<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: mahathu</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mahathu</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2026 23:47:59 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=mahathu" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Spotify looked to ban white noise podcasts to become more profitable"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For reference: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwBEqV9OBTe/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwBEqV9OBTe/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 19 Aug 2023 22:27:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37193971</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37193971</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37193971</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "What happens to all the stuff we return?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I had an issue returning a macbook to a major electronics store chain within the 14 day right to return law (EU). The returns person and their manager said it wasn't possible to return it because after signing in with an Apple ID when you turn it on it gets "locked" to that ID or whatever. Fortunately there was another store in the city I had to travel to for appointment on the same day and they just took it back and gave me a refund. I hope the person there didn't get in trouble..</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Aug 2023 17:33:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37150569</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37150569</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37150569</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Ask HN: Burnout because of ChatGPT?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>type a function signature and an opening squiggly brace, wait for "copilot" to autocomplete, press tab, ????, profit</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 15 Aug 2023 00:22:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37128565</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37128565</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37128565</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Don't lecture people online on what they should or shouldn't do. It makes you sound like an asshole</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Aug 2023 13:12:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37120648</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37120648</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37120648</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Therapy as a way of aligning with your subconscious"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have only experienced it for a few sessions last summer so my judgement may not be that accurate. I didn't mean to sound so "authoritative" in my last comment. Anyway, i felt like it was putting me under a lot of extra stress, even though fortunately i was relatively well off at the time - i couldn't imagine not feeling extremely stressed out paying 90€/$ for therapy when youre already struggling to make ends meet. Seeing a regular therapist that I don't pay for (except indirectly through my health insurance, as a student around 140€ currently although it keeps getting more expensive every year) really gives me peace of mind that I'll be able to continue seeing her for the next 40-50 sessions and slowly work on lasting change.<p>Becoming a licensed therapist is a long and strenuous process in Germany. As a client, it gives me some peace of mind, although before my current therapist I also had some "bad" ones in the past (ones i didnt match with). As a result of this, getting into therapy in Germany is a availability issue, not a financial one, usually. Clients have to write dozens of emails/phone calls to therapists, which can be a big struggle especially considering the population we're talking about.<p>The process definitely needs a huge overhaul. There are a lot of willing and able prospective therapists, who can't, for example because they didn't have the perfect high school grades requored to study psychology here (unless you go to Austria, which the Austrian students understandably are a bit unhappy about), or because they can't years of expensive, badly paid training required to become a licensed therapist.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:17:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090421</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090421</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090421</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "My Lifetime Reading Plan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Some books, like Thomas Mann's Zauberberg also get better the second time you read it, like a good record .</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:49:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089292</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089292</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089292</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "My Lifetime Reading Plan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.<p>As someone who's not into jazz critique, i've only ever seen "I read books on topic X so I'm an expert now" levels of hubris from developers. Another thread on the frontpage right now has people discussing how they don't need a therapist because they can just read therapy textbooks!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:47:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089276</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089276</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089276</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "My Lifetime Reading Plan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Cringe</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:44:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089238</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089238</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089238</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Therapy as a way of aligning with your subconscious"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's different in Germany where you have to call around for weeks or even months to find a licensed therapist. The alternative would be to pay for one out of pocket but i don't see paying 90+€/hour as a good foundation for lasting mental change</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:48:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086850</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086850</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086850</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Therapy as a way of aligning with your subconscious"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It sounds like you resent your friends</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:44:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086826</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086826</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086826</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Uninstall the NightOwl app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You can use the Shortcuts application on macOS and iOS for a wide variety of personal automation tasks.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Aug 2023 22:14:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37056175</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37056175</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37056175</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "A brief glimpse at recent events in Egypt"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Interesting but can't beleive how author didn't spend more time on how crazy discriminatory this practice is, which is also common in other countries in the middle east. No war but class war.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 07 Aug 2023 14:49:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37035238</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37035238</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37035238</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "The Myth of AI Omniscience: AI's Epistemological Limits"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Whats up with the number of mind-numbingly stupid takes in this thread? Are you actually this dumb or is there some elaborate in-joke i missed? Just because LLMs can (poorly) come up with new words when you instruct them to doesn't mean they're actually "thinking" in novel concepts, its just another indirectly grounded label for existing concepts.
<a href="https://dai.fmph.uniba.sk/~retova/CSCTR/materials/CSCTR_07sem_Barsalou_perc_sym_sys_1999.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://dai.fmph.uniba.sk/~retova/CSCTR/materials/CSCTR_07se...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 05 Aug 2023 22:50:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37017013</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37017013</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37017013</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Cognitive AI for ADHD"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What's cognitive about this AI any more than other AIs?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 11:59:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998726</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998726</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998726</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Cognitive AI for ADHD"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>He and the other person explained in detail why each of your takes was bad, and your only response is "dude, you're triggered lol."<p>And you understand that as them "taking your comment poorly"?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 11:49:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998615</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998615</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36998615</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Preach it brother</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Aug 2023 22:11:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992733</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992733</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992733</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Show HN: Learn a language quickly by practising speaking with AI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not in agglutinative languages where verb endings considerably change the meaning of a sentence.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Aug 2023 22:06:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992687</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992687</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992687</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Apple stole $100s from me, Customer Service says there's nothing they can do"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Abandoning Gmail right now would be the same as Gmail disabling my account<p>There's your problem fishbulb.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Aug 2023 20:55:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36977287</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36977287</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36977287</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "Show HN: Learn a language quickly by practising speaking with AI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I like the Anki shoutout.<p>I personally would be cautious learning an extra language through a tool like this though, especially for a huge list of supposedly supported languages like this. Chat-GPT gets basic concepts like verb suffixes wrong, that is, explaining those concepts and generating example sentences, when I was trying it out a few months ago. I wouldn't mind conversations feeling a bit awkward or unrealistic, (EDIT: as they do here), but I wouldn't trust AI tools atm to get sentence structure, spelling and pronunciation (!) all completely right which is imperative for such a tool to function (and this one didn't for the two languages I tested).<p>If we assume the AI is already at that level, it would be trivial to have it show translations to user's native languages instead of only to English and excluding a number of potential revenue-generators for the capitalist machine ("learners").<p>Your prompt leaked in the text box when I pressed the Start Conversation button multiple times, and the site seems to be getting HN-hugged-of-death right now.<p>Also, adding to the person who mentioned this being close sourced, if a "deep-rooted desire not to look foolish in front of others" was among my reasons not to talk to a stranger in an extra language, I don't think I'd be any more likely speaking into a microphone, alone, in a room, like I'm conducting my biannual mandatory TOEFL© test every two years.[1]<p>[1]: This one is actually worse because you're in a room with 10+ others simultaneously talking into a computer screen, not talking to a person but just having your voice recorded, and it's outrageous ETS is getting away with charging people like 200 bucks (getting to see feedback for your grade is extra)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Aug 2023 20:07:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36976559</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36976559</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36976559</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mahathu in "On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise (1996) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't know how it came about, but this was one of the first audiobooks I used to listen to as a child, when my family had a subscription that included 2 free audiobooks every week/month or whatever. It left quite an impression on me and turned me into a life long DFW fan, another favourite of mine is "Good Old Neon": <a href="https://sdavidmiller.com/octo/files/no_google2/GoodOldNeon.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://sdavidmiller.com/octo/files/no_google2/GoodOldNeon.p...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 02 Aug 2023 17:14:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36973781</link><dc:creator>mahathu</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36973781</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36973781</guid></item></channel></rss>