Hacker News: Nicook

New comment by Nicook in "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data – $1.7 billion"

Nicook — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:24:02 +0000

some things never change. Pre AI I was always shocked that such large and complex systems actually run as well as they do. Especially after getting to see how the sausage is made/works.

New comment by Nicook in "US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent"

Nicook — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:28:35 +0000

No it wont. There's already one state in the union that has dipsensed with the silly time changes, Arizona. I've lived there for ~7 years while an adult, or about 20% of my life, now live in a time change state again.

Having experienced both I would take the no time change every time. And I have yet to meet anyone who would (small sample size for sure, I'm sure someones done some polling).

New comment by Nicook in "21 years and counting of 'eight fallacies of distributed computing' (2025)"

Nicook — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:30:07 +0000

>we'll just add this feature on as some async verification since it takes a while, then make the original update wait in some weird state for it to finish.

Later, when users are confused at failures and weird states. >ok now lets build a new system that tries to gather all this information on updates in "weird states" and let users fix them!

simplified example, but nightmare.

New comment by Nicook in "Law Enforcement's "Warrior" Problem (2015)"

Nicook — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:30:39 +0000

this right here, our issue is mostly the accountability. Accountable people are much less likely to apply force when not needed. Trying to remember some citations, but there's really interesting data out there on citizen involved shootings v police ones. and I suspect the accountability is key.

New comment by Nicook in "Law Enforcement's "Warrior" Problem (2015)"

Nicook — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:27:52 +0000

why not? if its a professional force. plenty of other countries people use as models have military and police linked together, imo we're (USA) just missing the punishment part. Need to court martial police more :). Whole point of police is internal force application right. Can't really enforce any laws without use of force.

New comment by Nicook in "The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun"

Nicook — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:46:20 +0000

Sure but my point is still that its Arabic and not inherently violent etc. whereas the holocaust is a specific genocidal event.

New comment by Nicook in "The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun"

Nicook — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:01:26 +0000

I think the word has been twisted a bit, to compare it to holocaust is imo insane. I've known people named Jihad.

New comment by Nicook in "Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada"

Nicook — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:14:36 +0000

That's not what it means, but go off. Although yes it is generally used pejoratively, and if you are using the term, its for a rhetorical effect.

New comment by Nicook in "Enough with the AI FOMO, go slow-mo, says Domo CDO"

Nicook — Mon, 18 May 2026 17:05:55 +0000

I believe he is referencing the proletariat masses, the rabble, etc.

New comment by Nicook in "AI didn't delete your database, you did"

Nicook — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:11:33 +0000

That's literally always possible? The idea is to put up walls and fail-safes to minimize the chance.

New comment by Nicook in "New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag"

Nicook — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:29:50 +0000

Never considered that, but mentioning flags that have minimal "history" pushed me in a totally different direction about some modern political transnational movements lol.

New comment by Nicook in "Let's Buy Spirit Air"

Nicook — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:13:11 +0000

Amercian is imo the worst airline out there, and the only one I refuse to fly with. At least the budget airlines are cheaper and honest for horrible service.

New comment by Nicook in "He asked AI to count carbs 27000 times. It couldn't give the same answer twice"

Nicook — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:51:23 +0000

You are severely overestimating the average, or even above average understanding of LLMs.

New comment by Nicook in "Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]"

Nicook — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:42:09 +0000

I enjoy that you are framing this as somethings that "may" happen in the future.

New comment by Nicook in "Claude Opus 4.7 Model Card"

Nicook — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:22:19 +0000

Probably also a bit of liability. After all its been trained on a dataset that includes a long running joke of trying to trick people on the internet to unknowingly create chlorine gas.

New comment by Nicook in "The American Healthcare Conundrum"

Nicook — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:02:08 +0000

Japan is also way thingger than America, which the article points out: > The US spends ~$14,570 per person on healthcare. Japan spends ~$5,790 and has the highest life expectancy in the OECD. That gap is roughly $3 trillion per year.

Need to have people go in for checkups and get shamed for unhealthy habits, not really a money question.

New comment by Nicook in "An autopsy of AI-generated 3D slop"

Nicook — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 19:35:07 +0000

debt doesn't harm you until the carrying costs become to high v profits. Just have to hit that point (if is exists, maybe growth accelerates forever if you are optimistic).

New comment by Nicook in "The Misuses of the University"

Nicook — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:28:18 +0000

The third worldization of the USA continues at pace. Expensive reasonable enclaves for the rich, nothing for the rest.

New comment by Nicook in "Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court"

Nicook — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:39:53 +0000

Scalia wrote some really interesting opinions for sure. Feel like the arguments are only going to get worse :(

New comment by Nicook in "Don't Trust the Salt: AI Summarization, Multilingual Safety, and LLM Guardrails"

Nicook — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:15:41 +0000

Hasn't this already been observed with not too stable individuals? remember some story about kid asking ai if his parents/government etcs were spying on him.