Hacker News: blowski

New comment by blowski in "Lullaby Language (2006)"

blowski — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 21:47:37 +0000

Gerald Weinberg was a prolific author in the tech consultancy space, and most of his writing consists of anecdotes like this. He explains his theories by telling stories, the veracity of which isn’t the point.

On the specific note, I frequently make these mistakes, despite having read his books and knowing the problem to which he’s referring. I say “could you just…” and “we should really do x today”. In the abstract, we can all see the problem, yet it’s easy to forget in reality.

New comment by blowski in "My Obsidian note-taking workflow"

blowski — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 14:06:48 +0000

The winner in the “software with passionate users” has to be emacs.

New comment by blowski in "Paper cuttings made by 17th-century schoolgirls discovered beneath floorboards"

blowski — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 13:59:36 +0000

I find this a vague, reductionist view. When I have dinner with my family today, there’s more than one nature, while my own nature has changed in the last 10 years. To say most people have had the same nature at least for the last 300 years is only true if you reduce “nature” to something so banal that it means nothing at all.

New comment by blowski in "Paper cuttings made by 17th-century schoolgirls discovered beneath floorboards"

blowski — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 13:23:38 +0000

> we just have phones now

That’s a huge understatement. We have electricity, refrigeration, medicine, mass transit (including international), human rights, enormous increases in population, fast media, internet, nuclear weapons, universal literacy, factory lines, spaceships, cities of many millions of people. Anyone that’s played Civilisation knows how far the tech tree goes once you hit the Enlightenment.

And you can see how much internet and social media have changed society, so imagine the impact of all those things combined on the human brain.

Clickbait Capitalism – Or, the Return to Libidinal Political Economy

blowski — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 09:45:40 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ppesydney.net/clickbait-capitalism-or-the-return-to-libidinal-political-economy/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41085475

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by blowski in "Zulip 9.0: Organized chat for distributed teams"

blowski — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:15:37 +0000

Do you have any specifics on examples of the design being inferior?

New comment by blowski in "OpenAI Announces SearchGPT"

blowski — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 19:05:59 +0000

Fixed

New comment by blowski in "OpenAI Announces SearchGPT"

blowski — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 18:41:19 +0000

If you want ChatGPT to say nice things about you (or bad things about your competitors), then you'll need to give it your version of information - at least that will be the line peddled to us.

I've already received emails from SEO snake oil sellers now advertising themselves as being able to influence ChatGPT output.

New comment by blowski in "Database Design for Google Calendar: A Tutorial"

blowski — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 12:08:59 +0000

I'd say this is exactly what the interviewers wanted. They're interested in how you break down the problem, the types of solutions you consider, your understanding of the trade-offs involved. For example, I interviewed somebody who was adamant they could prevent double-booking by polling an end-point and storing the state in Redux. Fantastic JavaScript skills, terrible knowledge of databases.

The "Correlation" Between Statistics and Eugenics

blowski — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 07:53:26 +0000

Article URL: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-correlation-between-statistics-and-eugenics/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41043675

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

The Uneven Distribution of AI's Environmental Impacts

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 21:35:38 +0000

Article URL: https://hbr.org/2024/07/the-uneven-distribution-of-ais-environmental-impacts

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41040058

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by blowski in "Web Crap Has Taken Control"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 17:28:45 +0000

Good question. I suppose an existing plugin that meets the requirements, or the skills to build one myself.

New comment by blowski in "Parse, Don't Validate (2019)"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 11:40:05 +0000

Doesn't that seem a bit passive aggressive? See what I did there?

New comment by blowski in "Web Crap Has Taken Control"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 11:37:19 +0000

Also, there are many UI challenges solved easily by React plugins - e.g. multi-select boxes, datepickers, colour pickers, file uploads, etc. Yes, this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But I don't have a nutcracker, and I do already have a sledgehammer, so why not.

New comment by blowski in "Jellyfin: We're Good, Seriously"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 10:42:39 +0000

Don't we have that with Patreon, GitHub Sponsors?

New comment by blowski in "Jellyfin: We're Good, Seriously"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 09:39:57 +0000

I agree, it would be nice to make it easy to donate, and then the donations are spread to others within the ecosystem. But perhaps they're worried about a ruckus when they choose to make a donation someone doesn't agree with, so they'd need to have a layer of bureaucracy that they don't want to manage.

New comment by blowski in "Parse, Don't Validate (2019)"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 08:36:07 +0000

This is true of all famous essays. People remove the nuance included in the body and over-apply the title without really understanding it.

For example "Goto considered harmful". I remember working with a very good programmer who'd used a "goto", and a much less senior one[1] rejected their PR by linking to the article.

[1] I'm ashamed to say it was me, a long time ago.

New comment by blowski in "Parse, Don't Validate (2019)"

blowski — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 08:30:52 +0000

Some good previous discussions on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35053118

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476261

New comment by blowski in "Tell HN: Educative.io auto-renews without warning, refuses to provide refunds"

blowski — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 18:42:54 +0000

> outside EU

Way to kick a Brit when they're down!

Fortunately, we implemented the EU regulations back in 2013, and haven't yet repealed them so I can chargeback on a normal credit card.

New comment by blowski in "Tell HN: Educative.io auto-renews without warning, refuses to provide refunds"

blowski — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 18:02:21 +0000

I actually do have a right, very specifically my statutory right under the UK's "Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation, and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013" which requires that vendors provide clear and timely information about automatic renewals, which I assert educative.io failed to do in this case.

Startup or not, I expect vendors to be compliant with regulations.