Hacker News: polpenn

New comment by polpenn in "The Real Luxuries In Life"

polpenn — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 20:53:43 +0000

I agree with some of what you listed here but a few I think are critical to being human. What's the point of not having needs?

Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.

I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.

New comment by polpenn in "I'd rather read the prompt"

polpenn — Mon, 05 May 2025 03:09:59 +0000

Here’s something I sometimes do to avoid boring content when using LLMs: I type out what it gives me and tweak it as I go instead of copy/pasting directly.

It helps me spot the bits that feel flat or don’t add much, so I can cut or rework them—while still getting the benefit of the LLM’s idea generation.

New comment by polpenn in "Introduction to Legion: life in the Roman army"

polpenn — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 21:32:17 +0000

Life expectancy was probably in the late 30s to early 40s during this time so you’re basically working for the rest of your life.

New comment by polpenn in "A coder considers the waning days of the craft"

polpenn — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 18:47:52 +0000

I think the impact of AI is not between good jobs va bad jobs but between good workers and bad workers. For a given field, AI is making good workers more efficient and eliminating those who are bad at their jobs (e.g. the underperforming accountant who is able to make a living doing the more mundane tasks whose job is threatened by spreadsheets and automation)

New comment by polpenn in "Kentucky made child care free for child care workers"

polpenn — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 17:34:41 +0000

Why should people who don’t own cars pay for highways?

Why should cyclist have to pay for public transportation?

Also children now will be your future doctor, nurse, bus driver, scientist, plumber, etc. so probably worthwhile making an investment in public goods that support their development.

Art on demand: DALLE2 on EPaper

polpenn — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 01:14:35 +0000

Article URL: https://famousdirector.github.io/DALLEePaperFrame/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32245937

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Bankers Need 72-Hour a Week to Master Job

polpenn — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 15:04:36 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-20/wall-street-jpmorgan-exec-says-why-bankers-need-to-work-72-hours-a-week

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27907282

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by polpenn in "Launch HN: Bedrock AI (YC S21) – Using ML to identify red flags in SEC filings"

polpenn — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 19:11:15 +0000

Great work! I work in financial services and built a similar tool for sentiment analysis and topic modelling on transcribed earnings calls. The idea was to identify topics at a speaker-level (analyst, management, etc.) and evaluate the sentiment around that topic. For example, perhaps "foreign exchange" was discussed negatively by a given company in an earnings call, which would alert the analyst to review that call in greater detail.

Are you guys thinking about incorporating something like this into your product?

Employers who use software to take screenshots of workers’ computers

polpenn — Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:14:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/youre-working-from-home-but-your-company-is-still-watching-you-11587202201

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22909198

Points: 110

# Comments: 121

Middle Age Misery Peaks at Age of 47.2

polpenn — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 03:53:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-13/middle-age-misery-peaks-at-age-of-47-2-economist-says

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22051639

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

He Thought His Phone Was Secure; Then He Lost $24M to Hackers

polpenn — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 15:36:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/he-thought-his-phone-was-secure-then-he-lost-24-million-to-hackers-11573221600?mod=rsswn

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21498358

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by polpenn in "What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?"

polpenn — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 21:05:23 +0000

Something I’ve always wondered about the programming / software development profession: do people buy insurance for their hands?

My sister is a denturists and she has insurance for her hands. Curious if this is something people in our profession have considered to protect from incidents like this.

New comment by polpenn in "The human impact of having too few nurses"

polpenn — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 03:20:44 +0000

My wife is a nurse. She became one because she needed something that would help her make money quickly to help her family.

If she did not face this constraint, she could have taken the traditional route of going to university and, possibly, becoming a doctor.

New comment by polpenn in "I made a smart watch from scratch"

polpenn — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 17:50:45 +0000

How much harder would it be to build an ebook reader?

How not to say the wrong thing

polpenn — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 03:52:54 +0000

Article URL: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696974

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by polpenn in "The one-salary experiment, ten years in"

polpenn — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 02:20:54 +0000

Current company knows his worth. New company doesn’t so your teammate has informational advantage and can negotiate a higher salary.

Scientist claims First Gene-edited Babies Born in China

polpenn — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 16:52:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/first-gene-edited-babies-research-china-1.4920434

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18534665

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by polpenn in "Where Oil Rigs Go to Die (2017)"

polpenn — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 19:36:29 +0000

Why not repurpose the rigs for residential use?

New comment by polpenn in "Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?"

polpenn — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 18:10:31 +0000

Life, by default, is suffering.

The surprise is not the fact that there is suffering around the world, but how we managed to achieve the level of prolonged peaceful co-existence that we have today.

We should act in such a way that suffering or chaos is reduced---however small such reduction may be.

Suppose you had a choice between watching T.V. and washing the dishes. Watching T.V. means, perhaps, that your spouse will need to do the dishes. You can reduce overall suffering by choosing to do the dishes instead of watching T.V.

Given that the default path of most processes is chaos, we should always act in a way that prevents this.

Vast.ai: powerful, affordable, rental GPUs

polpenn — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 02:55:41 +0000

Article URL: https://vast.ai/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17956864

Points: 1

# Comments: 0