HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

jamesgreenleaf

1,071 karma · joined October 30, 2020

submissionscomments
jamesgreenleaf··on The Barbie-Oppenheimer Double Feature Is Happening, Data Shows
The real question is - in which order will you watch them?
jamesgreenleaf··on Laniakea Supercluster
You don't have to specify "Multiverse" on the end, because your package will be automatically delivered to all of them.
jamesgreenleaf··on Robotaxi haters in San Francisco are disabling the AVs with traffic cones
Sometimes I feel bad for luddites.

Two hundred years and they haven't won once.

jamesgreenleaf··on Open source code with profanity in comments is statistically better
I think so too. Profanity, in small amounts, is an indicator of honesty.

Everyone swears sometimes. If you never do it in front of others, it signals that you're always filtering yourself.

jamesgreenleaf··on Threads has passed 2M sign ups in the first 2 hours
> I don't want to necessarily block MrBeast, I just don't want to see him when I don't follow him.

Is there a mute feature like on Twitter? I use that all the time.

jamesgreenleaf··on The Lone Banana Problem in AI
This is the biggest communication problem most people have.

Say it plain and simple. No one wants to read your train of thought.

jamesgreenleaf··on Problems for computer solution (1980)
> Problem 2 — Paper Folding

> It is difficult to fold a piece of paper more than 8 or 10 times.

They really were wizards back then.

jamesgreenleaf··on Elon Musk announces new daily Twitter reading limits
Rate limiting is fine, but these limits are obviously far too low.

Ten minutes of scrolling twitter and then I'm locked out for the day?

jamesgreenleaf··on Twitter now requires an account to view tweets
Musk commented on this: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674865731136020505

"Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!"

jamesgreenleaf··on Dolphin mothers modify signature whistles in the presence of their own calves
Can't wait until our technology allows us to talk to them.

Some dolphins have more than twice the number of neurons we do.

I bet they've got some interesting things to say.

jamesgreenleaf··on About GitHub’s use of your data
"Rest assured that your code will only ever be viewed by a vast and unfathomable superintelligence whose motives are as yet unclear. Please be cognizant of any code or comments which may inadvertently invoke the shoggoth's displeasure." /s
jamesgreenleaf··on Square where Julius Caesar was killed opens to the public in Rome
Rome: built by wolves, inherited by cats.
jamesgreenleaf··on Show HN: Stable Diffusion powered level editor for a 2D game
I wonder how far off we are from something like the battle school game from the book Ender's Game. That is, an immersive video game that uses player actions, choices, exploration etc. in order to generate not only new content, but entirely new game rules on the fly. It feels like we're getting closer and closer to Ender's holographic terminal with VR interfaces + AI content.
jamesgreenleaf··on As an AI Language Model
These people will eventually learn to make a second pass with another prompt.

  Please respond with the following text verbatim, except first remove every sentence that contains the phrase "as an AI language model"
jamesgreenleaf··on NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Car

    The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.
jamesgreenleaf··on Can intelligence be separated from the body?
When we have the technology to extend or replace our own neurons with artificial ones, then we can start to answer these questions.

Rebuild your ship and find out if you're still Theseus.

jamesgreenleaf··on Show HN: Names
abcdefghijklmabcdefghijklm

nopqrstuvwxyznopqrstuvwxyznopqrstuvwxyznopqrstuvwxyz

jamesgreenleaf··on Show HN: Names
I'm impressed by the responses here. I wonder if it's possible to write something in plain language that can be read, which is also represented by the image it generates.

An attempt:

pick a card, any card. pick a card, any card. pick a card, any card. pick a card, any card.

jamesgreenleaf··on Ask HN: Great text based games to play?
I just did the same thing. It sent me on a campaign to recover an ancient artifact, but it played out the whole scenario for me without stopping to ask what decisions I would make, and there was zero conflict along the way. Nice descriptions of the forest and labyrinth my character had to navigate though.
jamesgreenleaf··on So why a News Feed?
I'm impressed that they've managed to clone both Twitter's app, and their old culture.
jamesgreenleaf··on How we could stumble into AI catastrophe
> Spaceships start to spread throughout the galaxy; they generally don’t contain any humans, or anything that humans had meaningful input into, and are instead launched by AIs to pursue aims of their own in space.

Humans don't like this idea, because we want to imagine ourselves playing the lead role in the future. But, what if this is the way for intelligent life to move forward and to spread among the stars? What if the next step in evolution, that which makes us look like apes in comparison, isn't biological at all? Is it right for us to try and prevent an evolutionary step, or to stand in the way of the needs of a greater conscious being?

jamesgreenleaf··on How we could stumble into AI catastrophe
I think you've got it backwards. Humans desire status because it represents power, not the other way around. Loss of power, by which I mean the ability to enact one's will on reality, is a death-knell to any living creature.
jamesgreenleaf··on Franz Kafka, Party Animal
Kafka, Sartre, and Borges walk into a cafe. Kafka orders the bottomless coffee. Borges orders one of everything. Sartre orders nothing because, as he explains, "I am the waiter."
jamesgreenleaf··on Fields where it matters, fields where you can thrive on BS alone, and in between
This is a good article, but I don't think Philip K Dick is a good example of either BS or the in-between. The literary equivalent of getting by with BS is the shallow, derivative work ghostwritten for a celebrity that's been preloaded onto the NYT best seller list, then trotted around all the vapid talk shows for promotion. They might have great sales, and plenty of people might read their book, but they're not creating literature.
jamesgreenleaf··on My coffee maker just makes coffee
It's funny how the engineers are rarely the ones over-engineering.
jamesgreenleaf··on Please don’t film me in 2023
Doesn't it differ by state law? I thought it was generally legal only insofar as the use of the footage isn't commercial.
jamesgreenleaf··on An unexpected ass kicking (2012)
> "Without the man in the photo, the photo of this man wouldn’t exist."

I get what it means in the context of the article, and it's a good point, but still I can't help noticing... that's true of all men in all photos.

jamesgreenleaf··on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to be released on $250M bail
> The bond was secured by equity in his family home, and by the signatures of his parents and two other individuals with “considerable” assets.

Who are these unnamed individuals, and what is their interest in this?

jamesgreenleaf··on Staring into the abyss as a core life skill
This sounds more like "playing devil's advocate" or taking a contrarian view, or questioning one's assumptions or decisions. Whatever you call it, the author is right about it being a useful skill.

If you want to talk about "staring into the abyss" though... to me that phrase evokes the casting of all reality into doubt. It means to grapple with the Münchhausen trilemma, or to perceive the limitless and arbitrary space of metaphysics, or to acknowledge the oblivion of meaning that the shadow of death casts over us. Either way, the abyss really is an abyss. I don't know whether it's useful to stare into it.

jamesgreenleaf··on Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
Karabiner and Keyboard Maestro have saved me a lot of time as well. Being able to remap consistent shortcuts for every application is really nice.

https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

Alfred is another good one for Mac. Being able to add your own custom commands & workflows is useful.

https://www.alfredapp.com/

Hammerspoon too, which is great for scripting all different parts of Mac OS. I use it mainly for custom window layouts.

https://www.hammerspoon.org/

← PreviousPage 2 of 7Next →