Hacker News: saltwatercowboy

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.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Common drug tests lead to tens of thousands wrongful arrests a year"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 15:43:51 +0000

Neither are acceptable, so a third way must be found

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Suburban school district uses license plate readers to verify student residency"

saltwatercowboy — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 14:56:44 +0000

Increasing the price fosters a black market, econ 102

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar"

saltwatercowboy — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 22:25:30 +0000

jʊə ˈkɪlɪŋ miː smɔːlz!

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Show HN: I created a Mars colony RPG based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 20:22:08 +0000

This is so cool. How are you going to simulate Michel's longing for Provence? Seriously though I adore the trilogy. I started a Mars storymapping project which incorporated Underhill, Senzeni Na, the Moholes etc. a little while back too:

https://saltwatercowboy.github.io/marsinplace/

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?"

saltwatercowboy — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:02:44 +0000

My SSID similarly used to be "Two For Flinching" :)

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

saltwatercowboy — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:51:57 +0000

https://saltwatercowboy.github.io/albedo/

Simple site for simple needs :)

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Show HN: Scroll Wikipedia like TikTok"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 08:34:42 +0000

It is a cool goal... but I don't think it's a realistic one.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Show HN: Scroll Wikipedia like TikTok"

saltwatercowboy — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 11:48:27 +0000

I think you are taking this more seriously than the creator. It's just a bit of fun.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert"

saltwatercowboy — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 04:17:56 +0000

You mention it on your Wordpress.

New comment by saltwatercowboy in "Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert"

saltwatercowboy — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 19:49:33 +0000

I apologise. I write too and I've been bothered by LLM-generated content masquerading as the work it takes to tell an effective narrative. It was the combination of generated responses in the comments alongside what I thought was a generated image that set me off, but I was clearly being far too militant.