Hacker News Reader

dhimeson The secret sauce of TikTok’s recommendations

I wonder what may happen in the future. I'm sure neither Purdue Pharmaceuticals nor the Sackler family expected to be seen as criminal in what they were doing (opioid epidemic). But when the outcomes were shown to be a result of their actions, they were convicted— or at least forced into settlement.

dhimeson I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year

You don't even have to type. Text to speech is fine for this and the barrier to getting started is nil. Make a rough outline of what you want to cover and have at it.

dhimeson Tell HN: Doing a chargeback against Google will get your account banned

And often Microsoft would not put the charge through, at least if you were working to try to solve the problem without them. I don't know what their criteria were, but I don't think I ever paid despite calling a few times.

dhimeson Tell HN: Doing a chargeback against Google will get your account banned

Why should we have to work so hard to get decent support?

dhimeson Remote work is gutting downtowns

I went to work every day when my kids were small and taught roomsful of college students. I still got poisoned by my little vectors who were a magnet for every virus in the Metro DC area.

dhimeson Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

Would some of the open-source alternatives fit the bill? Something like SimpleNote?

dhimeson Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

Yeah it helps if the owner codes- so they know what they are talking about at least in principle when it comes to building stuff.

dhimeson The Balto/Togo theory of scientific development

I was taught (in the 1980s) that the reason didn't win the NP for Relativity was because it was so controversial at the time and it took decades to be fully accepted.

dhimeson Social media app Parler buys cloud-services provider

Nothing sounds far-fetched after the last few years.

dhimeson Social media app Parler buys cloud-services provider

Makes me nervous, but I agree. I'm not sure what the solution to negating organized disinformation campaigns is, though. Education doesn't seem to work. That strikes me particularly hard, because I've basically dedicated my life to education thinking it was the "Great Answer."

Good thing it's Friday.

dhimeson Woman sues after DNA from rape kit used to arrest her

But they shouldn't have been able to get it.

dhimeson Woman sues after DNA from rape kit used to arrest her

Isn't the blood drawn by a healthcare provider?

dhimeson Woman sues after DNA from rape kit used to arrest her

Seems like a rounding error in the things we need to fix in criminal justice. Until it happens to me, of course....

dhimeson Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

My Toyota only plays my iPhone bluetooth if (a) my car is in bluetooth "mode" and not radio and (b) I have my music app open.

I've never experienced what you (two) describe. 2020 Toy and iPhone 11.

dhimeson Interview with Douglas Crockford

Totally agree. Very annoying.

dhimeson A look at search engines with their own indexes (2021)

Came here to say this. Quotation marks were hugely useful.

dhimeson The bait-and-switch hidden in today’s cookie announcement

Kind of a Sarbanes-Oxley for privacy?

dhimeson Tesla to Cut 10% of Jobs

Just because he did so doesn't mean he had to. People like me, who don't follow his Twitter news unless it's thrown in our face, actually appreciate that kind of specificity.

dhimeson Chaos: The Problem with Quantum Mechanics

The linearity of NII depends on the linearity of F and a.

QM has certain postulates that have to be overcome first, such as any state can be written as a linear combination of eigenstates, etc.

You can see them here: http://vergil.chemistry.gatech.edu/notes/quantrev/node20.htm...

dhimeson Chaos: The Problem with Quantum Mechanics

QM is a linear theory (its equations are linear). Chaos arises from non-linear interactions. Until we have a non-linear version of of the Shrodinger/Dirace/Klein-Gordon/Whatever-the-cool-kids-are-using-these-days equations, we're going to have a problem reconciling them.

dhimeson Reasons to ditch Chrome and use Firefox

I also have script blocker NoScript, so I may be being punished.

dhimeson Knots 3D – Learn how to tie over 150 useful knots

I feed the working end through the bottom in the figure-eight as well.

dhimeson My students cheated... a lot

they allow very good professors to give real mindfuck exam questions that cause you to walk away from the test with a new perspective on the material

I think the problem with this is, although cool, very few professors are capable of doing this well and very few students benefit from it. IOW, it doesn't scale.

To my mind, oral finals or 'discussions" would repair the cheating issues quite well. But again, it's hard to scale and professors would need to be trained in how to do them.

dhimeson Reasons to ditch Chrome and use Firefox

Hmmm. I do have a few going. I'll have to check.

dhimeson Knots 3D – Learn how to tie over 150 useful knots

Great list. I would invite you to try a stevedore instead of the figure 8. It's really the same knot with an extra wrap, and it cinches into something the size of a double-overhand but won't jam. It's an outstanding stopper know- the only one I use on sailboats now (and I'm converting many people to it).

dhimeson Knots 3D – Learn how to tie over 150 useful knots

I quite often use the tautline in combination with the truckers: Use the purchase of the truckers to reduce the load that tautline has to hold, but the adjustability of the tautline lets me cinch things tight. Super handy on sailboats.

Great example is from the video linked above with the airplane. At the end he's complaining about the tautline. In that instance, I would use (if not the knot he's showing) a truckers to the plane, and the tautline to set the length.

dhimeson Knots 3D – Learn how to tie over 150 useful knots

I'll give that a whirl. I usually use a tautline hitch for that function.

dhimeson Reasons to ditch Chrome and use Firefox

Yeah I hate that. I still have a problem seeing comments on youtube in firefox, even when I'm logged in. Not sure we're going to be able to fix if google targets their properties to only their browser, outside of a lawsuit or gov't action.

dhimeson Online Spirograph Tool

That was a lot of fun! Thank you.