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kognate

82 karma · joined March 18, 2013

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/kognate; my proof: https://keybase.io/kognate/sigs/2zxvBlIrJ0tlhJZ-T3jgIzi9y7cYxDrJlfH4TZEoh68 ]
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kognate··on Ask HN: Would anyone build this?
Yes, this exists now. You can ask Claude to output the document in markdown format and then convert that markdown into HTML, or ask for the output in HTML. For example, using Claude 3.7 Sonnet the following prompt outputs a vanilla HTML document:

write two paragraphs extolling the benefits to mariners of the Jones act and provide the output formatted in vanilla html

kognate··on Looking for co-founder of defense startup
Where are you going to build them?
kognate··on Through the Darkness
The first thing you should do is give yourself some slack. You are worthy of love and joy. You got dealt a bad hand, and that sucks. It's not surprising you're tired, distracted, and demoralized. So care for yourself, forgive yourself.

You didn't say what country you were in, but check at your school for mental health resources.

What to do: Stay in school and finish your degree. While doing that, try to figure out where you want to go after you finish your degree. You are not alone, the world is large and filled with wondrous people and things. Maybe go and find the nest of the sī murğ (from what I understand it lies beyond Mount Qaf).

kognate··on Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO₂ from the air as a tree
This article is discussing the paper at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08080-x

and this post is (likely) a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927684

kognate··on Best Data Base for Beginners
Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'secured'?
kognate··on $20 Minimum Wage Backfires as Restaurants See Orders Plummet
For pizza places the benefit is risk reduction and insurance cost savings. Drivers who get into accidents are a huge liability, but through risk-laundering of external drivers that all goes away.
kognate··on Four Team Types
A "boot" is US Marine who has recently completed basic training (commonly called "boot camp"). It's a multi-use term and not a simple insult (but it's never a positive statement).
kognate··on Ask HN: What is the most suitable Scheme implementation to learn today?
I'd suggest Racket (https://racket-lang.org) which is a batteries-included language environment that includes scheme and has a lot of high-quality documentation.

Guile (https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/) isn't quite as learner-focused but is another great choice.

kognate··on Ask HN: Rust in Safety Critical Software?
I think the governance page for rust will answer some of your questions:

https://www.rust-lang.org/governance

Ferrous Systems is building a qualified rust (ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 qualified version of the existing open-source compiler)

https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/

kognate··on Ask HN: Simple emergency phone for younger kids
A cellular enabled Apple Watch might be a good choice if they can wear/charge a watch. It's pretty easy to navigate and doesn't require them to have their own phone. It's pretty easy to send text messages with one, too. As for the pre-paid issue, watches are often ad-ons (in the States at least) and are (usually) not expensive.

There are also a couple of companies that sell purpose-build wearables for this, but their privacy situation is sometimes murky.

It's probably worth buying the cheapest pre-paid android phone you can and doing some test runs. When my kids were that age, battery management was the biggest issue we ran into (that and trying to explain Spam calls).

kognate··on “That Deep Romantic Chasm”: Libertarianism, Neoliberalism, & Computer Culture
Everyone knew the old paradigms would still win in the end. The master’s tools will not destroy the master’s house, after all. But the people made (more) wealthy and powerful by the old paradigms had a lot of incentive to pretend otherwise.
kognate··on Ask HN: Which stack is as boring (good boring) and cheap in 2023 as PHP?
I'm going to give an unpopular (in the sense of raw user numbers) suggestion: Swift deployed to AWS Lambda.

You can use a shared database, deployment is easy, the language is pleasant and fast. https://www.swift.org/server/guides/deploying/aws-sam-lambda...

kognate··on Ask HN: Any investigation into chip and weapon black market
In the US you can check out the news page of the DDTC (Directorate of Defense Trade Controls) of (the US Department of) state at https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/ddtc_pub-?id=ddtc_public_portal... and they have a list of reports and webinars on the subject. Most other G7 countries have similar governmental orgs that have similar public portals.
kognate··on Thread: Twitter Files #15 Twitter Files Expose Next Great Media Fraud
the people who created the tool have already released the accounts. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/. (click on the 'Accounts' button).
kognate··on Twitter has fired more software engineers
If they are on FMLA you can’t fire them but you can eliminate their job. However, if they are on a leave unrelated to FMLA there might be no protections and the employee can be terminated.
kognate··on Sulfur–Iodine Cycle
Is there a YC company that is using this?
kognate··on Ask HN: What's the “best” way for a senior to begin learning how to code?
I would suggest an iPad with Codea. Codea has a game called 'Cargo Bot' that teaches the basics of algorithmic thinking without the nomenclature that trips up a lot of people. The codea development environment has lots of tutorials and examples that let people explore and play with things in a nice way.
kognate··on Ask HN: In this media landscape, how do you learn the truth about anything?
I only listen to The Mountain Goats. All else is commentary.
kognate··on Ask HN: How to track flying objects?
I would suggest using the video feed from each drone to localize it (since it's in a known space). You'll need to do a few passes beforehand and record the background. Doing a puzzle-piece style match isn't terribly (computationally) difficult and then you can fuse the position data in your visualization.
kognate··on Ask HN: Programming and Educational Games for Kids
I highly recommend Codea's CargoBot (assuming they are on an iPad). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cargo-bot/id519690804

