HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

Nicook

132 karma · joined July 20, 2022

Some big tech software dev.
submissionscomments
Nicook··on Why doesn't anyone want to fix one of America's scariest roads?
oh come on the road to snowbird is chill
Nicook··on New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
if theres higher supply, then companies pay less.
Nicook··on The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021
Try bandcamp (no really it's actually been improving over the years). Also there's still youtube for trying popular ones. Should cover "trying" almost all music legally afaik.
Nicook··on The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021
Do not respect Evil.
Nicook··on We built our house for LAN parties (2024)
You should really go visit the musical instrument museum if you ever have the opportunity. Just the shortlist of his stuff is pretty objectively impressive, dunno maybe I'm replying to some secret famous person's account shrug.
Nicook··on Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
perhaps even in Japanese gardens
Nicook··on AI Is a Harsh Mistress
there's a lot of ill will against the author in the current day, I suspect thats at least partially to blame.
Nicook··on Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers
>even on hacker news.

come on now, HN is just a step above reddit. some of these discussions are pretty solid.

Nicook··on We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
yeah, I think most of this really stems from people streatching the use of "rare books". The cool rare books google scanned one page at a time were borrowed from a library because they are rare and or valuable and usually old (out of copyright by a long time).
Nicook··on We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
I remember when google was scanning a bunch of rare books, I mean they might still be doing that? Either way, that was cool.

I have a few "rare books" and have read many, you'd be suprised at what is publicly available on google books since like ~2010ish.

Nicook··on The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses
Everybody here falls for the most obvious bait.
Nicook··on The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses
getting a long term loan to buy a car sounds like it would signal intention to be more than a tourist.
Nicook··on The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses
people commuting across borders just for work is legitimately very common all over the world. Although I'd assume they'd be able to easily secure a loan in at least ONE of those places.
Nicook··on Minecraft Java raises recommended memory to 16GB ahead of Vulkan transition
Made it through the account migration. But later lost my account after some hacker compromised my microsoft account. Microsoft kindly let me know about some unauthorized access, and then promptly deleted the account :) .

That was the last straw from Microsoft for me. Never again.

Nicook··on AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data – $1.7 billion
some things never change. Pre AI I was always shocked that such large and complex systems actually run as well as they do. Especially after getting to see how the sausage is made/works.
Nicook··on US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent
No it wont. There's already one state in the union that has dipsensed with the silly time changes, Arizona. I've lived there for ~7 years while an adult, or about 20% of my life, now live in a time change state again.

Having experienced both I would take the no time change every time. And I have yet to meet anyone who would (small sample size for sure, I'm sure someones done some polling).

Nicook··on 21 years and counting of 'eight fallacies of distributed computing' (2025)
>we'll just add this feature on as some async verification since it takes a while, then make the original update wait in some weird state for it to finish.

Later, when users are confused at failures and weird states. >ok now lets build a new system that tries to gather all this information on updates in "weird states" and let users fix them!

simplified example, but nightmare.

Nicook··on Law Enforcement's "Warrior" Problem (2015)
this right here, our issue is mostly the accountability. Accountable people are much less likely to apply force when not needed. Trying to remember some citations, but there's really interesting data out there on citizen involved shootings v police ones. and I suspect the accountability is key.
Nicook··on Law Enforcement's "Warrior" Problem (2015)
why not? if its a professional force. plenty of other countries people use as models have military and police linked together, imo we're (USA) just missing the punishment part. Need to court martial police more :). Whole point of police is internal force application right. Can't really enforce any laws without use of force.
Nicook··on The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun
Sure but my point is still that its Arabic and not inherently violent etc. whereas the holocaust is a specific genocidal event.
Nicook··on The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun
I think the word has been twisted a bit, to compare it to holocaust is imo insane. I've known people named Jihad.
Nicook··on Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada
That's not what it means, but go off. Although yes it is generally used pejoratively, and if you are using the term, its for a rhetorical effect.
Nicook··on Enough with the AI FOMO, go slow-mo, says Domo CDO
I believe he is referencing the proletariat masses, the rabble, etc.
Nicook··on AI didn't delete your database, you did
That's literally always possible? The idea is to put up walls and fail-safes to minimize the chance.
Nicook··on New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
Never considered that, but mentioning flags that have minimal "history" pushed me in a totally different direction about some modern political transnational movements lol.
Nicook··on Let's Buy Spirit Air
Amercian is imo the worst airline out there, and the only one I refuse to fly with. At least the budget airlines are cheaper and honest for horrible service.
Nicook··on He asked AI to count carbs 27000 times. It couldn't give the same answer twice
You are severely overestimating the average, or even above average understanding of LLMs.
Nicook··on Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]
I enjoy that you are framing this as somethings that "may" happen in the future.
Nicook··on Claude Opus 4.7 Model Card
Probably also a bit of liability. After all its been trained on a dataset that includes a long running joke of trying to trick people on the internet to unknowingly create chlorine gas.
Nicook··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
Japan is also way thingger than America, which the article points out: > The US spends ~$14,570 per person on healthcare. Japan spends ~$5,790 and has the highest life expectancy in the OECD. That gap is roughly $3 trillion per year.

Need to have people go in for checkups and get shamed for unhealthy habits, not really a money question.

Page 1 of 4Next →