Hacker News Reader

shtopointoon Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

Smart move from Anthropic.

They're the belle of the ball right now, everybody is talking about them, everybody wants to invest in them, so they can call the shots.

Then they'll have money in the bank for a long time no matter what happens – IPO, market downturn, etc.

Takes off lots of pressure so they can continue focusing on the product.

shtopointoon Launch HN: Channel3 (YC S25) – A database of every product on the internet

I would actually say that the selling point here is that affiliate revenue goes thru your website.

I had tried to sign up for affiliate sales a while back, but:

It is complicated to sign up for it – depending on the vendor you have to fill in a number of forms, or sign up via a different affiliate network to even use them.

Wait times for a response are long – I remember some networks or individual sellers got back to me months later.

There's a high bar to entry – I had a tiny website, so I didn't get approved, but I had a good CTR. I eventually had to shut down the website since I realized there was no viable option to monetization and was just burning money on name registration + hosting.

My website was also not in the blog-space, i.e. I didn't do reviews, but I did offer good info, and Amazon for example specifically denied me affiliate permissions because of this.

I might revive the website and see if it'll work again with you guys. This is a path to monetization that could make it sustainable. Thanks and good luck!

shtopointoon Rewrite It in Rails

Why bunch Node w/ Express together with the others and dismiss it? (genuinely curious).

Rails has a high learning curve. Perhaps people working with it for years don't notice it. Node + Express seems faster to learn and ship, but my experience with Rails is limited.

shtopointoon California Bans Sell-By Dates

Won't the producers just leave the same date in, but change the wording before it?

shtopointoon Portugal seeks to become low-tax haven for young people

Weird that they would even consider that – Norway is so rich from oil and gas, it may be able to keep going without collecting any taxes.

shtopointoon Cryptominers made $100k from mining at an Airbnb for three weeks

This probably happens often. The incentives and number of people involved just align well for mining to happen at Airbnb's on the regular.

shtopointoon Burning Man is struggling to sell tickets

It might just go back to what it was before / intended to be originally: no private jets, no helicopters, or oysters on the half shell in the middle of the desert

shtopointoon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2024)

  Location: Paris, France
  Remote: ok
  Willing to relocate: no
  Technologies: product design, UI, UX, graphic design, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-luebke/
  Email: saraeluebke@gmail.com

shtopointoon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2024)

SEEKING WORK

Product Designer & Graphic / Visual Designer | American, based in Paris, France | Remote OK

Hi. I have 5 years Graphic Design experience, working in Silicon Valley. I have recently finished a Product Design Bootcamp (https://www.thedesigncrew.co/en) and I am looking to apply those skills in a UI/UX/Product Design role.

Fluent in English, working proficiency in French.

Graphic Design Portfolio: https://www.saraluebke.com/

Product Design Portfolio: https://tinyurl.com/bd52yk4y

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-luebke/

shtopointoon Apple cuts Vision Pro shipments as demand falls 'sharply beyond expectations'

Still amazing that they would get to 400k.

shtopointoon Cardiometabolic Effects of Omnivorous vs. Vegan Diets in Identical Twins

−25.3 to −2.4 mg/dL for LDL is really not much, and is in line with what is expected on diet based changes

shtopointoon Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

You can't properly run an economy on "pissing off" whims like that.

shtopointoon Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

Quite the precedent to set. Does this mean that any company operating in Denmark, that happens to be in a work dispute may have their mail stopped?

shtopointoon One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

What about all the other studies claiming that poor sleep causes depression? Not sure what to trust these days. Gut tells me poor sleep won't make you ahem "your brain feel slap-happy, loopy and almost giddy" (very scientific).

shtopointoon US immigration enforcement used AI-powered tool to scan posts derogatory to US

This is not a law

shtopointoon US immigration enforcement used AI-powered tool to scan posts derogatory to US

They are allowed. Is a country allowed to deny a visa based on criticism?

