Hacker News: o_nate

Progress: Real and Potemkin

o_nate — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:53:23 +0000

Article URL: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/progress-real-imaginary/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48466729

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by o_nate in "Ask HN: Does consciousness itself require memory?"

o_nate — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:15:26 +0000

I think there are two ways to interpret this question, not sure which one you meant.

Question one: if you don't remember being conscious, were you actually conscious?

Seems the answer should be yes. Just because you don't remember something doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Question two: can you be conscious without something like memory?

This one I think may depend on future understanding of what consciousness is. It seems like consciousness without any memory would be consciousness without anything like perception.

New comment by o_nate in "Doing nothing at work"

o_nate — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:57:28 +0000

There's a lot of wisdom in this. In addition to reserving some capacity for when true high-value work comes along, I think software engineering is not the type of job that you can do well if you're constantly busy. Trying to write some code as quickly as possible seldom yields the best design. This article doesn't get into another important aspect of this, which is how to get away with working at 80% capacity without getting in trouble with your manager. This takes a bit of care around communication and estimation of work. One of the first good pieces of advice that I got from older seasoned developers when I started my first real programming job has stayed with me to this day: take your estimate of how long it will take to do something and double it before communicating to your manager/users. As you get more experienced that ratio can come down to maybe 1.5x instead of 2x, but the principle still applies.

New comment by o_nate in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

o_nate — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:40:57 +0000

If students are allowed to use AI to accomplish their goals, then I think the real question is why should they go to an expensive university for four years to learn how to ask AI to do something?

New comment by o_nate in "There Is No 'Hard Problem of Consciousness'"

o_nate — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:45:12 +0000

The title may be needlessly aggressive. I think Rovelli could have framed this better by acknowledging there is a hard problem and then arguing that we have a better chance of resolving that problem by seeking a better understanding of conciousness as a physical process before drawing metaphysical lines in the sand. Or as Rovelli memorably puts it: "How can we know now what we would understand if we were to understand something we do not currently understand?" His point is that science is inextricable from subjective experience and subjective experience is inextricable from the physical world - a point made over 100 years ago by William James.

New comment by o_nate in "Biology is a Burrito: A text- and visual-based journey through a living cell"

o_nate — Fri, 01 May 2026 20:47:16 +0000

I'm currently reading (and enjoying) "How Life Works: A User's Guide to the New Biology" by Philip Ball. It proceeds from the bottom up: the first half is all about cells and smaller structures. Pretty readable but doesn't gloss over complexity.

Small Engines

o_nate — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:25:21 +0000

Article URL: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2026/03/25/very-small-engines/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606086

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by o_nate in "Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces, officials say"

o_nate — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:20:29 +0000

Yeah, I guess what goes around comes around. Bad if true though.

Coding Assistant Experience

o_nate — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:51:28 +0000

Article URL: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/coding-assistant-experience/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276510

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by o_nate in "Lines of Code Are Back (and It's Worse Than Before)"

o_nate — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:06:19 +0000

I don't think the author is missing this distinction. It seems that you agree with him in his main point which is that companies bragging about LOCs generated by AI should be ignored by right-thinking people. It's just you buried that substantive agreement at the end of your "rebuttal".

New comment by o_nate in "Clean Coder: The Dark Path (2017)"

o_nate — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:57:49 +0000

Between this and the debate about ideal method length with Ousterhout, my respect for Uncle Bob is plumbing new depths.

New comment by o_nate in "What if writing tests was a joyful experience? (2023)"

o_nate — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:24:08 +0000

This is a cool idea. I wish something like this existed for C#.

New comment by o_nate in "AI-Generated Tests as Ceremony"

o_nate — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:55:57 +0000

Lots of good observations in this article. I think that barring the possibility that LLMs become able to generate perfect, bug-free code, the question of how AI-generated code can be integrated with TDD is an important one. And as the author correctly points out, simply having the AI generate tests in addition to code is not the answer.

AI-Generated Tests as Ceremony

o_nate — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:29:56 +0000

Article URL: https://blog.ploeh.dk/2026/01/26/ai-generated-tests-as-ceremony/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46904767

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by o_nate in "The largest number representable in 64 bits"

o_nate — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:14:50 +0000

It's not a paradox, because there is nothing logically inconsistent in my definition, unlike the Berry paradox.

New comment by o_nate in "The largest number representable in 64 bits"

o_nate — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:02:44 +0000

Whatever largest number you can express in your system, I can represent a larger one in only one bit, using the following specification.

0=your largest number 1=your largest number + 1

New comment by o_nate in "A Mystery in Fixed Income"

o_nate — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 21:25:01 +0000

Feels like the answer is probably uncertainty about inflation?

New comment by o_nate in "Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]"

o_nate — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:49:17 +0000

It depends on the specifics of what was said. As the complaint states, OpenAI has yet to release the full transcripts.

New comment by o_nate in "Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]"

o_nate — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:47:56 +0000

Encouraging someone to commit a crime is aiding and abetting, and is also a crime in itself.

Facts I Heard This Year

o_nate — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 18:51:43 +0000

Article URL: https://zhengdongwang.com/2025/12/21/the-best-facts-i-heard-this-year.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46447049

Points: 3

# Comments: 0