Hacker News: EleanorKonik

New comment by EleanorKonik in "AI is becoming a second brain at the expense of your first one"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:00:04 +0000

I have learned so much about SQL databases and playwright tests and python and all sorts of things that were completely opaque to me (but are quite useful for my day job) before I started using AI tools.

And a lot of these skills I've picked up would be usable even if I didn't have AI for handholding anymore. It definitely feels like I have the dedicated attention of a junior developer helping me learn moreso than someone taking over my work and leaving me out in the metaphorical cold in terms of intellectual growth.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Atomic Gardening"

EleanorKonik — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 23:30:10 +0000

Yeah, I read it all the way through and enjoyed most of it. The rice part got a little preachy and the speculation about dog domestication was kind of annoying, but I learned a ton. It was originally recommended by a friend.

At risk of being accused of self promotion, if you're curious for my in-depth take, I reviewed back in 2021 on my newsletter: https://eleanorkonik.com/book-review-tamed

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Atomic Gardening"

EleanorKonik — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 14:40:37 +0000

Back when I was reading Tamed by Alice Roberts, about the history of domestication, I remember being startled that modern ground nuts and rice were the product of irradiation.

Another defense of reading whole books

EleanorKonik — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 22:59:36 +0000

Article URL: https://papyrusrampant.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-reading-whole-books

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971257

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Takeaways on efficiency, passive learning, & optimization

EleanorKonik — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 15:15:40 +0000

Article URL: https://eleanorkonik.substack.com/p/takeaways-on-efficiency-passive-learning

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37967495

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Japan’s government will not enforce copyrights on data used in AI training"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:16:02 +0000

I've sent faxes in America within the last 2 years; they're still a thing here too.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 11 May 2023 17:10:51 +0000

Unironically one of my favorite uses of chatgpt is to tell it to rewrite things as a Homeric epic in the style of Tennyson so it's more pleasant to read aloud and I have a better chance of remembering it

New comment by EleanorKonik in "If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 17:47:14 +0000

Honestly, in these days of the google play store taking its cut from Amazon, using Libby is actually easier than using the kindle app to buy books. Every time I hit that "you can't buy books from inapp" button I remember that I can use Libby instead and go there instead of the browser to buy my book, tbh.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships"

EleanorKonik — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 15:27:13 +0000

I went to a public honors college / small state school, and arranged my schedule such that I only had 3 days of classes, so I could go home and take care of my sick mom and work a part time weekend job. Even then the schedule was not what I would consider punishing; significantly LESS academic work than I'd needed to do in high school taking APs, even with the reading load.

That school definitely is not in danger of losing its accreditation any time soon. It also didn't have any frats/sororities, and there weren't any bars within a 15 minute drive.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend"

EleanorKonik — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 13:00:32 +0000

No; I've been to places that just outright refuse to accept physical cash at all, and I live in America.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "I lost $209k of my own money trying to start a business"

EleanorKonik — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 03:05:17 +0000

I'm still immensely grateful to all the HN folks who helped me recover from my hug of death a year or so ago by teaching me the Cloudflare tricks. I'm with Ghost Pro now instead of Wordpress, but man, IDK what I would have done without the Cloudflare advice in the meantime!

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Show HN: Readwise Reader, an all-in-one reading app"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 23:42:56 +0000

We definitely need to make this more obvious, but you can import an OPML. I usually just drag it from my downloads folder into the app, but it also works if you use the 'upload file' command.

The language is a little different than folders/tags (and believe me, I stan folders the one and only time I ever hit the front page of HN it was for an article written in defense of using folders for notetaking) but you can get basically the same effect with filtered views. Here's a deep dive our community manager Erin made if you're interested: readwise.io/reader202

I hope that helps!

PS: Dan said more export features are coming.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Eierlegende Wollmilchsau (2011)"

EleanorKonik — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 19:13:07 +0000

Sounds a bit like the Shmoo, of Shmoocon fame.

> Are you familiar with The Shmoo, Mr. Fisher? Comic strip I liked as a boy. The Shmoo was a loveable creature, really. Laid eggs, gave milk... ...and died of sheer ecstasy when looked at with hunger. The Shmoo loved to be eaten. It could taste like any food you desire. Shmoo hide cut thin made fine leather. Even Shmoo whiskers made excellent toothpicks.

> In essence, The Shmoo supplied all of the world's wants. I only bring up the case of The Shmoo because of its relevance to you and the reason you were brought here.

(via Lucky Number Slevin, which is a vastly underrated movie IMO)

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Guessing C for Every Answer Is Now Enough to Pass the NY State Algebra Exam"

EleanorKonik — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:52:55 +0000

Is this still common? I think AP recently moved away from subtracting points for incorrect answers.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "After Obsidian and Logseq, I give Dendron a try"

EleanorKonik — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 12:12:56 +0000

To save other Windows users a click, it's mac-only right now.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "On the security of plugins"

EleanorKonik — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 15:31:42 +0000

> When it comes to privacy and security, it’s deathly important to be as unambiguous as possible.

Did ... did they miss the giant, in-your-face warning that happens when you intentionally deactivate safe mode in order to be able to install plugins?

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Obsidian Dataview: Turn Obsidian Vault into a database you can query from"

EleanorKonik — Tue, 17 May 2022 13:43:52 +0000

This one is still in the manual-install phase, but you might like this plugin: https://github.com/tomaszkiewicz/obsidian-database-plugin

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Obsidian Dataview: Turn Obsidian Vault into a database you can query from"

EleanorKonik — Tue, 17 May 2022 10:43:54 +0000

Honestly this is one of the handful of plugins I hate trying to live without.

Tag wrangler is the other.

New comment by EleanorKonik in "Programmable Notes"

EleanorKonik — Sun, 27 Mar 2022 12:48:31 +0000

I can speak for Maggie, but the relevant Obsidian plugins are probably Dataview, Templater, and the Spaced Repetition plugin(s).

You might find this community resource for navigating plugins by category helpful: https://publish.obsidian.md/hub/02+-+Community+Expansions/02...

New comment by EleanorKonik in "The time has come to replace file systems"

EleanorKonik — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 15:25:57 +0000

This is the piece I've been struggling to get at. I understand why filesystems exist and how they help with interacting with the physical structures that underlie computers, but I don't understand what benefit a database alternative to directories can offer (and if you tell me a directory is just a specialized database please be prepared to explain using very clear language).

Maybe there is one, but even when I talk to experienced devs with engineering (not just software) backgrounds, I haven't gotten a good explanation. Perhaps because there isn't one?

But I've been curious about this for weeks.