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KwisatzHaderack

148 karma · joined September 22, 2019

Web application developer based in Oakland
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KwisatzHaderack··on A misalignment of AI in mathematics
Math, like art, it is more about the process and not the end result.
KwisatzHaderack··on Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
If I understood correctly, the agents were writing to the wiki even though they were given explicit instructions to only read from the internet. Does this not prove that agents are rule breakers, meaning any type of Asimovian laws we place on them would be pointless?
KwisatzHaderack··on One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed
I think the bigger point here is that even the CCP, with it’s heavy-handed totalitarian controls on the Chinese web, isn’t able to entirely filter out misinformation.
KwisatzHaderack··on The great wealth transfer reality check
Ag, so it’s not really “eat the rich” but “eat the boomers”.
KwisatzHaderack··on Gas Prices Wipe Out More Than a Year of Wage Gains
Yet still 100% approval ratings from his cult
KwisatzHaderack··on Trump says 'a whole civilization will die tonight' if Iran does not make a deal
Remember how they claimed this war was actually about helping the Iranian People? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
KwisatzHaderack··on Richard Stallman at the First Hackers Conference in 1984 [video]
I was pleasantly surprised to see my former CS professor Brian Harvey at 0:18. What a cool dude!
KwisatzHaderack··on The Drug Industry Is Having Its Own DeepSeek Moment
> Who are “these types

Jingoistic types

> Has parent poster made these claims?

Please read the post again. He said that Chinese people who worked/studied here and then returned to China are “parasitic”.

> imaginary villain

These sentiments are real and frequently expressed here on HN. Again, they should write to their representative to ban Chinese people from our schools or tech firms if he feels that is in the best interest of the U.S. But it is wrong to refer to these people as parasites for simply taking advantage of the opportunities available to them, provided by willing U.S employers. They presumably contribute to their companies and pay taxes, so they are not parasites.

KwisatzHaderack··on The Drug Industry Is Having Its Own DeepSeek Moment
You really can’t win with these types…

If Chinese phd students stay and work, they’ll complain about them “stealing American tech jobs”. If they leave, then they’re “parasitizing” the tech industry.

Though I think their real solution is to probably ban all Chinese students / tech workers. And fortunately for them, that likelihood is at its highest under the current administration.

KwisatzHaderack··on The Origins of Wokeness
Thank you for the reply.
KwisatzHaderack··on The Tsunami of Burnout Few See
> What you just described (so vividly) is meaning

In line with Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which explores (among other things) why some Holocaust survivors thrived and some didn’t. Frankl himself was a survivor.

KwisatzHaderack··on How to Make LLMs Shut Up
They are based in the US (CA I believe).

I think it’s certain hourly-wage jobs that have can hour limits. (ie. physically demanding jobs in hot weather conditions require periodic water breaks, in addition to hour limits)

In other hourly-wage jobs, you can still work over 40 hours but the worker is entitled to over-time pay. My mom worked at the US Post Office and during the holiday seasons she would sometimes work 12 hours a days, but all hours above 8 were paid at twice the hourly rate. Also, note that signing up for overtime was voluntary.

Software engineers, on the other hand, are salaried. Similar to lawyers, they sometimes have grueling hours (ie sleep in the office) but it’s not illegal, afaik.

KwisatzHaderack··on Fair coins tend to land on the side they started: Evidence from 350,757 flips
> only 48 testers/flippers

I assumed they did these coin flips were done using a machine. But I guess they wanted to test if human flippers because they wanted to make claims about the human coin flip phenomenon.

KwisatzHaderack··on Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees
Since we're sharing anecdotes here.

Around 2012, I attended the very first coding bootcamp in SF. We had a demo day and a (white) recruiter from a local start-up came and literally only talked to every one of the white students (in a class that was half white) but none of the non-white students. Not a single one. When walking by a table with a non-white student, he would just said "excuse me" and squeezed pass. I looked up the company's website later and it was a 50-ish person start-up that was all white males, except 1 Asian girl who was a PM.

Now, I'm sure the people at this start-up would probably not think of themselves as "racist" (especially in liberal SF) even though this recruiter behaved in a racially exclusive way. But it really goes to show how subconscious these instincts are. This is why it's unfair to single out Indians/Chinese in this case as the only ones who have an in-group bias; every group has an in-group bias if we're really being honest here.

Having said that, the best tech teams I've worked in have been very diverse. They were high performant, but also had a great deal of trust in each other. I think it's because every one knows every one else is a high performer and trust each other's judgment. Nobody is just here because they "just gel with the vibes" and playing group-politics, which sometimes falls on racial lines.

