Hacker News: collinmcnulty

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Baseload Is a Myth (2024)"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:01:34 +0000

I think the lede is a bit buried here. The key point is that when renewables levelized cost is cheaper than the marginal cost of other sources (and I'll add, particularly when its below the fuel-only cost) the ability to economically displace those other sources is extremely strong.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey"

collinmcnulty — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:27:51 +0000

Yes, exactly that. Tons of crime is committed using only in-person communication. Should we all have microphones in our homes? Do detective work, flip sources, follow the money.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Never Enough"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:25:21 +0000

The story about the woman recording her dates is getting extrapolated into too much. Her friends told her it made people uncomfortable and that she should stop. This is not a trend.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Kimi K3 Is Competitive with Fable; Kimi K3 and Fable Is SoTA"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:55:02 +0000

I think it is a huge mistake to believe that there is a “true” nature of the models. They are artificial, everything about them is a construct. This is like asking the true shape of the clay without the potter’s influence.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Kimi K3 Is Competitive with Fable; Kimi K3 and Fable Is SoTA"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:14:54 +0000

It doesn’t truly feel anything. It will adopt whatever tone it’s prompted to.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:00:26 +0000

This reply helped me think more about what I want. I do my thinking when crafting the prompt, and I want to be able to do several passes. So the first draft I like to dictate and be able to live edit with my voice, but then I want to do a subsequent pass at the keyboard after the full prompt is written.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Qwen-Image-3.0: Rich Content, Authentic Details, Deep Knowledge"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:41:13 +0000

Yes, because it is the actual dimensions of the real shirt.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb"

collinmcnulty — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:51:36 +0000

What I want is a 1940s style “taking dictation” where the words I say go through a step where the goal is to create the text Im imagining. So if I say “… very significant, actually just significant…” what Claude Code receives is “…significant…”.

I built this myself with whisper -> “secretary” prompt -> Claude Code, but having the first two steps be interactive is really what I would want.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "How the Elite See Rome"

collinmcnulty — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:15:16 +0000

I would argue it’s a matter of degree, not of kind. “Private equity” is a rhetorical device to convert “I run an unglamorous business” into “I’m the kind of person who gets the private tour”. All the status stuff can be bought.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "How the Elite See Rome"

collinmcnulty — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:25:56 +0000

Tangential a bit, but I grate at using “elite” as a synonym for “rich”. It adopts the framing favored by powerful people as if they have an inherent difference and aren’t just some people that society allows to have more resources. It promotes a false inevitability.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Under federal rule, colleges must leave grads better off or lose financial aid"

collinmcnulty — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:23:38 +0000

Aggravating the issue is the administration’s goal. They want an undereducated population and are using the more popular issue of student debt as a fig leaf. Note especially how it’s on the university to prove that each program justifies itself economically, increasing the administrative burden on colleges. If they really cared about limiting taxpayer burden, they’d exempt in-state tuition at state schools from this rule.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Under federal rule, colleges must leave grads better off or lose financial aid"

collinmcnulty — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:15:29 +0000

You don’t think investing in arts, humanities, and music contributes to a functioning democracy?

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets"

collinmcnulty — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:49:10 +0000

Which is why OpenAI and Anthropic think it’s fair play for other companies to distill their models, right?

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Grok 4.5"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 21:30:12 +0000

It’s basically a clearance sale, is the theory.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:50:09 +0000

As ever, there's a relevant xkcd

https://xkcd.com/932/

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:51:52 +0000

I actually think it’s even worse than the author suggests. Acronyms promote the illusion of understanding. You know the words the acronym stands for and it makes you feel a little bit like you know what it means, but you don’t. All names are meaningless words until we assign them a meaning, but acronyms trick you into thinking the name itself tells you something about what it is.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "How to ask for help from people who don't know you"

collinmcnulty — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:49:03 +0000

I think that was the gist of the first point: “show you’re a serious person”

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%"

collinmcnulty — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:09:00 +0000

This is largely a function of exchange rates. If you are paid in USD, then Japan will seem cheap in a way it does not for people paid in yen.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:20:41 +0000

5-4 on the Constitution. Kavanaugh's concurrence is that birthright citizenship is controlled by a law that Congress could change.

New comment by collinmcnulty in "The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring"

collinmcnulty — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:01:39 +0000

You’re in luck, they made a great paper on this!

https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/three-states-plan-ai-of-fea...