Hacker News: BurningFrog

New comment by BurningFrog in "Nurses Sound Alarm as 'Uber for Nursing' Apps Push to Deregulate Healthcare"

BurningFrog — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 20:04:54 +0000

We just need to educate a lot more doctors and nurses. That would lower salaries and provide a lot more care.

Last I heard the AMA controls how many doctors can be educated.

New comment by BurningFrog in "Nurses Sound Alarm as 'Uber for Nursing' Apps Push to Deregulate Healthcare"

BurningFrog — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 20:02:01 +0000

It's REALLY important to understand that non profits have just as much incentive to maximize their income as for profits.

They have no stock holders to pay, but the people running them will pay themselves multi million dollar wages if they can!

New comment by BurningFrog in "First response from the Project Suncatcher prototype satellite"

BurningFrog — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 05:27:30 +0000

You don't have to build your own rocket anymore. SpaceX and others sell launches at fixed prices.

New comment by BurningFrog in "First response from the Project Suncatcher prototype satellite"

BurningFrog — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:02:15 +0000

The standard motivation is 24/7 unfiltered sunlight to power the AI with, where you're not in anyone's backyard and don't need to convince a planning commission.

New comment by BurningFrog in "New iMac with M6"

BurningFrog — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 17:28:46 +0000

This has been confusing us computer nerds since the first iMac in 1998.

Regular people want their homes to look nice. It's really important to them. We may think it's weird and stupid, but that's who they are, and it decides what computers they buy.

New comment by BurningFrog in "No more icons in every menu by default"

BurningFrog — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:18:35 +0000

When the Mac UI took over (some of) the world, many thought it was because of the icons, so they put icons all over their UIs.

That was of course not at all what made the MacOS so usable. The real principles were explained in detail in Apples UI guidelines. But hardly anyone read those, so the icons have been with us for 30 years.

New comment by BurningFrog in "The compiler was supposed to end programming too"

BurningFrog — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:48:04 +0000

When I went into software engineering in the early 1980s, several people told me that had no future, since programmers would soon be automated away.

I ignored that, in part because I had no other skill I wanted to do 5 days a week, and it's of course been incredibly rewarding.

This time it definitely is different, and maybe the profession moves into a new and very different era. If SWEs will hit harder times and job losses, I don't think we have much standing to complain, given how many professions we have automated away during the last 50 years...

New comment by BurningFrog in "Alternatives to animal testing are finally taking off"

BurningFrog — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:54:12 +0000

You seem to suggest we should ban the best system we know in order to force the development of other systems?

New comment by BurningFrog in "Show HN: Qwen3-4B with the AI writing tics trained out"

BurningFrog — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:17:53 +0000

I know what food I like, but that doesn't at all mean I know how to cook it.

Writing is similar. I enjoy well written texts, but that doesn't mean I can write them myself, or can tell an AI how to write in that way.

New comment by BurningFrog in "Alternatives to animal testing are finally taking off"

BurningFrog — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:52:07 +0000

If the alternatives are as fast and cheap as lab rat testing, sure.

If not, the alternatives will cost human lives and suffering.

New comment by BurningFrog in ""I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math"

BurningFrog — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:13:17 +0000

The "Autopilot" argument is ~5 years old. Teslas no longer have that feature.

The current FSD system has no relation to the old Autopilot, is enormously better, and very pleasant to use. A year ago FSD was nice, but I had to take over occasionally. This year it's much better, and I've yet to see a weakness, aside from some parking issues.

It's definitely a better driver than me!

New comment by BurningFrog in ""I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math"

BurningFrog — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:49:52 +0000

By that standard we don't have human drivers either.

New comment by BurningFrog in ""I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math"

BurningFrog — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:47:18 +0000

Yeah, I'm supervising, and I don't think I've had to take over any time this year.

In 2025 it was occasionally driving weird. Today it's a much better driver than me.

New comment by BurningFrog in ""I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis in math"

BurningFrog — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:40:02 +0000

I have a self driving Tesla, as do many others.

New comment by BurningFrog in "Tesla Roadster"

BurningFrog — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 14:12:54 +0000

As a driver, that would be very hard, but the car could figure it out in a millisecond.

The "air rockets" could probably also be used as hard emergency brakes.

New comment by BurningFrog in "Tesla Roadster"

BurningFrog — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 22:07:49 +0000

The obvious use case is to avoid a collision!

Single use is perfectly fine for that purpose. No one complains that airbags are single use.

New comment by BurningFrog in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

BurningFrog — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:45:11 +0000

I think you could "split the profession" into diagnostic dentists that recommends what needs to be done, and another set that implements the recommended procedures.

Don't know how much effect it would have, but it should cut down the suspicion.

I don't think anything stops dentists from working like this today?

New comment by BurningFrog in "Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery"

BurningFrog — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 20:09:31 +0000

This is my most failed conversation in a while...

New comment by BurningFrog in "Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery"

BurningFrog — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 22:55:10 +0000

So how do you interpret the accusation of American jew David Ellison to be a "pre-dictator" working for Likud?

New comment by BurningFrog in "Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery"

BurningFrog — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 22:03:30 +0000

He's donated to and voted for candidates of both parties, and claims to be a centrist.