Hacker News: abirch

New comment by abirch in "US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search"

abirch — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:38:47 +0000

You're right for non-citizens.

For citizens, no one needs to believe it. You give them your empty phone and they can't download your phone contents and contacts.

New comment by abirch in "Brazilian farmers tokenized dairy cows to get loans, bypassing bank limits"

abirch — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:43:03 +0000

Or there will be wholesale fraud similar to how index funds have been hijacked by companies with crazy valuations.

New comment by abirch in "Does creatine make you smarter?"

abirch — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:27:55 +0000

mandatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/882/ "Jellybeans cause acne"

New comment by abirch in "Never Enough"

abirch — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:32:38 +0000

"one of history's few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations."

Yuval Noah Harari

Think about email. There is usually an expectation of a response within minutes/hours and not weeks/months like mail of the 1900s

New comment by abirch in "Meta's AI models are powering the first wave of Genesis Mission projects"

abirch — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:42:04 +0000

Well Meta has hijacked my privacy. Now IRL Meta can track me from the people wearing their sunglasses.

New comment by abirch in "Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre"

abirch — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:35:27 +0000

It's the size of the radiators and the expense of getting them up into orbit (along with maintenance)

Most of my assumptions come from discussions like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46876105

New comment by abirch in "Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre"

abirch — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:57:32 +0000

How do you cool the data center in space cost effectively? Unfortunately in space there isn't a lot of material (air) to transfer the heat.

New comment by abirch in "You only need the frontier model for one single edit"

abirch — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:08:46 +0000

I wish that Hacker News had the option to flag things at AI and let people filter those things out.

New comment by abirch in "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"

abirch — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:15:41 +0000

Here is something you can consider: https://pumpkinmc.org/ it's Minecraft rewritten in Rust. It's very fast and you can make your own mods.

New comment by abirch in "'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'"

abirch — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:12:29 +0000

I understand why people are frustrated with the current system in general. You wouldn't design it this way. We need more young politicians shaping the laws and more entrepreneurs improving society.

New comment by abirch in "NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook"

abirch — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:06:44 +0000

Are there other tools out there like NotebookLM? Not a replacement but some cool AI tools that help people learn.

New comment by abirch in "'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'"

abirch — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:03:26 +0000

It's similar to the people who block roadways to protest climate change. Usually it makes the commuters frustrated and doesn't change anything.

Personally I think data centers should pay a 100% fossil fuel tax. Markets respond to incentives.

New comment by abirch in "The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence"

abirch — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:39:49 +0000

A few years back, I would talk with scammers for a while to waste their time. Now I don't.

LPT: Please have a codeword or phrase that you use with your loved ones so even if the scammers use your voice, they won't know the phrase.

New comment by abirch in "The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence"

abirch — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:37:01 +0000

Fortunately for me, my parents wouldn't be able to get the live video working.

New comment by abirch in "How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing"

abirch — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:54:17 +0000

I'd love it if companies had to disclose the percent of Private Equity ownership and online work disclosed the percent of AI creation.

New comment by abirch in "S&P downgrades Oracle to BBB – only one notch above junk level"

abirch — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:09:30 +0000

I think there's an errant space in between the BBB and the - but yes, the title is wrong with that space

New comment by abirch in "Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?"

abirch — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:01:42 +0000

Have you ever read Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake? I think it's very applicable to the average human experience.

New comment by abirch in "Precursor"

abirch — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:05:13 +0000

The account will require a phone number and the US is trying to move away from burner phones. As long as we don't commit thought crimes and we love Big Brother all will be well.

https://www.wired.com/story/security-news-this-week-the-fcc-...

New comment by abirch in "Precursor"

abirch — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:27:40 +0000

I'm guessing it's going to lock the non-sighted//keyboard only users out of the anonymous Internet. I'm guessing if you log in and give up your anonymity they'll consider you not a bot.

New comment by abirch in "Berkshire's $397B Bet Against an Overheated Market"

abirch — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:27:45 +0000

I feel like this is dot com 2.0. The dot com's valuations eventually were proven to be true, only way too early. With investing Timing is everything, if you invest in Pets.com you lost, if you invested in chewy.com you won. If you invested in Broadcast.com you lost, if you invested in YouTube.com you won.

AI is going to transform things but these current prices are crazy.