It's a fun game that uses a simple stack-based programing language to play. It doesn't teach programming per-se but the Codea app itself is a programing environment for games that has a lot of examples and a very good editor.

kognate··on Ask HN: Faking a Developer Interview
It's happening but it is not all that widespread. In my experience consulting in the USA, it tends to happen in situation where the client doesn't have the budget to hire a domestic team but doesn't have a real requirement the team be domestic. I liken it to someone who buys grey-market property. They don't ask too many questions and they don't want to know.

It doesn't happen too often because there isn't a lot of profit in this. Better to just hire a domestic sales person or PM or customer relations person and be open about it.

kognate··on Alternative compensation models to kill rest n' vest culture
Yes, and it was very much worse than rest n' vest culture. Up or Out culture solves the problems that lead to rest n' vest but creates a bunch of other problems.

IMHO, rest n' vest is a good problem to have and not a problem to be solved. It means the company retains institutional knowledge quite affordably. As long as the rest n' vest people are out of the way (ie not in leadership positions). It's better to think of Rest n' vest as corporate UBI because it's not as expensive as the alternatives.

kognate··on More than 100 Ontario youth sent to hospital for vaccine-related heart problems
It’s a pretty misleading headline: There were 54 persons aged 25-39 included in the tally and 44 persons aged 40 and over

I would not call a 25 year old a “youth”.

kognate··on Ask HN: Is there a dedicated programming language for business logic?
I can think of a couple. DMN kinda does this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Model_and_Notation

and Drools: https://www.drools.org

There are papers describing using OWL for biz rules, too: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-32689-....

One of the biggest problems (IMHO) in this space (which I've worked in CLIPS-based systems http://clipsrules.sourceforge.net) is that business rules are often not as "logical" as they seem and can cause real problems for novices without formal logic training. Sometimes the business rules aren't even "rules" as such, which makes it really hard to both create and explain.

kognate··on Ask HN: What to Do with a Physics Degree?
Try one of the big consulting firms. They will only care about the degree and your friend can learn a lot of stuff, make a little money, and use that time to figure out where in the industry they really want to go. The job will probably suck, but they'll learn a lot.
kognate··on Ask HN: Do any healthcare companies provide upfront costs?
Assuming you mean in the USA: a few. ASC’s (Ambulatory Surgical Centers) are more likely to do this in areas with a lot of cash payers. In Ohio and PA there are healthcare agencies that cater to the Amish and Amish-adjacent that will often have cash-price lists.

However, for a lot of health care the checklist you describe simply doesn’t exist. If I enter an ER/Urgent care there is no checklist that can be provided before I agree to anything. Insurance companies have extensive information about these costs, but that info is proprietary and not easily available (this information is used for a lot “prequalify before treatment” type things).

The one exception here is Medicare/Medicaid expenses. Both systems have exhaustive price lists for ICD/CPT/etc codes.

kognate··on Study: Mask Mandates Didn’t Help Slow Spread of Covid-19 – Reason.com
From the abstract of this pre-print and not peer reviewed paper:

> Randomized control trials have not clearly demonstrated mask > efficacy against respiratory viruses, and observational > studies conflict on whether mask use predicts lower infection > rates.

That is a very strong assertion not backed up with facts. Especially given that a quick google lands me at: The First Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial of Mask Use in Households to Prevent Respiratory Virus Transmission https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(08)01008-4/ful.... Which was published in 2008.

kognate··on FlexPort vs. Anduril
I'm assuming your asking about an IC role and not something higher up the food chain. If you want to stay in the Bay Area, I'd say FlexPort is a safer bet. Anduril isn't (IMHO) going to be a public company and (based on Brose's work) are a better acquisition target for one of the main defense players. But if you have read Brose's book, then I'd say you would enjoy Anduril more than flexport.
kognate··on Microsoft wins US Army contract for AR headsets
I dunno. I suspect that the fact of MS being the only AR headset you can buy today is a bigger part of this. If there were any competition you might be able to argue this. It's not like AR is even close to being mature enough to use in any contested space.
kognate··on Ask HN: Where are the unit-typed languages?
You can do this sort of thing with Ada's type system. There is also a blog post about units of measure in F# https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/andrewkennedy/2008/08/29/un...

It's a pretty niche topic. You can do this in a language like c++ or even python but unit aware calculations aren't a requirement for a lot of systems.

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