Hacker News: bigthymer

New comment by bigthymer in "I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling"

bigthymer — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 23:57:29 +0000

Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the top.

New comment by bigthymer in "Anthropic surpasses OpenAI to become most valuable AI startup"

bigthymer — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:21:03 +0000

Why?

New comment by bigthymer in "Agentic Coding Is a Trap"

bigthymer — Mon, 04 May 2026 03:53:59 +0000

While prescription drug marketing to consumers is an issue in the US, I think the actual problem in this situation is people Googling their issue then coming to the doctor with the conclusion of their investigation instead of letting the doctor do the investigation themselves.

New comment by bigthymer in "Investors pile into clean energy as Iran war drives push for energy security"

bigthymer — Sun, 03 May 2026 13:01:12 +0000

Typical commodity cycle...most commodities work like this

New comment by bigthymer in "US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire"

bigthymer — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:34:43 +0000

Yes. From what I've read, they can't stop enrichment unless they deploy soldiers for occupation and they are unwilling to do so.

New comment by bigthymer in "Solar Balconies Take Europe by Storm"

bigthymer — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:44:44 +0000

Virginia recently became the 2nd state to allow it.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/virginia-to-becom...

Faster, thinner: Colleges are swiftly trimming a B.A. degree to three years

bigthymer — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:29:27 +0000

Article URL: https://hechingerreport.org/faster-thinner-colleges-bachelors-degree-three-years/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47388979

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by bigthymer in "Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions"

bigthymer — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:03:31 +0000

> Near zero interest rates + COVID remote work + PPP loans = Booming economy

One more factor to add to the equation...when everyone went remote during COVID, all brick-and-mortar businesses had to quickly move to conducting their businesses online driving demand for SWEs.

New comment by bigthymer in "Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse"

bigthymer — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 12:23:23 +0000

> Puff piece with 1000+ words that doesn't ever assert anything in particular that the author was wrong about

His article mostly talks about other things but I think his title is sufficient. He says that he never thought that the news would become so unreliable that he would end up getting his news from randos on Bluesky who simply share what they know without an intention to monetize it.

New comment by bigthymer in "US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February"

bigthymer — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:55:46 +0000

More money is flowing into commodities. Gold price going up feeds into more mining.

New comment by bigthymer in "Making Firefox's right-click not suck with about:config"

bigthymer — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:30:58 +0000

Personally, I think the Firefox browser right-click options are one of the more useful right-click menus. The one on the Apple OS is a better example of excessive and worthless.

New comment by bigthymer in "Payment fees matter more than you think"

bigthymer — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 22:16:20 +0000

> Maybe I'm just remembering badly, but I don't remember encountering this twenty years ago; back then the rules were clear that you either didn't accept credit payments, or you did and it was the same price as cash

My memory is in accordance with yours

New comment by bigthymer in "Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024"

bigthymer — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:04:36 +0000

> Can the source database for an LLM be one-way, in that it does not contain output from itself, or other LLMs?

I think, for public internet data, we can only be reasonably confident for information before the big release of ChatGPT.

New comment by bigthymer in "Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year rule"

bigthymer — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 11:19:58 +0000

From my understanding, it wasn't the bombing that motivated Japan to surrender even though this is commonly taught, it was the recent Soviet declaration of war and fear of invasion/occupation.

New comment by bigthymer in "Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs"

bigthymer — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:14:45 +0000

I think the logic goes something like...in a democracy, government policies should reflect the will of the people. The majority of the people are against exporting jobs overseas when the economy at home is not doing well, especially when the people that control the hiring are becoming obscenely wealthy at the cost of impoverishing the workers.

New comment by bigthymer in "Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning"

bigthymer — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 18:16:44 +0000

We would have to prepare for a deluge of accounts posting\commenting just for the sake of accumulating karma to be able to downvote.

New comment by bigthymer in "Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, Polarization (2025)"

bigthymer — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 11:20:17 +0000

The YouTube numbers surprised me the most. I agree with you. I was expecting a rise in viewership.

New comment by bigthymer in "Film students who can no longer sit through films"

bigthymer — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:07:38 +0000

I wonder if the students are going into film but actually just want to work in social media in which case it all makes sense.

New comment by bigthymer in "Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades"

bigthymer — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 03:42:02 +0000

I actually think this is a deal only Buffett could have made. By bringing on Buffett as an investor, it sent a signal to the market that the bank was solvent and improved confidence in the company. Another investor would not have brought the same calm so would not have had the same return even if they bought the same amount at the same time.

New comment by bigthymer in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

bigthymer — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 02:57:58 +0000

> The truth is Americans do want this

I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.