KwisatzHaderack··on Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees
I thought caste was unrelated to skin color. Is this not true?
KwisatzHaderack··on Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?
> I think that in America, political beliefs and violence are more closely entwined than in other parts of the world. I’d be a bit worried about getting punched if I got too deep into politics with someone who disagreed with me

Jamie, pull up that clip of Taiwanese legislators getting into a fist fight in Congress.

KwisatzHaderack··on Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees
> white restaurants

LMAO! What are white restaurants?

KwisatzHaderack··on Just Pay Them Off
Sorry, the video does not mention the United Sates at all. The author (cremieux?), says these lines in his article:

> bragging about the reality that China has automated ports and America mostly does not.

> It should be depressing for Americans that a single Chinese port can outmatch the throughput of almost all American ports combined

My original point stands. The video itself does not mention the United States; it is just praising a technological innovation in China. The author is adding his own spin that the video is in fact knocking on the U.S.

KwisatzHaderack··on Just Pay Them Off
> what it portrays is bragging, bragging about the reality that China has automated ports and America mostly does not

But the video doesn’t mention the United States at all. Why assume that a China boasts implies a US knock?

KwisatzHaderack··on Sweden will offer migrants $34k to go home
Here’s an article basically saying that crime is declining in Sweden and claims of migrant crime are exaggerated: https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-unloads-on-damaged...

> commented Oliver, although the segment wasn’t even focused on immigrants and Sweden, a country whose crime rate has steadily declined since 2005

> Selin completed a study recently focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s acceptance of refugees. It found numerous exaggerations and distortions, including false reports that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country and that some immigrant-heavy neighborhoods were considered ‘no-go zones’ by the police.

KwisatzHaderack··on We found North Korean engineers in our application pile
Yup. It’s first Iran, then North Korea. The consent-manufacturing apparatus is working as intended.
KwisatzHaderack··on Genghis Khan, trade warrior (2021)
> farmers were subject to capricious taxation and the transformation of their farms into grazing and hunting grounds. Yet some of Khubilai's policies, such as the provision of social insurance against crop failures and natural disasters, suggest a real concern for the welfare of his subjects.

Still sounds capricious to me, but at least the Mongols understood you can’t get blood from a turnip.

KwisatzHaderack··on USPS text scammers duped his wife, so he hacked their operation
> You can never trust a scammer ever and even these scammers are getting scammed it seems

There’s no honor amongst thieves.

KwisatzHaderack··on Tsung-Dao Lee, physicist who challenged a law of nature, has died
> Lee became Dr. Fermi’s sole doctoral student in theoretical physics, meeting with him every week. It was an extraordinary learning experience, partly because of Dr. Fermi’s teaching technique, which Dr. Lee explained in the 2007 interview with the Nobel Institute. “‘You see,’ he said, ‘there are things that I would like to know,’” Dr. Lee recalled Dr. Fermi saying. “‘Lee, why don’t you look up and give me a lecture next week.’” “I was very happy to teach Fermi,” Dr. Lee added. “Of course, this is an excellent way of building the student’s confidence. And then he would ask me questions and I would have to answer.”

Was fascinated by this. His advisor, Fermi, made Lee teach him stuff, not the other way around!

KwisatzHaderack··on Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing (1996)
Here is his acclaimed album “Trout Mask Replica” if anyone wants to hear for themselves https://youtu.be/aF0g-2SeoMM
KwisatzHaderack··on We are at our most creative just before we fall asleep, scientists say (2022)
> Sleep is often seen as a waste of time and productivity

Who thinks this? Is the article just straw-manning?

KwisatzHaderack··on Show HN: Programming Is Easier Than Most People Think
This is awesome, thanks for sharing!
KwisatzHaderack··on Periodoxical: Ruby gem for generating time blocks based on rules
Wow, this is perfect! Just what I need for a scheduling application!
KwisatzHaderack··on The Picard Principle: It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose
In other news, Mick Jagger teaches his “You can’t always get what you want” principle.
KwisatzHaderack··on Ask HN: Good sources of math exercises for ~10-17 y/o?
+1 for the IXL ios app. My 6 y.o. son’s school doesn’t give homework and its math pace seem lagging with the standards so I supplement his math learning with the IXL app.

I like that they offer several different ways of explaining / visualizing concepts plus exercises that reinforce.

For example, my sons is starting to learn multiplication and finally clicked with the app’s visualization of how multiplication is just repeatedly adding the same number over and over again.

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