Hacker News: jgwil2

New comment by jgwil2 in "US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war"

jgwil2 — Tue, 12 May 2026 19:04:21 +0000

> Whether or not you believe the United States' leaders, whether or not you think there was a better way for them to achieve their goals (something something Obama deal) is up for debate. But it's very facetious to say you "can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war," when the United States' leaders have been publicly announcing it for nearly a year.

This comment doesn't make sense to me; if one doesn't agree with the US leaders then one can perfectly well say that one can't think of a single way in which the US has come out ahead. In fact that's just another way of saying that one doesn't agree with US leaders; there's no contradiction here.

New comment by jgwil2 in "France's Mistral Built a $14B AI Empire by Not Being American"

jgwil2 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:52:28 +0000

That comment mocked German customers; it didn't mention companies at all.

New comment by jgwil2 in "DeepSeek v4"

jgwil2 — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:24:25 +0000

> The commenter didn't say "I don't like that the only two serious competitors are from the USA and China"

That's literally what the comment said:

> Still not sure how I feel about China of all places to control the only alternative AI stack, but I guess it's better than leaving everything to the US alone.

I.e. it would be preferable if, for example, Europe was in control of the alternative, but having China and the US is better than just the US.

Who Killed the Florida Orange?

jgwil2 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:07:25 +0000

Article URL: https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47833112

Points: 4

# Comments: 2

New comment by jgwil2 in "Want to write a compiler? Just read these two papers (2008)"

jgwil2 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:53:22 +0000

Ah yes, I remember this one. Very challenging indeed. Thanks!

New comment by jgwil2 in "Want to write a compiler? Just read these two papers (2008)"

jgwil2 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:39:23 +0000

Do you have a link by by chance? A quick search didn't turn anything up.

New comment by jgwil2 in "The hottest college major [Computer Science] hit a wall. What happened?"

jgwil2 — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:40:30 +0000

Seemed to really accelerate around 2007-2008 when Facebook became massive and turned a bunch of kids into billionaires overnight. After that it sort of turned into a gold rush, and we were the shovels.

New comment by jgwil2 in "Am I German or Autistic?"

jgwil2 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:11:00 +0000

Hah, nice catch. I found that my brain actually corrected this as I was reading and I had to look back again to see the error.

New comment by jgwil2 in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

jgwil2 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:56:24 +0000

Plenty of people worked to ban handguns only to have it shut down by SCOTUS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

New comment by jgwil2 in "How and why to take a logarithm of an image [video]"

jgwil2 — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:46:07 +0000

This was the title used when I came across the video. Apparently YouTube uses many different titles for A/B testing but this is the one I got. Can't edit it now, unfortunately.

EDIT: seems like dang or team took care of it, thanks!

How and why to take a logarithm of an image [video]

jgwil2 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:10:43 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxFjLJ3rVY

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47490609

Points: 177

# Comments: 69

What's Going on with the IRS?

jgwil2 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:02:33 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/03/irs-trouble-tax-season/686472/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457435

Points: 7

# Comments: 1

I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse

jgwil2 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 12:05:00 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/opinion/financial-crisis-private-credit-ai-iran-taiwan.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47411527

Points: 11

# Comments: 4

I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse

jgwil2 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 03:01:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/trump-federal-law-power.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47408079

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

New comment by jgwil2 in "Willingness to look stupid"

jgwil2 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:31:18 +0000

I remember thinking that wheeled suitcases were funny the first time I saw them. How silly I was...

New comment by jgwil2 in "US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]"

jgwil2 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:32:20 +0000

> Those who liked being able to be able to rent a movie without planning days ahead are stuck with streaming now.

Just want to point out that public libraries often have great DVD collections (also music, games, and more) and are often underutilized. Definitely still a viable way to watch a movie for many folks.

New comment by jgwil2 in "How to talk to anyone and why you should"

jgwil2 — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:01:51 +0000

It's interesting because it's undoubtedly true that bias and prejudice affect one's interactions with the world. At the same time, it's true to that this can contribute to a vicious cycle via self-fulfilling prophecy.

I would say that sometimes you have to make a distinction between truths about the world and beliefs that can be helpful to you personally; sometimes these are in contradiction with each other, so you may find that you have to prefer to fiction to the truth in order to achieve better results.

This seems to be very common and accepted wisdom in the world of sports: a weaker opponent going against a stronger opponent may have virtually no chance of success, but they can marginally improve those chances via "belief."

New comment by jgwil2 in "This time is different"

jgwil2 — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 04:30:24 +0000

They're not hired to swing a hammer hard, they're hired to swing it at the right thing, and if they can't swing it hard enough they pick a different tool.

New comment by jgwil2 in "Never buy a .online domain"

jgwil2 — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:40:23 +0000

Not sure how you feel about them as a company, but I use Cloudflare because they sell domains at cost.

New comment by jgwil2 in "Why I'm Worried About Job Loss and Thoughts on Comparative Advantage"

jgwil2 — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:28:45 +0000

> If human labor really does become superfluous, that’s not a world where “ordinary people” are okay by default, but rather a world where the entire economic operating system needs to be redesigned. Oks treats this as a distant concern. I’d argue it’s the thing most worth worrying about, because policy needs to be built before we arrive there, not after.

I agree with this sentiment, but history shows that humans are absolutely terrible at planning for revolutionary systemic changes like this. Our current inability to address climate change in any systematic way is just the latest example. It seems to me that if and when human labor becomes superfluous it will most likely result in a lot of chaos before a new system emerges.