<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: ebiester</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ebiester</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:58:58 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=ebiester" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Small Models Have Arrived"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It depends on what you're trying to do. For non-coding tasks luna is quite often enough. Flash models are more than enough for summarizing a text, for example, or whipping up a small script to save me fifteen minutes. If you're on a 200/month plan, I see your point. If you're on a dollar limit - or worse, paying per token out of your pocket - you look to be more efficient.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:35:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468350</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468350</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468350</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Abdominal fat predicts heart disease risk better than BMI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Mark Stache ( <a href="https://youtu.be/L-gNdQZorEE?si=nkwAhZOiAFtY2f44" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/L-gNdQZorEE?si=nkwAhZOiAFtY2f44</a> ) just did a 90 day evaluation. The biggest problem at the level they mention is some intense flatulence. He is also in good shape and had mixed results compared to the study.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 16 Aug 2026 08:20:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49318008</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49318008</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49318008</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "The UK's war on anonymity has come to America"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And what stops children from reinstalling their OS? I know many kids can do it at 11 or 12. Or are you requiring BIOS lock? Are there restrictions on hardware to enable this?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:45:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283236</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283236</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283236</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "The AI Billboards Are Killing SF"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I remember seeing an advertising exec talk about spending more money in the area the execs lived so they felt the impact of the advertising, regardless of how effective the spend actually was. This is likely more of the same - making the investors and C-Suite get warm fuzzies.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:00:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213315</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213315</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213315</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "How the words we teach English language learners changed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think my communication became more precise. Language is imprecise and in these cases (ESL), you are also limiting your vocabulary. (Especially when I moved outside the US - while I was around very educated people who studied for the GRE, learning a word is not the same as digesting all connotations.<p>So in social communication, you aren't getting more precise -- in many cases, you're getting <i>less</i> precise and taking more words to handle that. Consider the idiom "shit or get off the pot." You can say that "Make a decision" is less precise. "Do it or don't" is also an idiom but doesn't express the frustration that the vulgarity does. "I am frustrated and need you to either take action or shut up" is more direct and possibly more offensive because it takes formality.<p>And then there's the prefix of "Sometimes you need to" that turns it from a command to advice. "Sometimes you need to either take action or stop complaining" sounds like the emphasis is on "you" instead of the predicate as if it's a critique of the person, whereas the idiom gives more of a proverb connotation.<p>The problem is that language carries many layers and "more precise" is a goal in technical communication but neglects the other layers.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:27:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171145</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171145</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171145</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "How the words we teach English language learners changed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When I started dating someone whose second language was English, I found that the idioms were a giant hurdle. We really do speak in idioms and metaphors and this makes it very difficult for people who understand the words but not the cultural context. While my (now spouse) adapted, I also adapted by learning how to speak far more literally, especially around people of mixed levels of English.<p>I don't think there is a fear of being imprecise. If anything, it is a fear of speaking plainly as boring.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:08:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148333</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148333</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148333</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Authorize, don't authenticate"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>1. How do you get around performance issues? If I have a difficult join and you have a slow database, or you have a flaky connection, how can I debug the problem on my end?<p>2. What stops me (or any attacker) from exploiting your lack of security? Are you 100% sure you are secure?<p>3. You mention collaboration - How does this work at a company level if we have many users and need to control access - the company is the entity with rights to the data in this case.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:33:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128759</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128759</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128759</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We don't need an expert even - pre-clinical is a far ways off even if successful.<p>This is in the "interesting advancement" stage, not "promising treatment."</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:25:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084396</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084396</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084396</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The people who would "let their guard down" did long before this news. (Or Prep, for that matter.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:23:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084367</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084367</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084367</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Exercise works for depression. So why isn't it treated like real medicine?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>More importantly - the cost of the medical assistance to help someone get out of the house and physically train is much more expensive than a drug.<p>If you want to prescribe exercise for someone with this level of depression, you need to prescribe someone to remove the barriers to exercise.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:33:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075163</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075163</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075163</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's fairly rare - like when 1984 was deleted from amazon when the seller didn't have the rights (and customer was refunded), but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-c...</a> shows an example where someone's account was deleted and they lost all licenses of books they bought.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 21:10:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998376</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998376</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998376</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Or, perhaps, apple users are rational actors that have different weights to their tradeoffs than you.<p>The last time I checked Android, the security and privacy story was much worse than Apple. Further, it's not just me who has to make the change - it's the family I share photos and videos and other things.<p>Yes, I would prefer to have other App Store options, but it is balanced against other issues. (And yes, I have owned an Android phone before - every time I buy a new phone I compare the two again.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:10:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936477</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936477</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936477</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I thought I was the only person who remembered Apache Ant... I know we're running out of names but that was a really influential piece of infrastructure.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:11:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48875922</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48875922</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48875922</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Write code like a human will maintain it"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You should do an experiment of splitting that up to multiple reviews that are logically together. My hypothesis is that you may be losing signal due to the amount of text expected back.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:28:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48860477</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48860477</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48860477</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Stealing Is a Skill"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://kunekuneyokai.home.blog/2019/01/18/virgil-abloh-steals/" rel="nofollow">https://kunekuneyokai.home.blog/2019/01/18/virgil-abloh-stea...</a> from a quick look.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:25:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664576</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664576</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664576</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "System Card: Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I mean, if by right you mean "insiders leaked to make a few bucks..." sure?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:30:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48464345</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48464345</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48464345</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Or, alternatively, they feel like they finally cracked the code and think they can do it better. That's when Apple finally enters a market.<p>Consider how much money they put in to building a car to cancel it when they decided they couldn't, in fact, do it better. I'm sure there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of failed prototypes along the way.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:27:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462385</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462385</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462385</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "S&P 500 rejects SpaceX, also blocking entry for OpenAI and Anthropic"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If it’s like other things, the auditors of Anthropic will have a contract with OpenAI and vice versa.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:28:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48428689</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48428689</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48428689</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "Private Equity Bought America's Essential Services"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's the concern for the community who pays in higher prices, and the employees in their job stability.<p>Has everyone forgotten the social contract? We do not exist as communities to make a small number of people richer. If the trade doesn't work for all involved, we change the rules.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 13:32:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48294101</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48294101</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48294101</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by ebiester in "What You Will Lose When You Retire – By Dan Haylett"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One thing that this misses is that in many fields, career retirement chooses you before you choose it. This is often true in development as ageism catches up with you. At some point, you keep doing interviews and nobody says "yes."<p>Then, even though you have enough money for retirement (or even if you don't), you are answering these questions simultaneously with handling rejection.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 19:29:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212840</link><dc:creator>ebiester</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212840</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212840</guid></item></channel></rss>