Hacker News: joshuamcginnis

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Ntsc-rs – open-source video emulation of analog TV and VHS artifacts"

joshuamcginnis — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 21:20:13 +0000

I wonder if any of this was used to produce Backrooms

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:26:14 +0000

Massive productivity gains.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "AI helps add 10k more photos to OldNYC"

joshuamcginnis — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 21:32:21 +0000

As someone with a massive collection of antique postmarked postcards (probably the largest in the world for a particular city), this is very helpful and encouraging for getting my collection online.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

joshuamcginnis — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 22:15:13 +0000

I'm truly sorry to hear about your suffering. Have you considered giving your life to Jesus? It can be a great source of healing and comfort in your time of need. I'd be happy to talk to you about (even privately) if it would be helpful.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "A Visual Guide to DNA Sequencing"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:36:26 +0000

I culture fungus, perform DNA extraction, run PCR (polymerase chain reaction - the process used to clone the gene(s) I want to sequence), and gel electrophoresis in my home lab. I then ship tubes of the DNA to mclab.com where for about $3 per sample, they'll run sanger sequencing and email me the data the next day. Works great for DNA barcoding and plasmid sequencing.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "OVH Is Raising Prices"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:32:40 +0000

This sucks because I just set everything up at OVH this month. Who else should I be looking at with better pricing? (or least, better resources for the price)

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs"

joshuamcginnis — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:58:47 +0000

Also, git's "master" branch is named after a master recording or master copy, the canonical original from which duplicates are made. There is literally no reason for it be offensive except for those who retroactively associate the word with slavery.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Competition is not market validation"

joshuamcginnis — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:28:00 +0000

My views on market validation have changed with age. What I've observed after talking to hundreds of founders is that it's now so easy for someone to enter a market that it seems like those that are successful are the ones who managed to _create_ their market. No matter how smart or how good your idea is, many many successful ventures are successful because of some intangible / hard-to-reproduce circumstance that allowed them to create the market. It could be investor /pr momentum, connections, regulatory friction or some other intangible, but whatever it is - it's not something that could be easily reproduced because it's nuanced for every founder and company.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "My eighth year as a bootstrapped founder"

joshuamcginnis — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:23:28 +0000

Yea. Perhaps a better metric to use would be Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) which includes the owner's salary, benefits, and discretionary expenses, after adjusting for non-recurring, non-operating, and non-cash items. This metric is often used when one person wants to acquire another business.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "The Great Unwind"

joshuamcginnis — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:21:58 +0000

> In short, occupywallst.org is a living archive and occasional update point for a landmark left-wing protest movement that put economic inequality and corporate power at the center of national conversation starting in 2011.

Is this true?

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Procedures for Repair of Potholes in Asphalt-Surfaced Pavements"

joshuamcginnis — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:15:20 +0000

I did a little (very little, I asked an LLM) what it would cost to produce this report in today's dollars. The answer came in as roughly $90,000–$180,000. Worth it or accurate? I don't know but it is interesting.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection"

joshuamcginnis — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:39:26 +0000

If you're into this and you're ever in Bozeman Montana, check out the American Computer and Robotics Museum. It's excellent!

https://acrmuseum.org/

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Extremophile molds are invading art museums"

joshuamcginnis — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 03:26:08 +0000

Exactly. UV would definitely work but is also destructive to many kinds of items.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Extremophile molds are invading art museums"

joshuamcginnis — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:08:30 +0000

I've isolated many xerophilic molds, mostly from caves around the US. As the article stated, the most you can do is spray ethanol on the article and wipe it down. That'll kill most microbes and prevent sporulation.

I'll have to think on this but I don't think there are any easy solutions other than just routinely cleaning and decontaminating the articles (at least the ones that can tolerate it).

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 03:14:58 +0000

My original argument is getting dismissed, in part, because people are fearful of how it would be implemented while at the same time, completely hand-waving over the obvious flaws of the Claude philosophy of moral relativism.

I'm not arguing that it would make the edge-cases easier to define, but I do think the general outcomes for society would be better over the long-run if we all held ourselves to a greater moral authority than that of our opinions, the will of those in power and the cultural norms of the time.

If we could get alignment on the shared belief that there are at least some obvious moral absolutes, then I would be happy to join in on the discussion as to how to implement the - no doubt - difficult task of aligning an LLM towards those absolutes.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 03:06:36 +0000

It's a clear sunny day and you ask me, "is it raining?". I answer, "it's not snowing." Am I lying?

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 03:03:16 +0000

It's a good starting point because the commandments were given by God. And without God, there is no objective moral standard. Everything, including your opinion on my point of view, is subjective and relative. Whatever one would want to call "good" or "evil" would just be a matter of opinion.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:58:29 +0000

The Ten Commandments are commandments and not a list of moral absolutes. Not all of the commandments are relevant to the functioning of an ethical LLM. For example, the first commandment is "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shall not have strange gods before Me."

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:10:01 +0000

The problem is that if moral absolution doesn’t exist then it doesn’t matter what you do in the trolly situation since it’s all relative. You may as well do what you please since it’s all a matter of opinion anyway.

New comment by joshuamcginnis in "Claude's new constitution"

joshuamcginnis — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:02:03 +0000

No. There is a distinct difference between lying and withholding information.