Hacker News: nikole9696

New comment by nikole9696 in "Nielsen is leaning more on wearables to hear what people are watching"

nikole9696 — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:27:53 +0000

I get that the participants are a particular set of people, which IMO means by definition any data gathered is skewed anyway to the types of people willing to do this manner of study, but I'm certainly not the only person who leaves stuff on in the background just for noise even though I'm not "watching" it. I wonder if they think they can account for that - just because I have something on doesn't mean I'm really paying attention, sometimes. I'm sure that's an issue with any way they try to capture these kinds of metrics. There is a big difference to me with shows I care if they cancel versus shows I have on because I like to hear nature sounds in the background. Or I'll just throw on something I've seen a bunch of times for background noise.

New comment by nikole9696 in "X's algorithm feeds off ragebait and impacts Democrats more, study finds"

nikole9696 — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:26:00 +0000

I'd be surprised if this wasn't the case for most social media apps. They're going for engagement since that's what makes the money for them, as the article mentions. I would be curious to see if this kind of study could be done for other platforms and if it would yield similar results. I'd also be curious if it applied to things that are not overtly political, such as animal activism, vegetarianism, and other polarizing opinions.

New comment by nikole9696 in "The Amazon tax"

nikole9696 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:45:11 +0000

Eh, for me it's not about love, it's about no other retailers carrying what I want, at a price point I'll pay, with an easy return policy and easy checkout. I'm willing to put up with a lot of crap to find that, apparently.

To be clear, when I do use LLM for search, I don't limit it to one site.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Cursor launches Origin, GitHub alternative"

nikole9696 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:58:18 +0000

Cursor, which is now owned by Elon, who tried very hard to get all manner of data about citizens with his intrusions? I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this isn't a great idea. He'll use it to feed Grok.

I'm not a big fan of Github right now either but I wouldn't consider this alternative due to its ownership chain.

New comment by nikole9696 in "The Amazon tax"

nikole9696 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 14:59:09 +0000

Yeah, it's truly awful if you're looking for something specific. I tend to find things by finding something I don't want then clicking through 16 pages of "related to this item" ad nauseum. I find myself more often using ChatGPT to find things now because their search is sooo bad. Like, if I want petite clothes, I do not want clothes that are not petite, folks. Why is this hard?

New comment by nikole9696 in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

nikole9696 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:53:40 +0000

"tradeoffs have to be made" is a great way to say that yes, you agree that instead of focusing on lowering health care costs, you think it's fine that people die because of them. I would posit that no treatment should be allowed to cost multiple millions of dollars - I am aware that's easier said than done, but I'm pretty sure society should try. Maybe if the CEOs didn't make billions of dollars and instead we put those profits back into play, we'd have a chance.

New comment by nikole9696 in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

nikole9696 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:31:22 +0000

Unfortunately, these days, most of us won't do that because there is a high likelihood it could incite violence.

New comment by nikole9696 in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

nikole9696 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:24:19 +0000

"And therefore, someone must decide what claims are reasonable."

Yes, that person is MY DOCTOR. There is no world in which it is reasonable that my health care team says I should have particular treatment, and insurance executives get to say no I don't. Sadly I understand this is not the case, and we value money more than human life, but I do not find that reasonable, no matter how common it might be.

I also understand that medical fraud happens, but I'm not sure the tradeoff to reducing it is worth the lives it's taking when we refuse claims.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Your open tabs are unfinished decisions, not bookmarks"

nikole9696 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:56:18 +0000

No, mine are just bookmarks that I keep open because I'm too lazy to organize bookmarks into groups and always want this set open. For work, it's deep linked nonsense that isn't bookmarkable. Because corporate. Rarely, I'm researching something so it's in progress work - those get closed when I'm done.

New comment by nikole9696 in "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"

nikole9696 — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:21:57 +0000

I'm in my 50s and all my friends and family hate AI. My parents in their 70s can't really comprehend it. They got used to search and want nothing to do with AI. Some company is trying to build an AI data center where they live, and they're livid about it.

Personally, I like it sometimes, but I'm a techie and understand the limitations, and I dislike not being given options to use or not use it.

New comment by nikole9696 in "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"

nikole9696 — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:17:39 +0000

If I want AI, I'll use AI. If I want Search, I want Search. Give me the option. Then again I switched to DDG like, last year.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Stack Overflow’s forum is dead but the company’s still kicking"

nikole9696 — Tue, 26 May 2026 21:33:32 +0000

This actually reminds me of the MCP concept. Similar?

New comment by nikole9696 in "Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging"

nikole9696 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 22:34:10 +0000

This may be regional but I just had pills. It was fine. My first one had that terrible salty liquid and I cannot stand the salt. I had a very hard time with it, despite adding some flavoring. I just can't drink salt water. So my second one I got pills and it was miles and miles easier. Now the hardest part is fasting for a day.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Micropayments as a reality check for news sites"

nikole9696 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 20:36:25 +0000

Anecdata: I use Apple News+ for exactly this reason. I get many publications included, and some magazines, and over time it learns what stories I like and surfaces those more often.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Why Walmart still doesn't support Apple Pay"

nikole9696 — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:18:27 +0000

Was going to reply this - I have Walmart Pay and it's my credit card.

I'm supremely annoyed because Walmart Pay still rather sucks. I have to scan a QR code which opens the app, then approve it from there. It's not simple like Apple Pay where I just tap my phone. But after hearing tons of stories of issues with people getting compromised by the terminals, I sucked it up and just did it, since their terminals don't support tap CCs.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Amazon is ending all inventory commingling as of March 31, 2026"

nikole9696 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:49:18 +0000

Not the person you're replying to, but for me, everything I buy on Amazon is bought because I have no B&M retailers that sell it. Even my local B&M stores usually have vastly reduced stock compared to what they have online (looking at you, Old Navy, Eddie Bauer and similar, who only carry petite sizes online).

New comment by nikole9696 in "Google is dead. Where do we go now?"

nikole9696 — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:41:45 +0000

I used ChatGPT to find a bike for me. It asked good questions, recommended good results, linked me to options and the websites I needed to further research things. I don't do a lot of shopping though so this is one tiny example. If I was looking to actually shop again though I'd use it again. Most of my shopping these days is the grocery store. I don't have a lot of needs.

New comment by nikole9696 in "Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell"

nikole9696 — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 22:02:37 +0000

I love this site - have you considered monetizing with like e-books or other offline offerings, if you don't already?

Also, your traffic might not be counting those of us like myself who use an RSS feed (a la Feedly) - those links don't go to your site, they just go to, well, the link. =)

New comment by nikole9696 in "Is 30% of Microsoft's code AI-generated?"

nikole9696 — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:33:59 +0000

Well 90% of my test code is AI generated, and we have a lot of tests. Also Cursor is really good at generating all my documentation. So depending on how we spin it, I could say at least half the code (often more if I'm spinning up new stuff it can do based off existing stuff) in my PR was AI generated.

That said, AI wasn't very good until it had enough examples and guidance from us on our codebase. After that though, it definitely helps.

Caveat: I'm no rocket scientist. It's not difficult code. It's just web services and whatnot. The code is often the least difficult part of my job.

New comment by nikole9696 in "The zipper is getting its first major upgrade in 100 years"

nikole9696 — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:23:38 +0000

I don't go camping. I have had exactly one thing in my life that I can recall that the zipper broke on it. I think it really depends on what people are buying, how rough they are with their clothing, and many other factors.