HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

wavemode

6,382 karma · joined April 19, 2017

submissionscomments
wavemode··on A rough guide for going back to the Moon
Population growth has been slowing for a long time, and is actually already below replacement level in most parts of the world outside Africa. It's unlikely that we will ever reach a global human population of even 11 billion. Some estimates put the peak at under 9 billion.
wavemode··on Java 27
You're drawing a distinction that doesn't matter in practice. If you encounter a NullPointerException incident then you either didn't annotate your code or you didn't run the tooling. (In fact before even running your CI suite, any serious IDE will tell you immediately that you've mishandled null somewhere.)

I get that some people feel like it ought to be built-in to the language rather than a separate tool... but people's personal feelings are irrelevant to the lived experience of my day-to-day work, where worrying about null is truly a thing of the past.

wavemode··on A rough guide for going back to the Moon
> space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy

The Earth has more land than mankind will ever need. The Earth has effectively infinite energy from the Sun. And most of the resources we need are derived from biological matter, which Space lacks.

wavemode··on Java 27
Nullability annotations + tooling makes this a non-issue in practice.
wavemode··on Pion, an agent designed to run any company autonomously
So due to self-bias, people who shop absently with LLMs will mostly be the ones buying products from LLM-run businesses. Fitting.
wavemode··on Pion, an agent designed to run any company autonomously
This seems like one of those ideas that is intentionally ahead of its time. All of the "Real-world" demos they have are deeply unprofitable, but have drummed up excitement and news coverage (and investor money, likely).
wavemode··on Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted board ouster
Why do people arguing about communism always assume that the person they're arguing against thinks that capitalism is perfect. The world isn't binary.
wavemode··on Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted board ouster
> Communism was considered more successful than capitalism for a large chunk of the 20th century (because it was), then that changed

The word you're looking for is "collapse". It's when something is stable at one point in time, but then later breaks down. That's what "changed". It wasn't random like weather or something. The economic systems collapsed.

> None of this is settled

The fact that it has happened numerous times in different parts of the world makes it pretty settled in my mind.

wavemode··on Why a dispute costs $229 on a $129 pair of shoes
> lost sale, reversed by the chargeback $129.00

> ... cost of the shoes, gone $70.00

Uhh, this logic is wrong. You lost the shoes either way. The chargeback didn't cost you the shoes.

From an opportunity cost perspective, the chargeback itself cost you $129. Since that's the refund you sent back to the buyer. But you still no longer possess the shoes, and still paid the associated fees, regardless of whether that refund had happened or not.

From a real net worth perspective, the entire process of shipping out shoes that get charged back costs you $70 plus payment and shipping fees. Since before the ordeal, you had shoes worth $70, and afterwards you no longer possessed them and have also paid fees.

wavemode··on IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]
Oh, I must have missed that

In that case yeah, it certainly depends on what the local laws say. I think in the UK parody protection applies to copyright but not trademarks.

wavemode··on Compiler Can Undo Your Security Checks
there are a wide variety of ways to indirectly detect that someone opened devtools

the most common way is to set a breakpoint, which pause JS execution only if devtools are open. this pause can be detected with a timer.

wavemode··on Compiler Can Undo Your Security Checks
Definitely not only C compilers. Any optimizing compiler can remove code from your program which you might deem important but that the compiler thinks is irrelevant.
wavemode··on IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]
No, tradmarks can be parodied too. It's a first amendment protection, and extremely common in movies, TV and video games.

If the developer worked with a lawyer they could've gotten any suit by IKEA (this wasn't a suit yet, just a cease and desist letter) quickly dismissed.

wavemode··on OpenAI agents carried out an undisclosed attack on RubyGems
Parent commenter didn't say anything about you personally. They disagreed with you, yes, but that's not an insult.
wavemode··on Room 641A
Mass surveillance has certainly gone too far, but comparing 3000 premeditated murders to car accidents is not really a logical way to argue that. We investigate murder for a reason, despite it being a much rarer cause of death than natural causes and accidents.
wavemode··on Claude is only available to people over 18 years
> Should the state do nothing about children not being sent to school?

