Hacker News: bootwoot

New comment by bootwoot in "FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me"

bootwoot — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 22:54:20 +0000

True. But also -- how do humans do it? There are docs and there's other similar driver code. I wouldn't be surprised if Claude could build new driver code sight-unseen, given the appropriate resources

New comment by bootwoot in "You should write an agent"

bootwoot — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 22:00:26 +0000

That's not an agent, it's an LLM. An agent is an LLM that takes real-world actions

New comment by bootwoot in "I've Acquired a New Superpower"

bootwoot — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:20:42 +0000

One thing I noticed: because you're tricking your eyes into thinking they're observing at a different distance, your brain doesn't seem to correctly account for head tilt (my theory of the diagnosis). Anyway, I think you're head must be exactly level with the image or you'll get double-vision/blur

New comment by bootwoot in "Automakers Sold Driver Data for Pennies, Senators Say"

bootwoot — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 15:18:55 +0000

Probably this NYT article on de-anonymized phone data?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...

New comment by bootwoot in "Study Finds 268% Higher Failure Rates for Agile Software Projects"

bootwoot — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 10:11:45 +0000

It feels like a significantly more likely explanation is that younger, newer companies are going to embrace the younger, newer agile methodology. Younger, newer software companies are also more likely to take on risky projects and fail than older established companies with older practices.

New comment by bootwoot in "280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars"

bootwoot — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 16:26:39 +0000

Which is to say, the least efficient

New comment by bootwoot in "The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build"

bootwoot — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 20:10:06 +0000

Which office are you specifically talking about?

Hochul just got a bunch of funding through:

> But the biggest lifeline arrived in April, when Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers agreed to include new and recurring funding for the M.T.A. in the state budget.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/nyregion/mta-nyc-subway-s...

And the mayor doesn't really have any power - although I haven't seen anything to suggest that Adams is anti-transit.

Cuomo did fuck up a good thing with Andy Byford. But fuck that guy

New comment by bootwoot in "Open source hospital price database"

bootwoot — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 01:49:48 +0000

Even so it's a maddeningly complicated system. If you end up in front of a doctor outside of your magic network, you might end up with a sudden several thousand dollar bill instead of $400.

Minor mistakes and games can also create odd billing situations that are opaque and difficult to fight.

New comment by bootwoot in "New York City will charge drivers going downtown"

bootwoot — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 18:17:52 +0000

Pedestrian and bike deaths are climbing [0]. 44% of New Yorkers are considered rent burdened [1] and sure as fuck can't afford a car in the city. Cars can only be considered a successful mode of transportation from a fairly wealthy and elite perspective of a car owner in New York. If you have the cash for the car itself and off-the-street parking, sure, it's probably great. But for everyone else it makes daily life of walking and biking in the street significantly more dangerous with no clear reciprocal benefit.

[0] https://www.curbed.com/2023/04/its-already-been-a-deadly-yea....

[1] https://wherewelive.cityofnewyork.us/explore-data/housing-co...

New comment by bootwoot in "NYC Subwaysheds"

bootwoot — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 18:57:54 +0000

It's also very across the harbor between Staten Island and Manhattan. Any bridge or tunnel would be multiple times longer than any other bridge or tunnel in the area (and correspondingly expensive).

New comment by bootwoot in "How to quit cars"

bootwoot — Fri, 19 May 2023 17:26:16 +0000

There's a cause and effect issue here. It requires lot of money to go from an unloved public transit system used only by the poorest individuals to a fast, reliable, clean system that the wealthier classes with options would choose to use over their personal vehicles.

But, that investment is generally decided on by that same wealthier class that is currently choosing their personal vehicle.

It's impossible to start the economic ball rolling without some evangelizing to capture hearts and minds of those that aren't currently using or interested in investing in the mass transit system.

New comment by bootwoot in "America will soon see a wave of bank mergers?"

bootwoot — Tue, 02 May 2023 17:32:03 +0000

That's exactly what Silicon Valley Bank did. While federal bonds are nearly risk free in terms of default, they still suffer from interest rate risk -- that is, they may lose significant value if interest rates rise. In the case of SVB, US treasury bonds lost enough value to make the bank insolvent.

New comment by bootwoot in "TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids"

bootwoot — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:56:33 +0000

This is possible. But the the evidence in that link is Tucker Carlson. I don't think we can know whether this is actually happening and we're seeing a lot of speculation about what China could or would do given the power they have through moderation of TikTok.

The possibility of China abusing content moderation might be enough to throw out the app altogether. But the only "evidence" we currently have is guessing at what China might do and people in media amplifying that discomfort.

New comment by bootwoot in "Camus's New York Diary (1946)"

bootwoot — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 18:38:10 +0000

There's no bridge to the day from Manhattan* where Camus appeared to be spending time. There is indeed the Verazzano narrows bridge to south Brooklyn. But that would be a pretty far walk

New comment by bootwoot in "Camus's New York Diary (1946)"

bootwoot — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 23:10:21 +0000

There's no bridge to this day. There's the start of a tunnel on both ends, but not very far along. He likely took a ferry.

New comment by bootwoot in "Foundational distributed systems papers (2021)"

bootwoot — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 15:40:14 +0000

Oh duh. Sorry, I could have sworn "Raft" was in the title.

All is well here

New comment by bootwoot in "Foundational distributed systems papers (2021)"

bootwoot — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:11:02 +0000

I'm surprised not to see Raft on the list. I'm pretty new to the world, but it seems like it's become the replicated state-machine of choice.

New comment by bootwoot in "Epic Games, others accuse Sundar Pichai of violating retention obligations"

bootwoot — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 22:56:09 +0000

I was taking the referenced chat conversation in the post to have occurred after the legal hold was put in place. It seems far more devious to explicitly avoid records in places that would otherwise have records when a court has already said "you need to have records". I'm not a lawyer and don't know the context that well, though, so this may be incorrect understanding on my part.

New comment by bootwoot in "Amazon Mandating 3 days back in office come May first"

bootwoot — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 18:49:35 +0000

Investors love layoffs thus far. Has this generally not been the case in the past? Or specifically repeated rounds are not taken well?

New comment by bootwoot in "Michael Burry’s warning for the index fund bubble"

bootwoot — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 18:15:48 +0000

You can buy an S&P 500 index and short exactly the holdings in the three stocks you want to remove to achieve this. Shorting comes with fees, but it's the closest you can get with normal human amounts of capital