Hacker News: mb7733

New comment by mb7733 in "Introduction to Computer Music (2009) [pdf]"

mb7733 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 03:07:06 +0000

It wasn't published in 2025. It was published in 2009 and the rights reverted to the author in 2025, who released it for free.

New comment by mb7733 in "So where are all the AI apps?"

mb7733 — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 14:37:56 +0000

The question is where are all the new apps or features that are _written_ using LLMs, since everyone is 100x more productive now.

New comment by mb7733 in "Is it a pint?"

mb7733 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:25:40 +0000

Preferences vary on both sides of the Atlantic. Another comment on this post complains that Americans pour beer wrong because they _do_ pour with a head.

> Also in the US (probably due to lack of training and the customer too embarrassed to complaining) tend not to fill it the brim (and so not even 16''). I've seen 2-3 inch heads and asked them to top it up. They look at me as if I've just insulted George Washington

New comment by mb7733 in "“Collaboration” is bullshit"

mb7733 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:42:13 +0000

I was skeptical about the claim that 80% of soldiers refuse to fire their weapons, so I did a little reading and it seems like the original source has been pretty much debunked. This 2011 article sums it up: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol20/iss4/4/ but it's been doubted for decades.

New comment by mb7733 in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

mb7733 — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:57:03 +0000

Corruption is crime but not all crime is corruption. Stealing copper isn't corruption.

New comment by mb7733 in "How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, not just what?"

mb7733 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:45:51 +0000

Overall I agree with the approach, but just wondering, why do the first point if you are already doing the last two?

> * Use the issue id at the start of every commit message for that issue

> * Use a single branch per issue, whose name also starts with the issue id

>* Use a single PR to merge that branch and close the issue

To me the noise at the start of every message is unnecessary, and given a lot of interfaces only display 80 chars of the message by default, it's not negligible.

New comment by mb7733 in "Expensively Quadratic: The LLM Agent Cost Curve"

mb7733 — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 19:02:31 +0000

> programmers who don't care about code quality and thus brutally reject code that is not of exceptional quality.

Is there a typo here? If they don't care about code why would they reject code based on quality?

New comment by mb7733 in "What functional programmers get wrong about systems"

mb7733 — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 03:38:16 +0000

How do you know when the articles were written?

New comment by mb7733 in "NIMBYs aren't just shutting down housing"

mb7733 — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 21:34:15 +0000

You don't need to worry about traffic or parking when you take a leisurely stroll to the store.

New comment by mb7733 in "Himalayas bare and rocky after reduced winter snowfall, scientists warn"

mb7733 — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:25:54 +0000

> What we tend to forget is that even with the catastrophic effects of climate change, the Earth is still vastly more inhabitable than other planets in the solar system.

Speak for yourself. I have never forgotten that Earth is more inhabitable than Mars or Jupiter

New comment by mb7733 in "Uncrossy"

mb7733 — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 04:52:16 +0000

Really fun. The undo/redo functionality is much appreciated.

New comment by mb7733 in "Overdose deaths are falling in America because of a 'supply shock': study"

mb7733 — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 14:32:31 +0000

> Canada has a similar opioid epidemic but a different supply chain, largely skipping over Mexico. Because Canada saw similar falls in fentanyl strength, the researchers hypothesise that the supply shock was caused by something changing in China.

New comment by mb7733 in "Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear"

mb7733 — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 04:17:17 +0000

FL Studio (fka Fruity Loops) uses this layout, or something very close to it.

New comment by mb7733 in "Why I stopped using JSON for my APIs"

mb7733 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 06:52:57 +0000

Yeah and (1) the codegen produces massive headers that slow compilation of anything that touches them (2) the generated classes are really awkward to use. Not a big fan of the experience of protobuffer generated code in a large C++ code base.

It's lead to a huge layer of adapters and native c++ classes equivalent to the protobuffers classes to try and mitigate these issues.

New comment by mb7733 in "Hilbert space: Treating functions as vectors"

mb7733 — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 05:56:18 +0000

> In a real-indexed vector, that notion doesn't apply. It's "infinity plus one" all the way down: whatever real value you pick to start with, x, there's no delta small enough to add to it such that there's no number between x and x+d.

Just to clarify, uncountability isn't necessary for this. It's true for the rational numbers too, which are countable.

New comment by mb7733 in "AI's Dial-Up Era"

mb7733 — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:55:26 +0000

Standard deviation of what

New comment by mb7733 in "Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players"

mb7733 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:48:38 +0000

> If you run a Jimmy John’s, most of your customers will pay with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You can’t launder that easily.

You don't need to launder it, it was acquired legally

New comment by mb7733 in "Bach Cello Suites (2024)"

mb7733 — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 02:26:02 +0000

Interesting! On the guitar when alternate tunings are used, the pitches are written as they sound.

I wonder if maybe the difference is due to the fact that alternate fingerings are very common for guitar (because of having more strings spaced closer together). So notating pitches assuming a specific fingering doesn't make sense.

Plus I don't think the mapping from the staff to muscle memory for guitar is nearly as strong because we have frets.

New comment by mb7733 in "Are top CEOs underpaid? (2019)"

mb7733 — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 23:26:15 +0000

Your calculations are off unless it's assumed each employee eats an entire pizza. Not to mention bulk discount.

New comment by mb7733 in "From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens adjusting to the smartphone ban"

mb7733 — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 07:19:35 +0000

I don't know but you're a little behind the times. Kids these days don't have Boomer parents.