Hacker News: julienchastang

New comment by julienchastang in "Mushroom hunting with LLMs: what can go wrong?"

julienchastang — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:46:56 +0000

Ha! I just had a very interesting conversation with ChatGPT about a mushroom that I found in my front lawn. I am 99% sure it was an edible oyster mushroom which included analysis the of the size, growing substrate (dead ash tree root which turns out to be a useful identifying characteristic -- I learned a lot about mycology in a short time). Plus I don't use fertilizers, herbicide, pesticides, fungicides (obviously) on my lawn so I think it would have been quite tasty. Did I eat it? Hell, no. But then I got to thinking, would I trust a human to correctly identify it? I am actually not sure I would either. Penalty is just too great for misidentification LLM or not.

New comment by julienchastang in "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode"

julienchastang — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:47:30 +0000

org-mode is a way more powerful literate programming environment which can be exported to many different formats including markdown. In the past, I have collaborated with others with markdown as the sort of interface format. But on the collaboration front and not everyone liking emacs, I found that there's no way around that. I am a huge fan of emacs and use it every day but it is not that great of a collaboration tool due to it not being everyone's cup of tea.

The Surprising Mental-Health Benefits of Getting Away

julienchastang — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:09:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/mental-health-benefits-of-travel-834befc7

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451532

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by julienchastang in "Oceans hit highest temperature on record"

julienchastang — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 21:40:05 +0000

Does anybody else feel like this is the answer to the Fermi paradox? Advanced civilizations simply exploit, consume, and pollute their way of existence.

New comment by julienchastang in "AI boosted homework scores, then exam scores dropped: Study"

julienchastang — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 15:58:23 +0000

This article is about the Economist's summary of a journal article so we have a (AI?) summary of a summary. Not very helpful. Here are a couple of better references:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6868618

https://archive.is/w1eng

Also note the findings are more nuanced than may appear on the surface.

New comment by julienchastang in "I used to be excited about new tech, but I rarely am anymore"

julienchastang — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:33:31 +0000

I am not part of the group being polled (firmly ensconced in middle age), but I feel the opposite. Yes, the AI roll out has been shambolic to say the least, and it can also be annoyingly intrusive. On the plus side, AI is allowing me to take on projects that I would never have bothered in the past because the learning curve would have been too arduous. I am currently reverse engineering an embedded system going in there with a multimeter and logic analyzer. It is a lot of fun and I am learning a ton. If you told me five years ago that I would eventually be taking on such a project, I would not have believed you. On the job side, a lot of what I do involves troubleshooting (e.g., looking at reams of logs), and there too AI has been a boon. So, yes, actually excited about where things are going (with some misgivings).

New comment by julienchastang in "St Lucie Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 manually shutdown, 3 control rods drop into core"

julienchastang — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 16:42:27 +0000

I actually thought they were talking about the island in the Caribbean since Florida is not mentioned in the article. Anyway, in case you did not know, the reactor in question is in Florida: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucie_Nuclear_Power_Plant

New comment by julienchastang in "The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert"

julienchastang — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:48:13 +0000

Completely fascinating video on this topic just recently:

https://www.wsj.com/video/the-race-to-commercialize-the-worl...

New comment by julienchastang in "The title cards in Blade Runner are amazing"

julienchastang — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 02:31:48 +0000

> Do you even know?

I've wondered about this too. Did Ridley Scott and crew set out to make the greatest movie ever (IMO)? Or did something magical happen? My guess is "auteurs" often set out to create a masterwork but usually something beyond their control derails that. But, if they are lucky, they stumble upon something extraordinary that touches the heart of the human experience and that only happens once in a lifetime, if even that.

New comment by julienchastang in "The title cards in Blade Runner are amazing"

julienchastang — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 23:18:48 +0000

The complete opening sequence of Blade Runner is "fucking amazing". The entire movie is "fucking amazing". It is a beautiful, visually stunning masterpiece that I will never tire to look at complimented with a Vangelis soundtrack that ranks as one of the best in all of cinema. And a performance by Rutger Hauer that is pure artistic mastery. And has a woman ever looked as seductive as Sean Young smoking a cigarette as she's being interviewed by Harrison Ford at Tyrell Corp? Speaking of the opening sequence, even that computer animated Ladd Company tree is cool and which I have only seen one other time in "Outland", I think. The music that plays as that tree is being rendered seems to announce you are about to witness something extraordinary.

New comment by julienchastang in "Legendary Mountaineer Nirmal Purja Killed in Broad Peak Avalanche in Pakistan"

julienchastang — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:40:54 +0000

Also the subject of a 2021 Netflix documentary, "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible " with stunning 4K imagery. Very sad.

New comment by julienchastang in "The lost civic life of movie rental stores"

julienchastang — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:31:07 +0000

That's true and when the Netflix DVD service arrived, I thought it was really a situation where the consumer had finally won. (No late fees! Yay!). That said here in Boulder we had the Video Station which was a phenomenal place for browsing and discovery with a super knowledgeable staff especially for foreign and art house cinema. They survived for a surprisingly long time, but finally closed about ten years ago [0]. Not long ago, while cleaning out an old (manual transmission -- another artifact of a bygone era) car I found a Video Station receipt which I still have. Good times!

[0] https://www.dailycamera.com/2017/02/27/the-video-station-bou...

New comment by julienchastang in "America has become an entrepreneur's paradise"

julienchastang — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 23:48:43 +0000

> I'm intrigued how often the most mundane products and things are in fact multi million dollar industries.

Absolutely. https://www.wsj.com/business/making-money-wealth-boring-8cc6...

New comment by julienchastang in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

julienchastang — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 02:57:31 +0000

Incorrect. These fires basically create their own weather systems. All that smoke also contains a lot of water in the material that is burning. (That makes sense. They are trees, after all.) When the smoke reaches high enough in the atmosphere the smoke cools and water can precipitate out (rain) and also lightning potentially producing more fires.

U.S. and China Are Jockeying for Drone Supremacy on Mount Everest

julienchastang — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:27:13 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/world/u-s-and-china-are-jockeying-for-drone-supremacy-on-mount-everest-b5750ce2

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49058561

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by julienchastang in "Launching Health in ChatGPT to US Users"

julienchastang — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:29:19 +0000

I don’t have the reference on my fingertips, but patients who are involved in their own healthcare have better outcomes. Moreover, for those of us (and there are many of us) who have gotten increasingly frustrated with US healthcare (e.g., long waits, short visits where you never really get a chance to discuss the health issue, difficulty getting appropriate tests), AI is looking like an increasingly attractive option. Not as a replacement for physicians, but at least as a path forward to possibly better understand what is going on.

New comment by julienchastang in "Writing by hand is good for your brain"

julienchastang — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:48:43 +0000

Ummm, yes. Especially for those of us who may have had less than ideal schooling.

New comment by julienchastang in "Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat tour of grace cathedral, San Francisco"

julienchastang — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 23:03:22 +0000

Extraordinary. Thank you for sharing. If there would ever be the possibility of seeing European Gothic cathedrals in this manner, that would also be really cool.

DHL Set to Transport Goods on New Wind-Powered Cargo Ships

julienchastang — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:55:51 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/pro/sustainable-business/dhl-set-to-transport-goods-on-new-wind-powered-cargo-ships-eca5d5a0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48631058

Points: 134

# Comments: 59

New comment by julienchastang in "Étienne Ghys: The Shape of Letters: From Leonardo da Vinci to Donald Knuth"

julienchastang — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:48:16 +0000

He was also interviewed on RFI recently [0] (in French).

[0] https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/de-vive-s-voix/20260401-etien...