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NetJeff
netjeff.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
NetJeff is Jeff's personal site with a humor section hosting archived texts, including the essay How Software Companies Die.
What HN saysHN links it as the attributed source of the Orson Scott Card essay and the Apollo computer humor piece. Commenters use it to trace the text's origin.
17HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
9stories submitted
239story points
4 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How Software Companies Die - by Orson Scott Card7 people · 155 points · first shared 2009 · 45 comments on HN
- 2Design of the Apollo LM Descent Guidance Software (1994)4 people · 21 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 3How to Hire a Programmer2 people · 35 points · first shared 2008 · 20 comments on HN
- 4The Thing King (1972)2 people · 20 points · first shared 2011 · 8 comments on HN
- 5What Developers say vs what they mean1 people · 8 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 6Item1 people · first shared 2026
What HN people wrote when they linked it
nine_k · 2025-07-17
An attributed source: https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees
pjc50 · 2017-09-28
You can just as easily lose precision in FP arithmetic if you're not careful. But for engineering purposes fixed point works quite well because having arithmetic much more precise than manufacturing tolerance is no use.
Fixed point was good enough to go to the moon: https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=ApolloComputer
jperras · 2015-10-29
> Space Shuttle embedded controllers firmware
Not the space shuttle, but if you think things that go to space (and land on the goddamned Moon) are free of bugs then you are very sorely mistaken.
https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=ApolloComputer
andyjohnson0 · 2013-11-29
Some context. According to [1], the text is from the March 1995 issue "Windows Sources" magazine [2].
Does Card have any experience of business or software?
[1] http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Sources
drawkbox · 2009-07-25
How Software Companies Die...:http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees
arvid · 2009-07-21
Interesting interview with Allan Klumpp (one of the programmers)
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=ApolloComputer
ALee · 2009-04-06
For Fun-
Anti-rockstar thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=255587
The ultimate secret to hiring:
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=hire.txt