Hacker News: forrestpitz

New comment by forrestpitz in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

forrestpitz — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 22:26:02 +0000

Not OP but anecdotally: ChatGPT diagnosed my wife's MCAS, POTS/Dysautonomia and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome before any doctor did (not for lack of trying on the doctor front). Once we had that direction we found the right providers and it's made a world of difference

New comment by forrestpitz in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

forrestpitz — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 22:18:10 +0000

Not op but my wife has MCAS. The things that have helped the most are: Oral Cromolyn (helped sooo much with gi issues), and more recently she's started Ketotifen which is a systemic mast cell stabilizer that's seemed promising but is fairly new. She also tried Montelukast which was well tolerated but didn't make a ton of difference for her personally (but I know it helps a lot of people). Supplement wise DAO was the most useful for food truggers

New comment by forrestpitz in "Can the stockmarket swallow Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI?"

forrestpitz — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:04:21 +0000

My wife was diagnosed with several chronic conditions in the last year. AI tools both diagnosed her before a doctor did (which helped us find the right docs to care for her by figuring out what to look for). One of her conditions (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome) comes with a ton of dietary restrictions. Its helped us immensely in planning meals and identifing food triggers. All of this would have possible with out AI as a tool but would have led to much more pain and suffering and likely taken much longer to figure it out. It's easy to dismiss (especially given the hallucinations) but it's been legitimatly life changing over the last year

New comment by forrestpitz in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

forrestpitz — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 05:14:25 +0000

Maybe not specific advice for your situation but I've always found this poem moving and valuable when it comes to building comfort in being alone. I hope it helps you too https://youtu.be/k7X7sZzSXYs?si=LwCMyP0L2vsllHJl

New comment by forrestpitz in "The Xkcd thing, now interactive"

forrestpitz — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:09:31 +0000

Looks like an undersea cable to me

New comment by forrestpitz in "AI is making junior devs useless"

forrestpitz — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 02:02:45 +0000

> Why turn a junior into a senior yourself if you can get the competition to pay for it instead.

Reminds me a bit of the quote

The manager says "what if I train them and they leave?" And the response is "what if you don't and they stay". Leaving unskilled and underdeveloped people in you organization is a recipe for disaster.

New comment by forrestpitz in "Google, Nvidia, and OpenAI"

forrestpitz — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 04:44:30 +0000

I also see the argument as a macro one not a micro one. Some bubbles in aggregate create breeding grounds for innovation (Hobart's point) and throw off externalities (like cheap freight rail in the US from the railroad bubble) ala Carlota Perez. That's not to say that there isn't individual suffering when the bubble pops but I read the argument as "it's not wholy defined by the individual suffering that happens"

New comment by forrestpitz in "Google, Nvidia, and OpenAI"

forrestpitz — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 04:36:35 +0000

That assumes a certain kind of ad though. Even a "pu ch the monkey" style banner ad would be a start. I can't imagine they wouldn't be very careful not to give consumers the impression that their "thumb was on the scale" of what ads you see

New comment by forrestpitz in "The Soul of an Old Machine"

forrestpitz — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 03:39:57 +0000

"Soul" is one of my favorite books. Kidder writing is phenomenal. He explains complex topics with ease and the storytelling drags you in from introduction. I also think it might be the best example of what great management looks like. Tom West isn't the focus of the story but without his hand none of it could have existed. Cannot recommend highly enough.

New comment by forrestpitz in "Popcorntime-desktop repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown"

forrestpitz — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 19:59:17 +0000

I guess the question is should the makers of lockpicks be punished for how they are used (or for that matter be stopped from distributing their lockpicks). There are plenty of commercially available products that can be use for illegal activities but we don't prevent them from being sold (let alone given away for free)

New comment by forrestpitz in "What would you like to see most in minix? (1991)"

forrestpitz — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 20:35:49 +0000

This is really fascinating. I would love to read these through. If anyone has an updated list, or a way to translate that would be amazing.

New comment by forrestpitz in "Show HN: the iPhone version of News/YC, a Hacker News reader"

forrestpitz — Thu, 09 May 2013 03:34:10 +0000

I really like this. It's super easy to use and the dark theme looks great. My only comment would be that the header text (e.g. comments, setting etc.) can be hard to read on the default (HN orange) color scheme. Nice.

New comment by forrestpitz in ""I can't do math" (2001)"

forrestpitz — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:28:04 +0000

I feel like the sentiment of "I can't do math" stems mostly from the way math is taught. To contrast we can look at how reading is taught to elementary students. Students read books at their "level." Once they are comfortable with the words and concepts in a given level then the difficulty of the content is scaled up appropriately. In math, students are often pulled along with the rest of the class. It is very difficult to understand division when you are still struggling to understand subtraction. This happens for a number of reasons but mostly because it is more difficult to teach math on an individual level the way reading can be though. I think that the solution to issues like this will/would look similar to the reverse model that the folks at KahnAcademy are creating. It's clear that it is difficult to teach math of every student is at a different point and understands a different amount of math. By transferring the teaching onto prerecorded videos the students are able to learn at their own pace and rewatch the lessons for more difficult concepts without exasperating the teacher. Salman Kahn has stated that his cousin (that he first started making videos for) told him that she liked learning from him in his videos more because he wouldn't get frustrated when she didn't understand a concept. She could just watch it again. This also frees the teacher to help the students who are learning at a slower rate or have gotten stuck with a difficult concept.