Hacker News: ed312

New comment by ed312 in "Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation"

ed312 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:54:12 +0000

1. Why should harming a million people identically reduce their right to a fair legal evaluation and possibly compensation for damages? <-- maybe it makes sense for large corporations to carry insurance to pay for the potentially massive legal costs they could impose on governments? 2. Shouldn't we be able to quickly resolve these cases assuming there are no substantially different pieces of evidence?

New comment by ed312 in "Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf (2022)"

ed312 — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:20:28 +0000

This is why you fundamentally cannot rely on private companies to build the "town square". This will _always_ happen because every company has a profit motive (even if its a loooong tail via SV-style funding). The problem behind the problem is people want great communities and tools, but don't way to provide any effort to build them.

New comment by ed312 in "Adding iodine to salt played a role in cognitive improvements: research (2013)"

ed312 — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 20:06:03 +0000

This was both a new topic to me and a remarkably succinct (and well-cited) comment. Did you happen to do this research independently or do you reference a more comprehensive source?

New comment by ed312 in "Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers"

ed312 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:42:28 +0000

The core issue is those red light cameras create a persistent database of who is where, which is then sold at a marginal cost to whoever wants it to advertise to/manipulate/track a population. Adding cameras everywhere invites a dystopian nightmare vs better urban design and occasional traffic police would solve the same problem.

New comment by ed312 in "Governor Newsom signs landmark bill to protect kids from social media addiction"

ed312 — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 16:33:23 +0000

I wish they'd go a step further and offer this for adults too. Facebook has become the lowest common denominator communication platform (at least in my family/friend circles). It would be great to have a site to log in and periodically scroll through family photos, hear about milestones, etc. without influencers and video shorts. I'd even pay $ to have that feed without ads.

New comment by ed312 in "An Interview with Lola De La Mata about tinnitus"

ed312 — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:01:02 +0000

I'm not a doctor, and I couldn't give you medical advice if I was, but tinnitus can be caused by health conditions you really should get checked out. High blood pressure etc.

New comment by ed312 in "Toyota showcases compact engines adaptable to different fuels"

ed312 — Wed, 29 May 2024 13:36:28 +0000

Those global sales are a bit skewed due to China's industrial dumping of EVs that are sitting in lots rusting.

New comment by ed312 in "Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla"

ed312 — Sun, 12 May 2024 19:19:17 +0000

This is an excellent ponit, and I don't know where to exactly draw the line ("I know it when I see it"). I personally use "auto" (probably heuristic, maybe soon-ish AI-powered) features to adjust levels, color balance etc. Using AI to add things that are _not at all present_ in the original crossed the line into digital art vs photography for me.

New comment by ed312 in "Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?"

ed312 — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 19:53:47 +0000

As an eng manager, I always make it super clear (many times) when new engineers onboard they're always welcome to say "this doesn't make sense" ask for more details. Sometimes (maybe even often) they're right. I also enourage them to "assume good intent" from other devs and managers. Fundamentally no one manager knows everyone and no one engineer is right about everything.

New comment by ed312 in "'No AI Fraud Act' Could Outlaw Parodies, Political Cartoons, and More"

ed312 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 14:01:28 +0000

Yes. A simple fine for each verified instance prominently displaying a clearly fraudulent advertisement seems like a reasonable solution. Maybe instead of spending engineering cycles thinking of how to jam a larger volume of ads down our throats, Google can develop better ways to detect and reject scams. Win/Win.

New comment by ed312 in "No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways"

ed312 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:49:37 +0000

In practical terms this is like saying "you're welcome to decline food". Part of the argument for limiting federal government in the first place is to prevent this kind of arm twisting.

New comment by ed312 in "Passkeys are now enabled by default for Google users"

ed312 — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 15:19:48 +0000

I'm about at the threshold for wanting to de-google my life. Do you have an alternative email provide you recommend?

New comment by ed312 in "AI Nutrition Fact Labels"

ed312 — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 18:06:52 +0000

Not if the veracity and rules for creating these labels is held to a strict regulatory standard. We can certainly argue if the current food-based "nutrition facts" really provides all the information it should, but knowingly printing false information has clearly defined punishments.

New comment by ed312 in "Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983"

ed312 — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:36:58 +0000

Hopefully AI starts to bend the cost curve. Just like a huge chunk of doctor visits could be handled by a nurse/NP, probably AI could do a lot of triage work and/or improve labor productivity.

New comment by ed312 in "Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments"

ed312 — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:27:47 +0000

Very fair. I wanted to address a more general point. This is not the first reddit controversy, and likely won't be the last. If this is the "Digg" moment for reddit, I'll leave up to Manifold markets :)

New comment by ed312 in "Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments"

ed312 — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:24:59 +0000

GDPR only applies to EU citizens though. If the data is truly valuable, I could imagine some work-arounds as well. E.g. maybe each reddit post is automatically a copyright work which you immediate give a perpetual license to reddit inc. You also automatically transfer copyright ownership to reddit inc and they license back your ability to share your comment.

New comment by ed312 in "Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments"

ed312 — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:12:47 +0000

There are multiple projects to actively crawl and preserve reddit posts/comments. I think the old adage still applies: once its on the internet, its there forever. In my view a better, more sustainable solution is to treat commenters as humans who are flawed but grow and change over time. I don't think it is reasonable e.g. to take the comments a 13 year old makes during a Halo match as indicative of their views (or behaviors) as an adult.

New comment by ed312 in "Dandelion Root Recipes"

ed312 — Fri, 19 May 2023 15:54:21 +0000

As a recent lawn owner/steward of a small strip of ground, this is my approach as well. My view is if you want a more or less monoculture of grass, you should have to physically work for it (no fuel-powered tools either). In this sense, I treat the grass portion of my yard as a garden and do end up spending some time every week troweling out a few dandelions and other unwanted plants. I _do_ make sure I compost all the "weeds" I pull. Overall this seems environmentally friendly, and I do get a good chuckle every time someone asks me which herbicide I spray.

New comment by ed312 in "Banana Equivalent Dose"

ed312 — Tue, 02 May 2023 12:57:22 +0000

You clearly fell for BigBanana's propaganda.

More seriously -- challenging "US standard" dietary norms often leads to fruitful discussions of nutrition and how off-optimal most "common sense" tends to be.

New comment by ed312 in "Microsoft Transitions U.S. FTEs to “Discretionary Time Off”"

ed312 — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 19:04:54 +0000

The concerns are valid, but I find setting a "suggested minimum" amount of PTO (in my case, I suggest 1 week/quarter on average) and _actually taking time off yourself_ helps model better work/life balance. If you have "unlimited PTO" but the high status people never take PTO, you effectively have no PTO at all.