Hacker News: cool_dude85

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Oracle slashes 30k jobs"

cool_dude85 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:27:35 +0000

I think the big use case for Oracle products are for businesses that are not in the IT space. A lot of reasons for this, a big one is the breadth of Oracle's products is very solid and, similar to Microsoft, you can be sold on Oracle solving all your database needs across your business: HR, asset management, customer relationship stuff, your actual business, all with a single vendor. Non-IT management will be told that it all integrates seamlessly, you don't need to hire IT staff dealing with software from 10 different vendors, just the one.

For instance, I work in the utility industry. They offer specialized utility-specific software for managing data from our meters, our customer and billing system, asset management, HR, accounting, reporting from all these systems. Even more specialized stuff exists that we don'tbuy. No doubt if you had a different use case, Oracle would sell us on their ability to handle it. I think this is the model they follow. They are not trying to sell to startups, tech platforms, software companies, etc. They are trying to sell to your bank.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying"

cool_dude85 — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 19:08:21 +0000

>Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution

On who?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Afroman found not liable in defamation case"

cool_dude85 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:06:26 +0000

Probably the most dangerous aspect of the job in the US is driving.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules"

cool_dude85 — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 20:29:40 +0000

Funny enough, the utility business broadly wants to move away from this model to more of a cap-based prepaid model. Where I live, to get on the standard payment system may require a quite hefty deposit up front, but the prepaid payment option does not. I get the impression that, if not for customer sentiment and inertia, this would be the default option.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Play Aardwolf MUD"

cool_dude85 — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 16:04:37 +0000

For those who are not / were not aardwolf players, lasher is the coder, owner, and main imm for aardwolf.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "How We Found Out About COINTELPRO (2014)"

cool_dude85 — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:09:46 +0000

And nowadays, if this happened in Florida, she could pretty credibly run the protesters down in the street and avoid even getting charged.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution"

cool_dude85 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:42:45 +0000

Diesel is less fuel efficient than regular gasoline except when you measure by volume. It gets fewer miles per unit of energy in the fuel.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "XKeyscore"

cool_dude85 — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:11:47 +0000

The NSA lacked legal authority to do this bulk collection prior to the Snowden leaks, and yet that didn't stop them from collecting. Why would I believe that their lack of legal authority today would stop them?

Retracted: Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup

cool_dude85 — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 18:18:02 +0000

Article URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230099913715?via%3Dihub

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46150878

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by cool_dude85 in "What will enter the public domain in 2026?"

cool_dude85 — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:08:47 +0000

Exactly so. It was not able to be published in its initial state as a Twilight fanfic due to copyright and had to be re-worked so as not to infringe.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "1D Conway's Life glider found, 3.7B cells long"

cool_dude85 — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:17:07 +0000

Can someone who knows a bit more about this help me understand how structures like this are produced? Is there some kind of computer search, perhaps guided? Is this a clever combination of sub-structures, timing mechanisms, etc. that are then fit together like Legos?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "What will enter the public domain in 2026?"

cool_dude85 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:22:33 +0000

50 Shades is decidedly not a fanfic for the exact reason that it couldn't be sold as one.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "$96M AUD revamp of Bom website bombs out on launch"

cool_dude85 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 15:08:32 +0000

Not sure if it really looms large in the minds of present-day Australians, but they did vote for a left winger in the 70s and got a coup for their troubles.

New comment by cool_dude85 in "I don't care how well your "AI" works"

cool_dude85 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:17:47 +0000

>Just as we shouldn't be contemptuous of a woodworking craftsman using a table saw.

Some tools are table saws, and some tools are subcontracting work out to lowest cost bidders to do a crap job. Which of the two is AI?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Over-regulation is doubling the cost"

cool_dude85 — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:34:26 +0000

Who proved it works really well in several configurations?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Over-regulation is doubling the cost"

cool_dude85 — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:22:28 +0000

>Wild - whoever did this should lose their job.

Why's that? Because a guy who's apparently friends with the owner of the company that produces these things told you that it saves emissions? Doesn't it seem reasonable to verify these claims?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division"

cool_dude85 — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:41:21 +0000

>As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company

Is your livelihood, housing, ability to put food on the table for your family etc. not a risk by your understanding? Or are you only willing to accept certain types of financial risk as "risk"?

Here's an illustrative question: John Q. Billionaire owns shares in a passive index fund such that he practically has the same exposure to Amazon's stock price as if he owned $10 million in stock. I will potentially be homeless if I lose my 45k per year job at Amazon. Who has more risk?

New comment by cool_dude85 in "First convex polyhedron found that can't pass through itself"

cool_dude85 — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 02:38:54 +0000

It seems like both the authors on this paper were hobbyists (though, to be fair, trained mathematicians/statisticians, as one has a masters and the other a PhD).

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study"

cool_dude85 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 19:44:17 +0000

I think the risk is that there is some systematic difference between those who chose to participate and the overall population of public Montessori kids. For instance, maybe those with high incomes disproportionately chose to participate, and Montessori strengthens learning for this group, but if we could measure the whole population the result is more mixed. It can't be a fully RCT if there's some kind of opt-in provision (which is not to say that an opt-in provision is bad, or a study that is not fully RCT is irrelevant).

New comment by cool_dude85 in "Harvard FAS Cuts PhD Seats by More Than Half"

cool_dude85 — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 19:32:59 +0000

I would say that this is one clear purpose of Harvard-tier institutions, but that they do also produce valuable research, train educators, etc. as does any other university. Your point explains the "elite" part of elite universities, but they do also generally function as universities as well.