Maybe closer to the intended end goal here – is a country allowed to deny a visa to a person entering that country, if the level of criticism is on the extreme end?

shtopointoon US immigration enforcement used AI-powered tool to scan posts derogatory to US

Would you be in favor of vetting some or all publicly available information before letting someone into a country?

If the answer is no, then you might be missing a lot of people that have nefarious intent, where you could have prevented that by looking at their social media posts. If the answer is yes, then you have to delegate to something / someone. Maybe an AI might be better than a human at spotting warning signs.

shtopointoon US immigration enforcement used AI-powered tool to scan posts derogatory to US

What am I missing here?

Isn't it a good idea to vet people before you let them enter your country? Why would you let in someone that is hostile to your country? Especially these days with so many individuals being driven by nefarious ideologies?

shtopointoon Why you shouldn't join Y Combinator

I like David's posts on Twitter generally, but this piece is poorly written.

Big opener, controversial take, put a thing down, just to build your own product up by comparison, lack of nuance... from the get-go you can tell it's a marketing piece.

The premise imo is wrong.

> Silicon Valley is a non-ergodic industry

How do you define this? Obviously Daniel's take is on the founders that failed, that were stressed out by investors etc. but he doesn't talk about the thousands of people with the highest paying, most comfortable job they've ever had. People that switched from manual labor to customer support or programming. Or the thousands of minted (multi-)millionaires that got there by just working a comfortable 9-5 for 5-10 years? (in fact, he may be one of the beneficiaries of a SV style system, through his AWS career that sounded like it landed him enough money to start on his entrepreneurial journey – not so non-ergodic now...)

And of course, he loses credibility because he is selling his course. The whole point of the blog post is to sour YC and siphon off a few readers to his course. Kudos to him too, I mean, that's marketing, and it seems like that course is great too! But, imo, he is not taking the high road here.

YC has a great track record at helping people succeed. And if they didn't succeed, it opened doors. YC foots the bill for you to explore an idea. Sure, you can be smart enough to get into YC, but still naive enough to believe a religion-version of YC, about changing the world and something-something vision; then again, maybe you are smart enough to know what you're getting yourself into. Or you should.

Because on the other hand, there are plenty of people peddling get-rich-quick schemes out there, and how you can make it on your own, "just do this thing". Life's tough out there, and going solo is a difficult journey (something not mentioned often). You work for a company, or you work with investors, you are protected / sheltered. Choose your own path, for sure, but also recognize the pros and cons and how nuanced this situation is.

shtopointoon Germany went from envy of the world to worst-performing major developed economy

Yes - the Russian gas spigot was turned off.

shtopointoon Germany went from envy of the world to worst-performing major developed economy

> Compare this with the situation of other european countries like France

What's the problem in France?

shtopointoon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2023)

Location: California

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: iOS (Swift and Objective-C), PHP, JS / Node.js, Express, Go, distributed systems, K8s

Résumé/CV: https://www.andreipatru.com/

Email: work.andreipatru@gmail.com

Software developer with 14 years industry experience; looking for freelance projects in iOS, backend or full stack.

I have contacts in Android, design, marketing if those are needed for your project.

shtopointoon Show HN: Create your own Discover Weekly

Thanks for the feedback - understood, trust is indeed hard. So, a "see how it works" type of deal, before asking you to sign in?

shtopointoon Following pushback, Zoom says it won't use customer data to train AI models

It's wild they needed "customer pushback" to know not to do that. Something's fishy here...

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

True, it's be hard to prove either way.

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

Of course there was – IBM got started 50 years before the moon landings. Mostly had to do with data processing (bank transactions, census etc.)

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

Not my argument. Just saying it's different when it's taxpayer money and there is no popular support.

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

Inflated numbers. Also counterfactual reasoning: "had it not been for the space program, we wouldn't have developed these technologies and billions of lives wouldn't have been saved."

Also – billions? Seems like an overreach.

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

$7 for each $1 is marketing math. Someone is being very generous in attributing too much economic activity to the space program.

shtopointoon In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing

That those things would have been invented anyway, because science and technology progresses even without gov't intervention.