HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

koide

1,638 karma · joined October 25, 2011

Sick
submissionscomments
koide··on Goodbye, data science
I would say that there is indeed a problem with modern tech companies where things matter even less than they should. It's not a problem of being raised in a context where everything matters, but that many companies, especially tech are totally care free with their vc money, and we can see that changing in the last months of downturn.

Raising children to care is good and takes lots of effort.

Raising children to leave parents alone usually means the children end up not caring or worse.

koide··on 2D Rubik’s Cube solution visualization
I guess you mean efficient in that they produce a shorter (or even the shortest) sequence of moves to solve a given scramble. But if it takes 5 minutes of computation to produce the solve, then in practice they are not yet very efficient.
koide··on From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate
And the counterpoint is that most people aren't able to do that much exercise. Because it's A LOT. Basically full time athletes or highly physical workers. So that excludes all people with a sedentary or only partially physically demanding work.
koide··on Why don’t we do email verification in reverse?
Okay, but what if you don't know your password and your password manager is offline or you don't have access to it on your phone or the phone ran out of battery or... I assure you we can find a similar amount of cases where passwords would fail. It's mostly novelty phobia.

We're used to one way of working and have our setups for that. We don't want something different but not because it's worse. It's just different.

And even more, when you have a problem with your password, what do you have to do, yes, email for the most part.

koide··on I regret my website redesign
I disagree with the cheap developers point. I've just hired a Pakistani designer/web developer team. They were committed, fast, cheap, wrote high quality code, and delivered more than what was agreed at the start.

It was a closed price project though, which I think is a better way in general to get a better deal for everyone involved.

It wasn't perfect. But I can fix the rest.

How cheap? $950 for a new logo and branding guide plus two responsive html pages with custom graphics.

koide··on Scratch is a big deal
That's the most commonly discussed form. There are others as in https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ageism
koide··on Scratch is a big deal
I find hard to interpret "A 40 yo learned something from a 13 yo" in a non ageist way. Seems that people disagree, but nobody has provided a counterpoint.

Actually, the comment in question would have been perfect encouragement in my view just by removing that phrase.

koide··on Scratch is a big deal
You should consider this interaction as an opportunity to also revisit your ageism. I'm all for encouraging young people, and OP seems a really bright 13 years old person, for sure. But try to keep condescension out of the way. As anybody with children can tell you, we all learn from them all the time. It's not something surprising.
koide··on Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes
What I don't get is how nuclear goes against any ESG. It's just fear.
koide··on Documents reveal McKinsey's role increasing opioid sales until 2019
Yes, but videogames cost roughly the same all around the world.
koide··on Documents reveal McKinsey's role increasing opioid sales until 2019
I think OP was pointing to a potential starting point of the raise in prices and decoupling it from the actual services rendered. Something I think is very likely given that now there are a lot of examples where things are comparable quality with much lower prices. It might not be exactly WWII, but it certainly was caused by some factors not tied directly to the quality of the services.
koide··on Documents reveal McKinsey's role increasing opioid sales until 2019
You don't need to compare with the past. Just compare with other countries, where you can pay 300 a month and have all your family fully covered privately. No copay. No public health. Although you can skip the payment and get public health. Or even have both and decide when to go private and when public. All in much less powerful economies.
koide··on Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
160 pitches for 1.5M - in how many checks total?

Did you decide you wanted the 1.5 before starting the pitches?

koide··on Consciousness is not computation
There supposedly is a (semantic) process in your brain that makes you believe you understand the sentences you are reading and writing that is on top of the (symbolic) process that tells you what to say and how to say it. And that's the quid of the issue. Searle argues that symbolic computation cannot produce understanding at the semantic level.
koide··on Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide
gotcha, when the aliens come we'll all be vegan.
koide··on Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide
Until there are actual serious studies with a large sample population from different parts of the world you can't be sure how many people will be affected and how. Also how healthily you eat is paramount. You can eat vegan trash too.

Btw, while I didn't say the line you're quoting about nutrients missing from plants, the article you're quoting is not very serious looking, with references that 404 and no way to find the actual data that I could find.

koide··on Consciousness is not computation
Exactly. And the person following the Chinese program also knows they don't speak Chinese and that they aren't understanding anything.

