Hacker News: sandspar

New comment by sandspar in "Project Glasswing: Securing critical software for the AI era"

sandspar — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 07:40:28 +0000

Normalcy bias is human nature. If human nature bothers you then you're going to be annoyed all the time.

New comment by sandspar in "Retiring GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini in ChatGPT"

sandspar — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:58:06 +0000

One example I like to use is schadenfreude. The emotion makes us feel good and bad at the same time: it's pleasurable but in an icky way. So should social media algorithms serve schadenfreude? Should algorithms maximize for pleasure (show it) or for some kind of "higher self" (don't show it). If they maximize for "higher self" then which designer gets to choose what that means?

New comment by sandspar in "iPhone 16 Best-Selling Smartphone in 2025; Apple Takes 7 Spots in Top Models"

sandspar — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 03:07:34 +0000

I switched to iPhone from Android six months ago and still can't handle this iPhone keyboard. The iPhone keyboard aggravates me literally every single second that I use it. I hate it passionately. The iPhone keyboard is so bad that even though I love the rest of the phone, I'm considering switching back to Android.

New comment by sandspar in "Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game"

sandspar — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:57:35 +0000

Do you mean VR "in the cockpit" or in the stadium? Flight simming has a robust VR community. I assume ultra technical car racing sims like iRacing are fun to spectate in VR. Geoguessr seems like a natural fit for VR as well, as long as you can avoid neck injuries from craning your head around.

New comment by sandspar in "Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game"

sandspar — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:53:18 +0000

Joke answer but it would be fencing, if only we could convince people to turn their phones to landscape.

New comment by sandspar in "Your app subscription is now my weekend project"

sandspar — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 06:16:26 +0000

I assume the learning curve will get shallower over time. Onboarding is better than ever and will only improve. Lots of 70 and 80 year olds on Facebook now, and future Facebooks will verbally handhold you as you log on. "Press the red button that I just highlighted... great job!" etc.

New comment by sandspar in "Your app subscription is now my weekend project"

sandspar — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 06:14:11 +0000

Personally I hope we land on "widget" although I'd settle for "thingamabob"

New comment by sandspar in "Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy"

sandspar — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:53:03 +0000

Somewhat similar but I love my niche Instagram ads. Meta serves me endless ads for diecast miniatures, art toys, obscure manga etc. Stuff that I love and would never have found otherwise.

New comment by sandspar in "Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy"

sandspar — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 20:47:36 +0000

You don't need to disprove an underpowered study. You can just default to ignoring it. Especially in a field as notorious for replication issues as fitness and nutrition.

New comment by sandspar in "AI Chatbots Linked to Psychosis, Say Doctors"

sandspar — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 03:42:47 +0000

Hundreds of millions of users is a big ice cream scoop, and 1% of people will have a psychotic episode. Hard to avoid an overlap.

New comment by sandspar in "Experts explore new mushroom which causes fairytale-like hallucinations"

sandspar — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:57:13 +0000

>Caffeine increases pareidolia

I like that coffee is clearly a drug, a mind-alterer. But it's mostly harmless so it's been boosted as a sort of society-wide mascot. Humans really love drugs.

New comment by sandspar in "Experts explore new mushroom which causes fairytale-like hallucinations"

sandspar — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:50:00 +0000

Perhaps human-like creatures are so common in drug hallucinations because we're human, social animals, creatures who are maximally interested in other humans. If you gave drugs to dogs then perhaps they'd see human-like things mixed with dog-like things. I assume crocodiles, solitary animals, would see nothing besides wounded fish or maybe sexy female crocodiles.

New comment by sandspar in "Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?"

sandspar — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 07:12:24 +0000

What subjects or style do you like to draw?

New comment by sandspar in "Artist's collection of weird Google street view images gets major exhibit"

sandspar — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:42:50 +0000

Note that these are different than what Geoguessrs typically see. Geoguessr players are familiar with Google Street View's "odd but ugly" images: tropical forests in Russia, tank convoys in Turkey etc.

But TFA photos were selected by someone with a good eye for photography. They're beautifully composed, have clear subjects, well-timed.

Works of art vs curios.

New comment by sandspar in "FDA leaders propose new 'plausible mechanism' pathway for bespoke medicines"

sandspar — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 02:34:00 +0000

I got a Page Not Found

New comment by sandspar in "OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI"

sandspar — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 21:35:20 +0000

Probably in part, yes! Since it’s a pet peeve, I must be making extra special note of it every time I see it. So it’s probable that I’m overweighting it!

That being said I’m quite sure that it’s being used more frequently recently. For example, I read a shortish 2000-word article yesterday that uses the word “quietly” four times. And ChatGPT 5.1 used it in most of its responses. Also I’d expect that the frequency illusion wears off quite quickly, whereas I’ve noticed “quietly” for some time and the feeling doesn’t seem to be wearing off. Maybe you’ll start to notice it now too!

New comment by sandspar in "OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI"

sandspar — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 04:39:50 +0000

It’s definitely a useful word! Modern tech rollouts often do happen without fanfare. And the word alerts readers to a kind of story shape. So I can see why people use it! Its usage reminds me of when competitive video games develop a new meta, a new powerful technique. There follows a short period where everyone spams the technique over and over. Eventually people figure out a counter and the meta quietly disappears. (Couldn’t help myself!)

New comment by sandspar in "OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI"

sandspar — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 04:10:56 +0000

Totally unrelated but what’s up with the word “quietly”? Its usage seems to have gone up 5000%, essentially overnight, as if there’s a contagion. You see the word in the New York Times, in government press releases, in blogs. ChatGPT 5.1 itself used the word in almost every single response, and no amount of custom instructions could get it to stop. That “Google Maps of London restaurants” article that’s going around not only uses the word in the headline, but also twice in the closing passage alone, for example. And now Simon, who’s an excellent writer with an assertive style, has started using it in his headlines. What’s the deal? Why have so many excellent writers from a wide range of subjects suddenly all adopted the same verbal tic? Are these writers even aware that they’re doing it?

New comment by sandspar in "The "Mad Men" in 4K on HBO Max Debacle"

sandspar — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:45:06 +0000

You might want to look into workprints! They're versions of movies that are shown to test audiences, executives, or internal screeners. They're often pre-sound mixing, pre-editing, pre-VFX. So you get stuff like clip art explosions where later VFX will go, or bare production dialogue where you can hear the room echo and crew footsteps. They're super neat!

New comment by sandspar in "The "Mad Men" in 4K on HBO Max Debacle"

sandspar — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:36:01 +0000

In a way I actually prefer these versions. I love seeing how the sausage gets made. It turns the show into a quasi making-of documentary and that's a neat opportunity.