Hacker News: hsod

New comment by hsod in "What is it like to be a bat?"

hsod — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 01:25:09 +0000

Douglas Hofstadter wrote an essay about this essay in the book “The Mind’s I” which I thoroughly enjoyed reading even if a lot of it is beyond me. There’s a somewhat janky OCR version here http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-24-what-is-it-l...

Classic Hofstadter, he introduces a concept called a “Be-Able Thing” (BAT for short)

New comment by hsod in "ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes"

hsod — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:46:22 +0000

When I was taking ADHD stimulants I had my core dose (long release) and then a “top-up” dose (5mg instant release) every month. The guy who prescribed me initially may have been a bit of a quack (I had to leave him because my insurance dropped him) but when I switched to a super mainstream doctor she had no problem continuing it.

New comment by hsod in "Toyota RAV4 topples Tesla Model Y as best-selling car"

hsod — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 15:35:38 +0000

RAV4 base model starts at $29k USD

New comment by hsod in "Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI"

hsod — Thu, 08 May 2025 04:19:45 +0000

Zuck gets presentations with slides that say things like “XYZ feed ranking tweaks added 50 million net-new hours of time spent per day”

Numbers like that can warp a person’s perspective

New comment by hsod in "Streaming every NFL game this season requires 7 different services, costs $2,500"

hsod — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 16:20:40 +0000

Well in the US we watch NFL games live, so there's really no way to cut out the commericals

New comment by hsod in "Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free"

hsod — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 21:22:51 +0000

Anyone else remember when wikileaks directly collaborated with the trump campaign, gave them advice, etc.? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442...

Also interesting that they didn't Wikileak these messages, some mainstream journalist had to do it for them. Probably they just hadn't gotten around to it

New comment by hsod in "Seattle ordinance intended to help app delivery workers is 'hurting' them"

hsod — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 03:32:31 +0000

This only happened a few weeks ago so no one really knows how it will shake out.

That being said— nothing seems to have changed with regard to pizza places offering direct delivery. The changes on “the apps” are very noticeable but direct ordering seems normal.

I should note this is based on almost completing the order flow, I’m not so dedicated to data gathering that I ordered a bunch of food to test this.

New comment by hsod in "Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results"

hsod — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 03:13:33 +0000

I don’t think solvency was an issue here but another way of getting to the same place is that he felt he could deploy the capital more effectively elsewhere. He made a bet on Netflix because he thought he had some alpha. After he lost a third of it he had less faith in his original thesis and thus his allocation priorities changed.

Or at least that’s the story he’d want to tell

New comment by hsod in "Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results"

hsod — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 03:06:46 +0000

Just for context Ackman’s 1.1B purchase would be worth about 2.25B today if he hadn’t sold it for 700M

Of course that doesn’t mean it was a dumb trade but his rationale in the letter doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It has the vibe of something you would come up with if you needed to sound smart justifying a decision you had already made emotionally

New comment by hsod in "YouTube suspends Russell Brand from making money off the streaming site"

hsod — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:27:27 +0000

Someone successfully did that! Tons of people that got demonetized on Youtube are doing great on Rumble. Including Russell Brand, as a matter of fact.

He also just got a strong statement of support from the owner of another large monetized video distribution platform (X fka Twitter). So he can always move his show there.

New comment by hsod in "The Relativity of Wrong (1989)"

hsod — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 20:11:01 +0000

I think this is pretty much what the term "midwit" refers to

New comment by hsod in "Being a short-term rental host has become much harder"

hsod — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 19:18:42 +0000

Not trying to be antagonistic but, so what? No one is asking you to.

New comment by hsod in "Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues"

hsod — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 07:38:49 +0000

Hey Dan

Pretty surprising and sad that you would ban me for a comment like that. Reading it back three years later I’m not wildly proud about it but I don’t think it’s ban worthy.

But I want to push back against the idea that this is not a shadow ban. I see now that you replied to my comment to let me know. But there’s no notification mechanism on HN for comment replies! So I didn’t see it until just now.

A ban mechanism that eventuates in the banned user logging on and participating for 3 years before realizing no one can see their comments is a shadow ban! If you wanted it to be clear there should be some messaging besides a comment reply. Just my two cents

New comment by hsod in "This year, Oculus has sold more headsets than Microsoft did Xboxes"

hsod — Sun, 26 Dec 2021 07:18:05 +0000

To be clear, the people who can run these models and worlds are also tethered to a PC. So the quest isn’t any worse than the competition. The complaint here seems to be that it isn’t better enough to justify… well something I’m sure

New comment by hsod in "Toyota 'reviewing' key fob remote start subscription plan after blowback"

hsod — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 02:31:16 +0000

Uh in this case the “extra device” is your car key

New comment by hsod in "Seconds before a 6.2 earthquake rattled California, phones got a warning"

hsod — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 20:15:42 +0000

There’s also a healthy local trade in earthquake retrofitting. After the nisqually quake the city got pretty serious, a lot of old buildings downtown were severely damaged

New comment by hsod in "Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS"

hsod — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 17:37:29 +0000

I used to work at a big co on system like this. The appeal button sent your job for another review. Obviously it doesn’t cost anything to click a button so almost everyone did it. Appeal jobs were split into tiers based on customer size and higher tiers were worked first. Big enough customers got the white glove treatment from their account manager. Small customers could linger for months in the queue, but could usually get the decision reversed if they tried hard enough

New comment by hsod in "Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues"

hsod — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 07:35:21 +0000

I agree. Lately it seems that people who lay their ideas out and accept criticism are being destroyed by those who refuse to admit fault a priori

New comment by hsod in "YouTube deleting comments who criticize their hiding of the dislike count"

hsod — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 03:02:32 +0000

This whole controversy strikes me as a sign of intellectual rot. YouTube has so many levers to control what you watch that getting mad about this is like getting mad the captain of the titanic won’t tell you how many deck chairs there are as the boat is going down. It simply doesn’t matter. It’s just one more in the long line of tweaks and AB tests YouTube uses to increase engagement. The learned debate club you’re looking for on YouTube is a mirage. If you find a video via YouTube search or recommendations you’ve already lost. If you find a video through a link from a trusted friend the dislike count doesn’t matter. Please, I’m begging you, find something important to care about

New comment by hsod in "Today’s Disneyland is a price gouge, not a magical experience"

hsod — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 20:45:27 +0000

? Disneyland allows outside food. You see people eating McDonald’s or homemade sandwiches all the time