Hacker News Reader

roody15on Dead Internet Theory

The amount of AI narrated videos on Youtube is seriously alarming. This is like Blade Runner level dystopian at this point. With AI help once you go down a rabbit hole you can just stay there indefinately with a never ending supply of AI generated content. Shades of truth or not doesn't seem to matter.

roody15on Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

The big one being ublock origin

roody15on Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

Thanks for responding. Orion on iOS with extensions has been outstanding.. looking forward to linux version.

roody15on Texas A&M bans part of Plato's Symposium

“ Dr. Peterson said he would reluctantly alter the course and replace the disputed modules with “lectures on free speech and academic freedom.” But he was angry, he said, as well as bothered by the sense that students would receive a less rigorous, challenging education in his classroom. ”

Quite sad to see the school administration get compliance here.

roody15on Apple and Intel Rumored to Partner on Mac Chips

“ Such metrics are often closely guarded trade secrets. But according to the Dailian report, Samsung's yields for SF2 are in the 50% to 60% range, just high enough for commercial production. The same report puts TSMC's upcoming N2 node at 80%”

Looks like Samsung is actually closer to production than Intel 18A which is still having issues with yields.

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/samsungs-nex...

roody15on Implications of AI to schools

Exactly this. It really is this easy. You have the full class period to write an easy on the economic causes of the civil war .. or on gender roles in pride and prejudice, or on similarities and differences on morality from the stoic ideals to Christianity in the Roman Empire. Kind of like most of my 90’s era college experience.

roody15on Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

I think you are correct here. If you want to look at the decline of the US ... this is perhaps a good place to start. Short term capital extraction little long term strategic planning. Maybe Cisco is a good example.. lets move all of our switch hardware production to China and still charge the consumer 3500$ per switch. Equals short term gain, makes lots of millinaires... and then just a few years later.. now Huawei makes excellent switches that are mostly on par with Cisco at a better price point.

roody15on FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices

Wow decent results.. impressed.

roody15on Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

Exactly. This pattern I think accurately describes the state of the US economy in general over the last few decades. Wealthy extracting wealth from what’s left of the middle class and further extracting wealth from the already poor. The decline of the US is now openly visible and attempts to hide this through economic language / indicators / propaganda etc are now openly not reflecting reality and often come off as in a dark way comical. This applies to some other western nations like France, England and perhaps Germany.

roody15on Steam Machine

SteamOS does run on regular PC’s I believe unless something has changed?

roody15on Drilling down on Uncle Sam's proposed TP-Link ban

This is unfortunate and another sign that perhaps the "West" is unable to compete. TP Link for what it is... is a great product for home use and maybe even small office. Performance and price is unmatched and I have found they hold up over time pretty well. The price point of LinkSys/Netgear products is not even close. To ban the products under some bogus "security" concerns just leads me to believe on this side of the world a slow decline is in full effect.

roody15on YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'

Windows 11 attempts to remove local only account is the last straw. I have mostly moved away from Windows already but if they fully implement this will never recommend to anyone period. I manage 2600 computers where I work and am down to less than 150 running windows … could see this reaching 0 in just a year or two.

roody15on OpenAI Moves to Complete Potentially the Largest Theft in Human History

Have to agree if services likes Deepseek remain free or at least extremely cheap I don’t see a long term profitability outlook for OpenAI. Gemini has also greatly improved and with Googles infrastructure and ecosystem … again long term outlook doesn’t look promising for OpenAI.

