Hacker News: neap24

New comment by neap24 in "I don't want to read what you didn't write"

neap24 — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 01:38:19 +0000

The problem is, some of us work with colleagues, or even bosses, who throw AI replies at us in nearly every conversation — so we don’t have a choice to NOT read it.

New comment by neap24 in "How to stop being boring"

neap24 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:34:29 +0000

I was in a group conversation last week where everyone was discussing what sophisticated new TV shows they were watching. When it got to me I said, “My family is really into Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now. It holds up really well and Salem the cat is absolutely hysterical.” The look I got was hilarious.

New comment by neap24 in "Most demographers now predict that human population will plateau"

neap24 — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 03:34:28 +0000

Just what exactly about having kids is not ethical? If ethics is a human construct-and you are contributing to having no more humans around…I don’t know, it just seems like a strange way of framing it.

As for the burden of having kids, I think it’s way too simplistic to say it was a burden NOT to have them in the past. There were different cultural dynamics, for sure, but kids have always been a mixed blessing—both difficult and extremely rewarding. Having kids has historically forced adults to face their own shortcomings. Not an easy thing to do in any era.

New comment by neap24 in "Zoom fatigue unpacked"

neap24 — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 16:39:08 +0000

I’m a big advocate of reducing Zoom/screen fatigue by doing manual labor after the work day. Do a home maintenance project, throw a ball with the kids in the backyard, etc.

New comment by neap24 in "Child Labor Is on the Rise"

neap24 — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 19:33:43 +0000

I'm 100% in favor of children working starting with chores at home and continuing through the rest of childhood, to some degree. But I'd rather see it be things like lawn mowing, babysitting, and what I would call "ordinary" childhood expectations and responsibilities. Keeping kids focused on these domains mostly removes the problem of defining what counts as child labor and what counts as excessive. One problem I have with allowing kids to work in typically adult workplaces, is that I hate working in those places myself and have worked hard my whole life to avoid them, as much as possible.

New comment by neap24 in "California bill would require high schools to hand out free condoms"

neap24 — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 16:05:28 +0000

Yes. This is a better wording of the point I was making in a comment below—which somehow everyone is criticizing as “males need to share in the responsibility”. Putting that aside as a separate debate, I am worried about unintended consequences as well as the generally small effect size when the price of all birth control is so cheap these days.

New comment by neap24 in "California bill would require high schools to hand out free condoms"

neap24 — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:54:00 +0000

Meh. Maybe this would have been a bigger deal when birth control was difficult to acquire, but the price has dropped so drastically it’s practically free these days. Also, I thought the narrative was that High Schoolers were having less sex than ever anyway.

New comment by neap24 in "AI for developers and Google Workspace"

neap24 — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 14:27:43 +0000

Are you a manager whose new hire just sent a reply to your AI generated welcome email? Don’t have time to read it? Workspace auto-hides the text and just shows you a simple three-word summary.

New comment by neap24 in "AI for developers and Google Workspace"

neap24 — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 14:24:23 +0000

Some were googling, for sure. But the best ones were not.

New comment by neap24 in "Ask HN: What are good self hosted time tracking software for consultants?"

neap24 — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 16:12:30 +0000

Spreadsheet for time tracking, simple Python script to generate an invoice.

Ask HN: With ChatGPT, is now a good time to leave education?

neap24 — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 15:47:53 +0000

I've been seriously mulling over this the last couple of weeks. I teach computer science and, while it has always been a balance to teach students to effectively use tools (like Stack Overflow, Copilot, et. al.), I've always been able to come up with obscure and specific enough take-home problems that students can use these tools yet also be forced to solve a significant portion of the problem on their own.

ChatGPT changes everything. Feeding it any number of my take-home assignments yields 90%+ of the answer. In fact, we've already caught a number of students using this to cheat even in the few weeks before Winter Break.

It seems that now might be the perfect time to leave the education world. I'm not sure how to solve this problem (and it is an immediate issue) and I don't really want to spend my days policing students (or giving up altogether and letting them use these tools unfettered).

