Hacker News: hingler36

New comment by hingler36 in "What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?"

hingler36 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:17:59 +0000

Pretty important asterisk concerning the privatization of the Japanese rail network: this privatization led to the closure of a lot of rural, unprofitable lines. IMO this would play out similarly for the USPS; it's not hard to remain profitable when you can just cleave off the parts of your public service that are in the red.

New comment by hingler36 in "Ante: A new way to blend borrow checking and reference counting"

hingler36 — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:43:49 +0000

I was thinking of the data race case, and I was unaware of relaxed access used by other languages. Thanks for sharing!

New comment by hingler36 in "Ante: A new way to blend borrow checking and reference counting"

hingler36 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 23:57:29 +0000

I can see how multiple mutable references is fine in a single-threaded context, but surely this would cause UB in the multi-thread context?

New comment by hingler36 in "Reflecting to optimise"

hingler36 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:19:45 +0000

I've been on my soapbox for a while that introductory machine learning courses should cover the basics of optimization. Even just basic KKT conditions could add a lot.

New comment by hingler36 in "A Mathematician's Lament (2002) [pdf]"

hingler36 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:30:51 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Paul's, and his book Measurement is easily the most beautiful introduction to geometry out there.

I appreciate his focus on how to maintain engagement with students who are predisposed to math, but I think it's equally important to consider how to teach students who are deeply uninterested in math but still need a working knowledge to live life. Granted, the current system seems to be failing both kinds of students.