Hacker News: nearting

New comment by nearting in "Ask HN: Academic study on AI's impact on software development – want to join?"

nearting — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 23:09:39 +0000

I see from other comments that you have IRB approval for this study, but you really should include the IRB protocol identified and/or contact information of the PI here, especially if you've created a separate account just to post this recruitment material.

While it is possible to ask questions about the study here (as others have done), there's actually no way for me to know anything about the study approval except to email this thread link to NYU's IRB and have them figure out what protocol it corresponds to. And so far, the response has just been "Yes, we have approval, just trust us and send us your contact info."

Assuming that it's possible for non-researchers to use Qualtrics at NYU, there's really no way for me to determine if this is a real research study or someone whose account has been compromised and is running a data harvesting operation. I also don't even know what department this study is associated with (computer science, business, sociology, etc), which I suspect would influence people's interest in participating.

In any case, I'd recommend providing some more information up front, even if your IRB didn't require it.

New comment by nearting in "How Reverse Game Theory Could Solve the Housing Shortage"

nearting — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:00:59 +0000

Unless this is a very generous approximation, 2.0 is less than 2.1-2.4.

Even setting that aside, homes per capita is not indicative of supply and demand - if everyone in SF wants to live in a house alone, it really won't matter that SF has slightly more homes per capita.

New comment by nearting in "Americans traveling to Europe will have fingerprints scanned under new rule"

nearting — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 23:31:56 +0000

It's inconsequential until it isn't. All of the other threats you mention are still threats, but if a government has a database of every resident's fingerprints and decided to use this to arrest every person who could be traced to a protest venue, a reasonable person would very quickly change their mind.

The way I see it, a government not having my fingerprints creates one more barrier to possible tyrannical actions like this and is thus a good thing.

New comment by nearting in "Learn to play Go"

nearting — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 14:57:34 +0000

Yes, but without an account, at least on mobile, you can't change any settings besides light/dark mode and language, which is pretty annoying.

New comment by nearting in "Pocket Casts, you altered the deal, so I will alter your app"

nearting — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:44:54 +0000

You want to do right by people? Then put a big notice in the app, on your website, in the forums, etc., and refund subscriptions for anyone who's paid based on previously faulty information. If you're having folks to reach out to you over HN where you'll manually upgrade their accounts and shrugging your shoulders at being double-paid, then this is more of a PR stunt than doing right.

New comment by nearting in "What Really Caused the Sriracha Shortage? (2024)"

nearting — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 16:17:05 +0000

Sure, but I think the point is that you can build up some level of spice tolerance over time. Doesn't really make sense to judge someone's spice tolerance based on before they built it up.

New comment by nearting in "Photographs of 19th Century Japan"

nearting — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 21:59:20 +0000

And it's also mentioned in the third paragraph:

> They were originally shot in black and white, then hand-coloured by artists — a technique common at the time.

New comment by nearting in "Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point"

nearting — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 03:48:59 +0000

> Here's the dangerous way I put it that I only tell senior people: understand why rules were made and make sure the people who made them would be happy.

If you aren't absolutely sure those senior people know what they're doing, the this is a great way to end up with originalism.

New comment by nearting in "The reality of working in tech: We're not hired to write code (2023)"

nearting — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:50:53 +0000

> And to your point, if anyone ever asked an engineer to insert another floor between 8th and 9th floor of a 15 story building, they'd laugh at them. In software engineering, this is possible even if hard.

Ah yes, another cocktail party idea [1] where a software engineer pretends like they understand civil engineering.

[1] https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/

New comment by nearting in "My vote on voting systems"

nearting — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 17:05:19 +0000

Ranked pairs does not have a quadratic ballot length, since all of the preference information can be computed from a single ranking of the candidates.

New comment by nearting in "Engineers do not get to make startup mistakes when they build ledgers"

nearting — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:08:00 +0000

This doesn't address the question in any way except to note that you also use Merkle Trees. Do you reply to any comment mentioning TypeScript with a link to your Show HN post as well?

New comment by nearting in "MacOS sometimes leaks traffic after system updates"

nearting — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 18:54:19 +0000

And your response is code for "I'm unfamiliar with the concept of oligopolies, and believe that every consumption choice should be based on logic alone." Come on.

New comment by nearting in "Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text"

nearting — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 12:59:48 +0000

That assumes that there's no other way to get your password than by accessing the contents of your password manager. The service itself could have its passwords/hashes leaked, and people unfortunately do reuse passwords across services even with a password manager, so it's very plausible for someone to get your password but not the answers to your questions.

New comment by nearting in "Dangers of “decentralized” ID systems"

nearting — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 19:42:21 +0000

Even in a web of trust, you're delegating trust to someone that you treat as an authority. Especially in practice, where the long-term outcomes of webs of trust tend to be either (1) the scale is nowhere near sufficient due to the effort involved in verification, or (2) you end up de facto trusting some authorities who can provide that scale, at the cost of the identity verification being less meaningful. Sure, it might be easier to cut off or reroute trust if things go south, I don't see us reaching a critical mass for a significant scale any time soon.

New comment by nearting in "How-To Document: The Documentation System"

nearting — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 21:15:34 +0000

This seems nearly identical to Diataxis, which I've been telling people about for years: https://diataxis.fr/

What's the history here? Is one a fork of the other?

New comment by nearting in "FreeTaxUSA"

nearting — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 22:54:22 +0000

Credit Karma spun their tax service off to Cash App. So Intuit doesn't own both.

New comment by nearting in "Every homeopathic eye drop should be pulled off the market, FDA says"

nearting — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 05:03:08 +0000

This argument is essentially "a broken clock is right twice a day - so if your clock is broken, don't bother fixing it".

New comment by nearting in "Every homeopathic eye drop should be pulled off the market, FDA says"

nearting — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 04:59:53 +0000

It might draw in potential customers who believe in it, yes. Or it might give manufacturers the cover to not include any quantity of said herbs in the product.

New comment by nearting in "Every homeopathic eye drop should be pulled off the market, FDA says"

nearting — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 04:57:54 +0000

This argument is essentially whataboutism - any issues in the practice of modern evidence-based medicine does not in any way validate the efficacy of homeopathy or similar pseudoscientific approaches. On top of that, arguing that most medical recommendations are unnecessary and overpriced doesn't help the case of homeopathy or chiropractic either - I mean, at that point, why charge patients any more than the cost of sugar or a short massage?

New comment by nearting in "Fukuoka court rules ban on dual nationality is constitutional"

nearting — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 23:01:03 +0000

If you don't live in Japan, use your US passport to enter/exit Japan and only carry that passport with you. They might be able to see that you also have Japanese citizenship, but they won't be able to take your Japanese passport if you don't have it.

If you fly from the US to Japan and show a Japanese passport, your chances of getting caught are much higher - all they have to do is ask why you don't have a US visa stamp in your Japanese passport.