HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

ed312

898 karma · joined September 28, 2015

submissionscomments
ed312··on Ask HN: CAD for wood working with LLM support?
This is amazing -- I was looking for a tool exactly like this to DIY a bookshelf. That said - I noticed none of the patterns had curved edges (or curved sides e.g. for a corner bookshelf. Is that technically possible or out of scope for now?
ed312··on I don't want the details
Also, not every IC or EM has the same skills and experience. There may be certain categories of work that you can be 100% hands-off and trust them to just do it, and others where you really need to understand bottom-up. Part of being an eng leader is to know when to insert yourself and when to "trust the process".
ed312··on Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change
The cost reduction alone from everyone paying the same price (for the same service at the same facility of course) must be staggering. I agree - I don't see any need to ban any private insurance or providers and that's also aligned with a traditionally (lower case c) conservative free market view too.
ed312··on Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change
... and "Chat Control" and Digital ID and forcing digital currency and persistent digital surveillance and conceding your national sovereignty to a council that can pass binding laws without your consent and ....

Let's not pretend either system is perfect, or that the _underlying principles_ that both systems hold are the absolute correct way to organize a society.

Americans have be primed with _decades_ of rugged individualism and the idea that collective action is inherently weaker/flawed (just don't think about Social Security). It might have been reasonably true 100 years ago that everyone could pay for their own health care, but we're now in a world where the average person is perpetually on medications that are expensive to produce, and will demand increasingly expensive medical interventions throughout their life (heart health, cancer care, etc.). Combine that with AI probably wiping out a ton of industries/jobs - something has to change. I'm not going to pretend to have a solution, but I think it is disingenuous to suggest any EU nation has it figured out either and is obviously correct.

ed312··on Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation
1. Why should harming a million people identically reduce their right to a fair legal evaluation and possibly compensation for damages? <-- maybe it makes sense for large corporations to carry insurance to pay for the potentially massive legal costs they could impose on governments? 2. Shouldn't we be able to quickly resolve these cases assuming there are no substantially different pieces of evidence?
ed312··on Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf (2022)
This is why you fundamentally cannot rely on private companies to build the "town square". This will _always_ happen because every company has a profit motive (even if its a loooong tail via SV-style funding). The problem behind the problem is people want great communities and tools, but don't way to provide any effort to build them.
ed312··on Adding iodine to salt played a role in cognitive improvements: research (2013)
This was both a new topic to me and a remarkably succinct (and well-cited) comment. Did you happen to do this research independently or do you reference a more comprehensive source?
ed312··on Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers
The core issue is those red light cameras create a persistent database of who is where, which is then sold at a marginal cost to whoever wants it to advertise to/manipulate/track a population. Adding cameras everywhere invites a dystopian nightmare vs better urban design and occasional traffic police would solve the same problem.
ed312··on Governor Newsom signs landmark bill to protect kids from social media addiction
I wish they'd go a step further and offer this for adults too. Facebook has become the lowest common denominator communication platform (at least in my family/friend circles). It would be great to have a site to log in and periodically scroll through family photos, hear about milestones, etc. without influencers and video shorts. I'd even pay $ to have that feed without ads.
ed312··on An Interview with Lola De La Mata about tinnitus
I'm not a doctor, and I couldn't give you medical advice if I was, but tinnitus can be caused by health conditions you really should get checked out. High blood pressure etc.
ed312··on Toyota showcases compact engines adaptable to different fuels
Those global sales are a bit skewed due to China's industrial dumping of EVs that are sitting in lots rusting.
ed312··on Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla
This is an excellent ponit, and I don't know where to exactly draw the line ("I know it when I see it"). I personally use "auto" (probably heuristic, maybe soon-ish AI-powered) features to adjust levels, color balance etc. Using AI to add things that are _not at all present_ in the original crossed the line into digital art vs photography for me.
ed312··on Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
As an eng manager, I always make it super clear (many times) when new engineers onboard they're always welcome to say "this doesn't make sense" ask for more details. Sometimes (maybe even often) they're right. I also enourage them to "assume good intent" from other devs and managers. Fundamentally no one manager knows everyone and no one engineer is right about everything.
ed312··on 'No AI Fraud Act' Could Outlaw Parodies, Political Cartoons, and More
Yes. A simple fine for each verified instance prominently displaying a clearly fraudulent advertisement seems like a reasonable solution. Maybe instead of spending engineering cycles thinking of how to jam a larger volume of ads down our throats, Google can develop better ways to detect and reject scams. Win/Win.
ed312··on No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways
In practical terms this is like saying "you're welcome to decline food". Part of the argument for limiting federal government in the first place is to prevent this kind of arm twisting.
ed312··on Passkeys are now enabled by default for Google users
I'm about at the threshold for wanting to de-google my life. Do you have an alternative email provide you recommend?
ed312··on AI Nutrition Fact Labels
Not if the veracity and rules for creating these labels is held to a strict regulatory standard. We can certainly argue if the current food-based "nutrition facts" really provides all the information it should, but knowingly printing false information has clearly defined punishments.
ed312··on Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983
Hopefully AI starts to bend the cost curve. Just like a huge chunk of doctor visits could be handled by a nurse/NP, probably AI could do a lot of triage work and/or improve labor productivity.
ed312··on Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments
Very fair. I wanted to address a more general point. This is not the first reddit controversy, and likely won't be the last. If this is the "Digg" moment for reddit, I'll leave up to Manifold markets :)
ed312··on Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments
GDPR only applies to EU citizens though. If the data is truly valuable, I could imagine some work-arounds as well. E.g. maybe each reddit post is automatically a copyright work which you immediate give a perpetual license to reddit inc. You also automatically transfer copyright ownership to reddit inc and they license back your ability to share your comment.
ed312··on Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments
There are multiple projects to actively crawl and preserve reddit posts/comments. I think the old adage still applies: once its on the internet, its there forever. In my view a better, more sustainable solution is to treat commenters as humans who are flawed but grow and change over time. I don't think it is reasonable e.g. to take the comments a 13 year old makes during a Halo match as indicative of their views (or behaviors) as an adult.
ed312··on Dandelion Root Recipes
As a recent lawn owner/steward of a small strip of ground, this is my approach as well. My view is if you want a more or less monoculture of grass, you should have to physically work for it (no fuel-powered tools either). In this sense, I treat the grass portion of my yard as a garden and do end up spending some time every week troweling out a few dandelions and other unwanted plants. I _do_ make sure I compost all the "weeds" I pull. Overall this seems environmentally friendly, and I do get a good chuckle every time someone asks me which herbicide I spray.
ed312··on Banana Equivalent Dose
You clearly fell for BigBanana's propaganda.

