HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

nwalker85

77 karma · joined November 23, 2010

submissionscomments
nwalker85··on Voice2json: Offline speech and intent recognition on Linux
Some do, some don't, sure. Google STT for example supports class tokens natively. There are also services like uniMRCP that allow for certain SRGS grammar features to be used with Google STT, but they are limited in what constructs they support. I've worked pretty extensively with a platform called Verbio, and they fully support the SRGS grammar specification. I work in conversational AI, and when I do implementations, I have to evaluate the complexity of the use case and whether or not a full grammar will be needed and choose a STT provider based on that.
nwalker85··on Voice2json: Offline speech and intent recognition on Linux
Really interesting use of intents and entities. I feel like some of this is reinventing the wheel, since there is already a grammar specification, but novel use of intents/entities. https://www.w3.org/TR/speech-grammar/
nwalker85··on Google Sheets was down
Collaboration was certainly my driver for using Google Sheets, but most, if not all, of that functionality is in Excel Online now.
nwalker85··on Twitter wants feedback on its proposed deepfakes policy
Yeah, calling that video a "deepfake" sounds like someone has no idea what they are talking about.
nwalker85··on Makers, Don't Let Yourself Be Forced into the 'Manager Schedule'
>>Sitting at your desk == not busy in their mind

Maddeningly, these are the same people who feel like you have to be in the office 100% of the time so they feel like you are working.

nwalker85··on Makers, Don't Let Yourself Be Forced into the 'Manager Schedule'
I am in this situation pretty frequently. Are you just a solid communicator? I know I tend to get roped into meetings because I'm good at leading meetings, while other engineers are frankly terrible at it.
nwalker85··on Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
I have kids. They forget to turn off lights, mess with my thermostat, leave doors unlocked. The peace of mind of being able to remotely check/access/control all of this is great.
nwalker85··on Hiren’s BootCD Based on Windows 10 PE X64
Wow I haven't thought of Hiren's in over a decade. I used to use it daily back in my desktop support days working with XP. Very interesting to see a new version.
nwalker85··on Brains are the last frontier of privacy
I agree that the third party doctrine is a huge problem for privacy. We're making progress on that front: https://www.insideprivacy.com/data-privacy/supreme-courts-ca...
nwalker85··on The Rise of the Electric Scooter
Because we design for worst case scenarios, not perfect utopias.
nwalker85··on Ask HN: Are you ok?
I cannot recommend the selfauthoring program enough.
nwalker85··on Harvesting LinkedIn data for fun and profit
Yeah, we signed up to have that happen inside of the platform, not outside of it.
nwalker85··on Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes
Yeah, I came here to say this. The title here suggests that the FDA just banned them. They have not. Misleading at best, straight up lying at worst.
nwalker85··on A 2019 Guide for Automatic Speech Recognition
It's a design decision that is gaining a lot of traction lately.
nwalker85··on A 2019 Guide for Automatic Speech Recognition
Verbio offers an ASR with built-in grammars, which is what you are asking for. Deepspeech is hot garbage in my experience.
nwalker85··on Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K
Trump has created 515 businesses and only 11 of them failed. That's a 98.64% success rate. He has a better track record than Elon Musk by an order of magnitude.
nwalker85··on No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
Can you elaborate on some of these books you are referring to? I'm a self taught developer in his first real, institutional engineering role and I am worried I'm in over my head sometimes and would love to read some "must haves".
nwalker85··on Open-Source Slack Alternative Mattermost Gets $50M Funding
Which is a selling point for applications like RocketChat and Mattermost.
nwalker85··on Open-Source Slack Alternative Mattermost Gets $50M Funding
They also just described 3 services where you don't own the data.
nwalker85··on America needs to see Amazon’s tax returns
>So they pay $0 in net taxes.

Working as intended? The tax code is designed to encourage this kind of reinvestment.

nwalker85··on Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
I'm not sure what about the experience you had a concern about. Slack is the de facto user experience standard right now, with everyone from discord to teams copying it.
nwalker85··on $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
These things are everywhere in Austin. Thanks for that article, really interesting.
nwalker85··on Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity
Yeah I think this mindset is going to be prevalent with Windows users because these kinds of gestures are not native, while Mac users are comfortable with it since it's integrated in the OS.
nwalker85··on U.S. Cities Strain to Fight Hackers
There is a big industry starting to spring up around this, data insurance. Go to any big insurance conference and all they are talking about right now is cyber insurance. Construction companies are asking for it for example; they've always had to insure their employees, but now they are seeing things like their offices being hit by cryptolockers and being extorted for bitcoin by Russians. They can't afford to lose productivity over something like that so they are getting insured. Those insurance agencies are working with security consultants to help harden the networks too. So yes, this is definitely a big problem, but the wheels are already moving to start addressing this issue, because there is money to be made.
nwalker85··on The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
That's quite the extrapolation from what I actually said. My point is that the choice to not have children is not the same as actively helping. Not making things worse is not "good". And demonizing all of humanity as though we are somehow a virus to be eliminated is arrogant. We can be mindful of our impact on the environment without assuming that we're a problem.
nwalker85··on The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
No. You don't get points for being not-bad. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.
nwalker85··on The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
And we can work towards that kind of preservation without demonizing humanity as a whole and not view ourselves as some kind of virus that must be eliminated. That's really my point. And it's a very arrogant view that ironically stems from religion, though no liberal westerner will ever admit to it. The concept of humans being separate from nature goes back to the story of Adam and Eve and is embedded in western thought. It's a good thing to be mindful of the environment, but it's not a good thing to think that all of humanity is evil and needs to be eliminated in order to save the earth.
nwalker85··on The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
This type of attitude is pretty common these days. It's this postmodern view of the world where humanity is somehow separate from nature and must be controlled to protect nature. This is such an arrogant attitude. Sure, you may be right, that having a child has a high carbon footprint, but your decision to not have children doesn't improve anything. Not being actively bad isn't the same as being good.
nwalker85··on SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO
....which is the point of this lawsuit, the determine if an ICO is a security or not.
nwalker85··on Remote working – Bringing sanity to mind and lessons worth learning
This. Rent for an efficiency apartment within walking distance of my work is 4k a month. I rent a 3 bedroom house 40 minutes away for 1400. The ability to work remotely helps keep costs down significantly.