Hacker News: dblack12705

New comment by dblack12705 in "Anything Will Lase If You Hit It Hard Enough"

dblack12705 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 07:11:17 +0000

Article author here. I wanted to write an accessible overview of basic laser physics, and in the process collected a zoo of weird things that lase (if pumped sufficiently hard) from the historical literature: edible lasers in peach compote, the Martian atmosphere, cancer cells, peacock feathers, etc. Happy to answer questions, especially if you disagree with my pronunciation guide. The title is a quote from Arthur Schawlow, Nobel Laureate and inventor of the “nearly nontoxic” Jell-O laser.

Anything Will Lase If You Hit It Hard Enough

dblack12705 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 07:02:14 +0000

Article URL: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/anything-will-lase-if-you-hit-it

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47384968

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

AI-Generated Podcasts with NotebookLM

dblack12705 — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 18:21:55 +0000

Article URL: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/ai-generated-podcasts-with-notebooklm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41758960

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by dblack12705 in "Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO"

dblack12705 — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 12:57:21 +0000

Yes, all the time. It is a common idiom, especially in history books.

New comment by dblack12705 in "Does anybody know this fractal? (2012)"

dblack12705 — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:35:31 +0000

The flower patterns remind me of Smith charts. https://www.antenna-theory.com/m/tutorial/smith/chart.php

Since smith charts are made by mapping the complex plane (grid) to another complex plane via a Mobius transformation Z->(Z-1)/(Z+1), maybe that’s what’s going on here too. The inverse certainly produces a grid again.

Daenerys Targaryen, Humanitarian

dblack12705 — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:24:59 +0000

Article URL: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/daenerys-targaryen-humanitarian

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40189699

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by dblack12705 in "Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event"

dblack12705 — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 22:33:41 +0000

You two fix nitrogen together?

New comment by dblack12705 in "The Case Against Children"

dblack12705 — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 14:41:03 +0000

I feel like I see antinatalism and childfree movements in the news more frequently now. I suppose if they're any good at their job, the movement won’t exist in seventy years or so.

New comment by dblack12705 in "Rainwater everywhere on the planet is unsafe to drink due to chemicals (2022)"

dblack12705 — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:24:17 +0000

Baseline testosterone levels are actually even lower in most hunter gatherer populations. This suggests that your explanation is not necessarily correct.

New comment by dblack12705 in "What makes a language flourish? Or: Why can't I speak Latin? (2021)"

dblack12705 — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 02:58:43 +0000

Latin is actually very well attested, both in the classical and ecclesiastical pronunciation. There’s lots of languages, like Egyptian, where the phonology is pretty speculative, but Latin isn’t one of them.

New comment by dblack12705 in "They studied dishonesty – Was their work a lie?"

dblack12705 — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 14:23:39 +0000

In case anyone hasn’t read it, the Datacolada article demonstrating Ariely committed fraud is a great read and extremely convincing.

https://datacolada.org/98

New comment by dblack12705 in "Show HN: Hacker News user blogroll"

dblack12705 — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 03:03:16 +0000

Damn this is cool

New comment by dblack12705 in "Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?"

dblack12705 — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 03:01:17 +0000

Thank you! And sure, you can email me at dblack12705@gmail.com

New comment by dblack12705 in "Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?"

dblack12705 — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 02:09:39 +0000

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/

“Some things that aren’t worth doing are worth overdoing.”

I write about physics, language, and history, or whatever interests me at the moment, with an overarching theme of spending way too much effort analyzing useless topics. Here’s some of my favorites:

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wago... I derive an expression for number of donkeys needed to move an army a distance L, and discuss its relationship to the tyranny of the rocket equation.

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/guinea-pigs-are-fermion... I postulate that Guinea pigs are fermions, and simulate the quantum dynamics of multi-pig states.

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/a-statistical-analysis-... I attempt to answer the timeless question of whether the characters in Wheel of Time sniff in disapproval more than average.

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/i-taught-chatgpt-to-inv... ChatGPT and I invent a slime language.

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/an-offering-for-the-dea... I teach you just enough Middle Egyptian to read some of the hieroglyphs on most museum artifacts.

https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-great-kings-of-assy... I share my technique for annoying text spammers by pretending to be Assyrian Royalty.

Mostly up to date index of posts: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/coming-soon

Hope you enjoy!

New comment by dblack12705 in "Lingua Latina per se illustrata (2012)"

dblack12705 — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 14:22:48 +0000

I love this book! It’s really quite excellent for teaching Latin.

Guinea Pigs Are Fermions

dblack12705 — Sat, 27 May 2023 04:03:42 +0000

Article URL: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/guinea-pigs-are-fermions-part-1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36091985

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by dblack12705 in "Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades"

dblack12705 — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 02:14:51 +0000

Cool! It’s really fun

The Evolution of the Alphabet

dblack12705 — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:00:49 +0000

Article URL: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-evolution-of-the-alphabet

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35094364

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by dblack12705 in "Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control"

dblack12705 — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 01:00:06 +0000

If you have any quantitative data on that, even anecdotal, I’d be very interested! I’m curious to see if my 300,000 number holds up

New comment by dblack12705 in "Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control"

dblack12705 — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:01:25 +0000

Thank you! The Reddit mod thing was really just supposed to be a catalyst for some of the ideas I had about group size limits, not really the point of the article. Though I WAS a little annoyed by the mods lol.

Edit: rereading your comment this is a very good summary of my article and maybe I should have put something like this up front to stave off the inevitable focus on Reddit mods…