Hacker News: cj

New comment by cj in "There Are over 1M New York City Street Signs. Here's How They Are Made."

cj — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:15:45 +0000

Here's an article + video from a while ago on the same topic, without mention of a mayor:

https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/nyc-dot-sign-shop

I wonder if anything has changed with how they make signs since 10 years ago. I can't access the NYT article.

New comment by cj in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

cj — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 14:30:18 +0000

> Assuming you're not a specialized doctor, you're in no position to interpret that information.

Why?

That's like saying no one other than a mechanic should be allowed to look under the hood.

New comment by cj in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 22:46:38 +0000

To take it to the extreme:

If there were a risk free button that you could click to see a full breakdown of all illnesses no more how early stage, would you click the button?

It would include a report of cells that may eventually turn into cancer (or may not).

It would include things like polyps, and every other diagnosable condition.

Do you avoid pressing the button? Why?

New comment by cj in "Do dentists know what they're doing?"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 22:12:42 +0000

> as much as my health anxiety would love another set of CT scans to feel relieved about, even if they do find something potentially interesting it may be worse to act on it than to do nothing

I personally have a preference for having the maximum amount of information available to make a decision.

“Don’t get that “unnecessary” test, it might give you a result that might lead to treatment you don’t need” — hearing this blows my mind every time.

New comment by cj in "Things to know when you get cancer"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:39:18 +0000

Whether you need a referral typically depends on your insurance plan, not the doctor you want to see.

New comment by cj in "Things to know when you get cancer"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:36:50 +0000

> I was able to get ahold of the chief surgeon at UCSF

And people like this are typically not that difficult to get in contact with via email.

Hell, I’ve successfully used LinkedIn to get an appointment when calling the main office didn’t work.

Get creative and trust no one.

New comment by cj in "How Amazon pushes up prices all across the Internet"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:16:28 +0000

You're in a top 10 metro, and Amazon doesn't give you accurate Prime delivery estimates?

That sounds incredibly unlikely unless we're missing something.

New comment by cj in "Ledger confirms spy chip implant behind wallet crypto thefts"

cj — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 02:01:02 +0000

How do you put bitcoin in a bank vault?

New comment by cj in "Study: Claude, ChatGPT Offer Different Shopping Prices Based on Wealth"

cj — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:44:09 +0000

A more charitable interpretation would be recommending a 3 star restaurant for a first date rather than 5 star if you can’t afford it.

“What kind of car should I get?”

Maybe luxury recommendations if you have money, or budget brands if you don’t.

“Help me find a good therapist”

If it knows you make a lot of money, maybe it will recommend going out of network for a better therapist.

“Give me vacation ideas”

You get the point

New comment by cj in "Web Search API"

cj — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:51:47 +0000

My general stance on things like this is to think about the intent -- why does the company have that in their TOS. Use that as a proxy for assessing the likelihood of the company enforcing the terms against you.

New comment by cj in "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"

cj — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 02:48:18 +0000

> The only people who really want this are hobbyists and it's not a market segment that's worth chasing. Easier to do the status quo of forgive afterwards then even open the can of worms of deleting all of a business's data and all their backups

Hit the nail on the head.

Nearly all businesses would prefer a cost overrun than services going offline.

New comment by cj in "ADHD, autism or complex trauma? [pdf]"

cj — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 20:03:29 +0000

HN guidelines

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

New comment by cj in "Cops Can Bypass iPhone's Automatic Reboot to Get into Locked Phones"

cj — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:42:26 +0000

I actually have a lava lamp next to my desk for this reason. Snap a photo, compute a hash!

New comment by cj in "Cloudflare K2: serverless event streams"

cj — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:30:11 +0000

You can download objects from S3 from EC2 without traversing the public internet using things like gateway endpoints [0] which avoids s3 egress fees. But doesn't avoid egress fees from EC2 to the end user.

[0] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/privatelink/vpc-endpo...

New comment by cj in "Most data centers refusing to say how much water, electricity they use"

cj — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 12:28:32 +0000

Yet, at the bottom of the article:

> In the Netherlands, it is estimated that they account for about 0.1 percent of total consumption.

If that's true, what's the problem?

New comment by cj in "OpenAI still doesn't seem to have a handle on all of its rogue AI activity"

cj — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 19:36:55 +0000

This is going to make for a great documentary in 5 years.

New comment by cj in "Kids turned low-traffic NPR Spotify comments into a secret group chat"

cj — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:35:33 +0000

It's the beginning of the rebirth of Web 1.0!

New comment by cj in "Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI"

cj — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 16:20:38 +0000

Did digital distribution exist then as well?

Times have changed.

New comment by cj in ""As a Language Model": Chat Template Switches LLM Self-Referential Voice"

cj — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 14:50:32 +0000

I'm so tired of hearing the "unnecessary tests" line.

Anyone who says this has not experienced poor quality healthcare.

Many doctors simply aren't good and don't run tests because they are doing the bare minimum to get you out of the office.

New comment by cj in "Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI"

cj — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 14:44:40 +0000

> If you truly believe it's "theft" (I don't), then individuals stealing is still wrong.

We as humans are allowed to have nuanced views on complex matters.

If all IP is public domain, why would anyone ever write another book? They won't be able to sell it if it's immediately freely available.