Hacker News: Glyptodon

New comment by Glyptodon in "Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM"

Glyptodon — Fri, 29 May 2026 23:16:40 +0000

So just to be clear, I guess the issue isn't so much SAT or placement tests as it is that there's no functional baseline level of knowledge without some kind of entry exam, and without that there's no functional boundary on the starting place or length of time it will take to get a degree. So some level of entry exam is needed to avoid rebuilding a new remedial version of K12 education inside of every four year college?

I think the focus on the SAT as a mechanism for this detracts from this as the SAT isn't really an designed to sus out topical placement, right?

New comment by Glyptodon in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

Glyptodon — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:11:04 +0000

Putting the financing debt on the books of the thing that's bought instead of the purchaser's shouldn't be legal IMO. Imagine if you could buy houses and leave the mortgage on the house's book instead of your own. It's a total farce.

New comment by Glyptodon in "The real cost of owning a home"

Glyptodon — Tue, 26 May 2026 16:55:27 +0000

While this is true, I think the bar should be lower - the real question should be "and how does it compare to renting" - there is very possibly a universe where owning is cheaper than renting even if your home depreciates. Because paying some amount for years to be left with a fraction of what you put in is better than getting none of what you put in.

However many of us knowingly exceed that point. For example we pay ~$500/mo over that point. Though there is no really comparable rental, we definitely could have chosen a more cookie cutter rental to be about +$6000 / year.

New comment by Glyptodon in "The political polarization of health outcomes in the USA"

Glyptodon — Tue, 26 May 2026 00:47:39 +0000

In all fairness they also have very little in the way of very low population density areas compared to the US. For example, Montana is bigger than Germany and has like 7 people per square mile overall.

New comment by Glyptodon in "The political polarization of health outcomes in the USA"

Glyptodon — Sun, 24 May 2026 20:41:26 +0000

I suspect this is probably more complicated. My family members who live in small towns and rural areas have been having larger health issues and more trouble getting care even if they want to for years if not decades compared to my relatives who live in major urban areas, and particularly those who live in more affluent areas. Like I'd go so far as to estimate that affluent areas metro adjacent are +7 years vs. non-affluent metro areas, which are also like +7 years vs. rural/small town areas or slum/poor metro areas. But I also think the kind of care and non-care my relatives in smaller/rural areas leads to exhaustion, loss of faith in the system, and interest in alternative options.

But I also don't doubt that adding the modern conservative delusions and paranoia on top of it all only worsens everything.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 23:33:31 +0000

There are probably good argument for it being lower (maybe circa $10 or $12 million. But I have a feeling they do want to try and not hit land-rich-but-otherwise-maybe-not "family farms" that have hundreds or thousands of acres.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:01:27 +0000

You obviously didn't read the thing. 20% is not on wealth. The argument in the piece is that 1% on wealth is the same as 20% on income, and therefore 1% on wealth is obscene.

Please read before making replies that don't make sense in context. When I refer to 20% I'm referring the PG's characterization of a 1% wealth tax as an effective 20% income tax, not a 20% wealth tax.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:55:06 +0000

Most FIRE people aren't going to have $50 million plus and be hit by this.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:54:27 +0000

With different issues than the ones caused by deferring gains forever through shenanigans.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:53:11 +0000

Lol, that's still totally feasible for normal FIRE/retirement situations, my understanding is that most proposals only start at $50 million or more. You can still have a super cushy retirement with $3mil+ and 3% withdrawal forever.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:50:48 +0000

On top of that it seems to imply that a 20% effective tax rate is outrageous even though that's totally normal for most. Maybe it's not what you're used to as really wealthy person who avoids realized income and has a 0 or 5 or 10 percent effective rate. But it's totally normal for most middle and median income folks who actually pay income taxes.

New comment by Glyptodon in "How to convert between wealth and income tax"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:48:07 +0000

The argument is plausible - that you can treat wealth taxes as equivalent to income taxes if you treat wealth taxes as a tax on the ostensible income generation of the wealth.

Of course there's more complexity than this, but that aspect is a plausible reductive lens.

But the conclusion is silly. We all know the extremely wealthy who'd be subject to a wealth tax basically don't pay taxes and that a 20% tax is totally right around what the typical overall tax burden is for the middle class or median households. The 1% example equating to 20% is basically saying the wealth tax would be in line with a flat tax, not even with a progressive rate tax. The wealthy have turned the tax system into one that's functionally regressive for the most wealthy and then PG complains that a proposal that makes it more like a flat tax is "not understood" by lawmakers?

It sounds ridiculous to me.

Or maybe I'm missing something.

New comment by Glyptodon in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

Glyptodon — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:23:15 +0000

I think I've seen the odd HN post about Mondragon that does portray it positively. Though I'm not sure I've seen one in at least several years.

New comment by Glyptodon in "I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis"

Glyptodon — Fri, 15 May 2026 23:47:24 +0000

That people don't realize full test coverage just means every line is hit, not that everything is correct is always funny to me. (I don't view as an argument against tests, but with AI it's especially important as if you're aren't careful it'll be very happy to make coverage that is not quite right.)

New comment by Glyptodon in "Softmax, can you derive the Jacobian? And should you care?"

Glyptodon — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:01:30 +0000

What happens if you use an integer like 2 or 3 instead of e in the softmax equation? Is e what makes it so they end up summing to 1? (I have not done real math in yearssss.)

New comment by Glyptodon in "Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results"

Glyptodon — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:08:50 +0000

I guess making like 75% of their search results ads that look like results works.

New comment by Glyptodon in "AI's economics don't make sense"

Glyptodon — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 06:08:01 +0000

That might just mean even more savings as you'd only need need a size n cluster for m engineers where n is probably < m.

New comment by Glyptodon in "AI's economics don't make sense"

Glyptodon — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:57:23 +0000

I think there's another route this goes. At $7k a year or more per eng in token use, I think it's very reasonable to buy engineers machines with obscene GPUs and RAM and run models locally. And if it doesn't make sense now, someone will figure it out and save companies $10k+/eng over 3 years.

New comment by Glyptodon in "Is my blue your blue?"

Glyptodon — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 22:52:52 +0000

I don't like this because many of these transition colors I don't really consider blue or green but some sort of blue-green or green-blue.

I would also trust the results more if it bounced you around a bit randomly rather than tried to center you in. It gets to a point where I don't really have confidence and I suspect the environment around me contributed a fair amount at that point.

Seem to get ~172.

New comment by Glyptodon in "If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?"

Glyptodon — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:13:33 +0000

I do not buy that income / housing / cost of living related issues are not part of the story so much as I buy that they're very intertwined with inflation and labor costs. The other thing that this waves over that I think is very real is how the nature of employment has changed. Most people who have a job, and especially after things like Doge and endless layoff cycles, where everything is about psycho dark patterns, surveillance, and penny pinching, do not feel like their job assures anything. And this is on top of people who have complicated situations to begin with and often work multiple part time jobs or gig work.

Literally most everyone working I know basically thinks everything is always getting more expensive, that most wage gains were/have been less than how much costs have gone up, that housing is so expensive it might be worth moving to West Virginia, and that all it would take to ruin 20 years of work is an unexpected layoff or major life event like a medical issue, lawsuit, car or home issue. And that's non tech people mostly. Who also have increasing resentment for how scumbags and flim flam dealers seem to always be the ones getting ahead.