Hacker News: panflute

New comment by panflute in "Mocked by a scandal sheet, Kierkegaard endured months of personal attacks"

panflute — Mon, 18 May 2026 17:42:41 +0000

How would the rise of dash usage in LLMs have arised if a significant portion of non-LLM writers weren't inclined to take them up and make them more common? The only explanation I see is that they are common in training materials we don't as commonly consume as website visitors.

New comment by panflute in "Germany's spy agency picks French AI firm over Palantir"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 22:28:30 +0000

If the world won't stand up even to a diminishing US then it definitely will need to learn Chinese to speak to its next master.

New comment by panflute in "Germany's spy agency picks French AI firm over Palantir"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 18:49:37 +0000

An isolated USA benefits 211 nations.

New comment by panflute in "Mistral's CEO: Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:37:11 +0000

Deepseek is open in the sense that you can run V3 or V4 it is not open in the sense that you have all the tools a Chinese company has to make the V5 that will be needed to keep up with the US.

New comment by panflute in "Trials on veterans suggest ibogaine could provide a new treatment for PTSD"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:19:44 +0000

Again I'm a bit baffled as to what the unstated thought process is. Ibogain and Saliva divinorum share a short term dysphoric experience from kappa opioid receptor interference that might be an effective way to eliminate Trauma from earlier memories. Why use the more dangerous of the two and why avoid the experience if the experience is the intervention?

New comment by panflute in "Security researcher says Microsoft built a Bitlocker backdoor, releases exploit"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 16:41:17 +0000

Sure sounds like rhetorical questions or attacking the messenger. Someone can think the bounty industry is going to reward them for actually being exceptional and not look soon enough for other options then pivot to a stance that should give them some quick job offers. If I thought I found an intentional back door I would not engage with an embargo system from the same vendor but I am also not them.

New comment by panflute in "Trials on veterans suggest ibogaine could provide a new treatment for PTSD"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 14:54:29 +0000

Maybe I have a liberal view of ballpark sizes but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine

"The action of ibogaine at the κ-opioid receptor may indeed contribute significantly to the psychoactive effects attributed to ibogaine ingestion; Salvia divinorum, another plant recognized for its strong hallucinogenic properties contains the chemical salvinorin A, which is a highly selective κ-opioid agonist"

New comment by panflute in "Trials on veterans suggest ibogaine could provide a new treatment for PTSD"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 14:14:08 +0000

It seems strange to me to choose ibogaine when Salvia divinorum seems like it has a similar psychological experience without the physical heart risk.

New comment by panflute in "OpenAI and Government of Malta partner to roll out ChatGPT Plus to all citizens"

panflute — Sun, 17 May 2026 10:59:57 +0000

What was notable about Malta is not the topic of the article and particularly irrelevant now that corruption in Malta that helps Russia would not be notable.

New comment by panflute in "I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows"

panflute — Sat, 16 May 2026 16:52:08 +0000

Bizarre PoV from my perspective. The failure of modern computing is Apple UI drivel and Ubuntu is particularly bad since it has that silly settings UI. May LLMs free us of Jobs and the need to know where to click and how to describe our computing experience like a mall we are lost in.

New comment by panflute in "SQL patterns I use to catch transaction fraud"

panflute — Sat, 16 May 2026 09:29:22 +0000

That sounds reasonable for some states but 5 states have no sales tax and many states have exclusions to sales tax. Many of those are also likely to have rural areas where small businesses like to use even amounts.

New comment by panflute in "Plato's Cave and the Rise of the Highly Educated Radical"

panflute — Fri, 15 May 2026 18:24:51 +0000

Personally I find it a little condescending to imply the highly educated shouldn't be more politically violent than average. Studying the history of political violence is probably not going to lead to a simple heightening of the 8th grade view that Gandhi somehow eliminated earlier methods because he proved the British Empire of a hundred years ago was especially susceptible to shame.

New comment by panflute in "Overseas fakers using AI videos to push a narrative of UK decline, BBC finds"

panflute — Fri, 15 May 2026 11:32:35 +0000

In the past I think people were equally wrong when assuming their real life was accurately similar to average for the entire society they lived in and not a regional and perhaps class based bubble. I think there was a short period when amateur media was correcting more misconception than adding to it.

New comment by panflute in "Ask HN: How to be SOC2 Type 2 compliant as a solo-entreprenuer?"

panflute — Fri, 15 May 2026 09:30:43 +0000

I've seen a small company do a SOC2 where the "CEO" seems to be the only actual employee..

Its a lot of paperwork but it is supposed to scale for company size so you could dismiss with a lot of the separation if the CEO accepts risks and perhaps relies on a fair amount of external systems that are already certified and has some contractors for specific tasks etc.

New comment by panflute in "More than sixty percent of the United States is experiencing drought conditions"

panflute — Fri, 15 May 2026 09:18:25 +0000

They've been doing it for a hundred years what they can't do is change back the weather.

New comment by panflute in "AI is making me dumb"

panflute — Fri, 15 May 2026 08:22:27 +0000

I don't think many developers like software bloat or what it has meant for our professional reputation but we would be dishonest if we predicted a future without outcomes where ugly brute force wins given all the constraints. It is not Moore's law that dictates context window that is only an analogy and so far it has been exponential growth that went from well bellow humans to more than a human can deal with in terms of short term tasks.

New comment by panflute in "AI is making me dumb"

panflute — Thu, 14 May 2026 21:24:43 +0000

True, yet they have a Moore's Law like growth going for properties like their context windows.. I think the larger problem with letting them be verbose is Occam's razor. The more verbose they are the more variant behavior they will have where any variation that is not strictly necessary is likely to include incorrect behavior.

New comment by panflute in "What the Hell Was Going on with Cigarette Ads in the 70s? (2024)"

panflute — Thu, 14 May 2026 21:07:45 +0000

The airplanes were awful, usually with silly little signs stuck in some seats to designate the switchover which the smoke didn't seem to respect. I was in a train brought back to service from smoking times a few years ago and the stench still emanating from the fabric seats brought back those memories right away.

New comment by panflute in "Cisco workforce reductions"

panflute — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:40:36 +0000

Crazy is imagining an employer is of high integrity for your self esteem. How can a company that is high integrity compete with one that gets the same rewards while being of low integrity?

New comment by panflute in "USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to Plains Drought"

panflute — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:12:58 +0000

I think these changes were mostly from earlier factors but will pressure the prices of soybeans in the opposite direction from the wheat shortage which isn't very good (for soy bean farmers) given the risk that higher fertilizer costs isn't adequately reflected at the next harvest time.