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ponker

799 karma · joined May 19, 2020

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ponker··on Working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)
This is one thing I definitely find with AI coding. I'm building all kinds of software not that I couldn't have built before, but I couldn't justify the effort before.
ponker··on Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo
What does Mozilla do these days?
ponker··on alpr.watch
For an alternate perspective on these drones, see this interview with rapper "DreamLife Rizzy" where he talks about how these technologies have made it impossible for him and his associates to do crimes in San Francisco

https://nypost.com/2025/12/11/us-news/sf-rapper-dreamllife-r...

ponker··on Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself
Oh, like these corrective consequences/accountability?

https://www.peoplesworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pjim...

"The system is working as it should."

ponker··on Show HN: Instantly search 2M recipes
I searched for “cubeb” to find recipes which use this spice. It was changed to “cubed” with no way to revert.
ponker··on Longbets: A bioerror will lead to one million casualties by Dec 2020
Why are these famous guys only betting $400?
ponker··on DoorDash from Application to IPO
There was a company that did this called Munchery.
ponker··on Expanding Fuchsia's open source model
So they are available when you have a project to ramp up quickly, and so they don’t work at a competitor.
ponker··on A container ship lost a record 1,800 containers
Couldn’t the waves originate elsewhere where it’s BF8? What’s going to stop a wave in the open ocean?
ponker··on A container ship lost a record 1,800 containers
But given the “General Average” concept you could have received a bill for many times the value of what you shipped.
ponker··on A container ship lost a record 1,800 containers
Sounds like a horrible idea since the insurance pool is limited to the size of the ship. Hopefully at least it’s averaged by value rather than number of containers so that if someone is shipping corn and a container of iPhones gets jettisoned they don’t get a bill for their life savings.
ponker··on 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings
Going “obsolete” isn’t uniform. A product can go obsolete for your use case without going obsolete for mine. An audiophile might consider a platform that doesn’t support the latest surround sound protocol as “obsolete” while I would not even notice.
ponker··on 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings
The second device can be as cheap as $17 known as a “Streaming Stick” and treated as a throwaway component.
ponker··on Porting a 100% local app to the web
“easy deployment” makes bug fixes fast, and the subscription business model gives the developer a financial incentive to make those fixes. I’d say the average Web app is more robust than the average desktop app... even small one-person web apps are usually pretty good. At the very high end from the huge companies like Apple, Microsoft, Spotify, Adobe, Autodesk, etc. the desktop apps are better.
ponker··on Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
I mean, they’re the most recognized name because they’re the best at it.
ponker··on Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
The only thing stopping the US from turning Saudi Arabia to glass is that we need their oil. If we don’t it’s game over.
ponker··on Managers, not workers, are losing jobs to AI and robots: study
As a category, American companies are the most profitable in the world, so they’re doing something right.
ponker··on An iOS zero-click radio proximity exploit odyssey
That’s like saying “learn to drive a Formula One car if you want to feel safe driving at 65 miles an hour.” Sure, it works, but it’s impractical and unnecessary for everyone to do this.
ponker··on GM scales back partnership with electric truck startup Nikola
Maybe that's why you don't have $30K.
ponker··on Amazon Is Allowing a Chinese Knock-Off to Destroy Our Startup
This is why we need an actual competent politician who takes China seriously and is willing to use a lot of American resources to fight things like abuse of IP law, etc.
ponker··on GM scales back partnership with electric truck startup Nikola
If a guy is selling sandwiches on the street for $1 million and a hungry Jeff Bezos happens to wander by and purchase one, the sandwiches still aren't worth $1 million.
ponker··on GM scales back partnership with electric truck startup Nikola
I knew NKLA wasn't worth $20 billion, but had no idea, and still have no idea, whether it will be priced at $20 billion.
ponker··on Tech’s flight from San Francisco is a relief to some advocates
Of course there isn't data about the long-term societal effects of a global lockdown in a modern society. But there are huge numbers of kids being denied education and social interaction right now. There are people who have lost money and are not eating right or living in healthy conditions, etc. So there are clearly going to be massive negative impacts from the mitigation, and nobody will know the scale for decades to come.
ponker··on GM scales back partnership with electric truck startup Nikola
I wish I had the balls to short this on IPO but I saw what was happening with Tesla and I chickened out.
ponker··on Salesforce Deal to Buy Slack Expected to Be Announced Tuesday After Market Close
absolutely. One thing that does temper this is that companies want to disproportionately reward the strategic businesses, so Microsoft will likely give higher commissions for selling Microsoft Teams than SQL Server. They have controls to prevent gaming that internally, although obviously not 100% effective.
ponker··on No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19
Well it depends why it costs a few million per person. If the production of the vaccine takes thousands of tons of coal and hundreds of pounds of bark of a slow-growing tree then yes, we don't have that per person. But if the current million dollar price is to enrich some pharma investors then there's nothing to say that society needs to find $100 trillion to enrich someone.
ponker··on Salesforce Deal to Buy Slack Expected to Be Announced Tuesday After Market Close
The cost of sales for Slack will be very low for Salesforce, because they’re already selling a ton of stuff to large customers. Their guys are already flying out to the customer, taking them out to dinner, getting their commission checks, etc. they’ll just ask “you want any Slack with that?” Imagine the economics of trying to sell lip balm door to door vs. just putting it in a pharmacy for people to buy when they’re buying other stuff.

This is how Microsoft makes so much money.

ponker··on Recruiters and Human Traffickers
New York is absolutely not as "weird" as Japan. I've traveled a lot to the major business cities of the world and outside of Japan, all first world countries have a shared culture that gets stronger over time. The sights/sounds/smells/interactions/people you see walking down the street in New York/London/Paris/Stockholm/Singapore/Milan are more uniform than anyone in those countries would really like to admit.

Japan is the only wealthy country where everything is its own, necessarily making it "weird" to the rest of the world.

ponker··on Watercooling a Canon R5 to enable unlimited 8K recording
You can still respond. Even if just to say "that's not a supported scenario and may void your warranty."
ponker··on How the self-esteem craze took over America (2017)
If Stephen Hawking’s dream was to become an Olympic gymnast no amount of work would have made it happen. This is the example I use when people make this claim.
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