Hacker News: LeapingLennie

New comment by LeapingLennie in "An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail"

LeapingLennie — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 23:21:09 +0000

https://www.coles.com.au/ (the 2nd largest supermarket chain in Australia) and https://makerworld.com/ are two I've come across.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants""

LeapingLennie — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 13:44:22 +0000

Regarding the drugs vs guns comparison, I bet you'd find that every country that has implemented reasonably effective gun control still has thriving illicit drug markets. Australia is just as zealous at persecuting the drug war as the US but continues to fail at that whereas gun crime is very low.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "How Venus ended up with a mini-moon named Zoozve"

LeapingLennie — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 08:58:20 +0000

I lost a bit of respect for them when they did an episode about the placenta and had an apology at the start because the episode contained the word "mother" rather than "pregnant person".

I feel if you want to be a great science communicator you can't also insist on using postmodern language which will either confuse or put-off much of your audience.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Why is Maxwell's theory so hard to understand? (2007) [pdf]"

LeapingLennie — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 06:24:01 +0000

Are there any textbooks you would recommend for learning vector analysis / vector fields before studying EM?

Jack Daniel's and dog toy in Supreme Court showdown

LeapingLennie — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 21:15:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65043219

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35267187

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)"

LeapingLennie — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:24:57 +0000

The Economist recently reported on a study that used the brightness of countries' lights at night as proxy for GDP[1][2]. The study suggests China and other autocracies have significantly exaggerated their GDP growth over the last twenty years.

[1]: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-...

[2]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-tr...

New comment by LeapingLennie in "U.S. interest rates have soared everywhere but savings accounts"

LeapingLennie — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 02:38:47 +0000

Any rational investor isn't going to be aiming to cover inflation, they are going to be trying to maximize their rate of return. It wouldn't matter if the interest rate was above or below the inflation rate, investors will always shop around to find the highest return they can get.

I think "greed" is an unhelpful term as it is too emotionally charged for what is really just rational behaviour given economic incentives. So I would avoid calling banks greedy for trying to maximize profit by offering low interest rates just as I would avoid calling consumers greedy for choosing the bank that gives them the highest interest rate.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Voting in France: Paper ballots, cast in person; no machines"

LeapingLennie — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 14:54:42 +0000

In Australia we don't even need to present ID. Just tell the official your name and address and they cross it off a list. It's hard to believe a system that simple could work but as far as I know there haven't ever been any issues.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end"

LeapingLennie — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 00:19:46 +0000

What would half-photons look like? I guess photons with half the energy expected given their wavelength and the Planck relation E = hc/λ?

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Spotify deletes 70 Joe Rogan episodes"

LeapingLennie — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 13:23:31 +0000

It's also possible to streamline adding the RSS feed by using custom url schemes (at least on iOS). A url like podcast://example.rss will open in Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps offer their own url schemes. This can make it as simple as clicking on a link to subscribe to private feeds.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "A curated list of warez and piracy links"

LeapingLennie — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 10:10:31 +0000

I'm more than happy to pay for movies or shows and currently subscribe to 5 streaming services but often find I need to resort to pirated content for a few reasons:

1. Frequently movies I want to watch are simply unavailable to stream or purchase in my country (Australia). Often they are available on the streaming services I subscribe to but only for users in other countries.

2. Being hearing impaired, I need subtitles but these are often unavailable on the streaming services. I can almost always get them for pirated content. So often I will pirate a movie that I could watch through a streaming service just so I can get the subtitles.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Ontario bans non-competes and creates right to disconnect from work"

LeapingLennie — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 04:39:59 +0000

Yes, I've also had managers that start their day at some ungodly hour in the morning and so it wouldn't be unusual to receive emails from them at 5am. There was never any expectation to respond to emails straight away and the same should apply to emails sent in the evening.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources"

LeapingLennie — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 14:44:19 +0000

Not everyone in the world is protected by the US Constitution and although Apple is initially only rolling this out in the US there is no doubt it will be rolled out in other countries sooner or later.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "A minimalist guide to tmux"

LeapingLennie — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 23:51:00 +0000

I use C-Space. Easy to type and doesn’t interfere with any readline or vim keybindings.

New comment by LeapingLennie in "America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem"

LeapingLennie — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 04:35:16 +0000

That is making the assumption that government spending is constant irrespective of tax revenue. If tax rates and public debt remain constant then tax avoidance will lead government spending to fall. This may mean fewer immoral actions conducted by the government such as wars or arresting people for victimless crimes. In this way, tax evasion can be not only harmless but a moral imperative.