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quirk

121 karma · joined October 21, 2010

adamcquirk.com
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quirk··on Ask HN: Entrepreneurs, how long did it take you to succeed?
Dude I loved CDBaby. And yes, even 4 years is kind of a short time to be successful (profitable, sustainable).
quirk··on Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing
Came here to say this. The Space Trilogy is one of the best series I've ever read. That Hideous Strength reminds me a LOT of what's happening these days. Even moreso than 1984. Would love to see a great director tackle it as a film.
quirk··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)
An idea I'd like to see: 100 ways to think about God. Book and/or podcast. Bring on expert biographers. Research how Aristotle, Pascal, Lincoln, CS Lewis, etc thought and wrote about God.
quirk··on The Importance of Being Idle
This is so full of holes I don't even know where to start. But the main one is that you have a false dichotomy in assuming that individual success and "helping everyone do better" are mutually exclusive. For example, see the free market economy of the past 250 years.
quirk··on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
False positives would be way better than worthless. They'd give AI bot mods a fighting chance. If you don't think AI generated writing is detectable, ask Google how they were able to filter spam. Layered signals works.
quirk··on Palestinian boy, 12, describes how Israeli forces killed his family in car
Horrific events happen almost every hour of every day. This is political, and the events that are upvoted are always from the same political perspective. If you don't see this, you're blind. But from my perspective, mods do see it, are ok with it, and that is unfortunate. There are few places left online without explicit political bias. HN used to be one of them.
quirk··on My Journey to a reliable and enjoyable locally hosted voice assistant (2025)
The best fix I've made to any voice-mode AI is giving it a "done" word. So it has to listen for "pineapple" before it's allowed to process what I said. Just like radio comms (over and out).
quirk··on Palestinian boy, 12, describes how Israeli forces killed his family in car
[flagged]
quirk··on X is selling existing users' handles
Came here to say this.
quirk··on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans.
I'm sure someone's working on a way to tell the difference programmatically. Maybe a combo of tone, grammar, and some way of telling how fast it was typed using metadata (which may not exist). Even if there was a "probable AI" filter, that would be helpful because it would be a starting point to improve upon.
quirk··on The happiest I've ever been
I don't think that one's even on the list of top 1,000. It's incredible how hard we try to avoid hard things.
quirk··on The happiest I've ever been
Who built it?
quirk··on The happiest I've ever been
There is another, deeper level of happiness, not mentioned in any of these comments. Around 62% of the US population has found it. That number used to be higher. In the tech world it's much smaller percentage. The powerful love you feel as a father or mother can actually be compounded, even when didn't think that was possible. It comes from first principles and historical truths. There is a book about it - it's the best selling book of all time.
quirk··on Ask HN: Share your personal website
https://adamcquirk.com/videos/ - I made videos on the internet 20yrs ago.
quirk··on Former IPCC Contributors Accuse Org of Corruption and Scientific Misconduct
A recent X thread by UK MP Andrew Bridgen compiles quotes from 16 scientists who previously worked with or contributed to IPCC reports. The statements accuse the IPCC of: deliberately downplaying uncertainties excluding or minimizing solar/climate natural variability politicizing the process and suppressing dissenting views producing misleading press summaries that diverge from the underlying science cherry-picking data on sea-level rise, extreme weather trends, and model performance

Among the named scientists are several well-known figures in climate skeptic circles (Judith Curry, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, Richard Tol, Nils-Axel Mörner, etc.).The post has attracted significant engagement in certain political/climate-skeptic communities and is being used to question the IPCC's scientific integrity and the legitimacy of its policy-relevant conclusions.

quirk··on U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis
Is Harvard the top university for mining research though? I assumed it would be Texas A&M or Purdue or something like that.
quirk··on CauseNet: Towards a causality graph extracted from the web
The fact that they are using Wikipedia for a primary data source exempts them from any further serious consideration.
quirk··on Google agrees to pause AI workloads when power demand spikes
https://lomborg.com/
quirk··on Starlink is currently experiencing a service outage
Notorious for dropping packets.
quirk··on Executive order on advancing United States leadership in AI infrastructure
If any of this ever happens, their party can claim that they did it.
quirk··on Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things
Yep came here to recommend this. Incredible story.
quirk··on Trump wins presidency for second time
I think the key word in this is "choice", which is what D voters did not get. They got an attempted installation. Installation failed. See error log.
quirk··on Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves
I loved Squarespace Note, and this seems like a close relative. Downloading now.
quirk··on Who is doing the best neuroscience on consciousness?
I participated in Dynomight's survey and fell into the camp of those who think we'll make significant progress into the nature of consciousness via neuroscience. I am looking for links to people doing this work. I was introduced to a few by reading John Horgan, and am hooked.
quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
I’m pretty sure we are agreeing here. Transgender is a minority. Agreed on the Bible stuff too.
quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
So did you read that USA Today article? I did not see a single example of a book being banned from a non-school library. In fact, every example in the article was about a book being removed from taught curriculum, or a state passing a law requiring schools to notify parents when a book contains a sexual content.

Your last point makes me think maybe you don’t have kids? Because yes of course every parents knows that they can’t control every aspect of their child’s experience. This discussion is specifically about what should and shouldn’t be in children’s libraries. I think parents should have a say in that. Kids are like sponges. If you tell them it’s totally normal to kill puppies, some not-insignificant percentage of them are gonna kill puppies.

I loved the book Middlesex, and have nothing against transgender people. My concern is that a “movement” has started around this naturally rare phenomenon and it has become increasingly trendy to cut off your penis or breasts. This is not what sane parents want for their children.

quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
I’d love to see your sources showing the data to support that books are being banned in “all libraries”.

This is mostly a conversation about morality and I dont think we’re going to convince one another to change our principles here so my instinct is to say “you win” and move on.

But for context, I personally despise Donald Trump and think he’s a symbol of the downfall of our country. And I mostly think the government should stay out of any choices about how we raise our kids.

The books in school libraries issue is part of a larger discussion about who gets to choose what our kids learn. I don’t have the full answer but I do know, for my kids, it is not “gender studies graduates and communists”.

quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea. Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea. Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries. Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
This is good advice. My 9yr old reads adult fiction, so long as I have read it and don't think there's anything too "adult" in there. I'm saving Heinlein for his teen years lol.
quirk··on Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
I'd like to propose an update to Godwin's law; call it NPC's Law or maybe just Trump's Law if we're being literal: "As an online discussion of a problem grows longer, the probability of assigning blame to Donald Trump approaches 1."
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