Hacker News: alvah

New comment by alvah in "How to earn a billion dollars"

alvah — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 02:39:27 +0000

> (& fiends)

Freudian slip?

New comment by alvah in "How to earn a billion dollars"

alvah — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 02:36:29 +0000

The HN readership has changed massively in that timeframe, from the earlier Hackers and Painters / libertarian ideology to a much more socialist outlook. I could speculate about the reasons for this, but my theories would probably attract even more downvotes than just pointing out the obvious change in tone will.

New comment by alvah in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

alvah — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 07:59:14 +0000

It does make you wonder about the "E" part of the EA cultists who infest that particular company.

New comment by alvah in "YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos"

alvah — Fri, 29 May 2026 01:57:39 +0000

That's hilarious. Reminded me of the scene at spaceport security in the original Total Recall where Arnie's AI loses the plot.

New comment by alvah in "The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't"

alvah — Fri, 22 May 2026 23:56:44 +0000

"I've never worked at any company where there was any limit to the work to be done." Then you live in a bubble. Many organisations are restricted in available profitable work to be done, by many factors. Capital & cashflow, capacity & physical limits, demand, regulation & licensing, supply chains & inputs, management bandwidth, risk tolerance, access to credit, etc. etc.

New comment by alvah in "Riding the D in Los Angeles: city hopes new subway stations will be game changer"

alvah — Wed, 13 May 2026 00:24:00 +0000

There was a similar case in Seattle with the South Lake Union Trolley, which was quickly renamed to South Lake Union Streetcar, once T-shirts pointing out the unfortunate acronym started drawing attention. This one is clearly deliberate though.

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 03:55:47 +0000

"Yes, I know you can use a shortcut. 99.9% of people don't." <- this is the point you missed.

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 03:55:06 +0000

I see, so people in the non-HN universe aren't abandoning the em-dash where it's actually appropriate, due to massive over-use by chatbots? And despite there being no em-dash key on a keyboard, the appearance of em-dashes in text created by members of the non-HN universe is definitely not cause for suspicion? Why would I be sarcastic /sarc

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 06:53:18 +0000

"Sorry, you're just plain wrong" that's a bit of a leap, when I'm stating my interpretation of what the general opinion is, not how the world should be. Have you interviewed everyone? (I don't just mean the small subset of everyone who posts on HN).

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:30:56 +0000

Not the point, and no it doesn't. 99% of anything published since ChatGPT launched, that contains em-dashes, is suspected AI slop. Very few writers will make the extra effort to manually insert an em-dash - in fact hardly any writers even know how to or where it should be used.

I am merely stating how people now view em-dashes, not how I wish things were.

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:27:33 +0000

I thought you would miss the point. Looks like you did.

New comment by alvah in "I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months"

alvah — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 01:00:13 +0000

where is the em-dash key on your keyboard? Yes, I know you can use a shortcut. 99.9% of people don't.

New comment by alvah in "Claude Design"

alvah — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:51:19 +0000

Isn't it, at least partially?

New comment by alvah in "What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves"

alvah — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 03:22:11 +0000

What a ludicrous reply, to suggest it should be "socially unacceptable" to believe the Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment might reveal a scenario that is bad for humans overall.

New comment by alvah in "Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence"

alvah — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:57:42 +0000

How did 40 wells get drilled in the Norwegian shelf last year, and 42 the year before? You can't just make things up.

New comment by alvah in "Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student"

alvah — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:38:18 +0000

As mentioned in another comment, the US-centric view of how university and professorship work is certainly not the case in Germany.

New comment by alvah in "Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student"

alvah — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:33:25 +0000

You probably need to step outside of your US-centric bubble if you are to comment on how university works outside of the US. There was a fairly large clue in the parent comment.

New comment by alvah in "Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice"

alvah — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 01:11:16 +0000

That is the best explanation I have seen yet of the difference. I'm definitely stealing it...

New comment by alvah in "First impressions of Claude Cowork"

alvah — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:32:06 +0000

"Why publish on Substack, a venture‑backed tech platform whose leadership has chosen a permissive moderation policy?" fixed it for you.

New comment by alvah in "Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy"

alvah — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:20:09 +0000

"So it makes you feel fuller without adding calories, like GLP-1 drugs"

Nobody really knows how GLP-1 agonists work, but given the other effects (e.g. insulin stability, change in other addictive behaviours etc.) it's definitely not just this.