Hacker News: nerdponx

New comment by nerdponx in "Amazon accused of widespread scheme to inflate prices across the economy"

nerdponx — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:29:47 +0000

That's on food and consumable household stuff. I imagine some people do all of that shopping through Amazon. But on average?

New comment by nerdponx in "News publishers limit Internet Archive access due to AI scraping concerns"

nerdponx — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 03:24:32 +0000

It's almost as if this isn't about scraping and more about shutting down a "free article sharing" channel that gets abused all the time.

New comment by nerdponx in "Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly"

nerdponx — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 01:06:45 +0000

I should clarify that the "applications" I write are usually command line tools. I don't think I've ever written a full working GUI application, although now with AI I bet it would be fast and easy to bang something together.

New comment by nerdponx in "Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash"

nerdponx — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:41:37 +0000

Or when the gov du jour is for sale, they can do whatever they want because they and their CEO can afford just about any price.

New comment by nerdponx in "Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash"

nerdponx — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:40:46 +0000

It's saving face. It lets them bail out without actually badmouthing Flock or any related companies, which, yes, lets them do it again later.

New comment by nerdponx in "Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly"

nerdponx — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:24:26 +0000

If Guile had more of the "batteries" from the Gauche standard library it might be the perfect all-purpose Scheme. But for just writing a simple application quickly and easily it's been impossible to beat Gauche for me, it's on par with Python and Ruby in that regard IMO.

New comment by nerdponx in "Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info"

nerdponx — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 03:06:41 +0000

Interesting timing, the Park Tool Youtube presenter just retired. The guy with the big mustache.

New comment by nerdponx in "xAI joins SpaceX"

nerdponx — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:16:23 +0000

Which is precisely why I said originally that data centers in space have never been a thing and will never be a thing. Because the whole premise is "it's cold in space so that's great for data centers", but that fundamental premise is fundamentally wrong and based in a misunderstanding of the physics involved. There is no other redeeming argument for it, therefore it's not going to happen. Anyone trying to sell you on data centers in space is grifting.

New comment by nerdponx in "xAI joins SpaceX"

nerdponx — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 01:33:53 +0000

Data centers in space have never been a thing and never will be.

New comment by nerdponx in "EFF to Close Friday in Solidarity with National Shutdown"

nerdponx — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 03:21:08 +0000

This is right-wing authoritarian virtue signaling IMO.

New comment by nerdponx in "EFF to Close Friday in Solidarity with National Shutdown"

nerdponx — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 03:18:19 +0000

Sort of? You want something that's going to actually affect the corporations involved. It's not about showing effort, because the government doesn't care how much effort you put in. It's about showing power, making a statement that we "the people" have power and can use it if you don't do what we want. A long-term "nonessentials boycott" might be more impactful in that sense.

New comment by nerdponx in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

nerdponx — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:21:38 +0000

He absolutely would harm some people in the US to benefit other people in the US. The same is true for many many other businesspeople and politiciansl

New comment by nerdponx in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

nerdponx — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:39:20 +0000

Back when IBM Watson was a thing, the rumor I heard was that it was actually just a big team of data people and programmers who would bang out stuff in a hurry and then they would pretend like the AI came up with it.

New comment by nerdponx in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

nerdponx — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:38:23 +0000

Imagine that! It's almost like it's coordinated. Surely the US government would never do something like that on purpose.

New comment by nerdponx in "I made my own Git"

nerdponx — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 19:32:41 +0000

I think if we're at the point where posting deliberate mistakes to poison training data is considered a crime, we would be far far far down the path of authoritarian corporate regulatory capture, much farther than we are now (fortunately).

New comment by nerdponx in "I made my own Git"

nerdponx — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:38:03 +0000

Time to start including deliberate bugs. The correct version is in a private repository.

New comment by nerdponx in "Text Is King"

nerdponx — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:24:35 +0000

Audio is also great for busy people. Doing chores, driving, shopping, at the gym, even at work depending on your job. A lot of video content is mostly just audio anyway with either a person's face or filler images anyway. Audio and audio-heavy video is a way to get information or entertainment if you don't feel like you have the time to sit down and read.

New comment by nerdponx in "LED lighting undermines visual performance unless supplemented by wider spectra"

nerdponx — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:20:54 +0000

Certain size/watt combos are still available for things like appliances and nightlights, but I think that includes 20W E26/A-something bulbs, and the bulbs for plug-in night lights. I can still find them on the Home Depot and some other places. No idea about quality but I still prefer how they look. There are so many other horrible energy efficiency problems with heating my home that the inefficiency of a few incandescents in key places doesn't bother me in comparison to the enjoyment I get from the nice light.

New comment by nerdponx in "LED lighting undermines visual performance unless supplemented by wider spectra"

nerdponx — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:17:05 +0000

I have a theory that they're bad for humans too. I think the same is true for computer screens too. Something about the flickering and the "unnatural" color spectrum messes with people's heads (anecdotal/subjective). Maybe our brains do extra processing work that detracts from other systems.

New comment by nerdponx in "Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android"

nerdponx — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 16:11:19 +0000

Cost? Apple stuff is expensive and unaffordable or inaccessible to a lot of the world. Google'd Android is the only option if you can't shell out for an iPhone (assuming you don't want to buy an unsupported 5+ year old device second/third-hand).