Hacker News: nichohel

New comment by nichohel in "FAA offering more incentives as air traffic controller shortage worsens"

nichohel — Sun, 04 May 2025 01:36:47 +0000

Why would you put the years in hex, except to obscure? The tracingwoodgrains report is compelling, people should listen to it.

New comment by nichohel in "U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts"

nichohel — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:19:18 +0000

There is the Republic of Ireland, not in UK, and Northern Ireland, in UK.

New comment by nichohel in "ChatGPT's Name Bias and Apple's Findings on AI's Lack of Reasoning"

nichohel — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 16:31:35 +0000

Following up on Boaz Barak's comment quoted in this article, my best local model did get the answer to the kiwi problem correct when I changed the system prompt from "You are my helpful AI assistant." to "This is a math exam."

New comment by nichohel in "Ask HN: What currently is the best, nerd-friendly, rootable Android phone?"

nichohel — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:26:41 +0000

For me the dealbreaker on Graphene was inability to record my phone conversations. I went back to Lineage.

New comment by nichohel in "Vision language models are blind"

nichohel — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 20:01:24 +0000

Vision language models are blind because they lack the Cartesian Theater, which you and I have. Which you and I say we have.

New comment by nichohel in "Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images"

nichohel — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 20:08:09 +0000

Also, fraud.

New comment by nichohel in "How I got scammed out of $50k"

nichohel — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:47:05 +0000

Here are audio recordings from actual conversations I had with scammers trying to pull a "family member in distress" scam:

http://main.interstice.com:8090/?p=49

New comment by nichohel in "Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs"

nichohel — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 23:41:50 +0000

A true control seems impossible for any "breathwork" study; anyone doing regimented breathing knows that they are doing something. And placebos work, whether you believe in them or not (say the studies ...)

New comment by nichohel in "The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure"

nichohel — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 19:52:24 +0000

Typo "signiGicant" in abstract.

New comment by nichohel in "Education Dept. opens inquiry into Harvard legacy admissions"

nichohel — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:38:28 +0000

"Exactly that" hardly. Reducing funding to a level of a year ago is hardly "nothing" and most states didn't even go that far.

New comment by nichohel in "Education Dept. opens inquiry into Harvard legacy admissions"

nichohel — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:23:29 +0000

What do you mean by "cutting state-level university funding down to nothing over the last 15 years"?

New comment by nichohel in "I decided to outsource my entire personal financial life to GPT-4"

nichohel — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 23:35:38 +0000

Listen to episode 157 of the excellent podcast "Blocked and Reported" before you think this is real.

New comment by nichohel in "60M Americans have taxes so simple the IRS could do them automatically"

nichohel — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 03:24:19 +0000

(This relates to US taxes only)

This very likely does not make a difference on your total tax bill, especially now that other deductions are limited (like mortgage interest).

Also, even if sales tax paid did make a difference on your tax paid, there is a simple calculator that estimates your sales tax paid that you can use instead of summing sales tax over all transactions.

If you want to play around with different scenarios, I recommend you try the tool "Excel1040" [1]. It is free but consider a donation. Works great in LibreOffice Calc but pay attention to the loading instructions.

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/excel1040/home

New comment by nichohel in "Apple store robbed of $500k in iPhones after thieves tunnel through coffee shop"

nichohel — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:34:22 +0000

It seems like we (good people) would want Apple to prevent these stolen, parted-out components from being used as replacement parts. Apple could prevent that, in theory through software that looks at secure serial numbers from components ... but how will this comport with "right to repair"?

New comment by nichohel in "The secret joke at the heart of the Harvard affirmative-action case"

nichohel — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:16:32 +0000

But why CJ and not JC?

New comment by nichohel in "The secret joke at the heart of the Harvard affirmative-action case"

nichohel — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 22:23:31 +0000

Can anyone suggest what "CJer" is short for in "AA CJer"? It apparently is used to refer to Asian American pre-med type students, but I'm curious was the CJer part is.

New comment by nichohel in "I unschool my 5 kids. This is how much it costs"

nichohel — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 22:07:18 +0000

Let's not forget the potentially large offsetting negative impacts from schooling! Violence, abusive peers and teachers, disinterested teachers and systems leading to wasted years and loss for love of learning, I could go on. And I don't think you mean "externalities" though you might.

New comment by nichohel in "Mark Zuckerberg: “Please Resign” (2010)"

nichohel — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 22:19:57 +0000

Could you explain how this relates to this discussion? I understand The Tragedy of the Commons and I don't see how that concept is relevant here.

New comment by nichohel in "Americans lost a record $10.3B to online scammers last year, FBI says"

nichohel — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 23:35:04 +0000

If you would like to hear the tactics and voices of some phone scammers preying on the elderly using a "bail scam", have a listen to the audio files here:

http://main.interstice.com:8090/?p=49

New comment by nichohel in "What happens when your phone is spying on you"

nichohel — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 20:09:12 +0000

What do you mean by "Most privacy advocates probably do plenty of things I would be perfectly happy to see made illegal"? Can you give some examples of what you mean by things you want to see made illegal?