Hacker News: MrToadMan

New comment by MrToadMan in "Leanstral 1.5"

MrToadMan — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 07:01:05 +0000

If only they had access to a world class translation system, they could auto translate between languages effortlessly :)

New comment by MrToadMan in "Autoresearch for SAT Solvers"

MrToadMan — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:46:15 +0000

I guess my point was that I don't see many algo changes in the commit history, which is a shame if this has been lost; library/* files are largely unchanged from the initial commits. But each time the agent runs, it has access to the best solutions found so far and can start from there, often using randomisation, which the agent claims helps it escape local minima e.g. 'simulated annealing as a universal improver'. It would be nice to see how its learnt knowledge performs when applied to unseen problems in a restricted timeframe.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Autoresearch for SAT Solvers"

MrToadMan — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:41:38 +0000

Not as many changes to the files under library as I expected to see. Most changes seemed to be under a single ‘add stuff’ commit. If some of the solvers are randomised, then repeatedly running and recording best solution found will continually improve over time and give the illusion of the agent making algorithmic advancements, won’t it?

New comment by MrToadMan in "TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe"

MrToadMan — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 08:07:24 +0000

Locking down children’s devices doesn’t stop adults sharing illegal content with other adults though, so there would still be pressure to monitor communications between adults.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran"

MrToadMan — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 03:29:40 +0000

Conversely, buying pizza with MELANIA has left me with zero regrets.

New comment by MrToadMan in "TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin"

MrToadMan — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 04:42:15 +0000

What if while you were eating a cheeseburger, McDonald’s was magically replenishing that burger so that no matter how much you kept eating there was still some left. Moreover you had little control over the ratios of fat and sugar used to replenish it and they earned more the longer you spent eating it. Would you consider them harming you if they were prioritising stuffing it with ingredients that maximised the amount you ate and ignored sensible limits on sugar and fat?

New comment by MrToadMan in "France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s"

MrToadMan — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:29:42 +0000

Isn’t the information flow being controlled by the few major social media players another form of centralisation where their algorithms decide which decentralised voices are heard?

New comment by MrToadMan in "Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body"

MrToadMan — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 22:16:53 +0000

Worth mentioning the case brought by the DOJ against Meta with regards housing ads discriminating on protected characteristics in 2022.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...

New comment by MrToadMan in "Trump pardons convicted Binance founder"

MrToadMan — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 23:38:58 +0000

Or if they took my deposit and commingled it with company funds and bought some illiquid luxury real estate in the Bahamas for their staff to live in totalling $240m. If they’re upfront about that, probably nobody deposits with them.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Trump pardons convicted Binance founder"

MrToadMan — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 23:05:06 +0000

The swamp is now a protected wetland.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Gemini 2.5 Computer Use model"

MrToadMan — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 04:27:56 +0000

And even funnier in that context: it’s called ‘roundabout technologies’.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Gemini 2.5 Computer Use model"

MrToadMan — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 04:09:27 +0000

Is this as impressive as it initially seems though? A Bing search for the text shows up some Web results for Dvorak to QWERTY conversion, I think because the word ‘t.fxrape’ (keyboard) hits. So there’s a lot of good luck happening there.

New comment by MrToadMan in "UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards"

MrToadMan — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 05:48:02 +0000

Although PA was bundled in with two other organisations in the vote, the vote did pass 385 votes to 26, so it seems there was broad support across MPs, not just the cabinet.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers"

MrToadMan — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 09:32:40 +0000

From what I've read, about 1/3 of all asylum seekers over the last 7 years arrived via small boat crossings.

Looking forward though, about 90% of those arriving in small boat crossings are currently going on to seek asylum and the average annual cost of supporting an asylum seeker during their claim has risen to an estimated £41k, so for ~30k arrivals this year, the financial cost of not processing these claims promptly could increase that overall annual bill further still.

Also, in the first year of processing, costs may be drawn from the overseas aid budget (which was recently shrunk). This results in possibly 1/5 of the overseas aid budget being used for costs associated with processing asylum claims, which perhaps doesn't match most people's expectations as to what overseas aid should be used for.

I think that's why even though the number of people involved in these crossings is small compared to net migration, it has a big financial impact.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers"

MrToadMan — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 07:42:20 +0000

The UK did have compulsory ID cards, which needed to be carried at all times, during both World Wars.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers"

MrToadMan — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 07:28:11 +0000

Depends on if you are looking at this in terms of numbers of people or cost. The Home Office annual spend on processing asylum seekers has ballooned from just under £1 billion to near £5 billion in the space of 5 years, which is 1/3 of the estimated £14 billion raised from the unpopular National Insurance increase.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups"

MrToadMan — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:34:46 +0000

Seems intuitive: the group passengers are likely to have to cough up another 5-10% more at the time of check-in, in order to sit together, so it all evens out.

New comment by MrToadMan in "Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)"

MrToadMan — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:48:18 +0000

You can explore the amount paid out to projects by month, region and partner projects in those regions here: https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-financial-reports-tree-planti...

New comment by MrToadMan in "Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)"

MrToadMan — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:14:36 +0000

It seems they are also diversifying their investments into other climate impact projects like solar (see some of the projects here: https://blog.ecosia.org/climate-projects/).