Hacker News: beowulfey

New comment by beowulfey in "The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader"

beowulfey — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:56:51 +0000

I would love something as responsive as the Remarkable tablet in this form factor

New comment by beowulfey in "Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV"

beowulfey — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:25:40 +0000

There is a market for smaller cars and trucks but its probably smaller than for other countries. We don't have the smaller roads/spaces associated with e.g. Europe. But for sure I would buy small cars or trucks first any day compared to the monsters on the road; there are few options though.

New comment by beowulfey in "Measles surge in Utah sparks fears US could undo decades of progress"

beowulfey — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:00:41 +0000

There is active propaganda against scientists and institutions; and scientists are decent but not excellent communicators. They lost the communication war and now the general public is very distrusting of science.

New comment by beowulfey in "Google will pay SpaceX $920M per month for compute"

beowulfey — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:11:58 +0000

Why the hell ARE they even valued that way?

New comment by beowulfey in "Retro-Tech Parenting"

beowulfey — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:33:37 +0000

There's definitely something to this idea. Our toddler absolutely loves her Yoto player, which is kind of like a tiny Walkman with cards instead of tapes. It's new but has that same old-tech feeling, IMO. She loves to pick out her favorite "albums" (some of which are stories) and listen to them. We have them all where she can easily grab them and swap them out. Have definitely lost a few cards but they're cheap enough and they usually turn up again eventually, plus it helps teach her to keep her things organized (if you lose it... it's gone!).

We also got an old VCR for free, and pulled out all the VHS tapes from the parents' attics. Another great system for the kiddo. We have an assortment of tapes that she can choose from, and we let her pick the tape and insert it herself. I think the tactile feeling of selecting and starting it up is very satisfying.

Somewhere along the way we forgot the importance of touch in interfacing with technology. We are definitely starved for that sensation in the modern world.

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.