Hacker News: SketchySeaBeast

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:31:09 +0000

I think we've all seen by now that the majority doesn't much matter if you have a rabidly zealous minority.

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

SketchySeaBeast — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:03:49 +0000

Few Albertans. The Forever Canada petition got over 10% of the entire population to sign it. Considering that it was a grassroots effort and that you had to sign in person, meaning you had to go out of your way to sign an entirely optional petition, really shows how much support there is in Alberta to remain.

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

SketchySeaBeast — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:58:32 +0000

Speaking as an Albertan, it's only a very loud and vocal minority. The UCP government has seen that the premier only stays in power if they cowtow to the fringe crazies in the party, and that's what she's doing.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Hating AI Is Good"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:53:36 +0000

It also doesn't qualify how or how often the users use the app. Online games like to do this too - "40M registered users!" when the number of players with an active subscription are a tiny fraction.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)"

SketchySeaBeast — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:05:16 +0000

*Would we say that there's not "nothing" wrong with water?

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)"

SketchySeaBeast — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:28:50 +0000

Sure, but it feels like a silly distinction. The famous example is water, which fits those same criteria. Would we that that there's not "nothing" wrong with water?

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Show HN: Tired of logic in useEffect, I built a class-based React state manager"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:07:37 +0000

Very easy - mock the useNotifications and you can easily see all the behaviour by changing three properties.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:37:34 +0000

I'm not fully comfortable with the shift in language either, but my point is that, even if the language is changed, the thoughts will remain. To use 1984 (is there a Godwin's law equivalent for this now?), the party taught that 2 + 2 = 5, which is changing thought. Social media is trying to do that, but failing. The danger is if it's one day effective, but to date it hasn't been.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:34:40 +0000

I also agree with your follow-up around the normalization of language. It's a good point, but it seems like an improvement to standardize effective communication, and at the time it was outweighed by the ability to spread challenging heterogeneous ideas. LLMs threaten to engulf us in a uniform grey goo that lulls us away from critical consideration of what we're interacting with and, even more dangerously, creating.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:18:38 +0000

On the contrary, the printing press enabled people to quickly spread new ideas. Protestantism was enabled by it. That was quite the schism in thinking.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:14:52 +0000

That seems to me to be an example where the language is forced to change but the thoughts remain the same. Sure, people are using the "safe" terms, but they're using them to continue to subvert the rules, not to bow to them.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:51:38 +0000

I say this with a multiple decades-spanning love of the game and the lore, but Warhammer 40k is what you get when teenagers try to create something immediately after reading Dune.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:06:25 +0000

> This country put the man abusing it in power.

Twice. I can forgive the mistake once, but this is the second time in 10 years that America is facing this nonsense with the exact same demagogue.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:28:52 +0000

Did we discover a new diet hack?

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Afroman found not liable in defamation case"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:27:29 +0000

It's important to remember to thank them for their service.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Afroman found not liable in defamation case"

SketchySeaBeast — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:19:01 +0000

> This kind of song would not fly in any other country on Earth. No other country has Freedom of Speech laws strong enough to defend against insulting the police.

I'm fairly certain you could do the exact same thing here in Canada. I honestly don't think it's as exceptional as you're making it out to be.

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024"

SketchySeaBeast — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:03:25 +0000

Yeah, that's only going to last until the first bad actor.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt...

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport"

SketchySeaBeast — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:25:11 +0000

Is Opsec 101 to increase the estimate by two orders of magnitude? "We think this operation will take about 10 weeks, so we're estimating 10 years."

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "Single bone in Spain offers first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants"

SketchySeaBeast — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:11:56 +0000

I think it would be more accurate to say "based upon true events".

New comment by SketchySeaBeast in "WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system"

SketchySeaBeast — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:46:24 +0000

Wait a minute...