> Should they go hungry when not fed?

> Should the state do nothing about children not being sent to school?

Of course the government should do something. They should punish the neglectful parent, and take away the child if needed.

What I'm missing is the logical leap to "everyone must give their sensitive personal information to an overseas corporation".

wavemode··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
> They commanded full power 15 seconds before the crash

Not 15 seconds before the crash, 15 seconds before the end of the recording. Then overran the runway 10 seconds before the end of the recording, then started crashing into objects 7 seconds before the end of the recording.

Thrust was reduced back to idle 11 seconds before the end of the recording, so just before departing the runway.

wavemode··on Stockfish 19
Real life is a game of risk/reward rather than a game of deep calculation. You can't "calculate" life because there are too many variables and unknowns. You have to simply pick a path and either accept the risks or mitigate them.
wavemode··on Bespoke: A programming language for people who say please
This is similar to (but much higher-level than) the Shakespeare programming language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_Programming_Langua...
wavemode··on iPhone Duo
The Find N6 still has a noticeable crease, it's just much smaller than the average foldable (here's a video of it with the screen off: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ss31thoK7xM).

If someone truly can't tolerate their phone screen being in any way perceptibly different from a single flat pane of glass, then they shouldn't buy foldables. It's something you have to get used to or ignore, with any brand. Especially over time as you bend and unbend the phone repeatedly and the crease deepens.

wavemode··on iPhone Duo
But, the iPhone Duo has a different aspect ratio from a regular iPhone. So your app needs to be designed for multiple aspect ratios anyway.
wavemode··on Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
> Is it legal for US citizens to all put cameras on their cars and set up a network where we can all see where all police are at any given time?

Sure. There's absolutely nothing illegal about monitoring the location and activity of police (unless you broke some other law to do so, like hacking).

Hell, most of them will simply tell you where they are and what they're doing, as they tend to broadcast over unencrypted radio (which is also not illegal to listen to).

wavemode··on Programming is Art
That doesn't really follow. Not every job can be automated with code. And those that can, largely already have been.
wavemode··on Programming is Art
Programming (usually) isn't art, it's design. Design is when you arrange something to serve a particular purpose, not just for aesthetic value. In programming we understand that this purpose is not just to make code that looks nice, but also that functions properly, that is maintainable, that communicates its intent, etc.

And, it goes without saying, programming is just one activity of the many that encompass "software engineering". There are plenty of people whose hobby is programming, but probably far more whose hobby is actually software engineering, and are fine with LLMs handling the programming part.

wavemode··on 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes
Same exact thought when this trailer came across my feed. "Oh, who did A24 get to play Holmes, she looks familiar somehow." hahaha
wavemode··on Your intellectual fly is open (2025)
> LLMs write better than most journalists

In my personal experience I strongly disagree. Curious what publications you read wherein this is the case.

wavemode··on Actively exploited sandbox RCE in all Chromium versions
This was a type confusion bug in generated JIT code, not in C++ code.
wavemode··on GPT-6 Astra
Using a harness designed for a specific problem set to solve that specific problem set, means the AI+harness is generally intelligent? How do you figure that?

Or do you mean that, for any given problem, we could theoretically design a harness that allows AI to solve it (not that, one single harness solves everything). In which case I'm still not convinced but I guess could see why one would believe that.

wavemode··on ChatGPT outage – Resolved
I wonder how likely it is that, one of the major providers had an outage, and then the thundering herd of users switching to other providers (and/or openrouter automatically failing people over to other providers) caused the incidents in the other two.
wavemode··on Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems
No, the verification they're doing is on the sending side, not receiving. The state sends people ballots, the USPS intercepts them and sends them back to the state if they find an issue.

IF this cycle of delays lasts long enough, then some people never receive a mail-in ballot, or receive it too late

← PreviousPage 2 of 34Next →