Hacker News: merman

New comment by merman in "Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers"

merman — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:45:51 +0000

You use arbitrary temps to prove at some temps it’s not as efficient. Ok? What about at the actual temps it will be operating in? We’re talking about space here. Why use 20 degC as the temperature for space?

New comment by merman in "For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades"

merman — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 18:10:03 +0000

Yes, I mean in all elections not just for president.

Votes do matter. What if Kamala had gotten no votes at all, would that be the same real effect? Yes and no

New comment by merman in "For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades"

merman — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:09:42 +0000

I’m not saying many parties would fix human nature I’m saying it would break this specific cycle

New comment by merman in "For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades"

merman — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:48:01 +0000

The problem with extreme polarization in a 2 party system is that each party doesn’t police itself, doesn’t rein itself in, and when the other finally gets back in power, it pushes through awful retaliatory measures. The 2 parties are happy with this state of affairs because they’re pretty much guaranteed 50% of the time to be the one in power, in control. Vote 3rd party to break this cycle

New comment by merman in "We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It's in Your Electric Bill [video]"

merman — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 15:47:40 +0000

Fact- China is the number 2 bitcoin miner, and cares a great deal about AI and is only constrained by chip import restrictions

New comment by merman in "We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It's in Your Electric Bill [video]"

merman — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 15:35:15 +0000

It seems odd to me to try to redefine Y/NIMBY depending on the individual project. I wouldn’t want a sewage plant or a datacenter in my neighborhood, absolutely no one would. Why would one be NIMBY and one not?

New comment by merman in "James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations"

merman — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 16:22:59 +0000

Bad reading on my part. It is much lower than Biden’s

New comment by merman in "James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations"

merman — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:49:18 +0000

These figures are not proof of an anti-science administration (I’m not disputing that the administration is anti-science, just disputing that this budget is evidence of that)

If you compare Biden’s FY2022 budget estimates to this budget, it matches almost exactly (Webb 175M, Hubble 85M)

New comment by merman in "SpaceX to Invest $2B into Elon Musk's XAI"

merman — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 20:35:17 +0000

“The idea” is that (the only) megaconstellation sat internet provider is investing in and partnering with an AI company. On its face that seems to make sense to me. If it does not make sense, why not? The reasons you have given are irrelevant and also false.

The “taxpayer” (govt) pays SX a very low rate for launches, and gets an excellent product in return. In what way is the “taxpayer” being swindled?

New comment by merman in "SpaceX to Invest $2B into Elon Musk's XAI"

merman — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:36:31 +0000

You are exactly right that the underlying premise is a dislike of Musk, who has famously made mistakes, I too am critical of all of the things you listed.

So, if a very contentious personality is involved, is there any purpose or value in pointing out seriously flawed assumptions/POV/rationale?

Another example is the excessive divisiveness in politics, what would make discussions around those topics better? In my opinion, it would be better to rein in serious factual errors, even if the errors skew towards "my side"

New comment by merman in "SpaceX to Invest $2B into Elon Musk's XAI"

merman — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 16:36:23 +0000

Ah, so your premise is SX is unprofitable without federal contracts! and that the SOTA model, which was released before this investment, can’t “compete”

New comment by merman in "SpaceX to Invest $2B into Elon Musk's XAI"

merman — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 15:53:44 +0000

Are you aware that many companies receive billions in government contracts, and why are you concerned about this and not others e.g. amazon, MSFT, etc

New comment by merman in "SpaceX to Invest $2B into Elon Musk's XAI"

merman — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 15:43:34 +0000

Is there any opportunity to integrate or leverage starlink with AI?

New comment by merman in "Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic"

merman — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 20:49:01 +0000

Size for size they’re heavier. Maybe someday not but they are.

New comment by merman in "The Wright brothers invented the airplane, right? Not if you're in Brazil"

merman — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 02:50:33 +0000

This thread seems like a good example of how to subtly be negative and breed cynicism.

Nitpick (see pedantic and mostly irrelevant replies to the excellent top comment.

Who cares, anyway? Whatabout all the other things that have ever happened? (see 2nd comment, 3rd comment)

More nitpicking, 4th comment

Top comment, and further down, the comments and discussion are quite good. I do wonder about how large an impact a targeted, small amount of astroturfing can accomplish. just boost/inject some cynicism and negativity into the top 2-4 comments, nothing too obvious. Just enough to poison the well a bit.

New comment by merman in "The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available"

merman — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:19:47 +0000

Parent comment is nearly diametrically opposed to “intellectual curiosity” and is the top comment. the one-sidedness of this site is quite a big problem. Both the community and the mods need to fight against the current here.

New comment by merman in "Run DeepSeek R1 Dynamic 1.58-bit"

merman — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:34:24 +0000

Exactly! Why can’t LLMs run their own code?

New comment by merman in "NASA announces Boeing Starliner crew will return on SpaceX Crew-9"

merman — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 14:03:42 +0000

Any organization that seemingly operates poorly typically just has bad incentives. Congressional funding for space became a feedback loop of pork for states (jobs program) from Apollo, continuing to today with SLS. Commercial crew demonstrates how stunningly dystopian over-specific congressional funding is. The solution is simple: Congress should take a giant step back from NASA involvement so NASA can have more commercial programs like commercial crew.

New comment by merman in "DUNE scientists observe first neutrinos with prototype detector at Fermilab"

merman — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 12:16:13 +0000

“It’s only good as a thought experiment”. Framed as an argument. Did you notice you’ve switched sides? The Theseus ship paradox has at least 2 perfectly good answers, Is it dumb?

Another responder already gave you what you’re asking for: billion year timescales. You countered “500x”. Did you multiply 500 times x (47) and compare that to a billion? You latched onto that idea eagerly because it supported “your side”, but I’m sure once you think about it you’ll see it’s only a tiny fraction of a real counter argument.

You mistake me for an opponent. Me insulting you would look different. You’re the only one that can benefit from these comments I’m making to you.

New comment by merman in "DUNE scientists observe first neutrinos with prototype detector at Fermilab"

merman — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:43:01 +0000

Your statements are framed as arguments, like in a debate. But it’s clear to most, at least clear to the down voters and the other responders, that you haven’t thought about or investigated these concepts. Instead of writing many argumentative paragraphs, spend that time asking ChatGPT specific questions or skimming some Wikipedia articles. Some people don’t like to read, they’d rather explore ideas by arguing about them. But that’s a drain on discussions, not an addition to it.

E.g.(paraphrased) “my point is the Fermi paradox is dumb”- no physicists think that is the case. Some people on the outside, looking in, with no understanding think so. A child walks into a theatre halfway through a movie that is geared towards adults, watches for 3 minutes, and announces defiantly that the movie is dumb. Is it worth arguing with that child?