Hacker News: breezeTrowel

New comment by breezeTrowel in "'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:48:51 +0000

Which article is wrongm Both the article and Wikipedia entry focus on The Backrooms which are a type of liminal space. Yes, liminal spaces have existed in fiction, dreams, etc. However, here the discussion is on The Backrooms and how that idea and aesthetic became very popular very quickly.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:53:48 +0000

The concept did not originate in videogames. The whole thing started from a 4chan post where someone posted a photo of a yellow interior. Then, in 2022, Kane Parsons created a viral YouTube video based on that post. You can see it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=H4dGpz6cnHo . The video game adaptations all came later.

Wikipedia has a good writeup here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Ultrasound toothbrush promises painless checks for hidden gum problems"

breezeTrowel — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:02:13 +0000

Despite the headline, this is not a toothbrush. This is a "toothbrush-shaped ultrasound transducer". Mind you, I don't know why this wouldn't "increase dentist margin". This is an analysis tool that makes dentistry easier (just like dental X-rays).

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Defibrillation devices save lives using 1k times less electricity"

breezeTrowel — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 06:26:54 +0000

I think the biggest change with external defibrillators has been placement. It's now front and back instead of two on the front.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Threads Enables Fediverse Replies"

breezeTrowel — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 01:56:18 +0000

I'm not sure I understand this analogy. If Meta changes what underlying model they use, it'll still be called Meta AI. Having the criteria be "what new features does it offer to the users of the site" means that things like databases, servers, etc. are not products. This is objectively false.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Threads Enables Fediverse Replies"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 15:10:25 +0000

They see AI features front and center. They dont see the backend (which may or may not be running Llama). Same goes for React although, with React, the framework is what the end user directly interacts with. So, by that logic, React is more of a product than Llama.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Threads Enables Fediverse Replies"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:44:18 +0000

Yes and Facebook uses React and GraphQL. Meta AI uses PyTorch. Does that make them all products?

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Threads Enables Fediverse Replies"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:11:00 +0000

How is Llama a product? It's more like React, PyTorch, GraphQL, etc.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn"

breezeTrowel — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 19:19:20 +0000

Regarding Kim Dotcom, the government allegetions aren't about what users do. You can read them here:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-charges-le...

Granted, he's moved on to being a Kremlin propagandist and is now shilling anti-Semitism. See:

https://x.com/KimDotcom/status/1825187568834753021

New comment by breezeTrowel in "If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it"

breezeTrowel — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 12:20:49 +0000

He wasn't having trouble with his WiFi since he was connected directly to the device. Although it might have helped to specify an Ethernet link. Still, chatbots are generally a terrible user experience.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "The Rhisotope Project: Insertion of radioisotopes into live rhinoceros"

breezeTrowel — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 13:26:39 +0000

Are you a rhinoceros?

New comment by breezeTrowel in "We Are Made of Waves"

breezeTrowel — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:07:30 +0000

Yes. That's why fundamental particles are called the "building blocks of the universe". It's buildings all the way down!

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Researchers identify major driver of inflammatory bowel and related diseases"

breezeTrowel — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 19:28:22 +0000

Here you go:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07501-1

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Superconducting Computer: Imec's plan to shrink datacenters"

breezeTrowel — Fri, 31 May 2024 14:11:10 +0000

Superconductors do not generate heat when in their superconducting state. Otherwise they wouldn't be superconductors.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "IBM Granite: A Family of Open Foundation Models for Code Intelligence"

breezeTrowel — Wed, 08 May 2024 09:27:23 +0000

These are open weight models released under an Apache 2.0 license. There's nothing to buy.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "No one buys books"

breezeTrowel — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 02:58:02 +0000

I think there's a fourth option - those little kiosks (like the Little Free Library ones) have started to spring up everywhere so it's a lot easier to just leave one's read books there.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "DBRX: A new open LLM"

breezeTrowel — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 19:32:07 +0000

Cranking up the parameter count is literally how the current LLM craze got started. Hence the "large" in "large language model".

New comment by breezeTrowel in "SQL is syntactic sugar for relational algebra"

breezeTrowel — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 16:03:46 +0000

I know some of these words.

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Understanding, using, and finetuning Gemma"

breezeTrowel — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 16:39:18 +0000

How can it be vaporware if it's already been released?

New comment by breezeTrowel in "Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead"

breezeTrowel — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 14:40:02 +0000

Simple. The article states they use the UK's death registry. The problem is they have no way to flag an erroneous match for longer than 12 months.