Hacker News: blackshaw

New comment by blackshaw in "OpenAI – Application for US trademark “GPT” has failed"

blackshaw — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:40:36 +0000

Entrepreneur magazine are famous for this too.

New comment by blackshaw in "European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption"

blackshaw — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:27:04 +0000

The Rwanda ECHR injunction was followed, which is one reason why no migrants have yet been sent to Rwanda despite nearly two years of harsh rhetoric.

New comment by blackshaw in "A French village that voted to ban scrolling in public"

blackshaw — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:44:03 +0000

How did you survive before 2020?

New comment by blackshaw in "A French village that voted to ban scrolling in public"

blackshaw — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 22:21:47 +0000

I always do, but increasingly I'm finding places don't even have one to give me.

New comment by blackshaw in "A French village that voted to ban scrolling in public"

blackshaw — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 18:15:27 +0000

You forgot "restaurants that no longer provide printed menus and expect you to view the menu on your phone instead".

Dear fucking God I will go to my grave complaining about how much I hate this trend.

New comment by blackshaw in "Prediction markets have an elections problem"

blackshaw — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 01:12:16 +0000

So? 25% doesn't mean it can't happen. I wouldn't cross the road if there was a 25% of being hit by a car.

The real way to measure predictive accuracy is to find _all_ the times they gave something a 25% chance of happening. If the predictions are accurate then roughly 25% of those things should have happened.

New comment by blackshaw in "How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time"

blackshaw — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 09:04:36 +0000

If we're talking about spelling, the biggest source of English's orthographic oddness is the Great Vowel Shift:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

New comment by blackshaw in "How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time"

blackshaw — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 21:19:56 +0000

> we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100

Wurs than Inglish? I hav my dowts.

New comment by blackshaw in "To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use"

blackshaw — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:43:04 +0000

Cigarettes kill you slowly over decades, fentanyl can kill a first-time user with a single dose.

Moronic analogy.

New comment by blackshaw in "To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use"

blackshaw — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:39:06 +0000

Why do you say it's not working out in Portugal or Amsterdam? I frequently hear those two places cited as an example of where drug liberalisation has been a big success. Is that not true? I ask from ignorance.

New comment by blackshaw in "Mathematicians have found a new upper limit to the Ramsey number"

blackshaw — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 18:25:25 +0000

As dang explains in one of the linked posts, it's because if they don't do it, the discussion usually becomes "how is this on the front page when it's 2 days old?" instead of discussing the topic at hand.

Of course in this case we're now discussing the opposite question and still not discussing the topic at hand.

New comment by blackshaw in "Salad Fingers and the dawn of ‘weird YouTube’"

blackshaw — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 02:51:42 +0000

But is that old man wrong?

New comment by blackshaw in "Salad Fingers and the dawn of ‘weird YouTube’"

blackshaw — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 02:50:49 +0000

So much nostalgia in this thread!

New comment by blackshaw in "U.S. GDP grew at a 4.9% annual pace in the third quarter, better than expected"

blackshaw — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 16:06:42 +0000

I lived in Southeast Asia for a few years in my 20s - not teaching English, mainly just scraping together a living through random Internet bullshit, but I had lots of friends who taught English, and I've seen what a good springboard it can be for global travel if you want to live abroad.

But the main thing I'd say to anyone considering moving countries is that most countries aren't highly desired immigration destinations like the US or Western Europe, and thus most countries don't have strict and tightly-controlled immigration systems like Western countries do. If you want to go spend a few years in Thailand as a Westerner, it's laughably easy - just buy a flight and you'll probably figure it out once you're there, as your Western dollars/pounds/euros will go a looooong way.

(I apologize to any Thai people reading this; I know that digital nomads and other wealthy foreigners aren't universally appreciated in the countries they park up in. Am just sharing my own experience.)

I wouldn't want to live in that part of the world for the rest of my life, but the time I did spend travelling was the best thing I ever did and I have no regrets. I wrote about it here if anyone's interested:

https://blackshaw.substack.com/p/digital-nomad

New comment by blackshaw in "'Failure to act' on suicide website linked to 50 UK deaths"

blackshaw — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 09:49:22 +0000

Yeah, it's quite hilarious that this article's only critique of the OSB is to quote someone saying that it doesn't go far enough.

New comment by blackshaw in "'Failure to act' on suicide website linked to 50 UK deaths"

blackshaw — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 09:43:46 +0000

Here we go again:

Alex Jones is being a dick? Disgraceful - we need to censor the internet.

Cloudflare is protecting a Neo-Nazi website from being DDOSed? There's no such thing as neutrality - we need to censor the internet.

Journalists are getting "harassed"? This must be stopped - we need to censor the internet.

Someone I don't like got elected? The problem is "disinformation" - we need to censor the internet.

Some guy in Scotland made an idiotic and tasteless joke involving his dog? We can't allow this kind of content - we need to censor the internet.

Joe Rogan is platforming the wrong people? They mustn't be allowed to spread their bad ideas - we need to censor the internet.

Something, something, Russia? Censor the internet! Censor the internet!!!

But wait: now suicidal people are getting suicide information from a web forum? You'd have never have guessed, but the answer is... to censor the internet!

Idk, I think that maybe the issue isn't the issue, these people just want more power to censor the internet.

New comment by blackshaw in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

blackshaw — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:56:03 +0000

Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen it here in Britain. Some smaller businesses might insist on a £5 minimum spend if you're not paying cash, but even that has become very rare since the pandemic.

New comment by blackshaw in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

blackshaw — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:54:27 +0000

Who are you to decide what other people should consider essential?

New comment by blackshaw in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

blackshaw — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 11:06:01 +0000

Google "canadian trucker protest"

New comment by blackshaw in "D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect"

blackshaw — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 11:04:58 +0000

Maybe we should also mandate the USDA to bake same-sex wedding cakes.