Hacker News: jsmcgd

New comment by jsmcgd in "Opus 4.5 is not the normal AI agent experience that I have had thus far"

jsmcgd — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:15:27 +0000

People put up with what they have to put up with. Many millions of people have lived and suffered under totalitarian regimes with basically zero options to do anything about it. I think that's where we're headed and by the time a sufficient amount of people realise how bad their situation is, the moment to do anything about it will have long since passed. There will be no cavalry riding to the rescue this time.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Show HN: Play with real quantum physics in your browser"

jsmcgd — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:14:50 +0000

Instead of discounting some of the results, can we alternate the value of the coin each toss? So on the first flip, heads is 0 and tails is 1, then on the next flip, heads is 1 and tails is 0.

New comment by jsmcgd in "TSMC begins producing 4-nanometer chips in Arizona"

jsmcgd — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:42:08 +0000

Humanoid robot workers are going to have a massive impact on industries like this. 'cheap labor' will no longer be isolated to certain regions.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end"

jsmcgd — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:01:29 +0000

I feel I've seen this movie before.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Why you can't divide by zero"

jsmcgd — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 16:33:55 +0000

I think that this proves that dividing by zero produces the set of all numbers, which is what it looks like to me when you graph this problem (y=1/x) using increasingly small positive and negative values for x. Smaller positive x values tend to positive infinity, smaller negative x values tend to negative infinity. When the x value reaches zero you have a vertical line from positive to negative infinity. ie dividing by zero corresponds to all numbers. That's how it appears to me. So 0/0=2 and it equals 3 etc. I admit this doesn't seem that useful.

New comment by jsmcgd in "'Sunspot archipelago' 15 times wider than Earth could soon bombard us"

jsmcgd — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 09:20:53 +0000

This is alarming. Does anyone know what the current state of space weather protection/mitigation is for electricity grids in the west?

IIRC in 2012 the Earth missed a giant CME by one week, and had it hit Earth there would have been 80% casualties in the US (according to a US government committee), due to the fallout of failing electrical transformers. I'm not aware that this issue has been rectified - probably due to the magnitude of the task.

Edit: This suggests the issue is being addressed but not to what extent: https://www.space.com/space-weather-impacts-electric-grid-pr...

New comment by jsmcgd in "The Sociopaths Among Us–and How to Avoid Them"

jsmcgd — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:30:21 +0000

I'm not so sure that the Dark Triad model is that useful. Reading about narcissistic personality disorder and anti social personality disorder will probably yield a better understanding of these cluster B types. Both are low in empathy and high in selfish behaviour, but they have very different aims and produce very different results. The narcissist main goal is to acquire narcissistic supply and is willing to feast on those closest to them to get it. Psychopaths main goal can be sex, money, power, control and they usually do not care at all for the admiration and opinions of others (with the obvious exception of narcissistic psychopaths).

Thoughts?

New comment by jsmcgd in "Nickel Hydrogen Batteries by NASA"

jsmcgd — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:49:03 +0000

Can anyone comment on the design of the cell, specifically why it is long and thin, which would work against the square cube law. Is a large surface to volume chosen for thermal reasons?

New comment by jsmcgd in "Noclip.website: A digital museum of video game levels"

jsmcgd — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 14:14:43 +0000

Very cool. Would love to GoldenEye 007

New comment by jsmcgd in "Critical theory is radicalizing high school debate"

jsmcgd — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 16:06:32 +0000

Why do the debate organisers tolerate this? If the debate is X versus Y, why allow someone to say we should really be discussing Z? Imagine this in any other competitive arena like sport where during a match some team starts playing another sport entirely. There's nothing wrong with debating critical theory but not if that's not what's being debated. It should be an automatic fail, just as it would be if you're supposed to debating in a certain language and you refuse to do so. This just seems like deliberate sabotage/propaganda masquerading as sincere communication. As much fault lies with the organisers as with those who wish to deliberately pervert the debate.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Experts say ‘cocaine sharks’ may be feasting on drugs dumped off Florida"

jsmcgd — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 19:54:46 +0000

I wonder if something similar might explain the recent aggressive behaviour of orcas.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Britain Is a Developing Country"

jsmcgd — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:37:11 +0000

The UK actually has a lot of industry: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/list-of-industries/

Most people are ignorant about businesses that are not international consumer brands. However this only represents a tiny fraction of the total number of businesses out there.

This visibility problem goes back to even Napolean's time, when he dismissed England as a "nation of shopkeepers". In a way he was correct, but he failed to appreciate what such a nation was and is capable of.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Tuple Space (2014)"

jsmcgd — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 11:11:20 +0000

Thank you :) Upon reflection perhaps this is fair enough, all Hacker News discussions might descend into ~50% ChatGPT content. I'll endeavour to put what ChatGPT produces through my messy human filter. Humans before bots? Guys before AIs. Ho(mo sapien)s before b(r)o ... doesn't quite work.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Trudeau says Canada is 'serious' about reviving nuclear power"

jsmcgd — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 10:22:26 +0000

A lot of new nuclear power plants can be built on the site of the coal/gas power station they are replacing and can utilize the existing power transmission infrastructure.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Google Mars (2005)"

jsmcgd — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 12:55:01 +0000

Here's another 3D Mars surface explorer: https://murray-lab.caltech.edu/CTX/V01/SceneView/MurrayLabCT...

Edit: Searching through my notes, I realised I've been down this rabbit hole before. Here are some more of the same:

https://explore-mars.esri.com/

http://www.mars3dmap.com

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/24881/planet-mars-3d-model/

New comment by jsmcgd in "Why Not Mars"

jsmcgd — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:03:34 +0000

You can't wreck a wreck. Mars can only be improved by humans.

New comment by jsmcgd in "Why Not Mars"

jsmcgd — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:02:19 +0000

> What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?

The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working :S

New comment by jsmcgd in "FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client"

jsmcgd — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 16:50:11 +0000

Are there any plans to incorporate other video platforms in this client?

New comment by jsmcgd in "Fed should make clear that rising profit margins are spurring inflation"

jsmcgd — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 16:13:57 +0000

No they're real, but so are higher material costs for businesses. Everything has become more expensive and so there is less to pay for everything, including salaries.

Inflation can be caused by economic success where everybody is richer, and businesses have an incentive to increase prices and salaries to compete with other businesses doing the same.

But this isn't what we're dealing with. This inflation hasn't been caused by economic success, it's been caused by quantitative easing - money printing. And lots of it. Prices are going up because there is more money for the same (or less) amount of goods. In my opinion it may be more helpful to think about 'currency devaluation' rather than 'price increases', despite the fact these are two sides of the same coin.

New comment by jsmcgd in "A new concept for low-cost batteries"

jsmcgd — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 08:51:02 +0000

I agree 110 degrees Celsius is probably too much for a mobile phone, but my laptop has approached 100C before. I'm sure if properly designed it could handle the slightly higher temperatures.

Any thoughts on what the specific energy might be?