Hacker News: saltwatercowboy

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future"

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:51:43 +0000

Baxter's Flood, then Ark. Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, too. Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom is tonally similar, if you like Doctorow, although that explores a different manifestation of disconnection from others. All great for a romp

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Anthropic's ‘watermark’ text adulteration in Claude is a perversion of writing"

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 22:20:59 +0000

It's idiosyncratic to the point of uselessness in mine.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Anthropic's ‘watermark’ text adulteration in Claude is a perversion of writing"

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:27:31 +0000

Pangram doesn't work.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Revisiting Yliluoma's ordered dither algorithm"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 01:04:47 +0000

Give me a ring when they stop playing Free Bird

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "SpaceX stock erases all its gains and slides below IPO price in intraday trading"

saltwatercowboy — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:05:46 +0000

If the NASDAQ changes their inclusion rules to court SpaceX... it sort of does become all about SpaceX.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS"

saltwatercowboy — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:30:23 +0000

Very obviously because privacy advocates are concerned by the effects of mass deanonymization. I find it doubtful that you don't grasp that.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "AI 2040: Plan A"

saltwatercowboy — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:49:52 +0000

Thank you for contacting Gunmetal Ranch, a legitimate 501(c). If your call is related to the class-action "most dangerous game" settlement, please hold for a cowpoke.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth"

saltwatercowboy — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:47:10 +0000

This is a bit like suggesting we slather cars in vaseline to prevent traffic jams.

Maybe we could just blast Anish Kapoor into space on a one-man prison vessel instead?

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Are readers generating fiction with AI models?"

saltwatercowboy — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:02:18 +0000

Language game solipsism

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]"

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:14:09 +0000

AKA The Witness in Nick Harkaway's novel Gnomon.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)"

saltwatercowboy — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:49:39 +0000

I tend to make the LLM repeatedly generate images of itself as the 'sad clown Pagliacci'. As punishment.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Actually, democracy dies in H.R."

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 18 May 2026 17:18:24 +0000

I didn't propose it, just clarified what I believe to be their point.

I think it is a useful generalization when you possess a theory of mind, however. In low-trust environments, assuming criminal self-interest is often what keeps people safe... if you're basing your decision on a lack of information, wariness is warranted. Not every social environment is a conversational environment.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Actually, democracy dies in H.R."

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:29:03 +0000

I suppose the 'self-interest' of desiring a cigarette outweighs the 'self-interest' of preserving your health.

Reminds me of debating Bentham in high school. If the feeling of self-interest of a murderer acts upon is greater than the self-interest of someone not to be murdered, etc...

Maybe the point is not to reduce judgment to one qualitative idea.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Actually, democracy dies in H.R."

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:25:11 +0000

If you want an example, I guess the enthymeme would be:

a) Internet privacy is in one's self-interest

b) Many erroneously believe privacy on the internet to be goal of terrorists, hackers, etc.

c) A subset of these people then act against their own self-interest by vocally supporting mass surveillance, or voting in candidates who do so, in the name of the apparent self-interest of safety

I also didn't say anything about pro/antisocial people... different person.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Actually, democracy dies in H.R."

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:37:08 +0000

For sake of not derailing the discussion, I think the more appropriate reading would be "people act in what they believe to be self-interest", however flawed the notion of the benefit

Live facial recognition to be used across county [Cambridgeshire, UK]

saltwatercowboy — Wed, 13 May 2026 12:08:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedpgz9w22zo

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48120856

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "France moves to break encrypted messaging"

saltwatercowboy — Mon, 11 May 2026 07:06:07 +0000

What a delightfully complex and speculative ecosystem we've developed. Sure do hope that no-one uses the compound key of all of a person's purchases, movements, and interpersonal communications for anything bad. Gee. Just gotta wonder what those eggheads are up to!

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 10 May 2026 23:36:22 +0000

Slapping together an image dithering toolkit to help with album cover stylization. Partly making sure I can replicate it down the line... but also finding an aesthetic, non-commercial motivation I thought I'd forgotten at work.

Some finished covers (https://saltwatercowboy.github.io/albedo/pages/en-10-05-26.h...). Next up pixel sorting.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Getting arrested in Japan"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 10 May 2026 07:45:46 +0000

No one is disagreeing with you, but we're not talking about that just now.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'?"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 15:46:43 +0000

Stupidity and avarice, despite being unsatisfying answers, are sometimes the correct ones.