Hacker News: glennonymous

New comment by glennonymous in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)"

glennonymous — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 23:02:00 +0000

Indeed. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/by the false azure in the windowpane...

New comment by glennonymous in "Kevin Kelly: 101 Additional Advices"

glennonymous — Wed, 01 May 2024 06:06:13 +0000

102. Eschew advice books.

New comment by glennonymous in "Daniel Dennett has died"

glennonymous — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 21:48:08 +0000

I sent an unsolicited 25 page paper about memes that I wrote, as just some (fairly pretentious!) guy without a college degree, to Professor Dennett, in the early oughts. And he just went ahead and read the thing and gave me very kind feedback on it.

I'm sure he was a busy person, and didn't have any obligation to respond to me, at all. It touched me deeply. What a generous and gracious soul he was.

I mean these words in a non-supernatural way, of course. :-D A toast to Mr. Dennett's wonderful memory.

New comment by glennonymous in "Show HN: Whataaabout.com – unique activity ideas for the holiday break"

glennonymous — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:06:50 +0000

A couple of thoughts: I’m unable to go back with my browser’s ’Back’ key. not being able to revisit an activity reduces the site’s usefulness. Also, I’d recommend adding a feature that lets users add activities.

New comment by glennonymous in "Show HN: Perfect Pitch Puzzle – a musical Wordle daily ear training game"

glennonymous — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 04:43:01 +0000

Seems to be more or less impossible to play on my iPhone.

New comment by glennonymous in "I Can Hear You Fine. Is It Rude That I'm Still Wearing AirPods?"

glennonymous — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 22:28:53 +0000

There’s an additional factor to this that the “leaving your AirPods in when talking to someone is rude” crowd don’t realize: AirPods are actually very effective hearing aids. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/study-airpods-pro-ar...)

This is how I use them. I have moderate hearing impairment and a modest budget, and have been hesitant to plunk down thousands of dollars for decent hearing aids. When I realized the $250 earphones I already had were really good hearing aids, and figured out how to set them up that way, it was life-transforming.

I do try to take a minute to explain to people that my AirPods help me to hear, when I think about it. But if you suffer from stuffy judgments that people who wear AirPods are inconsiderate a-holes, you might want to think twice about that.

New comment by glennonymous in "California becomes first US state to ban 4 potentially harmful chemicals in food"

glennonymous — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 01:23:58 +0000

I think this is a misunderstanding. The EU bans if there is a possible hazard; the US bans based on calculated risk. While it’s possible (but unlikely) there could be cases in which the EU rules are safer, the EU rules also result in harmful, expensive absurdities such as banning GMOs.

New comment by glennonymous in "Is Math Real?"

glennonymous — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 05:51:52 +0000

Am I the only person who hates it when people say “anyways” when they mean “anyway”?

New comment by glennonymous in "PostScript’s sudden death in Sonoma"

glennonymous — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 01:03:10 +0000

Creative people suffer from a lack of neural plasticity? Interesting…

New comment by glennonymous in "Don't "find" your niche, "develop" it"

glennonymous — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 02:32:55 +0000

For people familiar with Scheper’s work: What are the “three challenges” he refers to in the hero’s journey?

The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone

glennonymous — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 06:22:51 +0000

Article URL: http://bactra.org/weblog/699.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36705628

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by glennonymous in "Telling the Bees"

glennonymous — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 23:07:41 +0000

I haven’t heard anyone express this before, but when it comes to my death and the deaths of others, I take comfort in the idea of the Block Universe. On the Block Universe concept, time isn’t real in the way we think about it—everything that ever happened or will happen exists in a timeless, eternal block of spacetime. (This video by Sabine Hossenfelder explains it nicely: https://youtu.be/GwzN5YwMzv0.)

If this is true, then our lives are eternal—not in the way envisioned by religious people, but eternal in a very real sense. It’s true that I am finite in time in exactly the same way that I’m finite in space, but just as I don’t lament the fact that my body isn’t infinitely large, I shouldn’t lament the fact that my life doesn’t extend through all of time. (I wouldn’t mind living for a lot longer, but that’s a different matter :-D.)

I realize this conception of immortality will be too abstract to provide any consolation to many people. But ideas of an afterlife or reincarnation are abstract, too. This one at least has the advantage, to my mind, of being plausible.

It’s not that I once was not, then I was, and after I die I will be no more. My life, my presence, this experience—it’s eternal and ever-present.

New comment by glennonymous in "Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)"

glennonymous — Thu, 25 May 2023 06:32:16 +0000

Well, I followed this method and the onions took 3 hours to get to deep brown. This leads me to “Hofstader’s Law of Caramelized Onions:” Onions always take 3 times as long to caramelize as you think they’re going to take, even when you take Hostader’s Law into account.

New comment by glennonymous in "Lately I've been using timers daily"

glennonymous — Wed, 17 May 2023 20:16:11 +0000

This is the exact opposite of my experience. As a chronically depressed person, my inner voice is pretty much my enemy. I listen to podcasts to drown it out. I mostly listen to podcasts that soothe me, that I have no need to listen to every word that’s said. This works even when I listen to a podcast with hosts’ banter I enjoy on such a low volume I can’t follow what’s being said, at all. I do this quite often, in fact. I listen to podcasts, when I’m not working, probably 75% of the time. I estimate it’s improved my mood by a similar percentage.

New comment by glennonymous in "Ask HN: How do you add novelty to your days?"

glennonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 01:10:45 +0000

+1. Also writing. WRT reading: I think the trick is that being absorbed in something mitigates boredom and existential ennui. And for me, the effect is most pronounced when I read something difficult, i.e. encyclopedic novels (Gravity’s Rainbow, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway) or difficult philosophical books (Gödel, Escher, Bach or Being And Time).

New comment by glennonymous in "Has Earth’s inner core stopped its strange spin?"

glennonymous — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 02:11:57 +0000

Greenland is surprisingly good, and scandalously overlooked: https://www.google.com/search?q=greenland+movie&ie=UTF-8&oe=...

New comment by glennonymous in "Saturated fat: villain and bogeyman in development of cardiovascular disease?"

glennonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 17:40:44 +0000

It’s time to put this tired myth to bed. The truth is that HFCS and table sugar are virtually identical, and the health effects of consuming either are the same.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/high-fructose-corn-syru...

New comment by glennonymous in "Death by hockey sticks"

glennonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 02:29:08 +0000

Oh come on. Surely you can think of a few things other than iPhones and malaria medicine we have, that were completely unavailable to kings and queens of old. (Although “smart phones” admittedly encompasses a LOT of things.) How about air conditioning and central heating? Modern dentistry and medicine of all sorts? Refrigeration? Air travel? The light bulb? A much better than king-sized variety of entertainment options on demand? Indoor plumbing, for God’s sake?

New comment by glennonymous in "The Calvine UFO photograph"

glennonymous — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 00:59:47 +0000

Or what if it’s a kite, or a piece of trash blowing in the wind, or a paper airplane, or…

New comment by glennonymous in "On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”"

glennonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 00:57:18 +0000

I would like to read the book and I’m sure it’s good. But whenever a character says “does it not?” I want to soak the book in gasoline and light it on fire.