Hacker News: LiquidSky

New comment by LiquidSky in "Creating the Futurescape for the Fifth Element [2019]"

LiquidSky — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:32:19 +0000

Yet!

New comment by LiquidSky in "How to get better at guitar"

LiquidSky — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:12:59 +0000

That reminds me of an interview I heard with comicbook artist Chip Zdarsky. He was talking about how we all love to draw as kids, but eventually around 10 years old or so we start to become aware that what we see in our heads isn't anywhere near what's appearing on the page in our drawings, and that gap acts as a powerful filter discouraging most people from pursuing art any further.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Snowflake lays off documentation staff after they train AI replacement"

LiquidSky — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 19:48:59 +0000

But who cares about the long term when you could make a killing this year or even just this quarter and walk away with a fortune.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Snowflake lays off documentation staff after they train AI replacement"

LiquidSky — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 19:47:13 +0000

>Do we think that's impossible?

Yes. Even if it weren't, it doesn't even seem to matter anymore. Making better products doesn't seem to lead to more money than churning out shit and financializing it, so why would anyone bother?

New comment by LiquidSky in "Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back"

LiquidSky — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:20:06 +0000

>I associate the concept of pronatalism with also wanting to be involved in your kids' lives

Then don't because it's just wrong. Very few, if any, of the "more babies, bigger families" types have any interest in or concern for the children after they're born. In fact they're usually the ones fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kinds of programs or services that might help the resulting children and families.

For them it's just a pure numbers game/bizarre sexual fetish disguised as a philosophy.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back"

LiquidSky — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:31:34 +0000

Sure, WFH has some downsides as does anything, but it's always funny to me that we have 150+ years of basically everyone who's ever worked in an office despising it as a place where productivity goes to die mired in pointless meetings, office politics, etc., but when WFH becomes a realistic option all of a sudden the office is now Plato's Academy reborn.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back"

LiquidSky — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:40:13 +0000

I know that this is Hacker News and so all rich and important people must be geniuses making only rational moves, but consider the slim possibility that most aren't very good leaders and make poor decisions.

Maybe there's some 19D "soft layoff" motivation, but I suspect a large part is just about control and appearance. You spent all that money on offices so workers better be there. And what's the point of having your own nice big office if you can't look out on the peons toiling for you? And more fundamentally, some people just have this deep belief that work = something you do in an office and can't compute working at home as "real" work, no matter what the results show.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back"

LiquidSky — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:37:19 +0000

>I don't think Musk and Andreesseen are who most people would associate with the concept of pronatalism.

Musk is for sure. Doesn't he have like 100 kids because he's constantly trying to get women to become pregnant by his sperm?

New comment by LiquidSky in "Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back"

LiquidSky — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:36:22 +0000

The second one is mostly accurate, yes. There aren't really many good rational arguments for requiring full-time in-office attendance.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job"

LiquidSky — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:51:10 +0000

Well, there was the previous whistleblower complaint that members of DOGE accessed and shared sensitive Social Security data without the awareness of agency officials, which the government denied...until this January when they were forced to admit in a court filing that it was true. [https://archive.is/efY6S]

That is to say, there is no reason to extend this administration or anything DOGE-related the benefit of the doubt.

New comment by LiquidSky in "US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]"

LiquidSky — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 20:31:50 +0000

>Everyone adapted.

I like the phrasing of this because it tells us nothing of whether your family liked the change (or felt better off with it) or not. You can adapt to a lot.

New comment by LiquidSky in "I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services"

LiquidSky — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:51:46 +0000

Does it even actually matter what you do? How many lawsuits/investigations have there been in the last decade revealing that some company or another that swore up and down was following privacy laws, protecting your data, and not selling it actually were. I'm at the point where I figure anyone who wants to track me is, and any privacy pop-ups or the like are just for show.

New comment by LiquidSky in "How to stop being boring"

LiquidSky — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:19:43 +0000

No, it's very much yours and the way you phrased it. Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but you sound like some kind of "pickup artist" type giving advice on "negging" women.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial"

LiquidSky — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:39:07 +0000

> I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place

Money.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?"

LiquidSky — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:28:31 +0000

I'll take "begging the question" for $500.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair"

LiquidSky — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:28:07 +0000

We're talking about environmental regulations. It is no more good for a small business to pollute than a large one, and it's precisely the poor who are most harmed by environmental pollution.

New comment by LiquidSky in "New high of 45% in US identify as political independents"

LiquidSky — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:46:10 +0000

You're noting how they describe themselves, but my experience has been the same as the parent comment, that "independent" always means conservative/Republican but not wanting to call themselves that.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Why the French don't obsess over purpose"

LiquidSky — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:28:20 +0000

>When skiing in the US, people see it as an opportunity to use a hobby to gain an advantage, to network, to talk business, to flaunt, to compare, to use an escape as a entrance.

I'd like to see any evidence of this because this has not been my experience at all, ever. I've skied all my life, just went with my family over the holidays, and neither we nor anyone we met, or anyone I've ever met on ski trips, was doing it for any reason other than fun.

>why else would a ski lodge need a boardroom?

Just because a venue has the capacity to host business events does not mean that that is its sole or main purpose. The obvious answer is that offering this amenity gives the lodge the option of attracting corporate clients in addition to its normal patrons.

This is like saying because the Tour de France exists no one in France bikes recreationally.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Scott Adams has died"

LiquidSky — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 19:22:46 +0000

That's true, but he thought of himself as Dogbert, a superintelligent being superior to everyone around him.

New comment by LiquidSky in "Scott Adams has died"

LiquidSky — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:12:03 +0000

I don't recall any of his rightwing stuff, but I remember one of his 90s books had some stuff at the end about how quantum physics meant you could control reality by envisioning what you want and then you'd enter the universe with it. I was a teen and remember being utterly baffled.