Hacker News: mullen

New comment by mullen in "Qwen 3.6 27B is the sweet spot for local development"

mullen — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:54:22 +0000

This is what I did after struggling to get llama.cpp working at a decent speed on my M1 Macbook. The secret is to very specific with your needs and targeted in what you are using llama.cpp for. Mine setup is just about strictly for qwen3-coder and now, I get a fairly decent speed out of it. I also installed Cursor to check Claude and it all worked out well.

New comment by mullen in "Niche Museums"

mullen — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:23:29 +0000

The Toy Museum of Munich is pretty cool and it is near a major tourist site in Munich, Germany. My wife and I went in to kill an hour while we waited for others and it was really nice. Covers 4 centuries of toys and toy evolution.

https://www.spielzeugmuseummuenchen.de/en

New comment by mullen in "Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%"

mullen — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:27:33 +0000

The plumbing systems in commercial buildings are not big enough to handle residents usage. Residents use more water and the outbound sewage systems need to be larger.

New comment by mullen in "San Francisco to ban homeless people from living in RVs with new parking limit"

mullen — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 16:37:29 +0000

An RV is just a nicer tent, it is not a house. If people won't transition to housing, then they need to leave SF. If they can not afford SF, then they need to leave SF and live somewhere else where they can.

New comment by mullen in "New federal data show H-1B and H-4 visas now capture 82% of all new US tech jobs"

mullen — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 16:32:06 +0000

No way. You need an immigration system that has a "try before you buy" aspect to it. Not all educated immigrates are going to like the US and are not going to be a fit for the US. It's not just about keeping out bad education, it's making sure that those who think they want to want to immigrate to the US want to be part of the US.

New comment by mullen in "New federal data show H-1B and H-4 visas now capture 82% of all new US tech jobs"

mullen — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 16:29:02 +0000

No, they have to pay it. Everyone has to pay payroll tax on all employees.

New comment by mullen in "Why Do Swallows Fly to the Korean DMZ?"

mullen — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 17:51:27 +0000

It's too expensive and too crowded. DMZ is such a better deal.

New comment by mullen in "Tesla sales plummet in the UK, France, and Germany"

mullen — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:57:51 +0000

Replacing a Tesla with a Chinese EV is like replacing a person who wants to commit genocide with a person who actually commits genocide.

Chinese EV's do not have any moral superiority over Tesla and I would not be caught driving either.

New comment by mullen in "Crossing the USA by Train"

mullen — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 16:37:47 +0000

> Is a big problem for passenger trains in the US, freight has priority.

This simply not true. Federal Laws says that Passenger trains have priority but the law is never enforced. Freight traffic is suppose to take by-passes to let passenger traffic through and freight traffic is never suppose to block the line. However, again, the laws and rail rules are never enforced. Think about it, why would cargo have a higher priority than human traffic? Is cargo getting there an few hours later or earlier going to impact anything? With humans, it will totally impact their schedule and how often trains are used.

If the Department of Transportation wanted people to start taking trains again, they would come down hard of rail companies that slow down passenger traffic.

New comment by mullen in "How ham radio endures"

mullen — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 20:23:44 +0000

> But a Bao-feng handheld that costs around $40 or so can work the local repeaters on 2m or 70cm and is a fine way to get started, learn the lingo, etc.

Baofeng makes a $25 radio that works on 2m/70cm and with repeaters. If you live in a place where there are hurricanes/earthquakes, there is no excuse to not have one charged up and ready to go. Getting the basic ham radio license is easy.

New comment by mullen in "Gilead shot prevents all HIV cases in trial"

mullen — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:40:03 +0000

A lot of these medicines that require patients to inject themselves come in a self administrating auto-injector. There are really simple to use, I mean literally anyone can inject themselves, then throw the one-use auto-injector out.

New comment by mullen in "Records of Pompeii's survivors have been found"

mullen — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 17:02:01 +0000

Two things I took away from visiting Pompeii that I did not know from reading books and watch History Channel videos. Like you said, Pompeii was pretty large and it was covered with a lot of pumice and ash. There are a couple of places where the pumice and ash is 30 - 40 feet above the houses and all of that fell within a couple of days.

New comment by mullen in "Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it"

mullen — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 04:22:10 +0000

This is a well known tactic to do to Chinese scammers or any person you don't want to talk to that is in China or has to go back to China.

New comment by mullen in "Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it"

mullen — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 23:47:50 +0000

If someone in China starts harassing you or threatening you, just start sending messages that the two of you are conspiring to overthrow the Chinese government and the messages will stop real quick. These Chinese mafia types talk tough until you start sending anti-Chinese government copy-pasta to them and they shut up real quick.

New comment by mullen in "“Dark money” groups help private ISPs lobby against municipal broadband"

mullen — Tue, 21 May 2024 16:18:17 +0000

> There's a reason we cast secret ballots in elections,

You get one vote and the other people get one vote. With Dark Money, one side gets access to control a million votes and you get one vote. That's wrong.

> and I don't see much of a difference in the risk/reward equation when it comes to donations to nonprofits and social causes, whether political or not.

NonProfits and Social causes are about fixing issues directly. Giving money to a shelter that supports Runaway Gay Teens or a Pets or the Homeless is not the same. A single person giving millions of dollars to a single organization that is designed to influence the vote and lives of millions of people is not the same thing.

Also, corporations are not people, so a corporation giving to a cause (No matter the cause) should be known by everyone.

New comment by mullen in "OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns"

mullen — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 18:17:16 +0000

> Well, now we know. Sam Altman matters to the rank and file, and this was a blunder by OpenAI.

Not just the Rank and File, but he was really was the face of AI in general. My wife, who is not in the tech field at all, knows who Sam Altman is and has seen interviews of him on YouTube (Which I was playing and she found interesting).

I have not heavily followed the Altman Dismissal Drama but this strikes me as a Board Power Play gone wrong. Some group wanted control, thought Altman was not reporting to them enough and took it as an opportunity to dismiss him and take over. However, somewhere in their calculation, they did not figure out Sam is the face of modern AI.

My prediction is that he will be back and everything will go back to what it was before. The board can't be dismissed and neither can Sam Altman. Status quo is the goal at this point.

New comment by mullen in "GPSJam: Daily maps of possible GPS interference"

mullen — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:18:46 +0000

There are no legal GPS jammers in the USA. In fact, the one of two things that will get the FCC on you really bad is to mess with GPS or Cell Phone signals.

For Example, US Prisons want to jam Cell Phones but the FCC says no way.

New comment by mullen in "How Big Pharma reaps profits while hurting everyday Americans (2019)"

mullen — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 18:41:43 +0000

This article is from 2019 and second, I don't think anyone questions the validity of the results of Big Pharma, just the price, transparency and lack of willingness to allow the US Federal government to collectively price bargain.

New comment by mullen in "How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s"

mullen — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:18:50 +0000

But not as bad as Korea or Japan.

New comment by mullen in "Close to half of American adults favor TikTok ban, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows"

mullen — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:28:43 +0000

What a simplistic view of the world. The Chinese government will use their control of TikTok to allow them to have as much control and influence as possible and they won't subscribe to the view of "do what you want as long as it does not affect anyone else". Their view will be "do what we tell you or else".