Hacker News: I_dream_of_Geni

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "History of the original Compaq Portable, the 1982 suitcase-sized IBM PC clone"

I_dream_of_Geni — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 19:49:36 +0000

I still have one. Anybody interested?

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Show HN: LLMs Play Chicken in Realtime"

I_dream_of_Geni — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:41:07 +0000

Billion dollar video game engines... lol

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "EVs being trialled as giant batteries to power homes for less in Auckland"

I_dream_of_Geni — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:38:38 +0000

Wait wait wait a minute... Maybe I'm completely missing the gist here: You take an EV, charge it somewhere (at some cost), and bring it home to run your home?!? The losses would be HUGE.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Promising discoveries about the potential for life on one of Saturn’s icy moons"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 01:00:10 +0000

Maybe only possibly unimportant based upon the staggering costs involved. Is it really really worth that?? Is finding life worth $10 Trillion dollars?

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Promising discoveries about the potential for life on one of Saturn’s icy moons"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:41:11 +0000

OK... Serious question here: we find "life" (algae?) on one of Saturn's moons or one of Jupiter's moons. So, we spend ~$50 Billion (arguably much more) and find "life". So? Why is this important to people? There isn't one chance in (place your own word here) that we can do anything about it or even send humans there. Seriously want to know what people really think...

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Plunging test scores are a slow-moving catastrophe"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 17:15:12 +0000

Here, let me revise that expression: "computers are ELECTRIC bicycles of the mind". You know this feeling, and we know it's how humans operate: when given a choice, we will ALL take the easy path. School is hard, learning is hard, and it all takes years and years of effort. Give a child a computer, or a smartphone, or AI, and all of a sudden, we don't have to expend any effort, like that electric bike. I shut my brain off and trust the ride, because it is effortless. Forget the part about having UNDERSTANDING of why things are true or false, why things work, how they work, how physics and mechanics and chemistry ALL are needed to create things. As an engineer (retired), I see youth having great KNOWLEDGE at their disposal, but feeble to no UNDERSTANDING of how things work, why they work, underlying mechanics, underlying theories, etc.

Ask any youth today about the smartphone in their pocket. Do they have any inkling of the decades of research and development for that device and it's capabilities to coalesce into what it is today? I mused once on some public forum about the inverse square law and how it applied to the fantastical ability of a smartphone to connect with a cell tower 5 miles away. The power received by the tower is approximately 3 times 10^-13 Watts or -95.15 dBm. This, to me is almost magical. Yet the forum members did not even know what the inverse square law was. They just ridiculed my comments and literally downvoted my musings to zero. I can't comprehend the ignorance of today's society.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Your intellectual fly is open (2025)"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:52:35 +0000

Yes, yes, all is true here. But you forget: Half of America is illiterate. "According to data analyzed via the National Literacy Institute, roughly 54% of American adults read below a sixth-grade reading level."

So, those folks aren't checking anything, and certainly wouldn't know the difference, or care.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "The car industry A/B tested selling a car with and without CarPlay"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:39:05 +0000

I hate to say this, but (for every person I've asked) this was a simple "no-brainer". There must have been internal 'political' reasons to avoid Apple. Maybe the managemant hated Tim Cook?? I dunno.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "There Gonna Be a Shortage of Everything"

I_dream_of_Geni — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:29:05 +0000

"mass-production of humanoid robots is now inevitable in the next five years" My take? Probably not. It takes immense capital (which i guess, arguably, there is), and immense time and manpower to set up factories, research materials, Research and Development, manufacturing new machines to build the "new machines", and on and on. As Elon Musk found, "Making cars is hard". And my take is that high precision "humanoid robots" are decades away. Yes, yes, I hear the arguments flowing in: "But China!!" yeah, China is making humanoid robots that are "skilled" in running and jumping and dancing. In limited numbers, and certainly not useful in high precision manufacturing areas. Plus, they aren't washing machines. There has to be a market worldwide for these to be made "by the billions". Unless China gives them away, the 'average person' won't be able to afford them, and even then, I doubt they'll be capable of tending your garden and doing dishes. The amount of power they will consume is currently WAY PAST the usefulness criteria. They will have to be charged every few hours or sooner, depending upon the tasks. When battery technology comes around, then you'll see an uptick in practical uses. Until then? Billions of robots?, nope.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Peppermint oil reduces blood pressure by 8.48 mmHg in small study"

I_dream_of_Geni — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:11:34 +0000

I'm guessing that this number is the result of the average of "x" people in the study, and not an individual measurement. But, yeah, I see what that looks like.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:58:46 +0000

Oh grand! And I bet that these rehires are going to be FULLY emotionally invested and fully loyal for the future. just stupid all the way around...

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Boeing 787 Dreamliner Loses Door at Remote Pacific Airport, Puzzling Engineers"

I_dream_of_Geni — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 23:07:10 +0000

"The recent incident of this nature occurred on May 29, 2026, when a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-8 (registration CC-BBD) had its L2 passenger door torn off by an air-stairs vehicle on Easter Island "

There. Fixed it for you.

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

I_dream_of_Geni — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:47:08 +0000

Yikes! I know that this is "normal" here in the U.S., but the guy paid over $26K just to sell his home. We sold our home with a "quit-claim deed" and only paid a lawyer $600 to write it up and make it kosher. Buyer was THRILLED not to have to pay all the ridiculous fees a normal sale entails... (and yes, I know that a bank might have a hard time creating a loan for that type of sale, but it worked for us)

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

I_dream_of_Geni — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:38:42 +0000

Sounds exactly like car insurance. If you don't "move around", they keep pricing it higher every year until you wake up...

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

I_dream_of_Geni — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:35:27 +0000

To be fair, there's piles of sh*tty renters too, who abuse the system and ruin the experience for everyone. If you have ever been a landlord, especially in certain market areas, it pays to be that "lazy asshole", otherwise you'll lose your shirt (and more). Ask me how I know....

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:16:30 +0000

...except that "snarky, rude, and tone-deaf" generally gets the downvoting (flagging?) mob to come in and "phoosh".

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:11:40 +0000

Yes, these are MY questions and feelings too. In the past, if I just HINTED at asking these kinds of questions, I was downvoted into oblivion (in other accounts. I have to say THAT specifically because some people here dive in to my account and get super anal about my age, my previous comments, my moniker, ad nauseum)

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Guinea worm on track to be 2nd eradicated human disease; only 10 cases in 2025"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:05:12 +0000

And (weirdly, I think) a few years back they called alcoholism and smoking diseases, which, well, really??

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Guinea worm on track to be 2nd eradicated human disease; only 10 cases in 2025"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:40:29 +0000

Honest question here: how is a worm (parasite) considered a "disease"? I Googled this question two different ways and got two different responses.

New comment by I_dream_of_Geni in "Guinea worm on track to be 2nd eradicated human disease; only 10 cases in 2025"

I_dream_of_Geni — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:36:29 +0000

This cracked me up...