HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

sgirard

83 karma · joined May 21, 2012

submissionscomments
sgirard··on Where did all the public bathrooms go?
You have a talent for engaging writing. Keep it up.
sgirard··on Where did all the public bathrooms go?
What book is this from? I would like to read it.
sgirard··on I also filed the corners off my MacBook
I am not familiar with "skookum choocher". Is that a technical term? Based on the context it must be a good thing.
sgirard··on AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford
This is interesting. I don't know how the AI agent guidelines will be enforced because there will always be a model outside the curriculum that a student can use to bypass the guidelines. Encouraging academic integrity is useful but requires the student to buy into the idea that they are paying for an education, not a diploma. This is a tough problem and I have been wondering how CS departments are incorporating AI into the curriculum while encouraging appropriate use in a learning environment.
sgirard··on More Mac malware from Google search
I imagine that an AI agent like OpenClaw, if given browser access and system control with Peekaboo or similar could easily fall prey to this attack.
sgirard··on Blogging in 2025: Screaming into the Void
Write for yourself, because you enjoy writing, and don't worry whether anyone reads your writing. If someone reads it and enjoys it, all the better. If not, your personal satisfaction is the reward.
sgirard··on Neurotoxic worms growing up to 3ft long are in Ontario, Canada
How did these hammerhead worms arrive in Ontario? As for earthworms, are they native to Ontario? I thought I had read that earthworms are not native to the glaciated parts of North America.
sgirard··on Fossil is quitting smartwatches
I put the Apple Watch on the charger while I'm in the shower/getting dressed and it feels like the charge lasts indefinitely. It charges pretty fast.
sgirard··on A new 66M-year history of carbon dioxide offers little comfort for today
It's rarely discussed because it's impossible to have an open-minded discussion about climate change.
sgirard··on Leaving Twitter
It started off well. I thought this idea was insightful:

"This is often the real challenge to tech incumbents: once the network effects are locked in, it’s very hard to get people to switch to something that’s roughly the same but 10% better - they switch to something that solves one underlying need in an entirely new way."

Then it devolved into a rant about Nazis.

sgirard··on WiFi can read through walls
I would love to be able to image elements inside a wall cavity: studs, pipes, ductwork, electrical lines. I don't know if it's possible with this technique, but maybe someday these ideas will lead to something like an x-ray for building structures.
sgirard··on Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock
I find it interesting because it raises questions that I don't have answers to. For example:

- What caused the temperature above Greenland to be 5°C warmer than today? Why is it cooler now compared to 120,000 years ago? What causes the interglacial periods? Is glaciation the more common state of the climate?

- The article says the ice sheet is melting at the bottom? Why? Pressure from above? Friction from movement? Heat from the Earth? Something else?

- Was the ice sheet shrinking or growing when the temperatures above Greenland were 5°C warmer than now? Does existence of the ice sheet imply that 5°C warmer for some period of time is not enough to melt the Greenland ice sheet?

- How much climate data has been lost to melting from the bottom? Is the ice sheet thickening or thinning compared 120,000 years ago? How would we know?

- How much has the Greenland land mass moved in 120,000 years due to plate tectonics? Could this have impacted the ice sheet in this short amount of time?

- Humans adapt. How did humans adapt to a climate that was warmer by up to 5°C 120,000 years ago?

- How long did the warm temperatures persist 120,000 years ago? 10,000 years? 50,000 years? Or more?

- Could a cooling climate be more worrisome to humanity than a warming one?

sgirard··on Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock
Interesting: "Towards the base, the ice is more than 120,000 years old and dates back to the last interglacial period, a time when the atmospheric temperature above Greenland was 5°C warmer than today."
sgirard··on Ask HN: What are some good non-subscription Mac apps?
SnippetsLab https://www.renfei.org/snippets-lab/

I keep project notes in SnippetsLab. The Markdown support is great and I output really nice looking PDF files when I need to share something professional looking with management.