Hacker News: beowulfey

New comment by beowulfey in "Peptides: where to begin?"

beowulfey — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 07:54:56 +0000

Even if you test a batch once, do people who get testing done do testing on all batches?

The synthesis of peptides uses some NASTY chemicals. I would be worried about lax manufacturer policies leading to contamination, even if one batch passes. The costs of FDA certification are the effect of that protection.

But whatever, this is the same attitude that people have against owning insurance. It is hard to recognize the cost of risk.

New comment by beowulfey in "Peptides: where to begin?"

beowulfey — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 07:40:56 +0000

Clinical trials are not looking for fundamental mechanisms, they are there to ensure an effect is strong enough to say a product should be sold for that purpose. Otherwise you end up with snake oil salesmen. Because how can you be sure you are even injecting the thing the sellers claim it is?

I would encourage everyone interested in peptides to read about the state of medical science before the establishment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

New comment by beowulfey in "Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks"

beowulfey — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:36:09 +0000

Causality was not the point. The point was to refute the seeding hypothesis, and because they found those molecules, the effort to falsify the hypothesis failed. Now we can move on to the next attempt to refute, which, as you say, might be to study whether molecules can survive conditions of reentry.

Experiments do not tell us that something IS a certain way; only the ways it is not.

New comment by beowulfey in "I guess I kinda get why people hate AI"

beowulfey — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 19:04:43 +0000

LLMs talk like people; there is nothing wrong with this. It's perfectly fine to be nice to something even if it isn't human. It's why we don't go around kicking dogs for fun.

I understand why people don't act polite to LLMs, but honestly I think not thanking them will make people act more dickish to other humans.

New comment by beowulfey in "Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android"

beowulfey — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 11:29:08 +0000

where did you hear this?

New comment by beowulfey in "We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler"

beowulfey — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:34:55 +0000

Your first post specifically stated:

"I'm curious - do you have ANY idea what it costs to have humans write 100,000 lines of code???"

which any reasonable reading would take to mean "paid-by-line", which we all know doesn't happen. Otherwise, I could type out 30,000 lines of gibberish and take my fat paycheck.

New comment by beowulfey in "DHS keeps trying and failing to unmask anonymous ICE critics online"

beowulfey — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:50:00 +0000

It is not possible to "dox" a public employee because that information is legally public information. Don't become a public employee if you want your job to be private.

see e.g. https://www.openpayrolls.com

New comment by beowulfey in "TikTok is now collecting more data about its users"

beowulfey — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 01:47:54 +0000

Fully agree. Forums predate social media and are some of the oldest parts of the internet. And it's not quite socializing... it's more like, are you broadcasting and consuming content? Or discussing it?

New comment by beowulfey in "GPTZero finds 100 new hallucinations in NeurIPS 2025 accepted papers"

beowulfey — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:18:51 +0000

As with anything, it is about trusting your tools. Who is culpable for such errors? In the days of human authors, the person writing the text is responsible for not making these errors. When AI does the writing, the person whose name is on the paper should still be responsible—but do they know that? Do they realize the responsibility they are shouldering when they use these AI tools? I think many times they do not; we implicitly trust the outputs of these tools, and the dangers of that are not made clear.

New comment by beowulfey in "Boeing knew of flaw in part linked to UPS plane crash, NTSB report says"

beowulfey — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:33:14 +0000

They may have meant grounded, not decommissioned. DC-10s were grounded alongside the MD-11s.

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/us-faa-broadens-md-11-gr...

New comment by beowulfey in "A closer look at a BGP anomaly in Venezuela"

beowulfey — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:28:37 +0000

What is the purpose of saying this? It's being unnecessarily antagonistic towards a genuine sentiment. It's not like you are offering any solution either. Are you proposing nihilism, maybe?

New comment by beowulfey in "Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri"

beowulfey — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:19:01 +0000

I would have thought the change to Calibri was simply because office uses it as the default font now

New comment by beowulfey in "Schizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for psychotic episode"

beowulfey — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 17:34:36 +0000

Ah yes, a great point. We must protect the freedom to heap shit on other humans

New comment by beowulfey in "Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business"

beowulfey — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:53:54 +0000

California had Fry's until a few years ago. Once they went under it basically ended the local market.

I'd love to see more market-style parts locations a la Huaqiang or Akiahabara

New comment by beowulfey in "OpenAI needs to raise at least $207B by 2030"

beowulfey — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:44:07 +0000

But that occurred with a new form of media that people now use in more of their time than back before Google. It implies AI is growth in time spent. I think the trend is more likely that AI will replace other media.

New comment by beowulfey in "Pixar: The Early Days A never-before-seen 1996 interview"

beowulfey — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:22:32 +0000

If you visit Disneyland regularly, Snow White is just as popular for costumes as any other princess and has been for a long time!

New comment by beowulfey in "In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All"

beowulfey — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:18:37 +0000

It's not just about the economy, it is about freedom of choice. What does Max and Avery feel about their careers? Would they rather be working or watching kids? If one parent has to stay home, that might mean having to give up a good career.

No one should be forced to choose between a career and kids, unless the goal is falling birthrates.

New comment by beowulfey in "In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All"

beowulfey — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:14:34 +0000

It's not an intractable issue. It's just a matter of economics.

New comment by beowulfey in "The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia"

beowulfey — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 12:59:50 +0000

You can do this with State taxes too, but I think your impression that people just ignore it is correct. A good example of this is gas prices. Gas in CA is 70c per gallon, vs about 25c per gallon in the Northeast. This gets baked into the price, and is way more expensive in CA, but people need to buy gas. So you just have to pay. And since it is everywhere in the state, most people don't notice the difference.

New comment by beowulfey in "First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)"

beowulfey — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 10:35:52 +0000

Without ethics, other motivations inevitably end up undermining any good intentions an experimenter may have. Ethics are the "laws" of science that constrain us for the sake of all. Your opinions here reflect a Libertarian bent, I bet.