Hacker News: etrautmann

New comment by etrautmann in "Pixel Watch 5"

etrautmann — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:37:25 +0000

The novelty of Apple Pay on watch wore off? I use this all the time but it’s not noteworthy or interesting, just a great feature that’s seamless and doesn’t require pulling out my phone.

New comment by etrautmann in "Is it all just vapourware?"

etrautmann — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 02:59:52 +0000

I find it game changing for experimental work and prototyping. As a research scientist this is a major bottleneck and clean code is often not the right optimization target.

New comment by etrautmann in "A physicist rigged his pet hamster’s wheel to upload to Strava"

etrautmann — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 04:09:46 +0000

If you look at any neuroscience paper, mice will run 10k a day or more on a wheel overnight. I thought the axis labels were wrong when I first saw that type of study. It’s quite common.

New comment by etrautmann in "I'll be stepping back from leading product for X"

etrautmann — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:07:45 +0000

It’s Q2 earnings time so likely people leaving after a quarterly vest.

New comment by etrautmann in "What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard"

etrautmann — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:38:10 +0000

New comment by etrautmann in "My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded"

etrautmann — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:38:56 +0000

Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.

New comment by etrautmann in "US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent"

etrautmann — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:16:08 +0000

For what reasons is it better? I’d rather have the evening light than the first 20 minutes when I get up.

New comment by etrautmann in "The 'absolute magic' of Morse code that still connects people globally"

etrautmann — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:15:48 +0000

I think I just joined an eternal September on your site. It might be nice to add a practice mode that doesn’t spam everyone with nonsense.

New comment by etrautmann in "Parental device use and the adolescent-caregiver attachment bond"

etrautmann — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 04:02:40 +0000

That’s irrelevant to the issue with the study that the parent identified.

New comment by etrautmann in "Just Pay the Subscription"

etrautmann — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:07:52 +0000

I’m with you. I generally refuse. There are way too many things that I’d like to use extremely intermittently that beg for recurring revenue. I just opt out for the most part, aside from a tiny subset of indispensable apps.

New comment by etrautmann in "It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history"

etrautmann — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 20:14:54 +0000

Is this real? I spend plenty of time online but have no problem still reading books. I don’t know anyone else who stopped reading books either. I’m 41 so maybe this affects people who grew up with social media but I can’t quite tell how hyperbolic the descriptions of the problem are.

New comment by etrautmann in "What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?"

etrautmann — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 19:50:19 +0000

Having lived this reality, people respond to incentives. Your have to very fundamentally re-architect the incentives and career progression in academia to make publication of null results more common. The other side of this is reducing the time and hassle of publication. Right now I’m unlikely to battle for 1.5-3 years to get something through peer review for a result that nobody will find interesting.

New comment by etrautmann in "Words Are a Byproduct of Consciousness. For LLMs, It's Backwards"

etrautmann — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:35:57 +0000

I think this is different if you have vision though. I struggle to understand how someone can look at intelligent animals that don’t have language and not intuitively assume that they’re conscious. Yes this is a tricky problem without an answer but IMO the elements of consciousness can exist without language if visual abstractions are present.

New comment by etrautmann in "American Pride Falls to 25-Year Record Low"

etrautmann — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:50:33 +0000

This is conflating so many different concepts under one idea of pride. Come on. Yes, humility is also important but it’s a false dilemma and meaningless.

New comment by etrautmann in "Free the Icons"

etrautmann — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:50:31 +0000

I’m not a designer but I disagree. I want to be able to easily distinguish apps without much focus or concentration or searching. Making them visually distinct with shape and color is superior. Uniformity is a problem not a target.

New comment by etrautmann in "The war against 'woke' could end US science as we know it"

etrautmann — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:43:42 +0000

The evocative image is of science destroying America, which is not the point the article is making.

New comment by etrautmann in "The war against 'woke' could end US science as we know it"

etrautmann — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:42:55 +0000

Yes this is the exact opposite of the message conveyed in the article. Terrible graphic and communication for an important topic

New comment by etrautmann in "WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants"

etrautmann — Sat, 30 May 2026 04:36:49 +0000

Plenty of scientists can and will work in industry roles or quit entirely. It’s already a crazy proposition and should not be made any harder. Finding funding can be a brutal and continuous challenge that demotivates many.

New comment by etrautmann in "FBI Arrests CIA Official with $40M in Gold Bars in His Home"

etrautmann — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:41:51 +0000

MKUltra would have been a bizarre horror to experience

New comment by etrautmann in "Why Do We Sleep Under Blankets, Even on the Hottest Nights? (2017)"

etrautmann — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:16:04 +0000

I can't disagree with that, myself included. I've gotten MUCH better about caffeine discipline but that's only a start.