Hacker News: kaon_2

New comment by kaon_2 in "Dutch 'idealist' bank ASN blocks non-Google Android, including GrapheneOS"

kaon_2 — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 10:38:16 +0000

ASN has been dysfunctional for years. They needed a bailout and ever since have only deteriorated in their operations. To be fair, their risk management has surely improved and their new CEO is great. But their actual operations are superbad. They only do the easy loans and mortgages because anything else they can't do. Still I think as a bank they are doing well, everyone is opening accounts there. Marketing matters more than service I suppose.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Wealth Inequality in America drawn to scale"

kaon_2 — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 14:19:19 +0000

Yes but now you forget to take GDP per Capita into account. It is not fair to compare Vietnam or South Africa to the US. If you want to compare the US, you should do so with the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland or Norway. Happiness ratings are certainly higher in all of them.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Wealth Inequality in America drawn to scale"

kaon_2 — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:02:39 +0000

You should care about equality because inequality tends to make places worse for everybody. Yes that includes those rich people. You can't go to the beach because it's all built full with private resorts. Those rich people can't walk the street and have to live in walled villa's for fear of crime. They also can't easily get married to who they want because they have to hold their assets. Vietnam is poorer than South Africa per capita, but significantly safer and more pleasurable to live. Would you rather be top 10% in South Africa or Vietnam?

What is interesting is that this was true centuries ago too. Life as a noble in the middle ages was stressful as hell and you couldn't even decide on your own lovelife. Read Seneca and the first thing he writes is that Augustus (whom he knew personally) was constantly complaining about his busy life and dreaming of a retirement that never arrived.

New comment by kaon_2 in "The 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement is no longer viable"

kaon_2 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:24:09 +0000

I eat vegetarian. I own a Fairphone. I take the night train instead of a flight when possible.

To me, the most workable solution to global warming I have heard of is: building a giant Cannon on the moon and have it shoot moon dust in-between the sun and the earth. This won't stop ocean acidification but at least things will cool down. And we have a cannon on the moon which is cool.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Agent erased full season of "The Challenge Swe": "Hundreds of days of work gone""

kaon_2 — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 11:16:10 +0000

I always thought that delete doesn't really exist? In the sense that it you take the hard drive to a specialist they can often recover it? Maybe I am wrong?

New comment by kaon_2 in "Postgres isn't slow, your storage is"

kaon_2 — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:54:02 +0000

Yes. My experience: "Oh interesting title". "Oh god... slop galore. Disappointment, sadness, dejection, a feeling of being dismissed and not taken seriously, alienation from the world", "OK close the link".

Happy to still be here among my fellow humans. Hackernews the last bastion it feels like.

Can we somehow filter out slop from the front page? That would be great :).

New comment by kaon_2 in "The Tao of Backup"

kaon_2 — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:29:43 +0000

This was a true joy to read and as pleasant as ads can come.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Netherlands bracing for potentially devastating US sanctions against the ICC"

kaon_2 — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 09:52:22 +0000

No. Wait for the midterms and hope it can be done without catastrophic consequences.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption"

kaon_2 — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:40:29 +0000

Sad to see so many people here in the comments jump the gun and think of Russia.

Some local context: Today is "prinsjesdag" when the budget is announced. Protests are common, particularly when sensitive decisions are made. There are multiple organized protest movements in the country that have used physical force in the past and some of them had announced protests for today.

Could it be Russia? Yes. But local protests seem significantly more likely. Moreover, if I were Putin I wouldn't expose my foreign agents this physically. I would use them in much more insidious ways such as actually starting or supporting these protest movements. In a similar vein: Could any shooting in the US be caused by foreign agents? Maybe. But usually there is a much simpler explanation; guns and bitterness.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption"

kaon_2 — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:34:36 +0000

Ockham's razor may be? Big protests are common on Prinsjesdag, particularly when sensitive decisions or policies are made. A local protest organisation is therefore significantly more likely than an organized foreign sabotage. If I were Putin and had foreign agents in the Netherlands I certainly wouldn't expose them this physically.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Dutch central bank moves share of gold from U.S., Canada to London"

kaon_2 — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 06:45:36 +0000

Yeah it was more as a figure of speech. I actually wanted to say even Hitler didn't steal gold medals during the olympics, but I felt that only weakened my point.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Dutch central bank moves share of gold from U.S., Canada to London"

kaon_2 — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:25:14 +0000

It may be quirky for Americans to hear this, but one pivotal moment when it truly dawned on the average european citizen how corrupt the US has become, was when Trump phoned Infantino to drop a red card during the world cup. Blatant corruption for zero gain that even the Putin's and Xi Jin Pings never attempted. Any toddler could see how wrong it was and it was felt deeply in many hearts.

