Hacker News: null_name

New comment by null_name in "Scientists: Protein IL-17 fights infection, acts on the brain, inducing anxiety"

null_name — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 19:30:54 +0000

Interesting, I take risankizumab, which looks like it indirectly suppresses IL-17 (through suppressing IL-23A). I've been on it for a bit less than a year, and I can't say if I've had improved mood. Maybe? It definitely fixed the psoriasis. Might also have contributed to me getting sick more often, though.

I wish I had kept logs with some sort of self-screen depression instrument now (maybe the BDI? I don't like the PHQ-9). Might as well start now.

New comment by null_name in "US President endorses bill to lock the clocks in current Daylight Savings Time"

null_name — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:02:27 +0000

I'm irked in general by the lack of attention given to solar time. If I ever get into Android hacking, it'll be so I can replace the system statusbar clock with a solar one.

I made a CLI utility that prints percent through the solar day/night that people might find useful: https://github.com/riley-martine/sundial

New comment by null_name in "I tried making artificial sunlight at home"

null_name — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:01:04 +0000

Really neat, thank you for posting. I took a different angle when trying to figure this out - my goals were high spectral similarity to the sun, high brightness, adjustable warmth, and low cost. The existing lower-cost solutions people have posted about end up with high brightness, but the lights are evil.

I ended up with a photography light that's /alright/. It's not nearly as bright as I want, and I can't automate changing the warmth. When I next take a crack at this, I'll look deeper into some of what you've posted about here.

New comment by null_name in "Revenge of the Junior Developer"

null_name — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 18:56:10 +0000

This sapling is twice as large as it was a week ago, which was twice again as large as it was the week before. Why, at this rate, it'll be bigger than the whole world in but a month.

New comment by null_name in "Revenge of the Junior Developer"

null_name — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 18:46:27 +0000

Yeah, call me a cynic or conservative or whatever - I'll believe it when I see it. I give very little weight to predictions about the future from AI shills, especially when they include some variant of "we're 90% there already" or "an exponential shift is imminent, if things keep improving at this rate, which they Will." Opinion discarded, create your thing and come back if/when it works.

Everything is shifting so fast right now that it hardly matters anyways. Whatever I spend time learning will be outdated in a few years (when things are predicted to get good). It does matter if you're trying to sell AI products, though. Then you gotta convince people they're missing out, their livelihood is at stake if they don't use your new thing now now now.

New comment by null_name in "The Burnout Machine"

null_name — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:37:32 +0000

I think it is possible to acknowledge that privilege, while still highlighting the things that suck for us, and the ways unions can help. I wish the article did this. I firmly believe there is a strong case to be made here. It gets muffled by the narrowness of the author's perspective.

I've worked in a kitchen and a warehouse for a while, I absolutely know how good we've got it. I have friends who tell me about people dying at their workplaces. Pretty much everyone I know who's not a programmer is living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'm still incredibly burnt out, and probably couldn't continue for another 6 months if my life depended on it.

New comment by null_name in "Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?"

null_name — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 02:17:44 +0000

Probably because programmers aren't generally also social workers, who help people like this day in and day out, with essential local context. Source: my partner does social work, I'm a programmer, and I'm now aware of how little I know here.

New comment by null_name in "A new Sudoku layout with 81 uniquely shaped cells"

null_name — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:39:54 +0000

completed the day's puzzle! it's a bit hard to keep the runs in my head. what if instead of run lines, the polygons had a background, like stripes for one run, checkers for another, and half/half for ones with both? I don't think this idea is quite right, but it might spark something from someone else.. I'm colorblind, which may have something to do with how hard it was to keep track of the runs. maybe they could be kept as lines, but with some as dashes, some dots, some solid, etc?

New comment by null_name in "A new Sudoku layout with 81 uniquely shaped cells"

null_name — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:13:41 +0000

having fun with this. I like the longer runs better but it feels kind of crowded, I wonder if you could optimize for fewer+longer? also just had the thought you could fit this into arbitrary bounding shapes, not just a square...

New comment by null_name in "Show HN: Krep a High-Performance String Search Utility Written in C"

null_name — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 23:17:59 +0000

Was this comment written by an LLM? What use, if any, did you make of LLMs when writing krep?

New comment by null_name in "TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]"

null_name — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 23:48:56 +0000

It's just you. I would rather hang out with this guy than anyone who has ever started a company.

New comment by null_name in "When your last name is Null, nothing works"

null_name — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:42 +0000

I needed to change my legal name because my existing one was unavoidable and distressing (trans reasons). I have, have had, and will have too many names to privilege one as "most correct." I've been trans too long to believe government names are "real" anyways, and I also didn't want the association with my birth family anymore. so I wanted an "empty" legal name, something that nobody calls me (but I won't be upset when doctors do), something that represents the rejection of the ultimate validity of itself, and something that sounds cool. I also like being just mildly annoying. $redacted_firstname Null fit.

The funny thing is, the real thing that's caused me problems is that I changed from a name with a middle name to one without. Some systems did not handle this transition well. PATCH instead of PUT, or something.

New comment by null_name in "When your last name is Null, nothing works"

null_name — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:37 +0000

my legal last name has been "Null" for a bit over half a year, and I've had no problems. before changing it, I asked a friend whose legal last name had been "Null" for a couple years. it hadn't had any issues. this article (and the one about the British guy) is overblown.