Hacker News Reader

izzydataon Tell HN: Chrome says "suspicious download" when trying to download yt-dlp

The amounts of times someone invented something that was important to them and then never make any money from it only for some other entity to make tons of money from it is way too high.

izzydataon My astrophotography in the movie Project Hail Mary

They have different writing styles generally, but it is still pointless to call Star Trek a fantasy for the same reason why you wouldn't call Lord of the Rings a science fiction. If you have a spectrum from fantasy to science fiction with 5 being the middle then maybe Star Trek would be a 6 and Star Wars being more of a 5.

Personally I'd classify Dune to be more of a fantasy than Star Trek just because of the style it is written in being very mystical and prophetic.

izzydataon My Astrophotography in the Movie Project Hail Mary

Star Trek is true scifi? I always considered it to be soft scifi due to it being more about social issues in space rather than the more hard scifi about the fictional science. At least the book of Project Hail Mary is closer to hard scifi than Star Trek as they spend a lot of time describing the science. The movie rightfully skips most of this tedium in favor of a beautiful spectacle.

This is the first time I've heard of the idea of "true" scifi though.

izzydataon Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

I was recently in Hawaii in the middle of the forest and this group nearby on the trail were blasting music from a bluetooth speaker. Whether it is compelte lack of self awareness or utter disregard for other people it is just disturbing behavior.

izzydataon Oil and gas prices jump after Iran and Israel attack gasfields

It seems highly unlikely that the US will magically have trains and more walk-able living because gas is unaffordable. Especially if it was a drastic and sudden shock of supply. Myself as much as anyone is not in favor of the reliance the US has on cars and non-renewable energy, but causing chaos is not the way to do it.

izzydataon Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

This is obviously not a reversible trend. People having close proximity to one another, creating economies of scale where everyone does what they are best at instead of everyone doing everything for themselves is what allows big cities to be possible.

I'm sure all of this was inevitable as there likely hasn't ever been a time where humans were not getting together to form communities when it was beneficial to do so.

izzydataon “Microslop” filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server

I know I can because I've done it on my home machine, but my work computer is restricted by IT. I can't open regedit or install most software unfortunately.

izzydataon “Microslop” filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server

Microsoft, can you please let me remove recommendations from the start menu? Not just less recommendations. I want the category to not be displayed and taking up space.

izzydataon AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

Is there some way to remove nuclear strikes from being a thing the AI knows about thus eliminating it as an option? Perhaps it is too important to know that your opponents could nuclear strike you.

I'd be interested to see what kind of solutions it comes up with when nuclear strikes don't exist.

izzydataon There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

Ultimately I think it will be a self correcting problem, but there is going to be an extremely long period of absolute hell. Global warming is eventually going to cause food and water scarcity on a level that will wipe out a huge percentage of the Earths population. Then the Earth will recover from there being fewer humans.

If in 3000 years we discover humans were completely wiped out to the last person I would be pretty surprised.

izzydataon There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)

There are people that believe the warming, but don't believe it matters because the Earth used to be much hotter at some point in the past so it is a natural cycle. Yet they fail to realize that humans didn't exist then so there is no good reason to believe an Earth that hot can support human life.

izzydataon Why I'm Worried About Job Loss and Thoughts on Comparative Advantage

Capitalism really is like a disease of the mind. The idea that you absolutely have to and there are no alternatives to extracting as much wealth from a system as possible.

izzydataon Intermittent fasting may make little difference to weight loss, review finds

It's always calories in and calories out. The idea is that intermittent fasting makes you less hungry over time and thus you take in less calories.

If they had their test subjects eat the same amount to see if intermittent fasting metabolized food better then it seems obvious that there would be little to no difference.

izzydataon The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

The generation ship genre of science fiction is very interesting to me, but I've never read one that didn't seem absolutely horrifying. I don't think it is a realistic option. Especially if we aren't even capable of stabilizing our "closed system" known as Earth. A generation ship would be the same problem but 100 times more difficult.

izzydataon The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually. Maybe we overshot the maximum comfortable population by a bit and we are going to rebound for awhile.

Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.

izzydataon Why This Computer Scientist Says All Cryptocurrency Should "Die in a Fire" (2022)

Crypto should have stayed a silly tech demo that nerds used to trade with eachother for pizza.

izzydataon FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

Doesn't having standard multi-user functionality automatically create the plausible deniability? If they tried so hard to create an artificial plausible deniability that would be more suspicious than normal functionality that just gets used sometimes.

izzydataon FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

It doesn't seem fundamentally different from a PC having multiple logins that are accessed from different passwords. Hasn't this been a solved problem for decades?

izzydataon Data centers in space makes no sense

How about we just make a giant heatsink that reaches into space instead. Then we can cool the whole planet. Coming up with crazy ideas is cheap, but the logistics are obviously impractical.

izzydataon Amazon cuts 16k jobs

It feels more like a really optimistic take on AI. I won't say it is impossible, but I haven't seen anything that suggests AI is going to do what OpenAI and Nvidia claims it will.

izzydataon Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

At least in the US people still only use SMS or a program that can be installed on a computer. I've never used WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal.

The only thing right now that I need my Android phone for is Duo Mobile authentication to log into my work computer.

izzydataon Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results

I want to see a movement of people using dumbphones or no phones at all. Anything you do on a smartphone can be done later on a desktop computer and a landline phone.

izzydataon Roam 50GB is now Roam 100GB

It's not really American politics when Elon decides to turn off your countries internet for personal gain. Having such critical infrastructure in the hands of someone unstable wouldn't be a choice I ever make for something so important.

izzydataon So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

If my options are upload a picture of myself for Google to monetize through ads or not use Google / Youtube then I will be moving on regardless of the inconvenience to myself.

izzydataon I wanted a camera that doesn't exist, so I built it

My only camera is a Sony a6000 and I bought it partially because I thought it looked great. If it causes some issue I wouldn't even know it because I've never tried something else.

izzydataon What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

rolls eyes

I unfortunately have to upvote this.

izzydataon Google Antigravity

Meanwhile I don't feel like the era of AI assisted software development has even started.

izzydataon Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

It is probably possible to get drivers to improve if the incentives were there or if they had no choice due to external factors. I bet it would be cheaper than money spent on self driving tech too.

Or public transit on a track.

izzydataon Laptops with Stickers

I think the most interesting aspect of this is how divisive something as innocuous as putting stickers on a thing is. What causes people to have a strong opinion on this one way or another?

Personally I don't find it hard to put stickers on things because I am worried about being silly, but I find defacing an otherwise clean object difficult. Like getting a brand new car or phone and trying very hard not to get a scratch. Once the first scratch is there you stop worrying about it.

Once you put down the first sticker I imagine that worry goes away. I think getting a tattoo is still an insurmountable problem for me personally, but I get it.

izzydataon LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

I wonder if that can be attributed to search engines and search fields on various websites being intentionally worsened in order to push specific content and ads.

Google search and Youtube search used to almost always get you what you were looking for. Now you have to fight with it to maybe get what you are looking for because of all the sponsored ads.

Search used to be a nearly solved problem.