Hacker News: patkai

New comment by patkai in "Did my old job only exist because of fraud?"

patkai — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 06:47:42 +0000

Behind many, but I sincerely hope not "every". A trivial counterexample is Warren Buffet: he simply saved and invested. Or consider inventors with patents.

New comment by patkai in "Oxide raises $200M Series C"

patkai — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:53:26 +0000

Same here. As a teenager I dreamt about working for SUN. Oxide comes close in a way.

New comment by patkai in "ELIZA is Turing Complete"

patkai — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 09:28:57 +0000

I admit that I am a skeptic, but my first try [1] gave an intriguing response, so I will continue playing with it.

[1] https://galactica.org/?prompt=what+is+the+relationship+betwe...

New comment by patkai in "The gut microbiome helps social skills develop in the brain in fish"

patkai — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:22:10 +0000

Some say it's a symbiosis

New comment by patkai in "Meta lays off 11,000 people"

patkai — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:39:44 +0000

Where would you advertise for ex-Meta or ex-Twitter developers?

New comment by patkai in "A singular scientist: James Lovelock"

patkai — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 13:48:21 +0000

I've just finished his autobiography "Homage to Gaia". I've read dozens of scientists' biographies, but this stands out. Funny, unusual, very warm and humane with a lot of good thoughts about work, freelancing, science and history. Very recommended. My favorite story is when NASA asks him how to detect life on Mars and he answers "by an entropy reduction meter". The rest of the story is epic and very educational!

New comment by patkai in "The Peter Principle (1974) [video]"

patkai — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 07:26:27 +0000

Yes, by far! The Gervais Principle is brilliant and after reading it a lot falls into place. It also corroborates with Slava's experience https://www.spakhm.com/p/how-to-get-promoted

New comment by patkai in "Smoking, alcohol and high BMI are leading risk factors for global cancer deaths"

patkai — Sat, 20 Aug 2022 11:34:45 +0000

I thought that the emotional life-history pattern of cancer patients is quite well researched and linking trauma, anxiety and stress to cancer is not his hypothesis, he is just popularizing it.

New comment by patkai in "Smoking, alcohol and high BMI are leading risk factors for global cancer deaths"

patkai — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 14:46:31 +0000

Correct! Worth checking the work of Gabor Mate on this. He claims that trauma is the key.

New comment by patkai in "Learnings of a CEO: Wade Foster, Zapier"

patkai — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 08:15:57 +0000

> it's often the CTO

This is interesting. Do others have the same experience? (I don't have a large enough sample to tell.)

New comment by patkai in "Learnings of a CEO: Wade Foster, Zapier"

patkai — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 08:13:13 +0000

> Eric Schmidt was running the show at Google

Was he really? I always thought he was more of a coach to the founders.

New comment by patkai in "FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes"

patkai — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 13:56:01 +0000

that part can be outsourced to eg. Hetzner

New comment by patkai in "Is the madness ever going to end?"

patkai — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 09:01:14 +0000

"it's not something where you throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks and just assume that programming languages, browsers, and operating systems are made of magical dust"

Actually, it is - and he just described evolution. And for the record, I don't like it, but what can I do. Would like to go to the cathedral, but I'm stuck in the bazaar.

New comment by patkai in "The metaverse is bullshit"

patkai — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 09:00:09 +0000

The Metaverse is not bullshit. It is a brilliant tool to replace reality, control it and tax it. And it _will_ happen, the only question is who will implement it.

New comment by patkai in "Pico-1K Jam: Make Something Cool in Pico-8 in 1024 Characters"

patkai — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 08:22:28 +0000

Sad that we are not paying for software nowadays. Look at the consequences!

New comment by patkai in "Tesla CEO berated employees, investors and tried to get rid of safety measures"

patkai — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 20:37:53 +0000

I agree with you. Also, the Gervais principle should be required reading for everybody on HN. Half of the discussions would be so much simpler. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ To put it simple: it would be hard to operate a large organization without some of the above mentioned tendencies. Regarding awful fathers: what do we know about the father of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos or even Arnold Schwarzenegger? All of this plays out in society in a non-black-and-white way.

New comment by patkai in "Against SQL"

patkai — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 09:10:08 +0000

Am surprised that in such a long thread nobody mentions RethinkDB.

New comment by patkai in "Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Instagram for children [pdf]"

patkai — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 19:36:50 +0000

Everybody should take responsibility, parents first and also Zuckerberg.

New comment by patkai in "High minds, low politics: The lives of four revolutionary thinkers"

patkai — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 19:28:19 +0000

May be unrelated, but the question is killing me: what caption would you give to the photo at the top of the article?

New comment by patkai in "# of days since the last alg=none JWT vulnerability"

patkai — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 14:02:52 +0000

Please, everyone, do this more often! So simple and so powerful.