Hacker News: KarlKode

New comment by KarlKode in "The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)"

KarlKode — Sat, 16 May 2026 02:31:58 +0000

I think a astronomically better example would be programs in the Netherlands, Denmark or Switzerland, where people heavily addicted to heroine can get into programs that will provide them with pharmaceutical heroine. Still prescribed by doctors (although specialized ones), but not just for pulling a wisdom tooth with huge margins for the Sacklers...

New comment by KarlKode in "The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)"

KarlKode — Sat, 16 May 2026 02:25:19 +0000

I believe OP wanted to make the point that one of the most important things for people profiting from the illegal sale of drugs (meth or heroin/opiates) is to minimize the amount that has to be trafficked (1kg of 10% meth vs 100g of pure meth or 1kg of heroin vs 10g of fentanyl).

I believe this explanation is too simplistic...

New comment by KarlKode in "Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer"

KarlKode — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 20:11:04 +0000

Normally the risk of airborne spores taking over your growing material is much more likely than your (most of the time very selected and in no way adapted to the "normal" surroundings you try to grow them in) taking over your home. Keep in mind that almost all fungi like similar conditions and there are already loads of spores of fungi that are more adapted to your living conditions in the air.

New comment by KarlKode in "LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs"

KarlKode — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:25:43 +0000

Reminds me of the story where two guys went for a joyride in a Tram in Braunschweig (DE). They boarded a tram during the night, drove for a few stops (including letting passengers board & leave) and left the tram there.

The funniest part of the story is that they didn't commit any crime and were let go.

Story here (in German): https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/braunschweig-junge-ma...

New comment by KarlKode in "We got hit by an alarmingly well-prepared phish spammer"

KarlKode — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:09:26 +0000

Yup. Got my own domain(s) and use a different address for all my services (like with Gmail where you could append +service to your email but with a completely distinct email per service like paypal@mydomain.com). Helped my several times to identify spam & phishing without even having to check the E-Mail itself.

New comment by KarlKode in "How we centralized and structured error handling in Golang"

KarlKode — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 17:58:34 +0000

That's kind of how you do it in go. Either:

1. Bubble up error (as is/wrapped/different error. 2. Handle error & have a (possibly complex) new code path.

There's also the panic/recover that sometimes is misused to emulate exceptions.

New comment by KarlKode in "'Visual clutter' alters information flow in the brain"

KarlKode — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:48:16 +0000

My girlfriend (who has quite severe ADHD) is exactly like you. Before she can get any work done in our office everything needs to be put away/organized/in it's place or she'll get detracted all the time.

New comment by KarlKode in "What If Data Is a Bad Idea?"

KarlKode — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 13:23:47 +0000

Didn't you encounter the problems because you tried to simplify reality by using an abstraction?

New comment by KarlKode in "The secret lives of snowblowers"

KarlKode — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 15:28:29 +0000

Same for leaf blowers. I worked on a farm in the Swiss mountains where we used large Stihl leaf blowers to get the hay down the mountain [1] so we could pick it up by machine and electric leaf blowers were only used for cleanup jobs in the barn. Nowadays I live in the city but I still get sweaty flashbacks whenever I hear a gas leaf blower during the summer months.

[1]: Similar to https://youtu.be/Rni8F0GFjW4?t=145 but just imagine the mountains/rolls of hay to be 2m high and the slope be >45°s

New comment by KarlKode in "Transferability of Microbiome on Clothes as a Tool for Forensic Investigations"

KarlKode — Tue, 28 May 2024 19:01:43 +0000

Or just going to a concert hall and having your coat hung right next to the bank robber or somebody who visited the bank-robber etc.

New comment by KarlKode in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

KarlKode — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:02:34 +0000

Hasn’t the percentage an average person spends on housing significantly increased in the past 50 (or 20) years?

Additionally I can’t follow your second thought: are you saying that the inflation rate is directly correlated with the rate of the value of innovation dispersement? E.g. a high inflation should eventually lead to a high dispersion of innovations/a more innovative culture?

New comment by KarlKode in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

KarlKode — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 20:54:33 +0000

Not arguing for the OPs argument but observing a pattern over a longer timespan doesn’t mean that the pattern can be observed during the whole timespan.

At the same time IMHO you’re right in pointing out that gold is a poor measurement of the true cost of a house.

New comment by KarlKode in "Array Languages: R vs. APL (2023)"

KarlKode — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 00:22:07 +0000

I think you mistyped J code. I don't know any J but what I understood from your comment that it should be something like

  / *.

New comment by KarlKode in "Starlink terminal revision 4: overview and tests"

KarlKode — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 21:44:06 +0000

Doesn't the device need satellite connectivity?

New comment by KarlKode in "Europe's CSAM-scanning plan is tipping point for democratic rights, experts warn"

KarlKode — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 20:52:24 +0000

At the same time our government wants to increase the cost of public transportation [1] with the age old argument that it is too expensive compared to the cost of individual transportation.

While I don't have the numbers to analyze the costs it just doesn't make sense to me that a car with a single driver can be more cost effective than a bus, tram or train I guess the automobile lobby has convinced loads of my colleagues that individual transportation is price-comparable to public transport, even in Switzerland...

[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/hoehere-billettpreise-bund-s... (german)

New comment by KarlKode in "Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses"

KarlKode — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 22:42:26 +0000

In my local sunglass store iI can buy genuine Wayfarers for a bit more than 100$ so I guess Luxotica’s margin is even higher than expected…

New comment by KarlKode in "Bacteria generate electricity from wastewater"

KarlKode — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 20:48:52 +0000

I was skeptical about your claim but I turns out that you are right! I knew about agricultural biogas production but never though about the potential of methane production from waste water treatment.

Even more surprising is that the generated biogas is used in the municipital gas supply in my town[1]. So I literally cook with fecal products.

[1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/energie/de/index/heizen-kuehlen...

New comment by KarlKode in "Bacteria generate electricity from wastewater"

KarlKode — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 20:34:25 +0000

We actually do this as the basins populated with bacteria that process our waste are heated to improve their metabolic activity and speed up the process.

edit: in regular waste processing plants

New comment by KarlKode in "Good code is like a love letter to the next developer who will maintain it"

KarlKode — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:44:14 +0000

Problems arise as soon as you (ab)use a metaphor (used to explain a higher level/adjacent problem) to explain concepts it was never meant to model.

Example: Array of items as a shopping cart: how do you efficiently remove an item from the array (as you can from a shopping cart)?

New comment by KarlKode in "Automatic1111's GitHub account suspended for "ToS violations" [restored]"

KarlKode — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:24:38 +0000

Did you miss that the child stuff is explicitly mentioned as negative prompt (which I assume is used to let the network know that you don't want those traits in the output image)?