Hacker News Reader

dfxm12on Anthropic's proposed AI safety bill only kicks in if 50 deaths or $1B in damages

I don't know if that analogy holds. You don't normally blame Toyota for car crashes, but the driver. If you must use a car analogy, consider the 2010 Toyota recalls rather than just normal car crashes.

That is to say, anthropic should be considered responsible, not (or not just) the users.

dfxm12on Will it be a golden age or a dark age for mathematics (and science)?

In the US, we've already seen the decrease in funding for education & research and closing borders down to many foreign researchers. The current admin and mainstream media is science-skeptic. We're already heading for a dark age. AI's contribution is largely because those policies are coupled with the same admin putting all their eggs into the AI basket, and likewise, basically all the major players in AI being on board with the admin's policies. This should be considered a systemic issue. Things like having a "healthy scientific skepticism and the limits of LLMs’ creativity" are important, but won't solve this alone.

dfxm12on Suicide rates highest ever among middle-aged men

AI chatbots contributing to or reinforcing suicidal ideation.

dfxm12on Why do LLM pelicans look like this?

This isn't generic, it's the same thing. Why would you expect the same thing? There are limitless ways to picture a bird on a bike. White pelican? Brown pelican? Wings out for balance? Wings anthropomorphized into hands on handle bars? Bmx bike? Mountain bike? Riding towards you, away from you, on a race course, etc.

Do a Google image search for pelican, you get a diverse set of sub species of pelicans and different poses and angles for them. Go on a writing prompt forum, you get many diverse ideas from the same simple prompt. Hell, ask your friends at a dinner party to describe a pelican riding a bike and see what happens.

Now, there are a lot of images of bikes from that side angle facing right on the web. Why? Because that's how they're staged on e-commerce websites. Does this say something about AI?

dfxm12on Switzerland proposes banning profiling-based ads to minors

Constant surveillance has become the default order of things. Doing what's best for corporations is the default order of things. On the flip side, "think of the children" is a strong appeal to lawmakers and has won this round. Us adults still have to suffer under the thumb of big business though.

dfxm12on Amazon pushes up prices across the Internet

How did you come to learn the original source in the case of the wheels? Can this be applied to other products?

dfxm12on OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room

Yeah, the tweet reads more like an ad then a news report.

dfxm12on Show HN: PS2 games statically recompiled to WebAssembly

There were already a couple of ways to play PS2 games though. Is it meaningful to put it in WebAssembly (especially when we were promised things like a cure for cancer [0])?

0 - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/08/ai-cure-can...

dfxm12on Hackers activate automatic defrosting accross European supermarket fridges

To monitor when something like this happens...

dfxm12on The Making Of Super Mario 64 – full Giles Goddard interview (2001)

99% of the game is concerned with [Mario's movement]. most of Miyamoto’s time is spent on that, and the movement of the camera.

I had to put down too many early 3D action games because of clunky controls and not being able to see what was going on. Maybe horror games (like resident evil) could get away with awkward cameras in the service of jump scares, but it's frustrating when you have to make a jump and the camera, and thus the controls, don't cooperate with you.

dfxm12on So, you’d like to sell your print issues of The Onion?

TIL The Onion goes back to at least 1988.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of what their new(ish) management has been doing, especially with infowars. I hope they can get the issues they're looking for.

dfxm12on NYC's "Click to Cancel" rule is now in effect

But where is the line exactly?

This is what courts are for. There is no exact line because many situations are different.

Surely you don't have to have a big red cancel button on every page of your platform

Why not?

Some examples would be helpful

The text you quoted is clear enough to me, and it's probably clear to any reasonable person (most rules are written this way). If you're worried about gaming the system to find the exact process that just on the "legal" side of things, you probably aren't reasonable.

dfxm12on I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall

Fwiw, every municipality I've lived in has had some kind of program to help people who own and live in their house to afford property tax if they can't.

I think they're usually called "homestead exemption" or something like that.

dfxm12on Takeshi's Castle

Most of Beat Takeshi's work is amazing, from this, to his films, even his infamous Nintendo game.

dfxm12on How Protein Took over the World

Of course. These things are cyclical. Some might remember the f plan diet or similar.

dfxm12on Triple-A Minesweeper

Now if you're paying full price for a game you've at least had the ability to read reviews and you know it's going to be half price in a year but you want it now.

This was true back then too. Computer Gaming World dates back to 81. Also the software stores that I (i.e., my parents) shopped at back then discounted older titles. This is why I got to play through the Castle of Dr. Brain after the Island of Dr. Brain was released.

dfxm12on YouTuber Says Cops Visited Him After He Built a Flock-Style Camera to Track Cops

Many laws constricting police activity and related to data collected by police go ignored.

dfxm12on The super intelligence shit is a humiliation ritual for OpenAI

Don't discount that these guys might be true believers.

It's a big cult and you ain't in it.

dfxm12on The super intelligence shit is a humiliation ritual for OpenAI

I've noticed it has another benefit of giving the administration an out when they get hard questions about AI. They can huff and puff about calling it SI instead of answering the question.

dfxm12on Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

You're at best naive if you don't see the big picture of sum of the immigration policies of this administration.

dfxm12on Time Travel in Braid (2015)

I think it's worth giving the author some benefit of the doubt that he knows his audience and is not speaking to the entire world, including future generations, all at once.

It's also obvious given the context of the very next sentence that he doesn't mean this as literally as you've interpreted.

dfxm12on Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

Probably not a simple question or answer on the face of it, but it's really not worth looking at this action in such a narrow lens, because this is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, we should look at it through the overall context of all of this admin's immigration policies, which have been bad for the US economy.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-afl-cio-report-...

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/05/12/g-s1-12...

dfxm12on Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

Narrator: He did not do the math.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-afl-cio-report-...

dfxm12on Beauty in DVD Menus

It sounds like a Flash intro for a website...

dfxm12on God of War on PSP, recompiled to WebAssembly and running in the browser

To add some context, in this case, PPSSPP exists and is certainly no less accurate, and you can get a psp and games for a reasonable amount of money.

It's like not this represents something like a cycle accurate Cave CV1K board, which are very expensive and imperfectly emulated.

dfxm12on Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery

Don't think about CNN specifically, but rather about one more cable news network lurching to the right & the diversity of viewpoints being reported being decreased. Ellison's effect on CBS News is clear.

dfxm12on Utah to let AI examine patients and prescribe medication without human oversight

You call this a potential catalyst for liberalization, but can you qualify this a bit with the context that you will have to pay an additional $5/mo subscription and upload your face along with a bunch of PII to who-knows-who?

It sounds like a catalyst for more red tape, more creepy Internet tracking, higher drug costs and more impossible to break subscriptions, all to help some health care companies' bottom lines. I don't consider this fine.

dfxm12on Utah to let AI examine patients and prescribe medication without human oversight

You have to pay $5/mo (on top your health insurance and prescription) and upload photos of your face along with a bunch of PII to who-knows-who.

Why do you think this is fine?

dfxm12on LeCun has "zero concerns" about AI wiping out humanity, recent "rogue" incidents

You should be aware there's a larger context here, with people (including at anthropic/openAI) anthropomorphizing AI systems, implying they act on their own, completely independent of human interaction or oversight.

dfxm12on LeCun has "zero concerns" about AI wiping out humanity, recent "rogue" incidents

He attributes the incidents to poor human oversight and system design

This is something to be concerned about though, with the context of who/what these AI companies have access to.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false...