culture and career. Since 2020, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 14 times, most often “Peculiarities of Video Console Pricing”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2024-12-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its posts on being laid off as a software engineer, including the 'hard truths' piece. One commenter questions the author's background rather than the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
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Most-linked posts?
- Peculiarities of Video Console Pricing2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-16
- Why Is 1 World Trade Center Missing from Spider-Man?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-06-16
What Hacker News says?
Lots of good stuff in here, including much more support for using UUIDs as PKs. My favorite new feature is "delegated type" in ActiveRecord to offer a new way to map class hierarchies onto database tables. I wrote a blog post about it[0], but the actual PR is very readable as well[1]. [0] https://www.stevenbuccini.com/how-to-use-delegate-types-in-r... [1] https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/39341
Comment linking /how-to-use-delegate-types-in-rails-6-1
on “Rails 6.1”Submitted Zillow lost money because they weren't willing to lose money as a story · 526 points
HN discussionWhen it comes to console pricing, there is no such thing as "first-mover" advantage. In fact, it's much more advantageous to be the _last_ company to price your console. I wrote a bit about the dynamics here: https://www.stevenbuccini.com/console-wars but I would also recommend playing MIT's simulator to develop an intuitive feel for the forces at play: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/platform-w...
Comment linking /console-wars
on “Playstation 5 will launch on November 12 for $499.99”Submitted Why Is 1 World Trade Center Missing from Spider-Man? as a story · 178 points
HN discussionI wrote a post about the dynamics that play into console pricing and why Microsoft might have done this: https://www.stevenbuccini.com/console-wars
Comment linking /console-wars
on “Microsoft takes a $100-$200 loss on all Xbox Series sales”Submitted Peculiarities of Video Console Pricing as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMy main issue with these types of articles is that "tech workers" != SWEs. Of the people profiled in this article: - 1 videographer - 1 "systems engineer" (not sure what this means, but doesn't seem like it involves programming since they taught themselves Python after getting laid off) And that's it. The article makes the point that the number of SWE job openings are way down, -50% YoY. It's clear that there is les…
Comment linking /8-hard-truths-on-getting-laid-off
on “Laid off tech workers quickly find new jobs”Submitted Love Is the Only Antidote to Fear: A Lecture by John O'Donohue as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOk looked the guy up: https://www.stevenbuccini.com/about/ - Studied at Berkeley - worked at Apple and Uber And I’m supposed to feel bad for you not wanting to spend a few weeks grinding at leetcode? This reeks of someone who is very well off, and not an “Everyman” engineer.
Comment linking /about/
on “8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job”Submitted Why Is 1 World Trade Center Missing from Spider-Man? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf I had to guess, it has to do with trademark protection. I went down this rabbit hole when trying to figure out why certain famous buildings were missing from the Spider-Man video game: https://stevenbuccini.com/why-1wtc-isnt-in-spiderman
Comment linking /why-1wtc-isnt-in-spiderman
on “How they filmed The Last of Us arcade scene”Submitted 8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Luminator, 2024 Costco edition as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted On college basketball, the state religion of North Carolina as a story · 1 points
HN discussion