<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: derekp7</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=derekp7</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:42:09 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=derekp7" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Qwen3.5 122B and 35B models offer Sonnet 4.5 performance on local computers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"Create a single page web app scientific RPN calculator"<p>Qwen 3.5 122b/a10b (at q3 using unsloth's dynamic quant) is so far the first model I've tried locally that gets a really usable RPN calculator app.  Other models (even larger ones that I can run on my Strix Halo box) tend to either not implement the stack right, have non-functional operation buttons, or most commonly the keypad looks like a Picasso painting (i.e., the 10-key pad portion has buttons missing or mapped all over the keypad area).<p>This seems like such as simple test, but I even just tried it in chatgpt (whatever model they serve up when you don't log in), and it didn't even have any numerical input buttons.  Claude Sonet 4.6 did get it correct too, but that is the only other model I've used that gets this question right.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2026 23:11:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47201477</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47201477</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47201477</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Except that no one has been preaching at you for your entire academic life that you MUST drive a car into someone's house at 18 in order to be able to get more than a minimum wage hard labor job.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:18:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47050022</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47050022</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47050022</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "I don't write code anymore – I sculpt it"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My problem with stock photos is that unless it is clearly a stock image, it can mislead.  For example, when looking up information on the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House, the article had a stock photo of a modern photo-voltaic panel.  So I was initially confused, as what was described was a solar collector that concentrates the sun's heat to provide hot water for the kitchen.  Which makes a lot more sense of why it wasn't re-installed during some roof renovations under Regan (the initial purpose of it was more to inspire the nation, that wouldn't be served much by re-installing it after it had been removed for roof work as the original moment had passed).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 25 Jan 2026 01:18:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749629</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749629</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749629</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "I don't write code anymore – I sculpt it"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Honest question.  For the purpose of adding a throw-away visual to help set the tone of an article, is there really any difference between shitty AI slop vs shitty Photoshop slop?  Either way it is obvious that this isn't a real studio photo, and that wouldn't be expected.  I guess the better (or more traditional) article picture would be a hand illustrated piece that an in-house artist would throw together in maybe an hour or two, depending on the detail and desired quality.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:58:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749493</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749493</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749493</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "The only people who feel good are making over $200k and have large portfolios"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Property taxes are usually % of value, so dependent on absolute value changes, not changes relative to the rest of the community.<p>I may be completely wrong, but this is what I've been told by people I've known in the past that held some local public office (such as a coworker in one case, and a neighbor in another, they were both local aldermen).  I've also google searched it, and came up with similar answers.<p>Typically, a city / county budget is set, and they then need to collect it from the pool of property owners by taking the assessed value and using a multiplier to reach their budget target.  Now the budget may increase due to inflation or other factors, but I'm not aware of any local government that suddenly finds itself flush in cash due to doubling of property values.  If your elected officials do things differently and look at rising property values as their own windfall, well then you and your neighbors need to vote them out of office real fast.<p>I've verified this with my own house (both the last one and current one, about 30 years of home ownership).  The 2008 - 2009 crash had negative affects on property values, but my property taxes didn't go down, and insurance quadrupled (because the insurance companies lost a lot on investments and had to make up for it).  And plotting property tax increases over the last 10 years where my property doubled in value, the taxes were just under 5k  when I bought and now are just barely over 5k.<p>One thing that can happen, is as budgets go up with inflation or new initiatives, absolute dollar amount taxes rise accordingly.  And people don't like to pay more taxes, so a lot of people will appeal their tax assessment.  And a good attorney can get it lowered to some degree.  That means that everyone who hasn't fought (and won) against their tax assessment (the assessed value of their home), will see their taxes increase more as their assessed value is now higher relative to the neighbors who fought their assessment.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 01 Nov 2025 01:57:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778654</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778654</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778654</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "The only people who feel good are making over $200k and have large portfolios"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Also current homeowners don't care about house prices, since they are locked into fixed mortgage payments - other than how it affects insurance and property taxes.  And taxes are mainly affected if your property value rises higher relative to the rest of the community.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 01 Nov 2025 01:22:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778486</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778486</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778486</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Rivian's TM-B electric bike"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If the motor is geared it could make a difference.  For comparison, most people put out about 100 watts with their legs, but need to downshift to go up hills.  This looks like a mid drive unit, which should be capable of varied gearing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2025 19:42:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45674161</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45674161</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45674161</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Don't use AI to tell you how to vote in election, says Dutch watchdog"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What I'd like is for the AI to interview me for what my personal preferences are, and for what policy areas I feel comfortable enough with even if they aren't my personal preferences.  Better yet, I want to be able to supply the questions too, because question selection could be biased.  Then I want it to research each candidate's past voting records and causes they supported, and analyze any recent shifts in their messaging, then give me original sources to read through along with a summary of that source documentation.