Hacker News: nokcha

New comment by nokcha in "Debian decides not to decide on AI-generated contributions"

nokcha — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:38:25 +0000

> LLM generated content often (perhaps by definition) seems acceptable to LLMs.

In my experience (albeit with non-coding questions), ChatGPT 5.2 is often quite eager to critique snippets of its own replies from previous conversations. And reasoning models can definitely find flaws in LLM-written code.

New comment by nokcha in "Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair"

nokcha — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:17:13 +0000

I'd argue that environmental regulations that impede building modern nuclear power plants to replace coal power plants are net harmful. Nuclear power safety has advanced a lot since Chernobyl.

New comment by nokcha in "Google's TOS doesn't eliminate a user's Fourth Amendment rights, judge rules [pdf]"

nokcha — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:40:59 +0000

For non-broken cryptographic hashes (e.g., SHA-256), the false-positive rate is negligible. Indeed, cryptographic hashes were designed so that even nation-state adversaries do not have the resources to generate two inputs that hash to the same value.

New comment by nokcha in "EU AI Act is much worse than you think"

nokcha — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:17:03 +0000

> machinery, toys, lifts, medical devices, and vehicles

All of those seem high-risk except toys.

New comment by nokcha in "Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts"

nokcha — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 01:54:06 +0000

It's the other way around: with the new change, the blockee will be able to see (but not reply to) the blocker's posts, but the blockee's posts will still be hidden from the blocker.

New comment by nokcha in "Are Ultra-Processed Foods All That Unhealthy?"

nokcha — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 23:26:21 +0000

> ultra-processed foods such as ... yogurts

> Frozen and canned vegetables are often classified as ultra-processed

I think this goes against the common usage of the term "ultra-processed".

New comment by nokcha in "Among the A.I. doomsayers"

nokcha — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 02:55:36 +0000

ChatGPT is arguably a general intelligence, but it hasn't escaped AFAIK -- it's still contained within OpenAI infrastructure, and OpenAI can easily pull the plug on it.

New comment by nokcha in "Could the world go PFAS-free? Proposal to ban ‘forever chemicals’ fuels debate"

nokcha — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 23:44:27 +0000

Most individual shareholders (especially those who just buy index funds) have neither knowledge of corporate wrongdoings nor, in practice, power to prevent them. A better model would be holding accountable the particular individuals with power and responsibility, such as in the Volkswagen emissions case where Germany criminally prosecuted executives involved in the fraud.

New comment by nokcha in "Climate change doesn't necessarily occur in a gradual, linear way"

nokcha — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:39:36 +0000

I've heard that recent changes to reduce sulfur emissions from maritime shipping have caused a sharp increase in global warming:

https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1674697743380430849

https://twitter.com/RandomSprint/status/1679851033424547840

Ugh fields – Pavlovian conditioning can cause humans to unconsciously flinch

nokcha — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:32:53 +0000

Article URL: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EFQ3F6kmt4WHXRqik/ugh-fields

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36726285

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by nokcha in "GPT-4 details leaked?"

nokcha — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 17:21:47 +0000

The "software" part of an LLM is pretty trivial -- the interesting piece is the the weights. Since the weights are mechanically generated by a computer, it can be argued that the weights are not copyrightable, just like a photograph taken by a monkey isn't copyrightable.

New comment by nokcha in "Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten survival"

nokcha — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 20:49:34 +0000

I guess there might be a distinction between "development" of software and "maintenance" of software (e.g., bug fixing, refactoring, etc.)?

New comment by nokcha in "NordVPN library and client code open-sourced"

nokcha — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 15:29:10 +0000

I imagine a VPN is sometimes still useful when torrenting, to avoid copyright complaints to your ISP.

New comment by nokcha in "Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them"

nokcha — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:39:47 +0000

Highly relevant:

https://AstralCodexTen.substack.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-...

Is Twitter down / read-only for everyone else?

nokcha — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 22:15:09 +0000

I keep getting "You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets" when I try to tweet.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34716206

Points: 25

# Comments: 15

New comment by nokcha in "The six dumbest ideas in computer security (2005)"

nokcha — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 15:04:27 +0000

> #4 ... "Hacking is Cool" is a really dumb idea.

This has aged poorly; nowadays, the most notable attacks are conducted by state actors (e.g., Russia and China) or for-profit criminal groups (e.g., ransomware) rather than lone hackers doing it for fun.

Only virgin type of olive oil consumption reduces the risk of mortality: study

nokcha — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 19:28:10 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01221-3

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33321283

Points: 233

# Comments: 255

New comment by nokcha in "Troof on Nootropics"

nokcha — Fri, 20 May 2022 16:24:40 +0000

In regards to the difference in effect between Adderall and illegal street meth, Scott thinks the biggest difference is the dosage size, effectively around 50x higher for street meth: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-o...

Dosis sola facit venenum.

Formula for a Shortage

nokcha — Fri, 20 May 2022 15:10:32 +0000

Article URL: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/formula-for-a-shortage-8ae

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31448530

Points: 34

# Comments: 31

What if the SCOTUS leak came from a foreign hack?

nokcha — Sat, 07 May 2022 17:48:41 +0000

Article URL: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/05/06/what-if-the-scotus-leak-came-from-a-foreign-hack/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31296812

Points: 4

# Comments: 0