Hacker News: patrickmay

New comment by patrickmay in "I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program"

patrickmay — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:33:00 +0000

> Personal information usually does include photos of someone in public without their consent

This is not the case in the United States. There is no presumption of privacy in public. In fact, there is a whole genre known as "street photography" that involves taking pictures in public without explicit consent of the subjects.

New comment by patrickmay in "A perfectable programming language"

patrickmay — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:22:46 +0000

Here's a good summary of the limited evidence for the benefits of strong type systems: https://danluu.com/empirical-pl/

New comment by patrickmay in "A perfectable programming language"

patrickmay — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:11:34 +0000

I came here to comment "We already have Lisp."

New comment by patrickmay in "Bouncer: Block "crypto", "rage politics", and more from your X feed using AI"

patrickmay — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 18:33:46 +0000

I find that using Control Panel for Twitter (not affiliated, just a happy customer) to see only the Following tab in reverse chronological order makes X tolerable. There is no benefit to For You.

New comment by patrickmay in "Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated"

patrickmay — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 02:39:37 +0000

As a (sometime) TPM, you are the kind of PM I've been looking for.

New comment by patrickmay in "Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated"

patrickmay — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 02:31:39 +0000

I'd bet if you read the Dragon book (yes, I'm dating myself) you'd have something working in less than three months. More importantly, you would understand every bit of it.

New comment by patrickmay in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

patrickmay — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:42:05 +0000

Congratulations on finding out that you have good taste by default.

New comment by patrickmay in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

patrickmay — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:38:57 +0000

> Sometimes we use . . . Oxford commas.

Good writers ALWAYS use the Oxford comma.

New comment by patrickmay in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

patrickmay — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 22:17:41 +0000

I'm sorry you're going through this and I'm impressed that you are in touch enough with your feelings to articulate it.

There's a lot of great advice in this thread. The best I have is to 1) Join a gym and go consistently. Nothing improves your mood like endorphins. Plus, at 38 you'll be amazed at what kind of shape you can get in. 2) Meditate. Learning to be present and grounded will enable you to decide who you want to be and who you want to be with. One I like is called Quantum Light Breath, particularly the version from Jeru Kabbal. It's a guided meditation so you can do it alone, although it is great in a group as well. Spoiler: It has nothing to do with quantum mechanics or the physics of light. There is a lot of breathing, though.

Good luck.

New comment by patrickmay in "Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting"

patrickmay — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:33:40 +0000

I understand and appreciate your perspective. I do, however, disagree with your priorities. I mostly read here, but when I participate I want to interact with humans, not chatbots. I would much rather read a human comment with typos and poor grammar than another piece of anodyne LLM output that shows only that the responsible party doesn't value the human interaction that I do.

New comment by patrickmay in "Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting"

patrickmay — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:15:50 +0000

You're giving me flashbacks to PGP key signing parties.

I do like your idea, though.

New comment by patrickmay in "this css proves me human"

patrickmay — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:24:24 +0000

I use em-dashes, but I use them incorrectly, with a space before and after, because I think it looks better. I'm waiting to be flagged as an LLM.

New comment by patrickmay in "Don't make me talk to your chatbot"

patrickmay — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:41:28 +0000

I regret that I have but one upvote to give to this comment.

New comment by patrickmay in "Ape Coding [fiction]"

patrickmay — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:01:59 +0000

If you're selling Ape Coding merchandise, send me the link!

New comment by patrickmay in "I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported"

patrickmay — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 15:52:39 +0000

> Just as we don't use mainframes for computation anymore outside of niche tasks like 3D render farms.

The entire banking sector would like a word.

Trump directs federal agencies to cease use of Anthropic

patrickmay — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:26:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-is-directing-federal-agencies-cease-use-anthropic-technology-2026-02-27/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185854

Points: 11

# Comments: 2

New comment by patrickmay in "Court finds Fourth Amendment doesn’t support broad search of protesters’ devices"

patrickmay — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:48:17 +0000

A good start would be requiring police officers to carry individual liability insurance so that municipalities aren't paying for these lawsuits. If someone can't get insurance, they can no longer be a cop.

New comment by patrickmay in "Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoiding public oversight"

patrickmay — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 22:48:34 +0000

I suspect you're getting downvoted because the phrasing of your question implies that you don't consider this type of surveillance to be a problem.

New comment by patrickmay in "The true history of the Minotaur: what archaeology reveals"

patrickmay — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:59:04 +0000

So we know the minotaur probably didn't speak English.

New comment by patrickmay in "Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation"

patrickmay — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 15:29:59 +0000

Many (most?) issues don't fit on a single dimension. Using your example, people hold positions that include "Absolutely!", "Yes, but also the rights of the mother.", "Yes, but I won't impose my beliefs on others.", "No, but I don't think people who feel otherwise should be forced to pay for abortions through taxes.", and many others.

In addition to the problem with biased questions you note, there are often built in assumptions that make yes or no responses impossible.