More seriously -- challenging "US standard" dietary norms often leads to fruitful discussions of nutrition and how off-optimal most "common sense" tends to be.

ed312··on Microsoft Transitions U.S. FTEs to “Discretionary Time Off”
The concerns are valid, but I find setting a "suggested minimum" amount of PTO (in my case, I suggest 1 week/quarter on average) and _actually taking time off yourself_ helps model better work/life balance. If you have "unlimited PTO" but the high status people never take PTO, you effectively have no PTO at all.
ed312··on Dwarf Fortress’ graphical upgrade provides a new way into a wildly wonky game
You just articulated why I kept getting really obsessed with, then extremely pissed off at Rimworld. It also didn't make much sense to my why you could build all this advanced future tech in-game but then needed to tame alpacas to leave your settlement...
ed312··on FCC Broadband Map
I wish they provided some justification for that target. IMO, "broadband access" should be defined as sufficient bandwidth for a family of 4 to simultaneously work/learn over video call with some slight overhead %. Ballpark 100mbps down 25 up.
ed312··on Geothermal may beat batteries for energy storage
Based on some extremely back of napkin math (e.g. doing one of those activities where you cycle to power a light bulb) that seems pretty far off. Was the flow rate extremely low? Have a link?
ed312··on Looped Square Or ⌘
When you plug a new one in, you have the option to run through a "layout detection" process. Typically it asks you to press the keys directly adjacent to the "shift" keys and goes from there. Also, IME, there is not a "mac" keyboard on a hardware level - the key directly to the left of the space is alt on Windows or Command on OSX.
ed312··on The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago
Are startups the closest you can still get to "punk rock in tech"? I would love for the dream of the 90s to still be alive somewhere...
ed312··on Why car wheels are so flat these days
As an i.reddit mobile user, it retains the old iphone/mobile optimized css of reddit. There are actual html buttons with minimal js nonsense and not a to of a useless whitespace. On desktop I'm a fervent old.reddit user and sincerely hope they don't deprecate the, (imo better, more info dense), style.
Page 1 of 9Next →