Hacker News: chinchilla2020

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "California unemployment rises to 5.5%, worst in the U.S. as tech falters"

chinchilla2020 — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 21:50:45 +0000

helpdesk

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "California unemployment rises to 5.5%, worst in the U.S. as tech falters"

chinchilla2020 — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 21:47:36 +0000

It has been a gradual change.

> already maximally happened since decades ago

We just laid off ~4000 employees and are replacing them with hiring in India. Your notion that it already happened decades ago is wrong.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Tell HN: I Lost Joy of Programming"

chinchilla2020 — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:27:59 +0000

> That's a fact

Great evidence. Add "full stop." to really drive the point home

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Revisiting Knuth's "Premature Optimization" Paper"

chinchilla2020 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:01:19 +0000

There is more to it than that.

1. Decide if optimization is even necessary.

2. Then optimize the slowest path

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Revisiting Knuth's "Premature Optimization" Paper"

chinchilla2020 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:28 +0000

another commonly misinterpreted one is the `shouting fire in a crowded theatre` quote.

In it's original context it means the opposite of how people use it today.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 18:07:57 +0000

If AI can do anything, why can't I just prompt "Here is sudo access to my laptop, please do all my work for me, respond to emails, manage my household budget, and manage my meetings".

I've tried everything. I have four AI agents. They still have an accuracy rate of about 50%.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 18:04:25 +0000

High karma in an internet community is not something I respect automatically. Pewdiepie and every other little online personality have tons of followers and likes.

tptacek has always come across arrogant, juvenile, opinionated, and difficult to work with.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:58:33 +0000

As I said in another post. The article is pure rhetoric. It provides no actual numbers, measurements, or examples.

It's just "AI did stuff really good for me" as the proof that AI works

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:54:12 +0000

and builder.ai just filed for bankruptcy after a billion dollar valuation. Timely.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:52:17 +0000

Agreed.

The article provides zero measurement, zero examples, zero numbers.

It's pure conjecture with no data or experiment to back it up. Unfortunately conjecture rises to the top on hackernews. A well built study on LLM effectiveness would fall off the front page quickly.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:42:36 +0000

The article provides no solid evidence that "AI is working" for the author.

At the end of the day this article is nothing but another piece of conjecture on hackernews.

Actually assessing the usefulness of AI would require measurements and controls. Nothing has been proven or disproven here

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 15:15:34 +0000

The reason I remain in the "skeptical" camp is because I am experiencing the same thing you are - I keep oscillating between being impressed, then disappointed.

Ultimately the thing that impresses me is that LLMs have replaced google search. The thing that disappoints me is that their code is often convincing but wrong.

Coming from a hard-engineering background, anything that is unreliable is categorized as bad. If you come from the move-fast-break-things world of tech, then your tolerance for mistakes is probably a lot higher.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic"

chinchilla2020 — Fri, 30 May 2025 04:49:55 +0000

They sort of exist and do have women in them - but there are tons of tons of men you can meet with.

Sports clubs are full of friends you can make. I'm close with alot of guys that I train with.

Try tennis, or lifting, or running, or golf. Do NOT go to DnD meetups and other low effort stuff. Exertion is what forms bonds.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "The Who Cares Era"

chinchilla2020 — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:51:14 +0000

> Large companies sometimes love to preach "intrapreneurial" spirit, encourage the individual will & ownership, all while refusing to acknowledge the constraints & impositions of corporate hierarchy, the lack of freedom, that the large organizational structure imposes.

Eloquently put. This is what drives me nuts about Brian Chesky. He wants employees to take ownership - but doesn't give them any ownership.

If I worked for BNB and was aggressively pursuing a new idea, I could still be laid off any second because of his ego. That isn't ownership.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Reinvent the Wheel"

chinchilla2020 — Sun, 25 May 2025 17:04:41 +0000

I've read some literature on this decompiling and reverse engineering work. It always blows my mind that there is a community of experts in it, toiling in science. Yet the academic and learning communities do not know anything about it. It's like an underground CS topic.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you.""

chinchilla2020 — Thu, 08 May 2025 19:29:00 +0000

That's actually his personality based on my knowledge of interactions with him. He is sort of a workaholic robot.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis"

chinchilla2020 — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:28:34 +0000

> old dorm room with paint chips on the walls

> Mark Zuckerberg

This guy doesn't know much about Mark Zuckerberg

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "A single line of code cost $8000"

chinchilla2020 — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 19:43:31 +0000

"A single line of code caused "

Yes, a single line of code is in the stack trace every time a bug happens. Why does every headline have to push this clickbait?

All errors occur at a single line in the program - and every single line is interconnected to the rest of the program, so it's an irrelevant statement.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?"

chinchilla2020 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 03:45:41 +0000

> Also this push to measure everything means that anything that can’t be measured isn’t valued.

Never thought I'd see an intelligent point made on hackernews, but there it is. You are absolutely correct. This really hit home for me.

New comment by chinchilla2020 in "Reading texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension [pdf]"

chinchilla2020 — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 15:35:12 +0000

can't wait for the javascript error when I try to switch gears on the touchscreen of my future car!