Hacker News: ncfausti

New comment by ncfausti in "DaVinci Resolve 21"

ncfausti — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:16:02 +0000

What do you like most about it?

New comment by ncfausti in "MacBook Neo"

ncfausti — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:47:31 +0000

This is exactly what's needed to get general users off of Windows.

Anecdotal, but whenever my friends/family are looking for a basic laptop I almost always suggest a Lenovo for the price/performance/quality they're looking for in the $400-600 range, even though I myself would never get anything besides a MBP.

I would recommend this to them instead every single time. The build quality of macs are unmatched and now in everyone's price range.

New comment by ncfausti in "The Perils of ISBN"

ncfausti — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:30:27 +0000

What would you like to see improved?

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

ncfausti — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 05:43:37 +0000

That’s kind of how I understand it as well.

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

ncfausti — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 05:41:37 +0000

I think that’s why the author put “vector” in quotes. I kind of imagine it as an ephemeral, infinite list where for some real, when we use that real value as an index into our “vector”/function, we get the output value as the item in this infinite, ephemeral list.

I think the only thing that matters is that the indices have an ordering (which the reals obviously do) and they aren’t irrational (i.e. they have a finite precision).

Imagine you have a real number, say, e.g. 2.4. What stops us from using that as an index into an infinite, infinitely resizable list? 2.4^2 = 5.76. Depending on how fine-grained your application requires you could say 2.41 (=5.8081) is the next index OR 2.5 (=6.25) is the next index we look at or care about.

I could be misunderstanding it, though.

New comment by ncfausti in "Benzene at 200"

ncfausti — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 17:37:15 +0000

This.

When an alarming number of friends (all under 40 years old) from the same small neighborhood in my hometown were diagnosed with leukemia I started to look into the superfund site nearby. The pond that is connected to the stream that supplies the municipal wells in the area was still disgusting (with visible oily residue on the surface) nearly 15 years after the company, Congoleum, stopped operations and the plant was demolished. Soil testing some years earlier revealed benzene, which has been linked to AML.

New comment by ncfausti in "Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist"

ncfausti — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 04:50:06 +0000

Thank you for your work on this, truly.

New comment by ncfausti in "Experiment: Can 3D improve AI video consistency?"

ncfausti — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 14:52:33 +0000

This is one of the most impressive demos I've ever seen. Truly incredible. I have been dreaming about working on something like this for a while. Open to help?

New comment by ncfausti in "Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor"

ncfausti — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 15:13:33 +0000

re: DuoLingo, I always hear the same thing and feel the same reaction :) If you are looking for another team member I'd love to help.

New comment by ncfausti in "Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor"

ncfausti — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:54:42 +0000

I've been building https://heylangley.com as a solo side project for a little while now. The initial MVP took about 2 months, though I have not had much time to market it. It's pretty much identical to this. I also applied to YC for W23 and was rejected.

Not sure what else to say beyond this: if you have a project that you've been wanting to start, believe in yourself and build it!

New comment by ncfausti in "How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)"

ncfausti — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 14:15:35 +0000

This reminds me of a time when I was meditating in my dimly lit office after work some years ago. For context, I had been meditating daily for 20-30 minutes quite consistently at the time.

During this session, about 15 minutes in I had the sensation of "seeing with my eyes closed". I could see very clearly my workspace, desk, monitors, keyboard, etc. It was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life.

I am wondering now if this was related to a sudden lapse in aphantasia (which it seems like I have), a closed eye hallucination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination), both, or something else?

New comment by ncfausti in "We are beginning to roll out new voice and image capabilities in ChatGPT"

ncfausti — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:31:31 +0000

This is very similar to what I've been building at heylangley.com, for use in language learning/speaking practice.

New comment by ncfausti in "Hollywood movie aside, just how good a physicist was Oppenheimer?"

ncfausti — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 10:29:52 +0000

Blame Hollywood. The mythos of a lone, brilliant genius doing feats unimaginable to “normal people” is everywhere, unfortunately.

Show HN: Heylangley.com – AI language learning partner

ncfausti — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 14:20:19 +0000

Article URL: https://www.heylangley.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36724399

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Show HN: Heylangley.com – AI Language Learning Partner

ncfausti — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 13:43:36 +0000

Article URL: https://www.heylangley.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36694389

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Show HN: Langley AI – Personalized AI Language Learning Partner

ncfausti — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 20:48:03 +0000

I’ve been learning Mandarin recently but can never find people to practice speaking with (who are available when I am) so I built this to practice my listening and speaking skills anywhere/anytime.

It currently supports around 20 different languages.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36638091

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Financial Markets – Yale (Coursera)

ncfausti — Wed, 10 May 2023 13:23:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets-global/home/welcome

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35886974

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by ncfausti in "US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved"

ncfausti — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 23:29:20 +0000

Just bootstrap a second fusion power plant with the first, then continue on, similar to how compilers for a language can be written in the language itself.

New comment by ncfausti in "Information for foreign citizens in Longyearbyen [pdf]"

ncfausti — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 02:09:41 +0000

Interesting – I was just looking into visiting/living in Svalbard for a couple of months for the unique experience of it. Unfortunately, I could only find one apartment building [1] and the price for an apartment was $6,000 USD.

I've read that most of the apartments are owned by companies, and you have to work for the company to have access to the apartment. Does anyone know of any other alternatives for a short stay there?

[1] https://en.visitsvalbard.com/where-to-stay/svalbard-hotell-l...

New comment by ncfausti in "Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?"

ncfausti — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 13:05:09 +0000

I have ADHD-I and I'm feeling almost exactly the same way, right up to a falling out with a company I had significant ownership in/was part of the founding team.

How are your daily routines? Are you taking breaks and pursuing the things you actually enjoy doing? Have you thought much about the kind of experiences that have brought you the most joy/satisfaction in life (both at work and outside of work)?

Maybe watch this video and see if it resonates with you. It's a talk by Dr. Russell Barkley on ADHD and it's what made me finally schedule a full analysis (after literally decades of putting it off).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpB-B8BXk0

If you'd like to talk I'm here to listen.