Hacker News Reader

hanozon UK supermarkets run out of turnips

A comical new addition to the general impression that Britain is falling apart at the seams.

Interesting list, and I'm surprised by most of them, but part of the reason for that is that literally no-one uses email addresses like that.

hanozon Remote driving in UK from abroad should not be allowed, says Law Commission

It varies a lot throughout the UK. There plenty of places where cars are guaranteed to stop if you so much as look at a zebra crossing, and they will wait, as they are obliged to, until you're full off the other end too, not zoom on through as soon as their lane is clear.

hanozon The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism

What I mean is you might just as well have suggested that anyone who has a problem with the original text applies the same technique.

hanozon GPT-3.5 passed yet another Theory of Mind test

That's not an attempt to make her feel good about herself. I suspect gpt has erroneously taken that from the subsequent dialog.

Clearly both answers 4 and 5 are wrong here.

hanozon The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism

I don't think it's uncivil though to say that there are in fact right and wrong answers and that some people's points of view are only valid insomuch as any point of view is, but they are still wrong. It's wrong to censor a black tractor, or change boys and girls to children or a supermarket cashier to a top scientist to further a social engineering agenda, just flat out wrong.

hanozon The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism

If that were an acceptable solution we wouldn't need your warning in the first place would we?

hanozon The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism

You think that's in any way equivalent to turning the works over wholesale to a bunch of unhinged "sensitivity readers" who see fit to remove the word black when describing the BFG's cloak or Danny's father's tractor?

hanozon The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism

I certainly wouldn't patronise a publisher who saw fit to put any such warning in one of Roald Dahl's books.

hanozon UK ‘barking up wrong tree’ trying to get over-50s back to work

But now, finally, the disbenefits of rampant house price inflation are starting to be shared by everyone, rather than by only those locked out of the leverage-fueled bonanza. The huge cohort of winners have done so well out of it that it is now actually creating a labour shortage as described, outweighing the "wealth effect" which was supposedly so beneficial to the economy throughout the boom. So now maybe The Government and The Bank will not be quite so inclined to keep pumping it up any more.

hanozon AI won’t make artists redundant – thanks to information theory

Out of interest, how are they preparing accordingly? It's not remotely my own field but I'm starting to wonder how I should be guiding my children who have tallent for art, in light of all this.

hanozon The Housing Shortage Affects Everything

I suspect that in much of the western world what looks like a shortage of housing is actually an excess of capital.

hanozon WW2 Bomb Explodes in England

If anyone wants an education in why "slowly burning the explosive" isn't as mad an approach to disarming a bomb as it sounds, please do see the incredibly well informed responses I was rewarded with when I raised a quizzical eye to the technique in my post below.

Unfortunately the best replies were usurped by a telling off from someone who comically misread my tenor, and now the whole thread has been moved from top straight to bottom, presumably as the victim of some anti-controversy algorithm. I know it's not the done thing to comment on such matters, but there's some really great posts in there that people put a lot of effort into, and now they're buried, which, dang, is a shame.

hanozon WW2 Bomb Explodes in England

This was while they were attempting to disarm the bomb using the technique of "slowly burning the explosive", which in my obviously completely inexpert opinion, I wouldn't have recommended.

hanozon Engagement with fact-checked posts on Reddit

The very notion of fact-checked seems deeply politicised these days and instantly raises my suspicions about the agenda of the checker. It's not like the old days of Snopes categorising memes and urban legends, but more often than not some vested interest out to rubbish dissent.

hanozon Seawater electrolysis by adjusting the local reaction environment of a catalyst

You're having a dig at someone who's on your side! His point was that this improvement helps negate that criticism.

hanozon Mysterious 'whirlpool' appears in the night sky above Hawaii

"Experts say the object was not a galaxy..."

No really? Thanks experts.

"...or a UFO"

Well, I mean, wasn't it?

hanozon How to find your blind spots

Thought this was going to be about how to find your actual blind spots, which for anyone who doesn't know is draw two dots on a plain background, a couple of inches apart, look at the right dot with your left eye, or vice versa, keeping the other eye closed. Move closer until the other dot disappears. Still amazes me every time.

hanozon The cathedral that failed

> a cathedral off Fleet Street

If you're ever in America, there's an interesting tower block on 34th Street, and some civic buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue which are worth a look.

hanozon Ask HN: Why aren't there any cars in Nineteen Eighty-Four?

i.e. he foresaw, and saw through, you'll own nothing and be happy.

hanozon New Norwegian land could emerge from the Atlantic Ocean

Yes, I understand how the redistribution of water would cause the centre of gravity to change, but not how the changed centre of gravity would the land to rise.

hanozon New Norwegian land could emerge from the Atlantic Ocean

How does the earth's centre of gravity changing cause land to rise?

hanozon Conservatives think ChatGPT has gone 'woke'

If you want family friendly mode, bland corporate rep mode, or full on woke nutcase mode, then let's have that as an option. There's no need to wish an invariable standard on the rest of us just because it happens to fit your current project.

hanozon The Pretty Good House

There are perfectly good reasons for preferring the primitive alternative for every example in your list, and as I can barely see out of my double glazed window due to condensation between the panes at the moment, they're not without their problems either.

hanozon Stable Diffusion Frivolous Litigation

Has a child violated copyright when they've watched so much Disney that they can now draw a pretty good likeness of one of their characters in an original pose?

hanozon Yellen warns of U.S. default risk by early June, urges debt limit hike

That's all very well, but what about this year's free stuff?

hanozon OpenAI starts testing ChatGPT premium

I think I'd pay $10/mo for it but then I'd probably cancel my Copilot subscription because its integration with Visual Studio is so poor.

hanozon UK: Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years

They have tax raising powers to fund it however they so wish.

hanozon UK: Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years

I think you may be suffering from some quite literal survivor bias.

Okay, I may have over-extrapolated for effect, after all some surgeries don't even have telephone queuing, you just keep getting the engaged tone and redialing until your call is finally answered at half past ten, to be told the same thing.

I don't know the exact circumstances of your case but it sounds quite likely you wouldn't have lived to tell the tale if you'd been registered with my GP.

I think you're overestimating the ease with which most people can swap surgeries, and you're definately overstating the extent to which your list of NHS hacks are a realistic prospect for most people, who by and large don't even want to bother thier doctor unless they really have to, and then when they really have to - they can't.

hanozon UK: Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years

I wasn't particularly thinking of Scotland, but since you mention it:

"The NHS in Scotland is totally devolved to the Scottish Parliament and all policy and spending decisions are made in Scotland."

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/facts-about-nhs-funding-i...