Hacker News: daoboy

New comment by daoboy in "Don't Use AI to Write"

daoboy — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:27:02 +0000

Similar recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49767937

New comment by daoboy in "The Millennium Problems for Biology"

daoboy — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:24:15 +0000

This is all well outside my area of expertise, but my impression is that Michael Levin's work with bioelectricity is on the cusp of #6 Somatic limb regeneration.

SMEs please correct the record if I'm mistaken.

New comment by daoboy in "Alan's Random Insult Generator (1999)"

daoboy — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 18:14:43 +0000

The domain was purchased and redesigned. It still exists but lost something ineffable in the process.

New comment by daoboy in "Alan's Random Insult Generator (1999)"

daoboy — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 17:58:57 +0000

So glad to see this preserved.

It was sad to discover zombocom finally died an undignified death earlier this year.

New comment by daoboy in "The Internet Is Kind of a Predatory Cesspit Now"

daoboy — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 19:10:05 +0000

We're evolutionarily programmed to stop everything and focus on anything that elicits fear in our environment. Enormous amounts of money has been invested to design algorithms that capture our attention with fear because they need your attention to sell advertising. Everything's optimized to make you enraged and afraid because it works. They're really good at it too.

I know they got my number. I've had to delete every social media site I used to be engaged in (I suppose except this one) for the sake of my mental health.

New comment by daoboy in "Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era"

daoboy — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:09:03 +0000

I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.

Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.

Voluntary attention regulates acute immune responses in humans

daoboy — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:25:25 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-026-02541-1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49328311

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by daoboy in "What does the Riemann zeta function have to do with the distribution of primes?"

daoboy — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:42:02 +0000

This is one of the few places I ever engage on the internet, but I think it may be time for HN to be read-only, too.

This didn't seem especially controversial of a comment, and even here there's no end of the rotten attitudes for no good reason

New comment by daoboy in "What does the Riemann zeta function have to do with the distribution of primes?"

daoboy — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:04:18 +0000

Although the author turned out to be a fairly despicable person, Prime Obsession is an absolutely wonderful book on this subject.

New comment by daoboy in "What are locusts and what happened to them?"

daoboy — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:17:54 +0000

My earliest introduction to locusts was as a biblical plague. These Sunday school lessons did not include pictures. I always imagined some twisted diminutive demonic swarm of insects, and was disappointed to finally discover they were just grasshoppers.

New comment by daoboy in "It's time to talk about my writerdeck"

daoboy — Sat, 23 May 2026 21:06:32 +0000

That homebrew page is pure gold. Thank you for the suggestion!

New comment by daoboy in "It's time to talk about my writerdeck"

daoboy — Sat, 23 May 2026 19:55:32 +0000

That's very similar to the setup I'm working on, including the stand. Thanks for sharing!

One of the appealing features on the Note Max was the screen size (13.3"). How do you find working on such a small screen?

New comment by daoboy in "Time to talk about my writerdeck"

daoboy — Sat, 23 May 2026 19:28:43 +0000

I'm desperately awaiting the perfect eink device for this.

I've got a great writing setup on Obsidian that really works for me, a royal kludge mechanical keyboard...just waiting on the next gen of eink

The Boox One Note Max was sooo close, but they almost immediately discontinued the product and probably won't be supporting it long.

Suggestions are welcome

New comment by daoboy in "Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027"

daoboy — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:33:22 +0000

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834195

New comment by daoboy in "All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027"

daoboy — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 13:59:03 +0000

I understood that the move to non-replaceable batteries was at least partially driven by water resistance

*Edit. Not sure why people are downvoting. I didn't make a positive declaration. HN didn't used to be this way for completely milquetoast comments.

New comment by daoboy in "What It's Like to Live with an Experimental Brain Implant"

daoboy — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:54:10 +0000

There are a handful of anecdotes like this one that make me very hopeful for the future. In spite of everything, humanity is still achieving wonders:

The device, implanted in July 2023, records from the brain region that controls muscles involved in talking and translates these signals into instructions for a voice synthesizer. Within 30 minutes of it being switched on, Harrell could communicate again. “I was absolutely overwhelmed with the thought of how this would impact my life and allow me to talk to my family and friends and better interact with my daughter,” he says. “It just was so overwhelming that I began to cry.”

Sperm whale clicks follow similar rules to human speech

daoboy — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:49:08 +0000

Article URL: https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sperm-whale-clicks-similar-human.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47780810

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by daoboy in "The Grand Line"

daoboy — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:46:11 +0000

Agreed, I found this essay engaging and emotional. While I can see why the unusual style might not be someone's cup of tea, I don't agree at all with the criticism that this is bad writing. It had a Haruki Murakami ethereal feel that I am quite fond of.

Regarding other comments in this thread, the moral panic over AI writing has mostly passed me by. While I certainly have a philosophical preference for things written by an actual human, I don't care to invest the bandwidth in analyzing every single thing I read for hints of llm patterns. If I like it, I'll keep reading. If not, I won't. Sometimes discontinuing a piece of writing also aligns with obvious AI use, but that is generally a secondary issue.

New comment by daoboy in "Americans still opt for print books over digital or audio versions"

daoboy — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 03:22:46 +0000

Physical books are irreplaceable to me. I love the feel, the smell, and having a house full of them. Just went to a library sale this morning and got even more.

I also really need a break from screens, and reading a book is a great excuse to not be on my phone or watching tv.

New comment by daoboy in "Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real"

daoboy — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 09:25:07 +0000

It sounds like there wasn't really a counter narrative for the models to learn from. This feature of how llms accumulate information is already being gamed by seeding the internet with preferred narratives.

I'm not sure how many Medium articles, blog posts and reddit threads I need to put out before grok starts telling everyone my widget is the best one ever made, but it's a lot cheaper than advertising.