Hacker News: ajmurmann

New comment by ajmurmann in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ajmurmann — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:41:30 +0000

One of my pet peeves is that in the US vehicle safety regulation is all about the passengers of the vehicle and ignores safety of people around the vehicle. The passengers are in control of what vehicle they use and already have incentive to pick a safe vehicle. So passenger safety is less critical to regulate. The same incentive structure does not exist for pedestrian safety. They have no control over what cars are on the road and carry the negative externality. Vehicle safety regulation should focus on pedestrian safety and safety of other cars impacted by the vehicle. It's bizarre the US has this so backwards.

New comment by ajmurmann in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

ajmurmann — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:27:13 +0000

Statistically the father is the most likely predator... Not sure if that's actionable.

New comment by ajmurmann in "Magnifica Humanitas"

ajmurmann — Mon, 25 May 2026 22:54:54 +0000

The thought experiment of what would have happened if manufacturing had required much less labor to begin with night be an interesting one. We would have had fewer jobs but the equilibrium price of the products would also have been much lower. The money spent on labor didn't come from Ford alone it ultimately came from the costumers. Ford wouldn't have lowered prices out of the goodness of their hearts but because competition is real.

I expect prices of goods would have been much lower and the labor would have been used elsewhere and the comp would still have gone a comparable if not longer way because goods would have been so much cheaper.

New comment by ajmurmann in "I Miss Terry Pratchett"

ajmurmann — Sat, 23 May 2026 20:52:14 +0000

The reason why ad hominems are a fallacy is because it fails to engage with the actual argument being made. The same seems likely to happen when arguments are dismissed because of their AI origin. While that dismissal is somewhat reasonable now, at least as a heuristic, I expect it to become increasingly less valid.

New comment by ajmurmann in "I Miss Terry Pratchett"

ajmurmann — Sat, 23 May 2026 15:25:59 +0000

Is this (ironically) the new ad hominem?

New comment by ajmurmann in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

ajmurmann — Sat, 23 May 2026 15:22:10 +0000

Isn't he for relaxing zoning? Arguably one of the main pieces of red tape leading to the housing crisis

New comment by ajmurmann in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

ajmurmann — Sat, 23 May 2026 15:01:12 +0000

Not being worried annoy the Soviet economy makes sense though

New comment by ajmurmann in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

ajmurmann — Sat, 23 May 2026 14:59:47 +0000

This is supported by looking at what happened to Hong Kong cinema that was huge till the early 2000s.

New comment by ajmurmann in "Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame"

ajmurmann — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:32:31 +0000

I wonder to what degree it's about what you are used to. I grew up in Germany and never had allergies. However, after a few years in the Pacific Northwest I developed seasonal allergies that get worse every year.

New comment by ajmurmann in "Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us"

ajmurmann — Tue, 19 May 2026 05:03:06 +0000

I don't think it's performative or about vibes. Everyone subconsciously adopts phrases and in general ways of talking from people around them. May it be from friends, neighbors or coworkers.

New comment by ajmurmann in "Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us"

ajmurmann — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:51:46 +0000

Huh, I've heard this term all the time at work and used it myself since long before LLMs

New comment by ajmurmann in "We let AIs run radio stations"

ajmurmann — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:50:46 +0000

It seems like they have something akin to personalities: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mgjtEHeLgkhZZ3cEx/models-hav...

New comment by ajmurmann in "US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war"

ajmurmann — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:48:51 +0000

Nobody gives you cost of living increases. That's not how a market works. You get cost of LABOR increases. These are related but only indirectly.

New comment by ajmurmann in "The PSP feels surprisingly present right now"

ajmurmann — Tue, 12 May 2026 05:34:28 +0000

What's the reason to prefer the PSP over the Vita? Yes, technically the Vita has Internet but outside of downloading games via that it really isn't a distraction because it's so clunky.

I recently freed mine and have been having a great time with everything it had to offer while being so much more portable than anything mainstream sold now as portable.

New comment by ajmurmann in "Show HN: Auto-Architecture: Karpathy's Loop, pointed at a CPU"

ajmurmann — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:56:52 +0000

Evolution very much involves random mutations that turn out useless or harmful and thus don't spread.

This is in fact less random than how generic algorithms used to work traditionally which encoded behaviors in some data structure that then got randomly mutated or crossed with other candidates in the pool.

New comment by ajmurmann in "I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it"

ajmurmann — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 01:28:37 +0000

You can still install this just not through a public listing on the app store. Apple provides various solutions for different audiences.

New comment by ajmurmann in "If you stop hiring juniors, your senior engineers own you"

ajmurmann — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 01:11:57 +0000

Knowledge and tacit knowledge of the system and company around it makes a huge difference.

New comment by ajmurmann in "I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to"

ajmurmann — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:02:21 +0000

I like hiking but absolutely not camping. I had a similar experience. IMO the canyon is too wide for its width which creates a similar effect to it just being a valley. I found it much more spectacular to stand on pretty much any mountain in the Alps.

Funny enough driving up to the grand canyon there are some arms of it that in essence narrow, deep cracks in the ground. I absolutely loved those!

New comment by ajmurmann in "Observations from carbon dioxide monitoring"

ajmurmann — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:45:40 +0000

I spent a few minutes looking into this and usually it's a mix of outside air and recycle air. However, the key point seems to be that, with the exception of the Dreamliner, the air comes form engine bleed, rather than a dedicated compressor. So that's the issue. Maybe I should just bring a little scuba tank

New comment by ajmurmann in "Observations from carbon dioxide monitoring"

ajmurmann — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:18:15 +0000

The point about airplanes not running the ventilation on full throttle till takeoff has always driven me crazy. It's bad enough by itself, but it's also the time that lots of people are walking around. One sick person slowly making their way to the back of the plane while constantly waiting for people in front of them to put their luggage up will spread viruses throughout the entire plane, not just the folks within a few rows of them. This is the time when I most want the airplane to feel like wind tunnel. The economy looses billions every year to flu, cold and now COVID. If we can reduce that via ventilation (and maybe far-range UVC-C lights) in public spaces, we absolutely should. It's gonna pay for itself in no time. But it's a collective action problem where the costs are localized but the benefits help everyone.