Hacker News: if_by_whisky

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Show HN: Python like DSL for enterprise grade OpenClaw/hermes/paperclip agents"

if_by_whisky — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:49:46 +0000

This is incredible, thanks for sharing.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Meteorologists, please stop the fearmongering (2019)"

if_by_whisky — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:56:59 +0000

What you call fearmongering is, for the news channels, just proper monetization of their businesses. I'm often disappointed in other consumers (who should know better, or have better taste in entertainment). They're the root problem here. News businesses exist to follow the nutrient gradient of what makes money. Asking them to do something else just feels naive.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Unredacter: Never use pixelation as a redaction technique"

if_by_whisky — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 21:26:28 +0000

Guessing is actually easy. For the kinds of files that end up as redacted pdfs (legal, government, etc), there's probably 5-8 font options that make up 98% of documents. Sizes and weights are immediately recognizable to the slightly trained eye. I'm pretty sure I could guess all 3 attributes at a glance.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "‘Young, male and aimless’: Why are men in India delaying marriage?"

if_by_whisky — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 15:09:38 +0000

I think it's more about what the opportunity cost is to their families.

Reverse Engineering Oatly: Part 3 (2021)

if_by_whisky — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 21:03:28 +0000

Article URL: http://gregr.org/reverse-engineering-oatly-part-3/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32514865

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Nintendo's big piracy case is a sad story"

if_by_whisky — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 21:02:51 +0000

I used to work for an expert witness who testified on valuations in IP infringement cases. I really lost faith in the way the US handles IP infringement in that job. I know patents are contentious in tech, but sometimes I think copyright is just as bad. I know it's not a popular opinion, but seeing how things actually play out really made me feel for defendants in those cases.

Regardless of what you think of the effectiveness of IP protection, the way damages are calculated (and ultimately determined by courts) is just awful. I haven't looked at the specifics of that $65M calculation, but if the real number were closer to $650k I wouldn't be surprised-- 2 orders of magnitude was a pretty typical spread between plaintiff and defendant expert witnesses' valuations in the IP cases I worked on.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Plain text, with lines"

if_by_whisky — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 14:29:43 +0000

plaintext is not markdown, though

New comment by if_by_whisky in "DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”"

if_by_whisky — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 18:32:16 +0000

Anti-spam utilities exist to filter out (aka "censor") spam. Disinformation is spam. I'm pro filtering spam and perhaps even a reasonable person. There you have it.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation”"

if_by_whisky — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 18:07:10 +0000

Yeah there's a lot of "anti censorship" warriors in this thread, who seem confused about what search engines are for

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching"

if_by_whisky — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:07:41 +0000

it's selection, more precisely

New comment by if_by_whisky in "When Facebook went down this week, traffic to news sites went up"

if_by_whisky — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 15:58:19 +0000

Yeah the story that Facebook was down went viral. I don't think there's much deeper meaning to this beyond that.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Which Emoji Scissors Close?"

if_by_whisky — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 05:20:12 +0000

This one was pretty pointy if you ask me

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Ask HN: What do you do with paywalled HN articles?"

if_by_whisky — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 23:07:18 +0000

I use a chrome extension to bypass paywalls

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Boys trapped in Thai cave were drugged for risky rescue dives"

if_by_whisky — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 21:37:27 +0000

Yeah, this was reported in real time while it was happening.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? (2016)"

if_by_whisky — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 10:14:44 +0000

Something feels off about this whole debate. I took algebra in 7th grade, so I naturally lean towards the "push it earlier, not later" camp. But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the way we group mathematical concepts together in grade school is fundamentally boring for students. It seems like nit-picking to fall hard on one side of this "8th vs 9th" dichotomy when I actually suspect the whole math cirriculum could use a revamp from the ground up. Maybe we should consider basic discrete math in elementary school. Maybe basic calc in 6th grade. How can we get substantive, critical thinking skills earlier into the curriculum so we don't have to just assure students: "trust us, math will get interesting if you can just stick with it through calculus and linear algebra".

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Ask HN: Is it a good time to switch to Ubuntu 18.04 desktop?"

if_by_whisky — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 04:20:09 +0000

Upgraded my laptop two weeks ago. Smooth sailing so far.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "The most honest Ponzi scheme of all time"

if_by_whisky — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 18:53:03 +0000

I don't understand. Can you break it down a little more?

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Blackbird: Bitcoin arbitrage"

if_by_whisky — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 21:49:41 +0000

All right settle down

New comment by if_by_whisky in "Ask HN: What is your side project for 2018?"

if_by_whisky — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 14:03:11 +0000

Work on governed.io, a native app that makes it easy to fax and manage your communication with your congressional reps.

New comment by if_by_whisky in "A beginner’s guide to getting started in the cryptocurrency world"

if_by_whisky — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 15:53:13 +0000

Spending BTC is fundamentally the same as selling.