HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

lizzardbraind

34 karma · joined February 1, 2023

submissionscomments
lizzardbraind··on Hustle bros are jumping on the AI bandwagon
>There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.

>The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who’s been pinching my beer?

>And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass), or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman’s eye.

- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

lizzardbraind··on U.S. credit card debt jumps 18.5% and hits a record $930.6B
Does interest on US credit card debt typically float with national interest rates, or is it fixed when you apply for the card?

If it's the former, this seems like it could be an insidious trap for people who grew up in a world of 0% interest rates.

lizzardbraind··on The U.S. added 517,000 jobs in January, much better than 187,000 expected
What happens if a wage/price spiral hits right as Boomers are moving their retirement savings into less volatile, more liquid investments to live off of?

Could they see the real value of their retirements evaporate en masse?

lizzardbraind··on State Farm says 105 Kia, Hyundai models ‘ineligible’ for new insurance in LA
They are preparing a recall to install immobilizers on the affected models, but it sounds like they're moving too slowly.

The insurance companies might also feel like they have media cover to do this, because how-to videos have become a social media trend. You can hotwire them more easily than a '90s car with ignition wires hanging under the dash, if you know what you're looking for.

Kia in particular might suffer some serious brand damage from this, combined with their multiple recent engine fire recalls.

lizzardbraind··on Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering
Isn't the idea behind raising rates to combat inflation that it works to reduce demand by forcing people to tighten their belts?

"We need companies to fire a lot of people so that fewer people can afford nice things" is less politically palatable than, "we are aiming for a soft landing".

Stocks went up previously because the companies believe that with all the layoffs, people were getting desperate enough that the rate hikes would slacken off and they'd be able to start hiring at fire-sale prices. The strong January jobs data makes the companies and Fed alike worry that their workers might start to get uppity and ask for raises or benefits again soon.

lizzardbraind··on John Carmack’s ‘Different Path’ to Artificial General Intelligence
There will probably be a gig economy, where you can pay spot rates for an idle Frank that could get a page and need to leave at any time.

Or maybe they'll handle things like call centers and 911 dispatch in their spare time.

lizzardbraind··on Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API
It means that you're farming on someone else's land. Since you don't own the source of your income, the landowner could decide to evict you at any time, taking away your revenue.
lizzardbraind··on Amazon Announces Fourth Quarter Results
TBF, that's Amazon's bailiwick. They try to invest as much as they can back into the business without netting a loss.

Grow, baby, grow. We'll see how that mindset survives the coming years, with Bezos out and gusty economic winds.

lizzardbraind··on Ask HN: Books your kids like most
The Phantom Tollbooth.

Brian Jaques' Redwall series.

Try reading to them every night and let them pick it up.

lizzardbraind··on The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation
Reminds me of the "Internet Argument" demotivational poster, which depicts a child and a mule shouting at each other.

Really, the core problem is centralization. If your website were a pub, you'd tell people to take it outside or 86 them.

Things can't work like that when most people will only patronize a small handful of enormous pubs.

lizzardbraind··on Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API
Personally, I like the theory that he's planning to discharge all of the debts he's run up in one fell swoop with a bankruptcy filing.

It will be sad, but not unexpected if the courts let him get away with it. I wish I could buy a house with a mortgage in the house's name, make the house declare bankruptcy, and then keep ownership of it.

Replace "house" with "Twitter", and that's the gambit. Although, the amount of debt that he'll be discharging would be about enough to buy a house for every chronically homeless person in the US.

lizzardbraind··on Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU
If you let them vote, they'll vote to destroy their society.

If you don't let them vote, they'll act to destroy their society.

It would be emotionally satisfying, but ultimately destructive. It would also be ripe for abuse; imagine how awful it would be if we had secret lists of people who weren't allowed to do other normal activities, like air travel or vehicle registration.

lizzardbraind··on Connecticut parents arrested for letting kids walk to Dunkin' Donuts
When everything is presented as a crisis, you get inured to it and nothing, no matter how dire, feels like a really emergency.
lizzardbraind··on Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
Because the battery would be too heavy.

It's a 6x8mm cylinder, fingernail-sized. They're little pellets that get inserted into larger machines for medical imaging.

See also (or don't, it's a bit gruesome): the Goiânia accident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

lizzardbraind··on Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
It's not just the Puritan work ethic. The dearth of support and extreme scarcity of housing play a huge role.

If you won't center your entire life around work, there's a long line of people who will, and your employer would happily hire one of them and throw you into the proverbial wood chipper of being unemploymed in the US.

lizzardbraind··on The Cost of Shadow Work
Ah, but who is going to pay those assistants? To hear the company tell it, they're already struggling to pay their current workers what they call a "competitive wage".

Just look at Intel, who recently slashed salaries so they could afford to pay a larger dividend. How do you think they'd react if you asked them to provide every engineering manager with a full-time assistant?

lizzardbraind··on ChatGPT Plus
You are making an assumption that the AI is always correct.

What you've described sounds like the set-up for a sci-fi movie, where the protagonist wakes up to find themselves branded as an inharmonious element by the AI.

Plus, lots of people have the same name. The AI would need some sort of UUID for people, perhaps tattooed onto their body?

lizzardbraind··on Google Laid Off Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing
Having a head of Mental Health and Wellbeing may imply that you could be responsible for MHW.

This comes to you courtesy of the lawyers, who are still on retainer.