Hacker News: jocaal

New comment by jocaal in "CERN accepts $1B in private cash towards Future Circular Collider"

jocaal — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 19:25:56 +0000

How are radio telescopes and mars rovers in my interest? How would you know what is in my interest? I worked for my money so the person in the best position to judge what is in my interest is me. I am sorry for you if that is such a hard concept to understand.

New comment by jocaal in "CERN accepts $1B in private cash towards Future Circular Collider"

jocaal — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 15:42:11 +0000

What actually happens is, smart people are isolated from the problems of the general population and work towards meaningless goals at the cost of the everyday tax payer doing unglamorous work to earn a living. Decoupling science from the state will also reduce the meaningless competition of academia that leads to the publish-or-perish and replication crises, because the people who will be doing it, will do it for the love of the game, regardless of social status and money.

If you want to live in this world, you have to trade your time and provide value to others. You shouldn't get a free pass because, just because you convinced yourself and the government that you're smarter than everyone else.

New comment by jocaal in "BYD Sells 4.6M Vehicles in 2025, Meets Revised Sales Goal"

jocaal — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 05:59:01 +0000

Funnily enough, the future of the Chinese economy depends on being able to access their local market. The chinese people save too much and aren't buying their own products

New comment by jocaal in "China mandates 50% domestic equipment rule for chipmakers"

jocaal — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:40:19 +0000

I don't think many equipment makers are Taiwanese. The names I am familiar with are KLA from the US. Tokyo Electron from Japan and ASML from Netherlands. TSMC buys equipment from them and build the fabs. The PRC wants complete vertical integration.

New comment by jocaal in "Science Communications on YouTube"

jocaal — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:31:56 +0000

Funnily enough, linear algebra is a good example of how doing doesn't lead to understanding. Just calculating eigenvalues and eigenvectors don't give you the geometric view of what is happening. Also talk to some engineering students who learned how to do matrix multiplication, but can't tell you what a vector is (it is not just something with magnitude and direction).

New comment by jocaal in "Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity"

jocaal — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:55:01 +0000

Power travels near the speed of light. In theory, the entire globe can be connected and countries with daylight can supply those at night in a cycle.

New comment by jocaal in "Taking money off the table"

jocaal — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 20:24:50 +0000

I don't agree. How can wasting your money in your twenties and thirties be more valuable than saving for an early retirement. Imagine being able to retire at 40 and do whatever you want. If you weren't stupid, your health should be good enough. Why prolong the time you have to do stupid chores for other people when you can be strategic and opt out as early as possible.

New comment by jocaal in "Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)"

jocaal — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 20:34:30 +0000

The act of grading itself is what's wrong with colleges. Different people learn at different paces. Forcing everyone to work at the fastest rate and then judging them for not performing is what kills interest in subjects. People should be allowed to write tests when they want to, learn at the pace they want to decide for themselves when it's time to move on, because lets face it, not everyone cares about some prof's pet subject.

The problem is that higher education became something marketable and universities decided to sell diplomas instead of giving people a chance to learn skills they think might help them reach their goals.

New comment by jocaal in "OpenAI Needs $400B In The Next 12 Months"

jocaal — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 20:26:48 +0000

> I'm a paid subscriber of open AI, but it's really just a matter of convenience. The app is really good, and I find it's really great for double checking some of my math.

That right there is why they are valuable. Most people are absolutely incompetent when it comes to IT. That's why no one you meet in the real world uses ad blockers. OpenAI secured their position in the mind share of the masses. All they had to do to become the next google was find a way to force ads down the throats of their users. Instead they opted for the inflated bubble and scam investors strategy. Rookie mistake.

New comment by jocaal in "The collapse of the econ PhD job market"

jocaal — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 19:52:17 +0000

> let them hire the best of the best

The sooner people realize that there is no such thing, the better. People are extremely incompetent in judging competence. With that said, the solution isn't to then just hire the person willing to do the work for the least amount of money. You americans should realize you live in a society together and have obligations to give each other chances. Plenty of bright people around. This new top down command and control culture that has taken root in the American corporate world will be the downfall of the nation. Everyone is just trying to screw over the next guy for a quick buck.

New comment by jocaal in "Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears"

jocaal — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 14:19:27 +0000

Past a certain point, skill doesn't contribute to the magnitude of success and it becomes all luck. There are plenty of smart people on earth, but there can only be 1 founder of facebook.

New comment by jocaal in "OpenAI Employee Stock Sale Would Value ChatGPT Maker at $500B"

jocaal — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:14:43 +0000

It's not the tech that matters, it's the amount of users. See snapchat vs instagram.

New comment by jocaal in "Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)"

jocaal — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 13:10:50 +0000

I don't think it is that deep for Trump. His sloppiness is great for the media because his choices lead to endless content. He is great for the unofficial media because everything he does is meme worthy. It is no wonder he and Musk teamed up, both their successes come from following the same strategy.

New comment by jocaal in "NSF and Nvidia award Ai2 $152M to support building an open AI ecosystem"

jocaal — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 08:08:52 +0000

Nvidia's market value is pumped due to hype. They can use this value to raise enormous amounts of capital and make investments that boost their earnings. This impresses investors, and the cycle continues.

New comment by jocaal in "What does Palantir actually do?"

jocaal — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 06:08:44 +0000

Do you mind sharing how one goes from p/s to expected growth rate? Is it a rule of thumb?

New comment by jocaal in "Nearly 1 in 3 Starlink satellites detected within the SKA-Low frequency band"

jocaal — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:06:05 +0000

Einstein developed relativity from mathematical reasoning. A major influence was the michaelson morley experiment, which was solely done on earth. Relativity was developed in the early 1900's and the first radio telescope was made in the 1930's. Also, orbital mechanics uses mostly Newtonian mechanics and the communication of satellites is radio waves which were understood way before einstein. There is no relativity involved. Literally everything you said is factually incorrect.

New comment by jocaal in "Nearly 1 in 3 Starlink satellites detected within the SKA-Low frequency band"

jocaal — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 10:59:24 +0000

Why do we need radio telescopes. Satellite communications are infinitely more useful for people on earth than some research papers about things light-years away

New comment by jocaal in "The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf]"

jocaal — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 22:17:55 +0000

The pie isn't always growing and the pie isn't always static. There are times where either can happen. I think people are just feeling that we are entering a period where the pie will be stagnant for a while. In the short term the world might be a zero sum game.

New comment by jocaal in "Terrence Tao Loses Funding"

jocaal — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 06:31:32 +0000

You only need engineers for those. The type of science engineers and other academics do, are very different. The best way to lose top tier engineers is to de-industrialize and flood the market for engineering labour with low cost labour from out of the country.

New comment by jocaal in "OpenAI raises $8.3B at $300B valuation"

jocaal — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 19:09:04 +0000

My comment was a reply to

> Given their current product offerings, I really don't see a way they could ever justify a $300B valuation unless they get everyone on the planet to subscribe to their $200/month plan.