Hacker News: rznicolet

I set a trap for a book-marketing scammer (2025)

rznicolet — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:08:25 +0000

Article URL: https://rwwgreene.substack.com/p/i-set-a-trap-for-a-book-marketing

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402181

Points: 88

# Comments: 59

Dynamical dark energy and the week that broke cosmology

rznicolet — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:10:01 +0000

Article URL: https://perimeterinstitute.ca/news/dynamical-dark-energy-and-week-broke-cosmology

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49381991

Points: 54

# Comments: 27

New comment by rznicolet in "LEDs’ potential to save our night skies"

rznicolet — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:44:25 +0000

It's even funnier that, at least around here, one of the biggest crime problems is people stealing copper wiring... from streetlights...

New comment by rznicolet in "AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study"

rznicolet — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:15:25 +0000

Small counterpoint to your analogy, as someone who studied astrophysics: I actually did have a requirement to understand general relativity! Deriving all of it independently from scratch wasn't something we did, but there _were_ derivations involved. And it was definitely worth working through -- it _is_ a good tool for understanding. (I've long since left the field, but I don't regret the work I did.)

New comment by rznicolet in "The Wormhole Hall of Shame"

rznicolet — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:13:37 +0000

In which I expound on a very petty complaint about fictional wormholes.

The Wormhole Hall of Shame

rznicolet — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:13:37 +0000

Article URL: https://rznicolet.com/2026/07/05/wormhole-hall-of-shame/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48793607

Points: 3

# Comments: 3

New comment by rznicolet in "Doing nothing at work"

rznicolet — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:21:04 +0000

This reminds me very much of Buffer Time from Star Trek: Lower Decks, but applies pretty well to a lot of life. No slack = no margin for error or the unexpected...

New comment by rznicolet in "Thoughts on "The Machine Stops""

rznicolet — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 13:42:01 +0000

I reread the famed short story recently, and had some thoughts about how we could try to avoid the bad ending in real life.

Thoughts on "The Machine Stops"

rznicolet — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 13:42:01 +0000

Article URL: https://rznicolet.com/2026/03/19/thoughts-on-the-machine-stops/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47439293

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by rznicolet in "The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist"

rznicolet — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 02:15:02 +0000

And, with publishers, you can get both monopoly _and_ monopsony problems. The latter is, I believe, one reason the attempt to consolidate from Big Five to Big Four failed -- I'm forgetting which two publishers were trying to merge, but angry authors talking about having difficulty selling books, and reduced pay for them, was a key argument.

New comment by rznicolet in "The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist"

rznicolet — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 02:12:42 +0000

Yeah... for new stuff, I follow authors I already like on social media and see what they recommend from other folks (and why). I've had a miss or two, but that's generally a good start.

New comment by rznicolet in "The stagnancy of publishing and the disappearance of the midlist"

rznicolet — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 02:05:58 +0000

As somebody whose first book came out last month from a (very) small indie press... yeah. In trad publishing, once you've got an agent (not an insignificant step), you only have a handful of shots at the Big Five publishers with your manuscript. If they don't want it? It's small press or self-pub, and good luck getting your book above the sea of mediocrity.

The novel I've got out is urban fantasy, but what I _really_ want to get out there is the hard science fiction series entirely from the aliens' points of view... which is very much not a fit with the current zeitgeist. Because that's unlikely to be a blockbuster, if I ever want to see it in print, I'll probably have to do it myself, with a proportionately diminished chance of finding readers.

(And all this is one reason why writers have day jobs. I'll be pleasantly surprised if my novel income hits even 1% of my tech job salary this year.)

New comment by rznicolet in "Ask HN: What book are you reading?"

rznicolet — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:11:42 +0000

Blood of the Old Kings, by Sung-Il Kim (translated by Anton Hur). Absolutely fabulous fantasy novel -- it's an about folks in an empire literally powered by the dead, and the folks fighting against its worst excesses. Very strange, mythological magic and excellent ethical through-line. This is a reread for me before I dive into the sequel.

New comment by rznicolet in "Auto-grading decade-old Hacker News discussions with hindsight"

rznicolet — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 02:51:42 +0000

You joke, but, alas, there is a _real_ company kinda trying to do this. Reflect Orbital[1] wants to set up space mirrors, so you can have daytime at night for your solar panels! (Various issues, like around light pollution and the fact that looking up at the proposed satellites with binoculars could cause eye damage... don't seem to be on their roadmap.) This is one idea that's going to age badly whether or not they actually launch anything, I suspect.

Battery tech is too boring, but seems more likely to manage long-term effectiveness.

[1] https://www.reflectorbital.com

I set a trap for a book-marketing scammer (2025)

rznicolet — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:24:08 +0000

Article URL: https://rwwgreene.substack.com/p/i-set-a-trap-for-a-book-marketing

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197161

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

An Abbreviated Survey of AI (In Fiction)

rznicolet — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:05:54 +0000

Article URL: https://rznicolet.com/2025/09/19/an-abbreviated-survey-of-ai-in-fiction/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45301260

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by rznicolet in "AI is killing the web – can anything save it?"

rznicolet — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:11:15 +0000

Yes... but that ocean has a lot of trash and algal blooms to work around. If you're not careful, you end up the sea turtle with a stomach full of plastic.

That issue of varying quality of web-based information (and varying ability to assess said quality) has also been the case for a long time.

New comment by rznicolet in "The New Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Is Smaller or Rarer Than It Looks"

rznicolet — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 20:42:36 +0000

Watch the source - Avi Loeb has a poor reputation among solar system astronomers _and_ scientists who work on SETI and exobiology, due to poorly supported claims of alien (meaning intelligent) origin for many different things, including 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object found.

We'll get more data on this object as it comes deeper into the solar system. There's a lot of speculation going around, so don't over-index on any one person (but especially not this one). Odds are good it's "just" a very interesting comet.

New comment by rznicolet in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)"

rznicolet — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:33:28 +0000

Writing SFF novels!

I need to put it up on the ol' blog-thing, but I've signed a contract with a small press for a debut novel, which is highly exciting. That one's urban fantasy from the point of view of the wizard's magic cloak. (You better believe it has opinions.)

Meanwhile, I've been working on a novel about a group of time travelers who accidentally get stuck in the Permian, well before the dinosaurs. Surprise! There are still big animals that can eat you, they're just more weird (and not as big). The research for that one has been wild.

The ol' blog thing, where I post story-related tidbits and such: https://rznicolet.com

New comment by rznicolet in "How people get rich now (2021)"

rznicolet — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:38:51 +0000

The 100 richest people are (by design) going to be very unrepresentative of the whole, depending on how "rich" is defined. How does the balance between inheritance and other sources of wealth shift if we look further down the list?

I suspect the late 1800s, another era when inheritance was a lesser source of extreme wealth, may also be unrepresentative of the "typical" state. Massive upheavals in technology (mass production, computerization/Internet) seem to me to be more likely to be exceptions, rather than the rule, over very long time horizons.

Regardless, we may be entering another era of consolidation since this article was written. It will be... interesting... to see how it shakes out.