roody15on NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

This makes me think of Intels decline over the last decade or so. It feels to me like a canary in a coal mine. Perhaps of a failing in the US system as a whole. It is possible we are not quite the world leader we once were, despite bailouts, despite legislation like the CHIPS act, despite a CEO dedicated to a roadmap to regain technical superiority … maybe we cannot win this race. Have we reached a point where managing public perception is more important than truth, where wealth inequality has reached a point of a new feudal like caste system, where our institutions now function to primarily manage and preserve an unhealthy society that is primarily exploitative and does not have the needs of the populace first and foremost. Where economic indicators, economic lingo and policy just uses a vernacular to hide its direct purpose to provide safety for the haves at the expense of the have nots. I realize this is a negative take but looking at Lockheed Martin , looking at Boeing, on and on. Maybe we cannot get back to the moon, maybe we cannot design the best new modern passenger jet, maybe just maybe China has already surpassed or at least equaled the US as a superpower.

roody15on Andrej Karpathy – It will take a decade to work through the issues with agents

One inherent limitation of current LLM/AI is that they are primarily trained on abstracted data that focuses primarily on mimicking our logical and reasoning prefrontal cortex portion of the mind. However most humans make decisions based on activity in the limbic regions of the brain which are essentially emotional and intuition based. So we often will do something before we actually know why we did it, however to maintain a sense of self and sanity we will then use our prefrontal cortex to create a cohesive narrative on why we do what we do (despite it often being inaccurate).

In a nutshell we are mimicking neural activity in a certain region based on certain abstracted data which is quite removed from how we as humans process reality.

roody15on Google to merge Android and ChromeOS in 2026

Not convinced this will happen. Plenty of k-12 Chromebooks with an extended support life to 2032+. Having used both seems to be still quite a big task to merge these together.

roody15on The Demon-Haunted World

Some research in neuroscience suggests that potentially the majority of our actions happen primarily in the limbic regions of the brain and then later our pre-frontal cortex makes up a logical story for why we acted this way. This is really trippy and can cause you to rethink your own sanity if you think about it long enough. It’s quite possible I don’t know why I do much of what I do… but I am good at making up a story to explain to keep me sane. Crazy to think about.

roody15on That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news.

I tend to agree with student, NYT and major news outlets are clearly used for propaganda and if you sit back and look at it from perhaps another angle it makes sense , why wouldn’t a world super power with a massive government apparatus use media to influence and control citizen behavior?

So yes the anonymous experts, the anonymous intelligence experts, the experts on CNN panels .. etc etc. It’s the government pushing a narrative for a purpose. My two cents live your life and spend your precious emotional energy for the people you care about around you. Do things in your local community and help when and where you can.

roody15on macOS Tahoe

Email I sent to staff

Good Afternoon,

Apple released its new operating system today, macOS Tahoe. This is a full version upgrade (26.0) with a new look, feel, and many changes. At this time, I recommend NOT updating to Tahoe for the following reasons:

Stability: Version 26.0 is the first release and, like most “.0” versions, contains glitches that will take time to fix. Later versions (26.1, 26.2, etc.) are expected to address these issues.

Release Cycle: Apple now releases a new macOS every year instead of every two years. These initial yearly releases are often closer to “beta” products, and Apple typically patches problems over the first 6–8 weeks.

There is no real advantage to upgrading right now. It’s best to wait 6–8 weeks until the system stabilizes and then reevaluate.

How to Skip the Upgrade

When prompted, simply do not click “Upgrade Now.” This upgrade may pop up on your machine over the course of the next few days.

Close the upgrade window, or scroll down to select other updates.

For reference, macOS Sequoia (15.x) is now at version 15.7, which means it’s very stable and well-patched.

roody15on EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

The EU may have a geopolitical interest in taking another look at nuclear. The dependance on Russian natural gas and expensive imported US natural gas is not good for their economic outlook long term. Honestly I am surprised Germany has not fired back up a couple of its plants considering its difficulties with Industrial output and competing in a world market.

roody15on Health care costs are soaring. Blame insurers, drug companies and your employer

Older male got some Tadalafil from the doctor and not covered by insurance. Cost 530$. Told them i will not be using insurance and did an RX code and the prescription was 11$.

The system is beyond silly in pricing.

Another prescription had a 10$ copay since it was just a generic drug. Again I requested please don’t run through insurance and the rx price was 4$.

