Hacker News: koalaman

New comment by koalaman in "Framework Laptop 13 Pro"

koalaman — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 20:05:52 +0000

nice! Thanks! I had no idea USB4 and Thunderbolt were equivalent.

New comment by koalaman in "Framework Laptop 13 Pro"

koalaman — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:52:23 +0000

I'm struggling to understand if this supports usb-c based thunderbolt

New comment by koalaman in "A case for Go as the best language for AI agents"

koalaman — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 23:18:26 +0000

One of the best reasons to use Golang is that it removes a huge amount of software supply chain risk. It's the only big language that has an end-to-end integrity story where you can be sure that the dependencies you've imported are what you think they are.

New comment by koalaman in "Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw"

koalaman — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:38:08 +0000

"You can't be a functional member of society without them."

could you elaborate on why this is true? I can't think of any.

New comment by koalaman in "Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal"

koalaman — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:41:39 +0000

Iran and North Korea are evidence that with modern technology, and a ruthless enough autocracy, there is possibly no way out from under it. Technological progress only makes this problem worse. It should highlight the urgency for anybody who loves freedom, human rights, and democracy, to fight the swing towards authoritarianism in the 'free world', before there is no way back.

New comment by koalaman in "Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology"

koalaman — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 20:06:50 +0000

Another way of looking at it, is that when you put the responsibility of protecting a child from harmful content on the parent, you're deciding to only protect the children with the right kind of parent.

New comment by koalaman in "Bot or human? Creating an invisible Turing test for the internet"

koalaman — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 18:02:58 +0000

I'm not sure reCAPTCHA is really trying to detect automated vs human interaction with a browser. The primary use-case is to detect abusive use. The distinction here is if I automate my own browser to do things for me on sites using my personal account may not be a problem for site owners, while a spam operation or reselling operation which generates thousands of false accounts using automation is a big problem that they'd want to be able to block. I think reCAPTCHA is tailored towards the latter, and for it not to block the former might be more of a feature than a bug.

New comment by koalaman in "All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of their funding"

koalaman — Thu, 01 May 2025 10:22:11 +0000

You could not watch Netflix on Linux until Chrome came along.

You also didn't have very good security from browser exploits until Chrome.

Chrome also made the web significantly faster to use.

Chrome was critical in unblocking the use of Linux on desktop.

New comment by koalaman in "Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious"

koalaman — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 14:06:58 +0000

I don't see how a Google breakup can be operationalized. There's just no way the company's stack can support it without decades of work. It'd be like dismembering a person and expecting all the pieces to go off and thrive.

New comment by koalaman in "A chemist explains the chemistry behind decaf coffee"

koalaman — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 09:58:38 +0000

It could be the drink's affect on your stomach. I believe there's lots of evidence that anxiety can be caused by what's going on in the digestive track as much as what's happening in the brain.

New comment by koalaman in "Nearly 2M metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually"

koalaman — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 07:16:59 +0000

They placed farms right in front of my house on a pristine part of bantry bay. Nobody wanted them and now the water on the shore is covered in orange scum. I don't dare swim anymore. They never should have been allowed because the flow of water is inadequate to clean the waste out into the open ocean, but they're very influential with the politicians. It's a disgrace.

New comment by koalaman in "Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity"

koalaman — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:48:45 +0000

Yeah agreed to both of you. I had the same thought.

New comment by koalaman in "Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity"

koalaman — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 11:40:25 +0000

I recently left a long career in FANG to roll the dice on an early startup. I was pretty surprised by the uneven terms between founders and early employees. From what I could tell the early employees takes more risk than the founders because they don't get that magic token dollar turning into their share of the founding equity event and have to pay the fictional valuation of the seed to convert their options. Depending on how hot your startup is that can be a lot of money.

Anyway that ended in tears, but I got what I was looking for from it. A look under the covers of the hot VC backed startup roller coaster. I may be getting old and cynical, but it looked considerably more exploitative than what I saw at Google. Obviously depends on the character of the founders and leaders, but the structure seems to be setup for toxicity.

New comment by koalaman in "Google releases smart watch for kids"

koalaman — Thu, 30 May 2024 13:00:15 +0000

I really just want a dumb kids watch with very long battery life that is trackable using the Apple and Google find my device network.

New comment by koalaman in "The push to ban ransom payments is gaining momentum"

koalaman — Thu, 23 May 2024 11:20:27 +0000

Does anybody wonder if these attacks aren't performing a public good in the long run by hardening our tech infrastructure in the West? It seems like hostilities with Russia, China, et al are likely to just get worse over time, and the long term high threat environment that these gangs have created for Western companies and utilities could give them a comparative advantage over time. That is assuming the same attacks aren't happening in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.

New comment by koalaman in "Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun"

koalaman — Tue, 07 May 2024 23:45:50 +0000

My daughter stopped reading when her school forced an ipad on us with no way for us to administer our own screen time controls. Now I never know if she's doing homework or trapped down some YouTube shorts rabbit hole.

New comment by koalaman in "New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip"

koalaman — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 22:19:24 +0000

The hardware is so great but mac os is so far from my liking. It's such a shame that the OS options are so limited on these machines. (I'm aware of asahi)

New comment by koalaman in "Greedflation: Corporate profiteering 'significantly' boosted global prices,study"

koalaman — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:22:10 +0000

Bingo.

New comment by koalaman in "The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”"

koalaman — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:30:28 +0000

This has been pretty obvious for a while. Whenever I do product searches on Amazon the prime eligible results are more expensive by exactly the shipping costs of the non prime vendors.

The only reason I keep it is for the video service which I'm guessing is the same for a lot of people.

New comment by koalaman in "Is consciousness more like chess or the weather?"

koalaman — Tue, 23 May 2023 03:42:53 +0000

Sorry I didn't know about /s. I don't judge one way or another. Subject hallucinating the material world, or object hallucinating a subjective experience. I love you all.