I don't really find the Chinese Room argument very compelling because there are too many "it's obvious that X can't really understand" in it.

Also, you can't derive from it that there can't be computed consciousness in some other form.

koide··on Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide
It depends. Humans vary and, while you may thrive on a plant diet, you can't generalize your experience. There are people who have problems even supplementing B12. Others don't. You can't just tell those who have that they've been living a lie.
koide··on Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide
Easily changed? Slavery is still real today in many places and took wars over centuries to get to where we are today.

Seems like you have a very special definition of easy.

koide··on Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide
It's not farting, it's belching. Can be ameliorated adding algae to the feed.

It's not very relevant to the point you're making in this case, but it's good to be precise and also might help you revisit your sources if you just didn't misspeak. https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/33/which-is-a-bigger-methane-so...

https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/from-beach...

koide··on FDA approves first systemic treatment for alopecia areata
The point is that in all this thread, including in your previous comment, people are talking about it as if it had no possible side effects. So, great for you that you track your metrics and consult your doctor, but next time you stand behind a potentially devastating medicine, mention the downside and the care you take as well.
koide··on FDA approves first systemic treatment for alopecia areata
Is it more important than keeping your sexual function, though? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22789024/
koide··on Electric vehicle battery capable of 98% charge in less than ten minutes
I have an 11A charger and some 5kW solar panel setup, and I am lucky enough that I'm able to charge during the day the trips I make early in the morning just with solar.
koide··on Electric vehicle battery capable of 98% charge in less than ten minutes
The ability of getting everything one wants just because one can is not a good thing, in my view.

Also, how is this relevant to the point above? One point is it's too expensive - so even if he wants it he might not be able to get it in the current reality. The counterpoint is that you can charge your car with a slower charger.

koide··on Including “And. And. And. And. And.” in a Google doc causes it to crash
For someone who sort of justified a humiliating response to a mistake a few comments above, this seems really well done! Congratulations.
koide··on I hope distributed is not the new default
The flaw in that reasoning is it assumes that anyone is able to get the greatest expert in the world.

Reality for most companies who hire remotely is that they just try to get the best person they can find within their time, monetary and other constraints. Many times they hire from the US. They can't access actual world class talent, who is very busy and can be really expensive (or isn't readily discoverable). Or even if they can, they can't fill their staff just with them.

koide··on I hope distributed is not the new default
And if that came to happen it only strengthens my argument, as I'm sure car manufacturers aren't asking for that change either.

Life changes and there are a set of people affected negatively by those changes. Those people never ask for those changes. They happen anyway.

koide··on I hope distributed is not the new default
That's a good argument, but I didn't see the "we want the best people we can get with what we want to pay regardless of where they are." Which is what some companies do, they hire from all over the world and pay them in the same range.

Why should companies hire only from the US if there are as good or better people elsewhere?

You're looking at it from the cost reduction perspective, but work shouldn't be something you save money on, but invest it the best you can to get the best product.

In summary, looks like the CEO and CTO of your sample companies don't know how to collaborate remotely. Which is natural because it's not intuitive. And if you don't know and don't want to learn, or happen to be at a niche not amenable to remote collaboration, sure, stay at an office.

koide··on I hope distributed is not the new default
In my experience you can build rapport through video calls. For certain not in meetings with groups, but on 1:1s it's doable. You have to be conscious about it and put more effort. But it's not impossible. In fact, for me it's easier because it's not by chance, I can put myself in the right mindset to have meaningful conversations rather than bumping into random people when solving a problem in my mind.

I do agree it's a lot of responsibility, but life changes that way. Horse breeders didn't ask for the Model T and so on...

koide··on I hope distributed is not the new default
And mine is that you can't tell much from that anecdote. The failing startup might be failing for any number of reasons. There are counterpoints of fully remote startups that have worked out well. So basically, it's just noise. There isn't even an attempt made at explaining why is working remotely the problem, they might not be suited to it, or that they tried before being ready for it as OP stated.
Page 1 of 18Next →