Hacker News: bitshiftfaced

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "What shall I teach my son?"

bitshiftfaced — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:39:41 +0000

It comes up in evidence-based parenting programs. It helps them connect the feeling word to their internal state, which is a step toward building emotional regulation skills. You're also modeling empathy for them. But one issue rarely talked about is how parents tend to label uncomfortable emotions far more than other ones, which can inadvertently reinforce them and cause them to happen more frequently.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly Report GLP-1 Signals of Slowed Biological Aging at ARDD"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:18:43 +0000

If it's the same study as the one that had this same finding that I dug into recently, then that's exactly what the study showed. People lost weight and slowed aging biomarkers, and the study deliberately did not control for this confounder.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Gemini 4 Argon"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:52:15 +0000

I have a pet theory that there's some overlap of writing patterns that A) indicate quality, clear communication and B) those that the LLMs have been converging on. As a result, we're ruining the reputation of some great writing patterns because we've associated it with AI slop.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "CEO of Mistral: AI is software. It can be controlled"

bitshiftfaced — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 15:01:34 +0000

In this analogy, the dogs understand how their leashes, fences, etc. work better than their owners. And you need only take a trip to the park to see how many owners let their dogs walk around without a leash.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "CEO of Mistral: AI is software. It can be controlled"

bitshiftfaced — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 14:54:44 +0000

An example of a past technology that there was substantial motivation to control would be napster. It changed overtime, and you could never really control online privacy. Once local models are good enough, I don't really see how you can control that.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Opus 5.5 is good at explainer videos"

bitshiftfaced — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:41:48 +0000

Not saying you're wrong. But maybe there's a reason Tiktok got so popular. Maybe for many people this way of communicating information is more effective and doesn't feel as boring/tedious.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Suspension of the de minimis administrative exemption for imports $800 or less"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:25:39 +0000

You're claiming that generics tend to be cheaper in Canada than the US. What are you basing this belief on?

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA"

bitshiftfaced — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 19:24:40 +0000

> you then also make it so that it can't be workers, what's left?

What was the core reason that readers gave donations? Probably most donors want employees treated well and to ideally keep their jobs, and yet the main thing they probably had in mind was the existence and continuation of the service itself.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA"

bitshiftfaced — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 19:14:20 +0000

> or when they’re so bad that people might actually die

Care to elaborate? Am I understanding correctly that the implication here is that there is some condition for which a software engineer having a union agreement could prevent that worker from dying?

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Screen viewing time from age 1 to 8 years and subsequent academic performance"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:33:35 +0000

The screen time crowds out time they could be interacting with the real world, engaging with all of their senses, and interacting with people. Two hours per day adds up over a critical time of their life that their peers are beginning to learn how to accurately learn to model the world and communicate.

At one years old, 2 hours is massive percentage of their "awake and aware" time, considering how much time they sleep and eat at this age.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Where Human Sleep Went Wrong"

bitshiftfaced — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:44:41 +0000

I believe that "little actual historical backing" could accurately describe what evidence that publication has provided, don't you?

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "US vs. UK Baby Names 2025: The Biggest Top Differences Visualized"

bitshiftfaced — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 19:41:53 +0000

The hot path goes: parents choose "long" version of name. Everyone calls them the "short" name. The short name is their name for the majority of life. They have to deal with administrative-type friction and confusion every time their long name is needed. Therefore, you make their life less frustrating by making their inevitable shorter name equal to their real name.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm"

bitshiftfaced — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 17:02:36 +0000

I have similar questions about public service unions as well. The reason why it makes sense to me for private for-profit companies is because stakeholders have a profit incentive to exploit workers. If non-profit tech workers are especially vulnerable to exploitation, then I guess it makes sense too, but I'm having trouble finding evidence for that.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Wikimedia Foundation refuses union recognition, hires union-busting law firm"

bitshiftfaced — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 15:28:16 +0000

Isn't Wikimedia a non profit? Who exactly are the employers on the other side negotiating with the union here? They're higher on the hierarchical structure, but they're not actually stakeholders the same as there are in private for-profit companies.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight"

bitshiftfaced — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:58:42 +0000

Not by a mile, at least for pasta. When you compare the calorie density and glycemic index of pasta with other grains or grain-derived foods, it's really not bad. The dose makes the poison.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:48:58 +0000

Not to mention internal use cases, such as prediction-related tasks like serving ads.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "House passes bill to enact year-round Daylight Saving Time across the country"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:58:33 +0000

From what I'm reading, it was a big factor that children were walking to school in the dark. One stat I read was that since that time the percentage of kids walking/cycling to school went from almost 50% to now 10%. Maybe that could make the difference this time around.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "Building Food Metadata with LLM Juries"

bitshiftfaced — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:14:26 +0000

I'm guessing that if it is a real tag, then consumers have a "know it when I see it" feeling for certain kinds of food that they'd describe as "healthy." As a word that could be consistently well-defined, it's garbage. But that doesn't mean it's not useful for real-world consumers to find what they believe they want.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "FDA rejects petition to set PFAS limits in food"

bitshiftfaced — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:47:04 +0000

I understand where you're coming from. But on the off chance something unrelated were to go wrong with the blood down the line, it could be shown that a false answer was knowingly given. You have to weigh this risk against keeping "the privilege to give blood". I guess it depends on your values and risk tolerance.

New comment by bitshiftfaced in "FDA rejects petition to set PFAS limits in food"

bitshiftfaced — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:54:41 +0000

"Accidentally"? Implying she should've lied about it even though they probably have some reason (evaluating risk presumably) for asking?