Hacker News: bvan

New comment by bvan in "Music Theory for Programmers"

bvan — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 14:06:35 +0000

Perfect for me. When you’re raised in a world of science your brain does not rest until you understand some level of ‘why’. Beginner music instruction and theory usually assumes you’re brain-dead and just take in, no questions asked.

New comment by bvan in "It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell"

bvan — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:13:12 +0000

This is analogous to what AI is turning into. Pretty soon, some folks won’t be able to tie their shoe laces without tech.

New comment by bvan in "Don't use your phone while you poop"

bvan — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 17:03:16 +0000

What has Hacker News come to… sigh..

New comment by bvan in "Scaling NumPy on Free-Threaded Python"

bvan — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:27:37 +0000

Perhaps, however, this hacky language is more productive in the real world than most. What’s the point, otherwise?

New comment by bvan in "The Graph That Should Be Front-Page News"

bvan — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:44:34 +0000

Yes, it is worth looking at. My thinking was, how fast did that sequence revert back to the’mean’? It doesn’t take away from the author’s message though.

New comment by bvan in "The Graph That Should Be Front-Page News"

bvan — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:42:52 +0000

You’re welcome to go get the data and chart it the way you think it should be charted, and then we can have a conversation.

New comment by bvan in "French physicist and media star loses doctorate after plagiarism investigation"

bvan — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:42:38 +0000

In the era of AI this is quaint. They ain’t seen nothing yet.

New comment by bvan in "Show HN: I am building a map of people who lived in the Roman Empire"

bvan — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 09:04:18 +0000

This is the kind of application which brings me back to shore as I feel I’m drowning in AI slop. Really well done and thanks for sharing.

New comment by bvan in "90% of the T Distribution"

bvan — Sun, 31 May 2026 03:23:26 +0000

Not to be too picky, but I think when the author refers to ‘number of samples’, he means ‘sample size’. One sample, one or more observations.

New comment by bvan in "I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph"

bvan — Mon, 25 May 2026 19:12:01 +0000

Reminds me of process I went through to create the charts for my humble grad thesis (1990-ish), by hand, with letter templates and one very expensive rotring pen. Then would transfer the figures to transparencies as backup for my defense. The real presentation was done using a slide projector (this was cutting edge back then, like over-the-top). Yes, took actual photos of my charts..

New comment by bvan in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"

bvan — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:19:16 +0000

Gave back my green card the moment I left the US. No longer wanted the hassle and ties to an unpredictable regime. Haven’t looked back.

New comment by bvan in "Energy return in running shoes explained (2025)"

bvan — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:42:02 +0000

Why?

New comment by bvan in "How an Australian Teen Team Is Making Radio Astronomy Affordable for Schools"

bvan — Sat, 16 May 2026 17:06:23 +0000

Along the same lines: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/ad0542

New comment by bvan in "Agents for financial services and insurance"

bvan — Wed, 06 May 2026 02:21:39 +0000

Yes, in very specific cases where I fully understand the methodology(ies) that is (are) applicable, and am able to verify correct implementation. Also, as an enhanced ‘Google search’ to supplement what I have found. I am the skeptical type… yet, so far have been impressed. But, I wouldn’t trust using AI to blindly give me solutions to a problem I couldn’t solve myself, albeit much more slowly.

New comment by bvan in "The Zig project's rationale for their anti-AI contribution policy"

bvan — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:05:39 +0000

Fake it ‘till you make it. Seems like LLM’s have caught-on to that too.

New comment by bvan in "Panipat: The Rise of the Mughals"

bvan — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:14:46 +0000

That’s great. I find the Sultanate coins, for example, are much more refined in terms of style relative to those minted Western Europe around the same time. For example: https://www.numismall.com/collections/bengal-sultanate-1203-....

New comment by bvan in "Panipat: The rise of the Mughals"

bvan — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 14:52:11 +0000

As someone interested in coinage, India is fascinating. Coins from the Sultanates and Mughal periods are just beautiful.

New comment by bvan in "Now is the best time to write code by hand"

bvan — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 21:22:58 +0000

Totally agree. Especially for commercial or code that adds value. Writing code is just one element of developing quality, robust, software. In the rea world, commercial or production software must be maintained, supported, and must respond to changing user requirements. The human element is critical, unless you’re OK with relying on LLM’s, crossing your fingers, and have no care to support users.

New comment by bvan in "Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold"

bvan — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:03:10 +0000

WPF marked the end of well thought-out UI’s and standards. It’s been web-inspired slop ever since.

New comment by bvan in "Eight years of wanting, three months of building with AI"

bvan — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:52:20 +0000

This a very insightful post. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. AI is incredibly powerful, but it’s no free-lunch.