<p>As for biases, in the past when you could actually have political engagement discussions, I had often recommended my non-preferred candidate to other people based on what they felt was important to them, and I would spend my energy on presenting what was important to me, and understand their priorities too.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:24:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656234</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656234</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656234</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "U.S. drinking rate at new low as alcohol concerns surge"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>How many pixels can be defective on a display before you want to return it?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2025 06:49:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44969810</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44969810</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44969810</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Steve Wozniak: Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about happiness"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Especially when it was caught early on, and was one of the few variations of a horrible cancer type that could have been successfully treated at that stage, but that treatment plan was refused.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2025 03:31:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908342</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908342</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908342</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "The secret code behind the CIA's Kryptos puzzle is up for sale"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A one time pad would be unreasonable.<p>Edit: Unless the one time pad is a well known relative document, such as the Declaration of Independence.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2025 03:22:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908291</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908291</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44908291</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Buying a Home Is Probably Even Worse Than NYTimes/NerdWallet Calculators Imply"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I had the double whammy of property taxes AND insurance increases on my last house.  Budget was a bit tight, but that almost sent me over the edge.  I learned my lesson on my next house purchase, and made sure there was a ton of leg room in the budget, along with things I could very quickly drop from the budget if needed.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:13:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504126</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504126</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504126</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Tell HN: I Lost Joy of Programming"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I take a hybrid approach.  I will describe a simplified problem to the LLM, have it generate a well commented and reasonable approach for the problem.  I then use that as a cheat sheet for implementing my actual code.  This still gives me hands on codi and more control, without needing to agonize over the details of each coding technique.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:10:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500166</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500166</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500166</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They also tell you if a product has a high return rate, which is helpful.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:11:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439123</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439123</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439123</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Congress might block state AI laws for a decade"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wouldn't the interstate commerce clause automatically override any state level regulations on AI, except in cases where a company and its customers are all in-state?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:52:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44424094</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44424094</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44424094</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "AI is not our future"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The courts have ruled in several cases that a work someone created was too close to another work and therefor infringing.  If you are looking at someone's painting or photograph, and then paint your version of that subject based on what you are looking at, you then have created a derived work which may infringe.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2025 15:45:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44137382</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44137382</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44137382</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Will the AI backlash spill into the streets?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And,even if customers are slower, having 20 self checkout kiosks is still faster than 3 cashiers.<p>My biggest gripe with self checkout is if I make a mistake, they call it theft. I haven't been trained and certified on the register, so I can't accept the potential for getting a criminal record due to a scanning error.  Example:  Walmart will successfully "beep" when scanning, but will display "system busy" on the screen, and the scanned items don't show up on the receipt.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 24 May 2025 19:01:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44083101</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44083101</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44083101</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Nvidia's latest AI PC boxes sound great – for data scientists with $3k to spare"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I was going by the number of memory channels the CPU spec says it supports (12).  But apparently I was wrong, as that gets bottlenecked by the number of CCDs on the chip.  In which case you would need to go with a much higher end epyc processor, and then there are other limits.  So much for napkin math</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 23:15:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43541018</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43541018</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43541018</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Nvidia's latest AI PC boxes sound great – for data scientists with $3k to spare"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You can also get an Epyc 9115 for $800, motherboard for $640, and 12 16-GiB ddr5-6400 dims for $1400, that gives you 614.4 GiB/sec, for around $2800.  You may also want to add in a small GPU to do prompt processing (inference on a CPU is memory bandwidth bound, prompt processing is processing bound).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 15:10:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43535945</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43535945</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43535945</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by derekp7 in "Framework 13 AMD Setup with FreeBSD"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For fractional scaling on my Fedora setup under Gnome, I just load up the Tweaks tool, click on Fonts, and adjust the Scaling Factor on the bottom.  This seams to work about as good as fractional scaling would (at least for me).  I used to need to also set the default scaling factor in Chrome / Firefox separately, but they seem to be picking it up correctly now too.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:24:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43509516</link><dc:creator>derekp7</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43509516</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43509516</guid></item></channel></rss>