Hacker News: rgmerk

New comment by rgmerk in "What it feels like to work with Mythos"

rgmerk — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:20:48 +0000

It put the chart title directly on top of Australia.

Which just about sums up my experience with using LLMs to code, really (though not with these state-of-the-art models, admittedly) - it's amazing what they can do, but left to their own devices they'll make boneheaded decisions.

New comment by rgmerk in "90210 – running the show without property tax"

rgmerk — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 03:52:08 +0000

You could do this, but on all present evidence you won’t get anything that anyone would volunteer to watch.

New comment by rgmerk in "New arXiv policy: 1-year ban for hallucinated references"

rgmerk — Fri, 15 May 2026 02:43:32 +0000

Agreed. There was already too much human generated slop in academia.

And I’m not talking about good faith research that didn’t pan out, I mean research that is completely useless for any other purpose other than convincing a casual observer that the authors are doing research.

New comment by rgmerk in "New arXiv policy: 1-year ban for hallucinated references"

rgmerk — Fri, 15 May 2026 00:29:53 +0000

Good.

If it’s not worth your time to check the output of your LLM carefully, it’s not worth my time to read it.

New comment by rgmerk in "Googlebook"

rgmerk — Tue, 12 May 2026 22:41:42 +0000

I can assure you having observed the process of clothes shopping for the women in my life, that as far as they are concerned, clothes do not just “fit them”.

New comment by rgmerk in "The locals don't know"

rgmerk — Mon, 11 May 2026 04:25:32 +0000

Alcatraz or whale watching? Sure.

But Pier 39? I’d rather poke my eyeballs out with a stick. I can eat shitty fast food at home, thanks.

New comment by rgmerk in "Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price"

rgmerk — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 02:30:47 +0000

Good luck, but there’s a reason why subsistence farmers move to city slums as soon as they can.

New comment by rgmerk in "Cybersecurity looks like proof of work now"

rgmerk — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:27:28 +0000

Maybe I’m missing something, but there’s also the idea that you don’t need to be perfectly secure, you just need to be secure enough that it’s not worth the effort to break in.

In the case of crooks (rather than spooks) that often means your security has to be as good as your peers, because crooks will spend their time going with the best gain/effort ratio.

New comment by rgmerk in "Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets"

rgmerk — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 05:44:05 +0000

Dart/Wong for America ‘28 - Give America Back Its Groove.

New comment by rgmerk in "NRC issues first commercial reactor construction approval in 10 years [pdf]"

rgmerk — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:07:16 +0000

Can you link to it? I'm curious.

New comment by rgmerk in "NRC issues first commercial reactor construction approval in 10 years [pdf]"

rgmerk — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 01:29:18 +0000

In theory, at least, they have finished their design, had it reviewed by the NRC, and had it approved, so there should be no significant design changes.

But that also applies for the current generation of reactors and nobody can build them to schedule or budget in the USA or Europe.

New comment by rgmerk in "NRC issues first commercial reactor construction approval in 10 years [pdf]"

rgmerk — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 01:26:11 +0000

I did have the same thought, had a quick look (I'm not a polymarket user) and couldn't find a market relating to this project.

Put it this way, if it's in commercial operation by 2031 I'll eat my hat.

New comment by rgmerk in "NRC issues first commercial reactor construction approval in 10 years [pdf]"

rgmerk — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 01:04:13 +0000

Their hoped-for completion date is "2031". Anyone want to hazard a guess about what their actual completion date for this plant will be?

New comment by rgmerk in "Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation"

rgmerk — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 01:13:39 +0000

Hmmm. If we do simple extrapolation based on a battery density improvement rate of 5% a year, it takes about 30 years to get there. So it's not as crazy as it sounds - and it's also worth noting that there are incremental improvements in aerodynamics and materials so that gets you there faster...

However, as others have pointed out, the battery-powered plane doesn't get lighter as it burns fuel.

New comment by rgmerk in "Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver"

rgmerk — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 22:57:27 +0000

Home batteries are being installed at insane rates in Australia at the moment. Very few of them are Powerwalls because Tesla have priced themselves out of the market (and also Elon’s reputation is toast).

New comment by rgmerk in "Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is '50% cheaper' than new gas"

rgmerk — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:37:58 +0000

Pretty sure the answer is no, most of the time.

As I understand it (and even if I’m broadly right I’m greatly simplifying) there’s an auction system and if demand is X kilowatts, they line up all the bids to supply in cost order and draw a line at X kilowatts. All successful bidders receive the price bid by the highest successful bidder.

There are rare times in this kind of market where the price does go very high (though not to $1000 per kwh), and those brief periods push average prices up substantially.

In markets where batteries are going gangbusters, they are squashing many of these peaks and thus reducing average prices paid by consumers (though not as much as you’d hope because the majority of retail electricity costs are distribution rather than generation).

New comment by rgmerk in "Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place"

rgmerk — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:14:41 +0000

Worth keeping in mind that nobody freezes to death in FNQ if the power goes out.

New comment by rgmerk in "Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk"

rgmerk — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:02:06 +0000

Grow up in a place where roads have gravel on the shoulders and are made using coarse-chip seal and you’ll get them regularly.

New comment by rgmerk in "Flying Around the World in under 80 Days"

rgmerk — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 12:10:02 +0000

Hmmm. If, rather than flying close to sea level, you flew at high altitude (above commercial airliners), and kept it relatively small, I suspect that you could do this and no one would notice unless you told them.

Though at high altitudes the winds are such that it would be less of an airship and more of a steerable balloon.

New comment by rgmerk in "The next steps for Airbus' big bet on open rotor engines"

rgmerk — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:17:18 +0000

I would assume that these days you can simulate that increasingly accurately before you need a full-scale prototype.

They could also use active noise cancellation, which is already used in some turboprops like the Q400.