Needless to say trust is close to 0% throughout the population - even the right wing populists distance themselves from Trump - and this is the consequence. I fear we are heading into dangerous times.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Early 2000s were peak of humanity"

kaon_2 — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:49:28 +0000

Indeed go ask anybody in China, India, North-Africa, or Eastern Europe. I am sure they will tell you things were better back then. Oh wait. Seems like the author never read Hans Rosling's Factfulness. Big recommendation for anyone out there who hasn't yet. If you have find yourself having a bleak outlook, this book is an antidote: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34890015-factfulness

New comment by kaon_2 in "Judge rules Trump administration’s blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal"

kaon_2 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 06:20:54 +0000

You are right and yet I continue to be impressed by a court system that can deliver judgment in 3 months whereas in the Netherlands nothing happens in under a year and complex cases always last more than five.

New comment by kaon_2 in "RAG Is Simpler Than You Think"

kaon_2 — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:29:09 +0000

Yes we've tried. It works. But jargon is hard. RAG with embeddings works all the same. The LLM doesn't mind receiving sources in Italian, french and German, and then outputting the answer in Japanese while providing the verbatim German jargon term in brackets

New comment by kaon_2 in "RAG Is Simpler Than You Think"

kaon_2 — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:52:49 +0000

Can you elaborate? We have technicians searching in different languages. Also our knowledge base is often in different languages. I just don't see how full text search can work? Maybe in a problem space like a wiki where people always know what to search for?

New comment by kaon_2 in "Early Humans Likely Ate Carbs and Sugary Foods"

kaon_2 — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 05:33:14 +0000

And yet present day hunter gatherer societies tend to have extremely strict gender roles. For example the idea of a woman going on a hunt is not taboo, but simply unthinkable, maybe similar to what we would think about a man taking lactose pills to breastfeed. At least that is what I read in Sabine Kugler's excellent books. So somehow I doubt everyone participated in everything.

New comment by kaon_2 in "Being ambitious and being a dad"

kaon_2 — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:03:33 +0000

Yes. Had one kid mid thirties. And now I realize I want nine of them too. Or four maybe. We started too late and I doubt we will make it. Biggest mistake of my life. In my environment I see people delaying kids because they think 33, 34 is still alright to start. And it is. If you want to have 1 or 2...

New comment by kaon_2 in "DeepSeek peak/off-peak pricing update"

kaon_2 — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:02:52 +0000

Yes. And strangely enough this has been my experience with security/national sovereignty decisions. Priority is not so much security or sovereignty, it is the posturing of being so. Ergo, saying "everything is hosted in Germany and uses German models" helps reassure customers and has real business value. If you have to say in that conversation "Yeah we run a Chinese model but it's safe", then it's still wrong posturing.

Hopefully this will change soon. But AI and China/US skepticism is very high. Even if the person you talk to isn't skeptic, his boss may be. And even if his boss isn't, his CFO or Legal department may use it as a political lever and therefore if you can say 'everything in europe' you dodge the tension entirely.

Yeah it's dumb.

New comment by kaon_2 in "OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining"

kaon_2 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:49:17 +0000

I am not sure in what neighbourhood you live, but in my village there are hundreds of businesses with strong morals. From the local baker, to the electrician and the construction company. Many keep employees past their prime, they all invest heavily in local community events and sports. The owners don't do this because of money, but because in their view a fulfilled life is one where you serve your community. And yes they want to become rich and make money, but that is not all.

But it appears that is not how your world works. By default any company owner is a homo-sapiens, but a machine that only wants money. Tragically, your cynicism is creating the very world you hate.