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hawkesnest

177 karma · joined September 19, 2015

Some person of a particular type
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hawkesnest··on Why did words that end in "tron" once sound so futuristic? (2017)
I expect the modern equivalent would be "-inator" as a suffix.
hawkesnest··on Don't disable buttons
Here's a similar take from Joel Spolsky:

A long time ago, it became fashionable, even recommended, to disable menu items when they could not be used.

Don’t do this. Users see the disabled menu item that they want to click on, and are left entirely without a clue of what they are supposed to do to get the menu item to work.

Instead, leave the menu item enabled. If there’s some reason you can’t complete the action, the menu item can display a message telling the user why.

hawkesnest··on Sam Elsom's seaweed solution to tackle climate change
It seems like this knowledge has been bouncing around for nearly a decade. Why the slow adoption? This should be a slam-dunk. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24465524/
hawkesnest··on Ship of Fools
It's funny how the author in the same paragraph notes that solar power isn't common in the "Sunshine State" of Florida, and then also points out the problem of hurricanes. Turns out, insurance companies won't compensate you for replacement cost of the panels, only cash value (which is constantly dropping). That is, if they cover them at all.

Buying new panels every 7-10 years is not a worthwhile investment.

hawkesnest··on France to Suspend All Bus and Tram Services Amid Riots
Get a bike and you don't have to worry about roads or fuel either.
hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
Still waiting to hear what punishment is befitting a person of non-belief.

Really, just say it. Say the quiet part out loud.

hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
It's clear you've not researched ethics thoroughly. I guess all those philosophers just needed to agree to use the same exact interpretation of the same holy books and there would be no need for discussion, right?

The Methodists are hardly a fringe group.

Atheism is "disastrous" only in that it is based on non-belief, not that Atheists themselves are detrimental to society.

The hundreds/thousands of protestant sects counter your statement that "religious texts have a meaning." They are long, often self-contradictory, and open to many interpretations. Not "a" meaning, but many "meanings." Again, the things you are claiming to be strength do not bear out in reality.

I think you to be better than the sociopath you claim to be. Do you only abstain from murder and rape and lying and cheating to avoid punishment in the afterlife? Because while I may have "baseless" moral conjectures, a simply moral code of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is superior in a myriad of ways.

You admit yourself, morals are based off standards. We can agree to those which bear out healthy, happy, productive societies or ones which do not. It's funny how most people consider theocracies to have a negative connotation.

Still waiting to hear what punishment is befitting a person of non-belief.

hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
Religion is in no way a force for bringing people together. Anti-Semitism is rampant among many Christians. Catholics and Protestants have quite a history of not seeing eye-to-eye. Shia and Sunni Muslims are pretty notorious at this point for their battles.

Your examples are counter to your own point. Jews don't seem to have the same views on abortion that the evangelicals appear to have. The United Methodist church is splitting because of differing views on homosexuality and other LGBTQ+ issues.

Having common values is very important, but predicating it on all the doctrine of a set of religions or a single religion seems shaky at best.

I also noticed you still haven't given a good reason. Your opening line is circular - violating the monoculture is bad because it disrupts the monoculture. Instead of proposing a broad set of morals outside of religion, you intend to (by force?) push a set of morals that YOU dictate based off ancient texts of dubious origin.

hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
>We need only concern ourselves with what's external and the impact it has on society.

This I can wholeheartedly agree with.

In what way is atheism a danger or harm to society except that it violates your proposed monoculture?

hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
I do want to hear what they have to say. It sounds like they have some pretty out-of-the-box ideas about how society should function. Admittedly, it seems as though I would oppose those positions, but rather than dismiss them as the muses of a sociopath I prefer to get to specifics and address the idea in its entirety.

The notion of forced religion certain could lead to the worst versions of theocracy imaginable, but surely someone would think things to their logical conclusion before professing something so heinous. Right?

hawkesnest··on My diatribe against “skeptics” (2016)
I have so many questions. How would one determine whether I were a non-believer? What is an appropriate punishment? Why are Abrahamic religions whe ones which are allowable but all others are not? What benefit would this provide? Do the benefits outweigh the harm?

Is it ok to be a non-practicing Jew, or is it required to be orthodox? Are Mormons acceptable? 7th Day Adventists? Jehovah Witnesses? Why or why not?

How does one believe something when they simply and sincerely do not? Is it possible to force someone to believe something?

Can you cite examples of blasphemy laws which have proven to be a net positive in society? How do we deal with people having similar beliefs but exercising them wildly differently? Is that ok? Why or why not

I'm all for thought experiments and playing what-if, but if you're going to make the statement that my sheer existence should be illegal, I need quite a bit of clarity!

hawkesnest··on Study: car evolution trends (2015)
This article is accurate, but it doesn't talk about causes. Is the market looking for larger vehicles? Are the auto-makers in cahoots with the oil industry to use larger engines? Is marketing convincing people that having larger vehicles is universally better?

What about the increases in safety over that time span? Crumple-zones in some areas and stronger structural members add weight. Air bags add weight and decrease interior space. A-pillars used to be dainty for visibility but have been thickened to provide rollover protection.

The analysis provided doesn't give any reasons for the changes, only pointing out that they trend toward larger/heavier.

hawkesnest··on We Need Programming Mentors
Do you really think that ChatGPT can analyze the work done by a human and provide meaningful and accurate feedback? It's very easy to make a claim, but have you perhaps tried it?

