Hacker News: markkat

New comment by markkat in "Don't Wordle"

markkat — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:11:03 +0000

Nice. I play Last Word daily.

It's the same goal, but everyone starts with the same word each day, which does not include any letters in the "last word".

No undos in Last Word. My average is 8.7 letters. Really hoping to get it to 9.

New comment by markkat in "Why the Ocean Cleanup hasn't solved the plastic pollution crisis"

markkat — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:44:01 +0000

We need to tax non-degradable plastics for this externality. Also, I highly doubt this is from run-off of plastics carried to the sea. It's far more likely it's just being dumped. Probably much of it from people that thought it was getting recycled.

New comment by markkat in "San Diego photologs from the 1970s"

markkat — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 18:45:29 +0000

IMHO comparably, cars today look depressing. So soulless, so similar, so boring. White/grey/silver/black, maybe a few boring blue or burgundy.

Last Word: Build as many words as you can before finding the last word

markkat — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:07:23 +0000

Last Word was made by my good friend, Mike, and has become part of my daily puzzle routine.

It's addictive. It stretches your vocab, and there's strategy in the words you choose, but also in the order of your choices so you can keep building with letters that aren't in the last word.

Enjoy.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44423476

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by markkat in "Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds"

markkat — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:47:23 +0000

Those error bars suggest this was underpowered, and it did find a significant increase in females:

https://www.mdpi.com/nutrients/nutrients-17-01081/article_de...

Poor interpretation of the study.

New comment by markkat in "Cancer in the Cold"

markkat — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 17:37:15 +0000

Works for heart disease and likely all cause mortality.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30486813/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35908583/

New comment by markkat in "Why does anything exist?"

markkat — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 18:51:17 +0000

Existence is interaction.

New comment by markkat in "Tell HN: I'm Afraid We're Shutting Down"

markkat — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:30:50 +0000

It really saddens me to hear this. It was an honor to get to know you as batchmates. Your passion and drive for 70MR made a mark upon me.

I know that this is just another beginning for you, full of new opportunities, and that you will continue to help and inspire people. Godspeed!

New comment by markkat in "Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs"

markkat — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 18:17:56 +0000

It's really consistent and strange considering the ostensive nature of the site.

New comment by markkat in "Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production"

markkat — Tue, 11 May 2021 19:25:51 +0000

These industries squeezed the blood out of US suppliers to compete on cost. I don't think a correct solution is the government building capacity and supply chains.

IMHO a more sustainable strategy is the government taxing the environmental and human rights externalities of off-shore production.

New comment by markkat in "Uniswap v3"

markkat — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 19:37:39 +0000

For now.

New comment by markkat in "NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money"

markkat — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 14:14:42 +0000

The legal system will recognize it, and attribution protocols are being built. Removing middlemen like title companies is an efficiency, not overkill.

New comment by markkat in "NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money"

markkat — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 13:37:31 +0000

A house is linked to a title. The title is a paper token.

New comment by markkat in "HN front page ranked using only votes from early users (2009)"

markkat — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 13:20:09 +0000

It'd be very cool if you could set the classic date in your profile.

New comment by markkat in "Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare"

markkat — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 13:34:26 +0000

I expect that once Ethereum completes the switch to PoS, this issue is going to loom large for Bitcoin.

New comment by markkat in "Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games"

markkat — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 13:13:13 +0000

If you use a product, you are aware of things that people that don't use it, aren't.

New comment by markkat in "No More KYC with ShapeShift"

markkat — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 19:48:34 +0000

>When an individual is accused of a criminal offense, it may be reasonable to dissolve their privacy to some degree in the search for truth about that offense. >However, KYC dissolves the privacy not of certain specific individuals accused of wrongdoing, but the privacy of all individuals, none of whom have been accused of anything. >We can do better than that as a society. Warrantless surveillance of all people cannot be our standard.

So glad to see this view rising up. When so many private and public parties are required to collect my private data, how can it remain private? I've had unemployment claims made in my name this year due to a breach, and it was on me to fight the fraud that would harm me. The collection of private data does not protect us, it results in a honeypot and puts us at risk.

New comment by markkat in "EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance"

markkat — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 19:31:56 +0000

n. The quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others. n. The state of being free from public attention or unsanctioned intrusion.

New comment by markkat in "EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance"

markkat — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:14:27 +0000

We should not sacrifice privacy to make law enforcement easier. It's ok to make law enforcement work harder and less efficiently rather than the people they serve.

New comment by markkat in "I Have Resigned from the Google AMP Advisory Committee"

markkat — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 14:21:09 +0000

This committee is window-dressing. AMP is about Google revenue alone, remaking the web as a consumer portal, not an open platform for information exchange and creativity.

The premise that the web ought to compete with native app experience is flawed to begin with. Executing that goal through a corporate gateway is perverse.