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34015867

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by neap24 in "Tell HN: Giving ChatGPT access to a real terminal"

neap24 — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:58:16 +0000

So, we will be interacting with the computer just like in Star Trek sooner than I thought. I used to laugh off the scenes when some random bridge crew member would ask, “Computer, run a analysis on with the following parameters…” to solve some problem. Seems more likely than ever.

New comment by neap24 in "I don’t believe in sprints"

neap24 — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 13:00:19 +0000

I don't believe this is a strawman...at least from an outsider's perspective. As someone who has only ever written software independently, the very idea of agile and sprints (at least reading about them here and talking to friends) has kept me from ever wanting to work for a company that uses them. It seems like it would suck all the fun out of writing software.

New comment by neap24 in "Why is solar more expensive in the U.S. than in other countries?"

neap24 — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 18:42:45 +0000

I really don't understand the obsession with homeowner solar. The financing schemes are crazy (companies owning part of your roof, renting the equipment, etc.). The only way to do it properly is to either pay someone else cash or to do it yourself. But then, even then, when I did my ROI calculation a few months ago (I live in a small house that is very efficient as-is), I was looking at 10-15 years before I'd see any savings. Then, I learned that the lifespan on some of the equipment and panels may only be 20 years. Granted, replacing them beats the cost of the original install and permitting process, but now I have something else in addition to shingles on my roof that needs replaced after a couple of decades.

It just doesn't make sense to me to mess with it now. As others have mentioned, pushing for grid solar/nuclear/other clean energy is really the only way to do this efficiently. Then I won't have a mass of ugly panels stuck on my roof.

New comment by neap24 in "Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire"

neap24 — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 21:42:54 +0000

That’s right, we all know the real cause for Rome’s downfall was PM2.5

New comment by neap24 in "Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate"

neap24 — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 15:40:17 +0000

As a teacher (CS and Math) for over a decade, I agree with much of this. I will only add that, as far as grading is concerned, I think the long-term incentive for the teacher is actually to put almost no effort in at all. There is no pay or status increase for teachers who are tough, consistent graders. In fact, some of the most revered teachers I’ve known essentially hand hold their students to a guaranteed A in the class. At first, principled teachers may stick to tough grading, but as the years go by and they watch their friends easily make 3x more in industry, the incentive to just put a check mark on every paper is about the best you can do to close that benefit gap.

New comment by neap24 in "Suicide has become rarer during the pandemic"

neap24 — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 15:14:19 +0000

I think that's true in some circles, this sense of shared empathy. But most people I'm around exude a sense of annoyance over the pandemic restrictions (regardless of how seriously they take covid). I suppose this might count as empathy, in a strange way.

New comment by neap24 in "Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too soon"

neap24 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:19:43 +0000

There are a variety of bigger problems with the current TV show culture beyond getting cancelled early. Reliance on the cliffhanger, too much pandering to current events/politics, overuse of the "mystery box" plot technique, and so on.

There are a few other personal gripes I have that may not be shared in this community (like, I think shows are way oversexed and have far too many grotesque and gritty elements for my taste) which have basically turned me completely off of modern television shows. For the time being, I'm watching "classics" and movies.

I'm not convinced that cancelling TV shows too soon is creating a problem. The bigger problem, for me, are the above features + an over-abundance of volume of content (the ol' "Netflix will produce just about anything" criticism).

New comment by neap24 in "As Their Numbers Grow, Covid-19 “Long Haulers” Stump Experts"

neap24 — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 15:07:31 +0000

There are plenty of other viruses/infections that produce "long-hauler" effects. Just last year, I had a cough that lingered for nearly 4 months. It was annoying, but has happened to me before.

That's not to say we shouldn't worry about long-term effects of COVID. I'm just worried that the tone of this type of article is panic-inducing and does more harm than good.

At this point (and maybe rightfully so?) COVID is the bogeyman to which we attribute every bizarre symptom. One person in the article didn't even have a confirmed diagnosis. Since the doctors couldn't figure it out, they just said "Meh, probably COVID".

New comment by neap24 in "Google Services Experiencing Disruptions"

neap24 — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 01:14:17 +0000

Firebase api calls don't seem to be working either.