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hn_acc1

630 karma · joined December 17, 2024

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hn_acc1··on Cessation of public development of Kefir C compiler
>If I build a Markov chain based on a statistical analysis of word sequences in Hamlet, and then use it to produce a new sentence that isn't found in the text of that work, I have not created a derivative work of Hamlet under any applicable sense of that term.

If you write "To see or not to see, that is the question" about a person named Eyelet, who is going blind, how can you argue that it is NOT derivative of / borrowed from Hamlet? Yet that sentence is not in the work. Isn't that what LLMs essentially do? Tokenize, then substitute in new values for certain tokens, while retaining the general structure?

hn_acc1··on Actually, democracy dies in H.R.
There are people voting to make their lives worse, as long as "other's lives" will be made even more worse as a result.
hn_acc1··on 'We mould trees to grow into the shape of chairs'
They are quite amazing to see.
hn_acc1··on Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
Is he though? I find he still has a STRONG positive image among younger tech people..
hn_acc1··on Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
This is not a robbery, though. Not in the "break in and steal stuff from your house multiple times" situation. Legally, each of those are separate events, and one doesn't really affect the other unless it's all the same person, and the repetition is used to get a stronger case, etc.
hn_acc1··on I want to live like Costco people
'05 Legacy GT - turbo motor from the STI. With a tune, it was 300+ HP. MULTIPLE runs against Tesla model 3s from a stop - I won most of them.

'19 Stinger GT AWD. jb4 (piggyback) - dual model 3 couldn't pass me on track (he had more experience than I did) - he cornered a little better due to low center-of-mass, I pulled on him in the straights. Repeatedly.

hn_acc1··on Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
I find your views interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

No really - got more ideas about "Don't be evil. FOR REAL"?

hn_acc1··on GitLab Announces Workforce Reduction and End of Their CREDIT Values
When everyone is leaping head-over-heels into AI / agents, you need SOME part of your stack that is NOT that - slow, tested changes you can (mostly) trust, not "break everything quickly - again" stuff.

Imagine if gcc / clang decided to let agents implement new features without a lot of checking..

hn_acc1··on AI slop is killing online communities
It's sad, but car stuff (new aftermarket stuff) is now mainly on facebook for my car.. That, and messenger to chat with siblings is about it..
hn_acc1··on I want to live like Costco people
We get like 4-5x our exec. membership fee back in rewards cost every year - and I stopped buying tires/car batteries there (takes too long / quality no longer as good) and usually go to best buy for electronics (their return policy is no longer as good, and they often stock sub-par models, etc). Even with that, Costo is essentially paying us to save money.
hn_acc1··on I want to live like Costco people
Stopped reading at "cheugy". Born near Seattle and now lives in Portland - like two of the biggest non-conformist regions out there..
hn_acc1··on I want to live like Costco people
I always found that weird because we get like 5x our membership dues back in rewards every year, so I guess we're the exception, rather than the rule?
hn_acc1··on I want to live like Costco people
>A Tesla will out accelerate all but the most niche cars now.

Claims presented without evidence. My slightly modified Subaru Wagon from '05 "out-accelerated" base Teslas - dead even in 1st gear, started pulling once the shift to 2nd happened. (Most) EVs cannot shift gears to get torque multiplication, so they start fast, but fall off as speeds get higher. My Kia gas car will outrun all but the model 3 performance - which the average person is NOT driving. Neither of those cars are "niche".

