Hacker News Reader

rafaeltorreson macOS needs its grid back

I think this behavior can be changed in System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Automatically Rearrange Spaces based on most recent use (turn it off)

rafaeltorreson Digg is gone again

or sell

rafaeltorreson Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US?

Wonder if it may have something to do with longer commute times, which is not discussed in the article, i.e. a trip that used to take n minutes a few years ago may now take double due to congestion, leading to more impatient drivers. At least in my city (Miami) all people talk about is how untenable the commute times have become.

rafaeltorreson iPhone Air

That would be the iPhone Pro

rafaeltorreson Why I don't discuss politics with friends

> saying that independent thought leads to one being "moderate" in the way that most people think of that word, is straight up wrong

Agreed. Independent thought usually leads to one being moderate when that person is already living a comfortable life.

rafaeltorreson Sequoia is both more and less generous to Intel Macs, depending on the model

Walmart sells a new MacBook Air M1 for $699: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718716

rafaeltorreson Ask HN: How are platforms like Buffer and Hootsuite allowed to exist?

Meta provides direct API access for publishing content to Facebook pages [0] and, more recently, to Instagram accounts [1]. Any third party company can apply for access and use these apis as long as they comply with Meta's terms of service and data security requirements, which have become stricter in the last few years (for each individual api permission you must submit documentation and evidence of how your app will use the permissions, and must provide a way for Facebook to log in to your app and test the functionality).

LinkedIn provides similar access, as well as Twitter, and other social networks.

There are literally hundreds of companies that provide functionality similar to Buffer and Hootsuite, including scheduling for future publishing which is not forbidden at all. (Source: I run one of these services.)

The confusion may arise because until 2021 it wasn't possible to publish directly to Instagram. Before that only some big players like Hootsuite and Buffer had direct access to the publishing api, and some less than reputable companies used unsanctioned hacks to schedule Instagram content. But in 2021 Instagram opened their publishing api to other third party apps.

[0] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/pages/publishing/

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/guides/co...

rafaeltorreson I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation”

Yeah, this makes sense to me.

Imagine in the Dunning-Kruger chart the second plot (perceived ability) was a horizontal line at 70, which is not true but not far off from the real results. Now imagine I told you "did you know that, regardless of their actual score, everyone thought they got a 70?" That's a surprising fact.

rafaeltorreson Coqui, a startup providing open speech tech for everyone

Just a note: the colorful frog pictured on the website (https://coqui.ai/) is not a coqui. Coquis are usually brown and tiny. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Coqui_Fr...

rafaeltorreson 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

I found it interesting that you framed "people not wanting to do things by themselves" as the opposite of grit. What if it's just an issue of loneliness? I can see how even the most resilient individuals may want someone to talk / relate to if they feel lonely, and this desire be completely independent from their drive and competitiveness.

rafaeltorreson Micro SaaS Ideas You'll Want to Steal

Interestingly, there’s a whole underground industry of services that provide this functionality by having banks of automated Android phones (not sure if physical or virtualized) to post on behalf of the user through the mobile Instagram app. Problem is you have to give them your direct Instagram credentials, and you run the risk of Instagram detecting this and banning your account (has happened.)

rafaeltorreson Micro SaaS Ideas You'll Want to Steal

Direct Instagram publishing through the Graph API is reserved only for certain Facebook premium marketing partners. Facebook did this through a beta program over a year ago then stopped handing access to other organizations. They may offer it in the future bit it's closed for the moment.

rafaeltorreson The LHC “nightmare scenario” has come true

Here's what I read on each paragraph:

1p: The mathematics that allow physicists to reconstruct the structure of matter is fascinating.

2p: The standard model, though ugly, is still undefeated (with examples).

3p: The LHC hasn't led to the discovery of new particles, and physicists are in denial (with examples and a link).

4p: There is a worrying trend about the failure to learn from failure.

5p: The trust in naturalness/beauty/simplicity to guide the search for a unified model is not working.

6p: Turns out "naturalness" is philosophical, not scientific.

7p: Physicists are opportunistic, so they'll try to justify a larger collider to try to discover new particles.

8p: The nightmare scenario: no new particles discovered with the LHC, so physicists have no guidance to continue.

9p: We've been doing it wrong with the use of naturalness as guidance. You can't trust the judgement of scientists when their future funding depends on continuing working in this direction.

So paragraphs 1 through 7 do offer a good background to support his thesis that "naturalness as guidance" is wrongheaded, which is the real point of the article. If you only read the last paragraphs his thesis sounds shaky and arbitrary.

rafaeltorreson Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927)

Agreed, not insignificant. Some context if you haven't read the details about Lovecreft's racism: http://www.racialicious.com/2014/05/28/the-n-word-through-th...