Hacker News: Selkirk

New comment by Selkirk in "Two computers, one monitor, zero fiddling (2025)"

Selkirk — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:06:33 +0000

I bought the "right kind of Dell," for this purpose but ddpm is unusable for me as it slams CPU periodically.

New comment by Selkirk in "Researchers Asked LLMs for Strategic Advice. They Got "Trendslop" in Return"

Selkirk — Tue, 05 May 2026 00:53:22 +0000

I'm missing some data to evaluate this article. If you engage a set of humans on these seven tensions, what range of bias do you get?

New comment by Selkirk in "Daily multivitamin use may slow biological aging: COSMOS trial results"

Selkirk — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:07:58 +0000

Multi vitamin use has been studied A LOT with respect to all cause mortality, where it consistently has no statistical effect (or a slightly negative effect). So, to me, "biological aging" seems a way to hack for effects to advertise. Does the average consumer understand that reduced "biological aging" does NOT mean you will live longer? Because if it did, they would be saying THAT. Centrum (study sponsor) is already creating advertising based on this study.

New comment by Selkirk in "Daily multivitamin use may slow biological aging: COSMOS trial results"

Selkirk — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:16:46 +0000

Partially funded by entity related to manufacturer of daily multivitamins. Study was in people over 60 average age 70 if I recall. I didn't care enough to look, but the question I'd ask is how were the people who died during the study accounted for in the "biological aging testing?"

New comment by Selkirk in "Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring"

Selkirk — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:39:26 +0000

I have a colleague that recently self-published a book. I can easily tell which parts were LLM driven and which parts represent his own voice. Just like you can tell who's in the next stall in the bathroom at work after hearing just a grunt and a fart. And THAT is a sentence an LLM would not write.

New comment by Selkirk in "A verification layer for browser agents: Amazon case study"

Selkirk — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:48:18 +0000

So ... Test Driven Development?

1. Planner (Write a failing test or tests) 2. Executor (Generate a solution) 3. Verifier (Until the tests no longer fail) 4. Repeat

New comment by Selkirk in "Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance"

Selkirk — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 16:39:24 +0000

Sounds like "Old Masters and Young Geniuses"

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691133805/ol...

That book used artwork valuation as a performance measure and analyzed it over top artist's lifetimes finding two patterns. The "Young Genius" where an artist has a vision and realizes some innovation and their most valuable works center around that with value tapering off over their life. Picasso. (Who had two peaks but still fit the pattern.) Contrast to the "Old Master." This is someone who keeps refining their craft and their most valuable works and innovations are their late life works. Cézanne.

New comment by Selkirk in "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1987) [pdf]"

Selkirk — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 16:02:49 +0000

Looks like game theory interaction strategies presented with a bit of color:

Stupid = Spite (lose / lose); Helpless = Altruism (lose / win); Bandit = Selfishness (win / lose); Intelligent = Cooperation (win / win)

The OP "Laws":

Everyone underestimates the number of spiteful individuals in circulation.

The probability that a certain person be spiteful is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

... and so on through ...

A spiteful person is more dangerous than a selfish person.

New comment by Selkirk in "NASA found the 18 best plants for naturally filtering the air in your home"

Selkirk — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 18:39:40 +0000

Not sure about other chemicals, but carbon seems particularly hopeless. Plants produce CO2 as they respirate and consume it as they photosynthesize. So rather than think in terms of number of plants, think in terms of the weight of the plants (not the dirt). Carbon sequestration is going to have to add net weight to the plants. A human produces 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day. So, how many pounds per day will your crop of carbon scrubbing plants have to increase by in order to sequester that carbon? How much green material by weight do you need to achieve that rate of growth?