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benjaminbachman

270 karma · joined May 22, 2020

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benjaminbachman··on Tinder Owner Signs ChatGPT Deal. Enjoy the AI Dating Tidal Wave
Is the title here implying users will be chatting with bots run by the companies? Why in the world would they do that?

Clearly the purpose here is to weed out fraud and abuse more easily by analyzing chats between users. I'd welcome it. I'm pretty sure some dating apps already do this, both with text and images, but ChatGPT is probably better at it.

benjaminbachman··on Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand
50% or 0% are both interesting goals, but the headline implies that the website is some test of free will. If you get 0%, then it shows there is an algorithm that predicts your performance, and the Kolmogorov complexity is finite. That algorithm is the inverse of the one the website is using.

If we conflate "free-will" with "ability to generate truly random sequences" then the goal should be to generate a completely incompressible, unpredictable sequence, which 50% would probably be closer to.

benjaminbachman··on Tired of Dating Apps, Some Turn to Google Docs
Bumble offers a lifetime membership, which I think fixes the perverse incentives.
benjaminbachman··on TikTok Extends the Wasteland
Don't use it.
benjaminbachman··on The 'fuck you' pattern (2021)
But there's no network effects with razors.
benjaminbachman··on Artist banned, told to “find a different style”- AI-made art
The only real news here is that Reddit mods are power mad tyrants, which is nothing new at all. AI generated art has just given them newer, funnier ways to be in the wrong.
benjaminbachman··on Amazon shipped fake product, refuses refund until 'correct' item returned
It's not a weird question. He wants to know one that is reputable (so do I), not just another random one that might have the same problem.
benjaminbachman··on Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook
"If you aren't the customer, you're the product" apparently is a lie. You're the product no matter what. Unless I missed it in the article, I doubt paying $100 for the advanced tax prep excluded me from this.
benjaminbachman··on Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
"Leave your friends and family, abandon the area that you grew up in for 30 years" is not really practical advice. Maybe it works for you, but it does not for other people.

You are right about this though: it is supply and demand. And currently there is a lot of regulatory capture on the supply side. Meanwhile there are new investment vehicles on the demand side.

I don't know what the solution is, but when I watch my local news, not a week goes by that I don't see a headline about a developer trying to build some high density housing, but local residents show up to some board meeting and complain about it until they reduce the density. The reasons given make no sense. "It's not part of our community plan"... So change the plan??

benjaminbachman··on A 100x Investment (2019)
Sounds like a more realistic restriction is "60 mph minimum"
benjaminbachman··on How individual contributors get stuck (2017)
I would sooner create a second ticket that represents the blocking task and link it as a blocker to the first ticket.
benjaminbachman··on Ask HN: What news subscription is worth it?
I like the New York Times but I was infuriated by the unsubscribe process. I also turned down a super cheap extension.

I am now subscribed via the Google Play store, which means the NYT loses a big chunk of the money, all so I can be guaranteed an easy cancellation button.

benjaminbachman··on Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs
Also it's a sketchier industry, so having a recognizable name certainly would assuage my fears about using it.

That said I have to assume Cuban is also getting a PR benefit here.

benjaminbachman··on Bill to require job postings to include salaries passes Washington Senate
> As a hiring manager, I see that this is actually not so simple. You give someone a range, say $100-150k. I ASSURE you that they are thinking they are closer to 150k than 100. So good luck giving an offer for $100k, even though that might be what that particular candidate is worth to you.

This claim appears multiple times in this thread but it doesn't actually make sense to me. If I'm currently making $x and I see a job listed for $1.2x - $1.5x, I'm not going to turn down a 20% raise just because I wanted a 50% raise.

benjaminbachman··on The Factorio Mindset
In factorio, you have all the information and tools right in front of you. Everything is transparent. There are no black box failures. If there's a problem, you can and will find the source of it and be able to fix it. It satisfies the building+problem solving itch without the painful parts of programming, eg broken dependencies, slow build times, putting an = instead of a ==.

So, yes, programming is of course more productive, but that's not really the point of leisure time.

benjaminbachman··on Does Having an Anime Profile Picture Make You a Better Programmer?
Tldr: there is no significant correlation between having an anime profile and amount of GitHub activity.

A few days ago HN had a thread extolling the virtues of publishing negative results... And here we are!