My experience with ChatGPT is the generation of text based off a prompt. If you have actually done something similar to what you claim that would prove very interesting. It might eliminate most forms of management.

hawkesnest··on Jennifer was bullied until someone unexpected stepped in
Are we laughing at the death of middle-schoolers now? Yeah, if that's your view, you and the "good" Lord can fuck off.
hawkesnest··on Towns are testing new ballot counting machines that use open source software
Would the House be more or less effective if there were 10,000+ representatives to meet the 30,000:1 ratio in the original Constitutional setup?
hawkesnest··on We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews (2016)
This text in in bold in the concluding paragraph

>>Once you factor out interview data from both men and women who quit after one or two bad interviews, the disparity goes away entirely.

hawkesnest··on No-code isn’t scalable. Our learnings at FINN going from 1000 toward 100k ca
The article seemed largely focused on database performance being the deciding factor in scaling. If everything else has been low-code with a traditional rdbms (even if cloud-hosted), would the same conclusion have been drawn?
hawkesnest··on Cull your dependencies
The argument seems a bit myopic. The author is talking about errors and vulnerabilities found in libraries while ignoring those same factors in bespoke code. At best that's a "security through obscurity" scheme.
hawkesnest··on Ask HN: I'm in a bad situation and desperately need advice
Document everything. Have copies of things in multiple safe (non-work) locations. CYA. Note all dates, times, locations, methods of communication, and as much physical evidence as you can manage.

I'm sorry you're being treated like this. The fact is, unless there's something illegal about what happened, you are in the right and need to act with integrity. You're a victim of a crime, not a perpetrator. Stand strong.

I doubt in these days that anyone would fire an employee over having been betrayed by a sexual partner (save some highly religious employers). If this girl follows through with their threat, it is unlikely to come to anything. And if your new employer did let you go as a result, you're dodging a bullet in the long term. Companies with HR that evil don't deserve you. Might have a legal case if that were to happen (again, document everything) so prepare for the worst, but you can reasonably expect the best.

I'd say file a police report, but am unsure how to treat HR. That varies so much from place to place. Might be best to tell HR the basic story and give them info to keep this girl out of the workplace. You don't need her showing up and causing a bigger mess.

It'll be fine, sooner rather than later. I'm sure this isn't her first rodeo, and she's betting on you getting shaken up. Be calm, don't engage with her, and remember she has no real power here.

hawkesnest··on I'm a security engineer and I still almost got scammed
This is the primary reason why I stopped using my bank card for anything but the ATM at said bank. A scammer wiping out my checking account is more than an inconvenience, even if the bank only needed a day or so to replenish the account.

Now I use a "proper" credit card for anything. If a crook manages to run up a tab on that thing I still have all my cash for whatever scrapes may come along.

hawkesnest··on My boundaries as an open source developer
If you could even get it! Think about all the millions of dollars dealing with the Log4J issues last December. How much has that prompted sponsorship of any logging libraries by the affected companies? Not much, from what I've seen.
hawkesnest··on What Is Paramotoring?
You’re far more gracious than I. If someone were to call something I’m clearly passionate about “silly” I don’t think I’d respond genially.
hawkesnest··on Spotify sides with Joe Rogan, removes Neil Young’s music
Is this at all surprising? Spotify paid a lot of money to have Rogan on their platform because he (supposedly) makes them more money. Young gave a request of the "choose-him-or-me" variety, and Spotify honored that request. I doubt Young's body of work really amounts to much money for Spotify.

Did Young really think that Spotify would drop Rogan over him? Would he have preferred to keep the status quo? I believe Young got what he asked for and/or wanted. He's no longer on the same platform as Rogan. That's a win, right?

hawkesnest··on Ask HN: How do you stick to projects?
Strumming my pain with his fingers Singing my life with his words...
hawkesnest··on Defrag Like It's 1993
The version of Defrag from DOS 6.22 I remember differentiated between unused, partially used, and used (full) blocks. When you'd see a lot of partially used blocks get condensed into a few full blocks, it felt like your disk was getting SO tidy!
hawkesnest··on Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss a Payment
It seems as though missing a payment and losing one's life would make them unable to make any future payments as well. Not great.

If the vest did save one's life, they'd probably be eager to catch up on payments as a symbolic gesture.

Short-sighted business thinking AND completely unsympathetic.

hawkesnest··on Show HN: Coding Font – A game to find your favorite coding font
> jiI1l0O test. I like to see those characters that can often be too similar in shape shown together.

This is a big one for me. None of the sample text had a capital O to compare to 0.

hawkesnest··on Full-time open source with Andrew Kelley
I've been listening through the podcast's episodes and find it very interesting! It hits all the right marks for me. It's well structured, the audio quality is good (better in more recent episodes), length is appropriate, solid pacing.

In fact, I just became a "Junior Engineer" supporter on Patreon. Keep up the great work. Hopefully one day I'll have done something worth talking about on your show.

hawkesnest··on Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swap appears to fix glitch
The part that caught my eye was redundancy on memory.

>> Hubble’s operators initially thought a memory module was at fault but switching to one of three backup modules produced the same error.

Apparently Hubble has 4 memory modules which are switchable! I'd love to see how that works. Actually, I'd be fascinated to get a walkthrough of the overall architecture. It might give insights for how we keep business continuity by first accepting that hardware and software will fail.

hawkesnest··on The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
I heard/read a similar mental "hack" about folks who fear leaving things "on" when travelling. Take pictures with your phone of all the things just before you leave. They'd be easily available, verifiable evidence that the stove is off, all the doors are closed/locked, furnace set, water shut off, and so on.
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