Hacker News: alistairSH

New comment by alistairSH in "European sunscreens are safer than American (2024)"

alistairSH — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:49:08 +0000

Poking around on Google, the scientific consensus seems to be that the EU or Asian sunscreens are in fact better. I haven’t found anything to the contrary.

New comment by alistairSH in "European sunscreens are safer than American (2024)"

alistairSH — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:45:57 +0000

Sure, but that doesn’t excuse the FDA from slow-rolling/blocking new ingredients that should be better. As noted in the article, the sunscreens available here would not pass muster in the EU despite supposedly less stringent rules.

New comment by alistairSH in "Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher"

alistairSH — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:12:03 +0000

Their trans-Atlantic flights are ok and cheap relative to United (out of IAD, to points in continental Europe). Their EU flights are a noticeable step down.

New comment by alistairSH in "European sunscreens are safer than American (2024)"

alistairSH — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:59:28 +0000

This has been true for a while. Sadly.

New comment by alistairSH in "How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S."

alistairSH — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:57:35 +0000

The big difference in my mind is guns are intentionally dangerous. They were made to kill first, sporting applications are all secondary.

Or, to flip your argument, if guns are fine, why not grenades or bazookas or battleships?

New comment by alistairSH in "How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S."

alistairSH — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:31:33 +0000

Sure, jack boot thugs killing a fee people in broad daylight with a government sanction tends to do that. But I’d rather we not have the brown shirts in the first place…

New comment by alistairSH in "How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S."

alistairSH — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:30:22 +0000

Isn’t there a massive body of research that indicates gun ownership is less safe on average that non-ownership? Ie the chance of accidental shooting of family/friends is high enough to offset any benefit (on average across the US)?

New comment by alistairSH in "How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S."

alistairSH — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:28:16 +0000

Do they ever state the social optimum level of fun ownership? I can take them at their word they it’s non-zero, but I’d guess it’s orders of magnitude less than the current rate.

New comment by alistairSH in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

alistairSH — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:34:01 +0000

We’re discussing university, right? It’s supposed to be a full-time effort, at least for a normal pace undergrad or any post- graduate program.

For secondary school, I do agree with you - homework load can be problematic for some students. But at the same time, my honors classes all came with hours of homework and I’m not sure I would have been as prepared for uni without it.

New comment by alistairSH in "Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang"

alistairSH — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:37:59 +0000

But you already share the world with other intelligences. Cetaceans, apes, octopoda, corvids, the list goes on and grows as we begin to fully understand our world.

Are they conscious in the same way as us? No. Does that makes them less special? No. Sounds trite but every living being is special in some way.

New comment by alistairSH in "Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min"

alistairSH — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:18:01 +0000

Nothing solid, but if I have to spend 55-62 pouring beer at my local pub to cover medical insurance, I won’t be sad.

Or I’ll finally get around to obtaining an Irish passport and move to the Med.

New comment by alistairSH in "Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say"

alistairSH — Fri, 29 May 2026 16:43:57 +0000

Yeah, the "but they use the socials to communicate!" is laughable. Basically none of the parents I know want school comms to be via Meta or Tweet or whatever.

Email lists work great for the type of comms schools need to make. And/or an RSS feed on the schools homepage.

New comment by alistairSH in "Google employee charged with $1M Polymarket insider trading bet on search term"

alistairSH — Thu, 28 May 2026 14:12:19 +0000

Don't forget about regimes like the USA a using crypto to receive bribes, ransomware payments, and launder money. Crypto is a cesspool.

Sadly, it's not limited to "evil dictatorships" on the other side of the world.

New comment by alistairSH in "The Structural Barriers to AI Lawyers"

alistairSH — Wed, 27 May 2026 16:34:00 +0000

Something like 90% of both criminal and business cases in the US never get to trial - the rules are deterministic enough the vast majority of the time to avoid trial. The stuff we hear about on TV are the edge cases.

New comment by alistairSH in "The real cost of owning a home"

alistairSH — Wed, 27 May 2026 16:10:37 +0000

Yep. Depending on the property layout, and how close that slope is to the house, it might be something to contract out and have hardscaping and drainage done.

My last house didn't have anywhere near as much land, but there was a fairly steep hill on the back of the house. We ended up having part of the slope dug out and a "seat-height" retaining wall installed, with drainage installed as part of the build, and lots of low-maintenance plantings. Reduced the work from weekly mowing on a slope to occasional weeding and trimming. But, it wasn't cheap to do properly.

New comment by alistairSH in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

alistairSH — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:26:48 +0000

Yes, underfunded relative to future payout promises, so higher rates of return required to remain solvent.

New comment by alistairSH in "The real cost of owning a home"

alistairSH — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:40:04 +0000

There are other ground covers and plant options that don’t require weekly mowing. Creeping junipers and native bunch grasses come to mind.

New comment by alistairSH in "The real cost of owning a home"

alistairSH — Tue, 26 May 2026 21:36:35 +0000

As the sibling comment said, you start by reading the HOA covenants. If there are rules in place that you can’t abide by you simply don’t buy the house.

All the stories of people who bought in HOA areas and then got fined for having a work truck… I have little sympathy for them because that would’ve been in the HOA docs which were provided during contract negotiation.

The next step would be looking around the neighborhood to ensure that the rules are actually being fairly enforced. If the covenant say no work trucks, but there are work trucks parked at every third home then that’s indicative of a problem may or may not be an issue to you depending on your line of work, but it’s something to keep in line.

There are other things you can check as well. For example, ask for the HOA finances. Are they doing regular capital projects and do the budget seem reasonable? Do they have enough money in the bank for unforeseen capital expenses? Again not always a dealbreaker, but those are things you need to know and people frequently don’t bother asking about.

New comment by alistairSH in "The real cost of owning a home"

alistairSH — Tue, 26 May 2026 21:32:39 +0000

Exterior paint color is a good example. In my little cluster of townhomes, there are about six colors that we are allowed to pick from. And no two homes next to each other can be the same color. My house is currently a light green and in theory, I could paint it to be a blue or a tan, but not a grey because of one of my neighbors. I don’t find it to be particularly vague or onerous, but if I really wanted a pink house, I would’ve seen that in the HOA documentation upfront and not bought here.

New comment by alistairSH in "The real cost of owning a home"

alistairSH — Tue, 26 May 2026 21:01:48 +0000

Yard work, gutter cleaning, power washing exterior, cleaning windows, bi-annual HVAC service, exterior paint (especially if the house has any wood) and trim upkeep.

And as the house ages, you get things like repainting interior rooms, more frequent plumbing issues, major HVAC repairs, roof replacement, repaving driveway, electrical upgrades, remodeling, etc.

We downsized to a townhome to avoid some of that (half the walls are shared, so no exterior upkeep for those; smaller yard; fewer rooms).