Hacker News: mwattsun

New comment by mwattsun in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2024)"

mwattsun — Wed, 01 May 2024 18:49:16 +0000

I'm a retired computer programmer so this is spur of the moment, but it occurred to me reading this thread that I'd like to help anyone using AI in the sobriety and recovery community on a volunteer basis. I've been using Claude Opus as a sponsor, sobriety coach and recovery therapist (CBT,DBT) to amazing effect. I'd like to share what I've discovered and formalize the process. If you know of any opportunities like this please let me know.

    Location: San Jose
    Remote: Yes
    Willing to relocate: No
    Technologies: These days I mostly use C# and Python, but have used several others
    Résumé/CV: I deleted my LinkedIn account because I'm retired, but resume available
    Email: See Hacker News profile for contact information

New comment by mwattsun in "How fuzz testing was invented (2008)"

mwattsun — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 23:10:04 +0000

I used a program called Monkey extensively in 1986 while performing final testing of Microsoft Works for the Macintosh to shake out the last bugs in the program. I found a quite a few bugs that would probably never occur in real life, but it made the program much more robust. Nobody ever complained about Works crashing.

https://www.folklore.org/Monkey_Lives.html

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 17:01:53 +0000

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 22:58:43 +0000

They're doing that outside the city limits, in Live Oak for example, but inside the city limits, the Beach Flats is the only place I can think of until recently, when they started building downtown Santa Cruz. As unsightly as the downtown buildings are, if they revitalize downtown it won't be so bad. Maybe Logo's used books will come back.

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 20:46:31 +0000

But where? Therein lies the rub. Would you go up the North Coast? There's plenty of farmland there. Would you go into the forest, requiring felling a lot of trees? Please don't say you want to build out Lighthouse Field.

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 20:30:14 +0000

I'm not aware of any such plan. The plan was always to preserve open space such as Lighthouse Field and the green belt around Santa Cruz. I'm grateful for both of those. Property values would have risen even if they had built on Lighthouse field and the green belt. It just occured to me that I could think of them as the equivalent of NYC's Central Park or SF's Golden Gate Park.

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 19:39:49 +0000

I feel a certain kind of sadness about it. There's not a word for the loss of your home town in English that I'm aware of, but there's a song that comes close to it.

Pretenders - My City Was Gone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thu8DWsirJo

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 19:27:36 +0000

You forgot to mention that UCSC sits on a huge tract of land that they refuse to build student housing on for reasons I can't fathom.

New comment by mwattsun in "Santa Cruz plans high-rise living as a fix for sky-high housing costs"

mwattsun — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 19:20:51 +0000

I'm 66, born and raised in Santa Cruz with family there and it's bizarre when your sleepy surf town turns into the hottest real estate market in California, which might make it the hottest market in the world, and none of your children, nieces and nephews can afford to live there. There's a adage in Santa Cruz that we all know well "Once you move from Santa Cruz you'll never be able to afford to move back." Many small towns across America are experiencing depopulation and poverty. Santa Cruz is the opposite, experiencing wealth and luxury. I have no further comment except to say it seems unusual.

Edit: I'm not living there. I'm over the hill in San Jose where rents are more affordable and I can't move back.

Edit2: The locals blame giving UCSC students a vote in local politics on our woes, because they are transients, progressive and don't understand local issues, preferring to preserve greenspace and the environment over growth. I'm happy with the greenspace and acccept the cost of maintaining it - I'm not complaining, merely sharing how strange it is to be priced out of your home town.

New comment by mwattsun in "Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?"

mwattsun — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 19:18:09 +0000

There's probably millions of tons of unused copper wire formerly used for telephone land lines nailed to poles unused. I wonder when we're going to start taking that down instead of despoiling natural wonders like the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine

New comment by mwattsun in "We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO"

mwattsun — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 15:57:55 +0000

Microsoft doesn't have to send an employee to represent them on the board. They could ask Bill Gates.

New comment by mwattsun in "A Man Who Tried to Overthrow Sam Altman"

mwattsun — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 23:03:40 +0000

This one goes deeper into the thinking of Ilya Sutskever which I thought was interesting

New comment by mwattsun in "A Man Who Tried to Overthrow Sam Altman"

mwattsun — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:23:32 +0000

https://archive.is/fwynq

A Man Who Tried to Overthrow Sam Altman

mwattsun — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:23:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/openai-ilya-sutskever-sam-altman-fired/676072/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38367751

Points: 12

# Comments: 4

New comment by mwattsun in "Whole Earth Catalog (1968) [pdf]"

mwattsun — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 19:56:17 +0000

It's also the title of the best album by The Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q73LMKKxbc&list=PL6vwnon3sI...

New comment by mwattsun in "WTF Is Degaussing? [2016]"

mwattsun — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 19:48:53 +0000

I served on a US Nuclear submarine and my wife at the time served at a deguassing station demagnetizing submarines. I understood the purpose at the time was to remove any magnetism the sub might have so it wouldn't trigger magnetic mines.

New comment by mwattsun in "A Love Letter to Driving Alone"

mwattsun — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 23:21:02 +0000

This is great. I really like the lead track on his Salad Days album, which is all good with a nice laid back vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HQqXllXpfQ

New comment by mwattsun in "A Love Letter to Driving Alone"

mwattsun — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:52:40 +0000

William Gibson gets credit for it, but he tells people he retweeted it from one of his followers according to the story I read. You're welcome.

New comment by mwattsun in "A Love Letter to Driving Alone"

mwattsun — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:58:18 +0000

Great! Have a good day.

New comment by mwattsun in "A Love Letter to Driving Alone"

mwattsun — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:57:07 +0000

I agree. Sometimes getting away from certain people can be beneficial. As William Gibson said "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." Then there's that other saying "Everywhere you go, there you are" which points to yourself as the problem.