I did a deep dive into understanding how prescription pricing works in the US, long story short it is insanely way too complex and for profit private health care insurance is not good for the health of the population.

roody15on Windows 10 resists its end: usage share climbs while Windows 11's falls

Agree I switched to Linux gaming about 4-5 years ago and cannot be happier. Just finished Expedition 33 and it ran flawless. Even setting up a simple OBS desktop to capture HDMI and stream ... so much easier with Linux than Windows. No forced updates, no random reboots, no annoying widgets, no AI integration... just does what I want it to. Why Microsoft just won't release an stripped down edition and make it afforable and easily accessible is beyond my understanding. I am now an old timer and 15-20 years ago I would do almost everything on a PC simply and efficiently now I find Linux gets this job down hands down better than anything Microsoft has to offer.

roody15on TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

This checks out. I find myself watching more youtube videos anywhere from WW2 restored footage, to Bloodborne and Elden Ring lore. There is some great documentary style content on youtube that just isn't on major streaming services. Well at least that I can find.

roody15on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah

A therapist once explained to me that the human mind first processes things through the emotional regions of the brain (limbic) and only afterwards can it reach the logic center (pre frontal cortex).

This has helped me to understand a lot of human behavior and social media posts and reactions (also propaganda, cults, sales, etc)

You may think you have come to a logical conclusion about political issue x or political party x, but very likely the vast majority of us are first having a triggered emotional reaction and later using our pre-frontal cortex to logically create a narrative on why we feel this way and justify it.

Taken to extremes I think you can see things like today happen and see how people react.

Sometimes I catch myself defending someone or a position and later realize I am just wrong, it’s just that I had an emotional reaction felt a possible connection with the person or a cause or vibe they expressed or are connected with and then my attorney brain kicks into overdrive trying to make it all add up.

It also explains a lot of domestic issues, if you are upset or scared your brain stays in the limbic center and is literally incapable of rational thought until you calm down or feel safe.

Just my two cents

roody15on iPhone Air

A19 uses the 3nm process and its benchmarks look similiar to the A18. My two cents I would hold off to next version of the air/pro with the 2nm process and the A20 series chips.

roody15on Kenvue stock drops on report RFK Jr will link autism to Tylenol during pregnancy

https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s129...

Data does appear to show a possible link, definitely at the least warrants further research.

roody15on US Intel

Good Article thanks for sharing

"Doc Burford contends that the true danger facing teams today isn’t competition, disruption, or lack of capital—it’s leadership devoid of expertise, decision-making dominated by superficial metrics, and a culture that values appearances more than actual value creation. Sustainable success comes from building things people want, not engineering facades to appease investors or the market. Relying solely on executive titles or data without understanding the craft or customer rapidly leads to collapse."

Have to agree and think this encapsulates alot of what we have been living through in the US over last few decades.

roody15on US Intel

One could argue China may have already surpassed the US or at least equalled it on the world stage as of now. It will be interesting to see how historians view the rise of China and write about the emergence of a new super power.

Just a hunch and I am really going out on a limb here but I could see China wait another year or two and then step in and force a peace settlement in Ukraine. This would really show the world who the new super power is, as the US and Western powers have struggled with this conflict, a patient China could step in and reach a peace deal as they hold significant leverage over Russia.

roody15on US Intel

In my experience over the last 5 years the vast majority of companies I have worked with have moved to AMD for server purchases. Intel is not competing well on the home PC or server market in recent times at least that is what I am seeing.

roody15on US Intel

China has no reason nor any incentive to invade Taiwan. They are moving ahead with a strategy of overwhelming force and patience. In short China will simply continue to greatly expand its Navy and overall military size. It will do so until its so overwhelming that Taiwan will simply end up voting to join back with China as it will be in its own interest. China has no need to speed this process up and can simply do exactly what it is doing now.. and just watch how things will change in the next 5-10-15 years.