Hacker News: monkeyfacebag

New comment by monkeyfacebag in ".name Termination"

monkeyfacebag — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:13:26 +0000

It sounds to me like you understand the point perfectly well, you just cared to make a different point.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Dreariness Index (2015)"

monkeyfacebag — Mon, 05 May 2025 22:45:30 +0000

As someone who has resided both in a foggy part of San Francisco and in Portland, I feel that this index doesn't adequately capture the dreariness of some SF neighborhoods.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Strict Id Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel"

monkeyfacebag — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 03:52:29 +0000

> If you are not capable of functioning minimally in society

Homelessness is a state, not a capability. The majority of homeless people exist in this state only temporarily (eg, victims of domestic violence who flee their abusers)

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Global Climate Report – September 2021"

monkeyfacebag — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 17:53:41 +0000

All I have is my personal experience that SF felt especially cold this summer.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "After two hours zinc oxide sunscreen loses effectiveness, becomes toxic: study"

monkeyfacebag — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 14:57:28 +0000

It sounds like they got some commercially available chemical sunscreens and added zinc oxide, which caused a reaction in those components, increasing their toxicity. That seems bad, but in my experience, zinc oxide is used in lieu of chemical components, not in addition to them. I'm not clear this interpretation is correct because the article only mentions zinc oxide, not the components which reacted to it.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Rivian R1T: First Drive in the Electric Pickup"

monkeyfacebag — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 04:21:56 +0000

My point is that evaluating the relative effectiveness of regenerative braking in off-road contexts requires data and analysis which would not be present in a test drive context. Speculating about the effectiveness or parroting Rivian marketing materials would not require any data or analysis.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Rivian R1T: First Drive in the Electric Pickup"

monkeyfacebag — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 03:00:43 +0000

This is exactly my point. Establishing that regenerative braking is "especially helpful" for a particular driving context feels like a conclusion one could not reach during a test drive.

More likely that the author got some talking points and maybe even data from the fine folks at Rivian.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Rivian R1T: First Drive in the Electric Pickup"

monkeyfacebag — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:55:13 +0000

I don't know anything about the author, but the breathless praise combined with questionable analysis leads me to think this is a PR puff piece.

For example,

> The instant you start letting off the accelerator, the motors start braking and feeding energy back to the battery pack. This is especially helpful for off-roading, which requires lots of careful stopping and starting.

This could very well be true, but how did the author come to this conclusion in the context of a test drive?

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:26:40 +0000

> But to succeed in a very high way is as brutal as any other industry.

I agree with this.

The common ground unite us all.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:07:58 +0000

I think you're just wrong about how merit-based our industry is. I don't think it is meaningfully more merit-based than other industries, nor is it more challenging, despite the fact that it is often presented as both of these things.

I doubt there is anything I could say to convince you of this, so I guess we should call this one a draw.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:59:03 +0000

I mean, not to discount the value of working hard or anything, but you describe this as a self evident truth when it can't possibly apply across the board. I am an existence proof. I've had to work relatively little for my success, including in interview situations. Again, this is not to say that I believe hard work has no place, but to frame hard work as some kind of self-evident key to success is exactly the disingenuous framing I expect from leadership seminars.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:42:26 +0000

> without hard work any luck presented would be useless

Can you say more about why you’re convinced this is true?

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:41:23 +0000

> Yeah but everyone already knows the rest of the job market is fucked beyond belief.

I’m not sure what you mean.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers"

monkeyfacebag — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:33:19 +0000

I don’t think this limited to careers in academia. I see similar kinds of survivorship bias in leadership seminars and talks in industry where they trot out the folks at the top of the pyramid to discuss their career trajectory and dispense wisdom to the rank and file.

Of course, you can still get paid well as a rank and file employee in industry, so the harm is not the same.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Google CEO allegedly sought to keep Incognito mode issues out of spotlight"

monkeyfacebag — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:45:38 +0000

I personally use it all the time, for everything I don’t want to show up in an autocomplete context. I started doing this probably 8 years ago after I got annoyed Google would auto suggest misspellings I had previously made. I think they’re much better about this these days but at this point it’s an instinct for pretty much every single one off Google query.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Google CEO allegedly sought to keep Incognito mode issues out of spotlight"

monkeyfacebag — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:12:01 +0000

Reading through the article and the comments here, the facts aren't clear to me. Does Google itself track the behavior of its users in incognito mode? Some comments here allege that it does while others suggest this complaint is overblown.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "I Am Not Satoshi Nakamoto"

monkeyfacebag — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 07:45:32 +0000

In fact it’s not worse at all. I guess when your attack on WIRED failed, you needed to find another target, huh?

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Apple's Texas-Sized Problem"

monkeyfacebag — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 03:42:52 +0000

Ok, so what's bigger than a football? A basketball? I don't really play sports.

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Apple's Texas-Sized Problem"

monkeyfacebag — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 21:09:54 +0000

Apple is the football here, not the quarterback. If Apple does anything, it will be because they are succumbing to pressure from customers, investors and employees. Corporate activism is not orchestrated by cloaked figures in board rooms; it's orchestrated by regular people who have found a more efficient lever than the legislative process. It's the ultimate expression of capitalism!

New comment by monkeyfacebag in "Apple's Texas-Sized Problem"

monkeyfacebag — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:54:39 +0000

I think a lot of this ends up being motivated by employees and customers of Apple who are using Apple as a lever of action, rather than being orchestrated top-down by Apple. This works, at least in part, because Apple is subject to popular opinion in a way that the legislative process is at least somewhat insulated from.

So I guess I just don't agree that it's a corporate dystopia. It's a popular opinion dystopia, actioned through corporate activism. To use a sports metaphor badly, Apple is the football, not the quarterback.

(And to be clear, I don't think it's dystopic at all, at least compared to the alternative, which would be to forbid this type of corporate activism)