hn_acc1··on Appearing productive in the workplace
Over time, as devs get more experience, they have seen countless fads come and go. Some worked, some screwed things up, etc. - NONE were the silver bullet / savior that they were touted to be by adherents. So they learn a default "no" or "slowly" response to "we need to do this <buzzword> ASAP" from management who only see $$$. I mean AI companies are telling management that devs will resist AI because "it's so good it will let you replace them", so management is getting their views reinforced by devs saying it's a bad idea.
hn_acc1··on California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
See my other comment: in 20+ years in the Bay Area, compared to 25 in SW Ontario (Canada): the BEST peach I've had in 20+ years in the Bay Area wouldn't even make it as "a good one" of the bunches we had every summer in Canada. Not sure where they came from, but from personal experience, Bay Area peaches suck REALLY hard. I've WANTED to find some good ones, because I miss them, and they're always super hard or already rotten.
hn_acc1··on California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
Agreed that fruit selection is very region-dependent. I grew up in the great lakes area - and we had super juicy peaches every summer. I have yet to find ONE peach in California in 20 years that measured up. Even when they're "ripe" and somewhat juicy, the texture is still rough/coarse and severely lacking in flavor.
hn_acc1··on Your phone is about to stop being yours
Which app?
hn_acc1··on To my students
And they had a valid point.
hn_acc1··on US Supreme Court reviews police use of cell location data
My sympathies for your loss. That sucks badly.

But look at how many people have been unjustly/incorrectly imprisoned for many years in the US, often based on poverty or racism. Would you be willing to jail 5 people for life-without-parole if you're 100% sure ONE of them was the murderer of your family member? What about two people?

hn_acc1··on I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
I hope it works out! It's amazing how far Tcl/Tk has come since I "had" to use it as a wrapper around an X11 window back on an SGI Irix, using Tcl scripting to interface to an OpenGL backend. I think that was like 7.3.x or something in 1994. And it was pretty cool back then already! The team around Tcl is small, but dedicated and brilliant, IMHO.
hn_acc1··on I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
Probably. We paid thousands / year for the developer seat in our startup, and in the end, it wasn't great. I did manage to make the Tcl/Tk event loop and the Qt event loop work together, so we could have Tk windows inside a Qt app!
hn_acc1··on Could a Claude Code routine watch my finances?
Any thoughts on how brightplan compares to some of the other apps mentioned here? It's free via work.
hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
This. It makes me less and less interested in the sports I have enjoyed watching for 45+ years (and played frequently in some form). Seeing an NHL player hawking NFTs a few years back really made me do a double take and wonder if I was truly done with it. Thankfully, that faded fast.
hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
Yes to that last part. It's made watching sports much less enjoyable to see/hear constant gambling ads. And it's not like they're charging any less for the product (mlb.tv, for example) - quite the opposite: they are making it harder to watch all the games by putting some of them on apple.tv, etc.
hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
Ok, so add "is it easy / quick / cheap to acquire?". Performance cars (I take measured risks at the race track) and track days / race tires aren't cheap. Not in any sense of the word.

Unsafe driving in ANY car? Yes - but that's already illegal.

hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
I would like the majority of food sold in the US to improve in quality. I would support passing legislation to force the issue.
hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
You mean, like hyperglycemia?
hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
There have been pushes to remove soda from school vending machines, limit the size / add extra taxes on bigger soda containers, etc. But it's often "crazy California" doing it, so a whole chunk of the country writes it off as political or something, or it doesn't get passed due to lobbying, etc. But it's not true that no one is trying to stop it.

As much as I like a cold Coke (Coke >>> Pepsi :-) on a hot day, I also realize it's bad for me, and I'm drinking a lot more Spindrift these days. And despite the fact that I rarely drink more than say, 2 cans a day (i.e. I can generally control it), I would still vote to limit the amount of sugar in any beverage to like 1/10 that of Coke, just for general health reasons. Of course, then stores will probably see an uptick in sugar cube sales or something.. Gotta feed the addiction.

hn_acc1··on The operating cost of adult and gambling startups
> but in the Fentanyl age I see people dropping like flies all around me

Do you literally mean you are seeing people die around you? From doing drugs? What is your general location / occupation / lifestyle? I'm a 20+ year coder in the valley, and the closest I've come is hearing about some friends of my spouse (who is a teacher) who indulge in cannabis, and one couple who do adderall recreationally.

hn_acc1··on I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
Of course, I'm also an old-school hacker (typed my first BASIC program ~45 years ago), so I have a desktop mentality. None of this newfangled 17-pound-portable stuff for me :-) And phones are at best a tertiary computing mechanism: first, desktop, then laptop, then phone. So yes, I'm clearly biased. Not trying to hide that.
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