Hacker News: matwood

New comment by matwood in "U.S. science is in chaos"

matwood — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:47:51 +0000

The soft power the US has lost will take a generation or more to rebuild if it's ever rebuilt.

New comment by matwood in "Has AI already killed self-help nonfiction books?"

matwood — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 06:12:41 +0000

> Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before?

Maybe you were born with all the knowledge necessary to be a good father/husband, but I certainly wasn’t. I imagine most people just have their parents to go off of, and we all know what a can of worms that can be.

New comment by matwood in "DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'"

matwood — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 06:07:31 +0000

Buying access to POTUS pays off. Who knew?!

New comment by matwood in "Fox to buy Roku"

matwood — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 18:55:20 +0000

The Apple TV (hardware) can do what you're asking using a voice command "What did he/she say". It's possible it no longer works in every app because services insist on writing their own players that don't work as well as the player provided by Apple TV.

New comment by matwood in "Apple Foundation Models"

matwood — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:26:15 +0000

The betas of the next OS's include a Siri AI chatbot, and the AI features are built into various parts of the OS. A user has no idea what model is powering any of it - Apple controls the UX.

New comment by matwood in "What the Fuck Happened to Nerds"

matwood — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:18:17 +0000

Once people get rich and gain power, they do everything to grow and maintain their wealth and power. It's a tale as old as time.

New comment by matwood in "How to earn a billion dollars"

matwood — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:56:09 +0000

I mean I agree...What I was pointing out is that the existing taxi market did nothing to improve until Uber and then Lyft came along. It was completely broken, and would have remained that way.

New comment by matwood in "Your ePub Is fine"

matwood — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 06:21:03 +0000

Unfortunately this is any reader software that deals with publishers who require DRM. IME, the vast majority of bugs also come from the DRM.

New comment by matwood in "How to earn a billion dollars"

matwood — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 14:57:53 +0000

Uber also forced taxi services to have apps and always accept CCs.

New comment by matwood in "Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to appeal against fraud conviction in FTX case"

matwood — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 21:01:49 +0000

Nothing is in it for them. It’s why I called it a tip - like tipping your blackjack dealer when you have a good run.

New comment by matwood in "Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to appeal against fraud conviction in FTX case"

matwood — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:48:04 +0000

Yeah, it's odd he can't scrape together a couple million and just get a pardon. It seems like the people who were able to pick up FTX claims for .50-.60 on the dollar, and have now made a killing, would toss Sam a tip.

New comment by matwood in "Shepherd's Dog: A Game by Fable"

matwood — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:51:33 +0000

> Problem solving keeps your brain strong.

Coding is not the sole problem solving skill. In fact, coding may be one of the easier skills much of the time. Deciding what to build, where to focus efforts, understanding a customer's needs, could all be just as if not more challenging than the coding part.

New comment by matwood in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

matwood — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 06:22:06 +0000

> there is less literature on offer

Huh? When I was growing up we had the newspaper, Readers Digest, and maybe a library book at home to read (out side of school books). Now I have access to pretty much anything ever written on my phone. Lack of options is not why people read less.

New comment by matwood in "AI agent runs amok in Fedora and elsewhere"

matwood — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:58:36 +0000

IMO both things are true. The person pulled the trigger, and less guns mean fewer gun deaths.

New comment by matwood in "CEOs who think AI replaces their employees are just bad CEOs"

matwood — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:59:59 +0000

> They don't need authoritarian rulers

Yet they seem still inclined to elect them.

New comment by matwood in "CEOs who think AI replaces their employees are just bad CEOs"

matwood — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:56:46 +0000

> CEOs do get there with lots of politics in almost all cases.

I know this can be hard for engineers to sometimes accept, but relationships (aka politics) are a key part of business. Rarely is one technical solution absolutely superior to another, making purchasing decisions come down to relationships.

Politics is also about compromise and managing a bunch of differing opinions/desires, which is one of the key skills of a CEO.

New comment by matwood in "The iPhone's Last Stand?"

matwood — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:47:49 +0000

> E.g. Ben was sure iPhone air would be a massive hit because he himself loved it.

The Air was interesting because everyone I've seen hold it, loves it. But, everyone also loves battery life and the best camera more. The Air is proof of that (similar with the mini lovers).

New comment by matwood in "The iPhone's Last Stand?"

matwood — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:35:46 +0000

That's the only way I hear it. I wonder if that gives away our age?

When I was a teenager WWF came to my town. The day before the event a bunch of the wrestlers randomly showed up to my local gym to get a workout in. None of the guys, and especially Macho Man ever broke character the entire workout. They were super nice and after a bit of handshakes with us there we all just went back to our workouts.

New comment by matwood in "Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models"

matwood — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:14:00 +0000

> It's strange to me that Apple would choose to disadvantage themselves by selecting Google as their provider as opposed to, say, Anthropic or even OpenAI.

The models are quickly converging to similar capabilities with particular ones being better at a particular task until the next release cycle.

> Thinking more cynically, couldn't Google, if they wanted, feed Apple an inferior version of Gemini, ensuring they stay ahead?

Yeah, that's not really how things work at this scale.

New comment by matwood in "Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models"

matwood — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:09:08 +0000

> Apple's volume

Yeah, I think Apple's volume made Google the only choice. And even then, Google was buying more DC capacity last week.