Hacker News: santoshalper

New comment by santoshalper in "Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore"

santoshalper — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:57:12 +0000

That link doesn't seem very credible. It looks like they were targeting an outcome, and bent the statistics to fit.

New comment by santoshalper in "Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux"

santoshalper — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:32:58 +0000

I don't think Microsoft would intentionally compete with Windows, but it does seem as though they are preparing for a world where Windows is no longer their golden goose, or at least hedging their bets. Given that Windows has already decisively lost the battle for servers, this seems prudent.

New comment by santoshalper in "AI is breaking two vulnerability cultures"

santoshalper — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:14:46 +0000

I'd say it's an old problem be exacerbated by AI.

New comment by santoshalper in "Knitting bullshit"

santoshalper — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:36:02 +0000

It's worked so well in the past, surely it will work this time.

New comment by santoshalper in "Knitting bullshit"

santoshalper — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:31:10 +0000

Yeah, but you have to realize we are on the losing side of this war. The armies of bullshit now have an incredible advantage that actual art can never have. At least in the past, there was some equilibrium. Bullshit was cheaper to make than art (or any other quality product), but now it has become infinitely cheaper to produce, and much more expensive for us to separate from the bullshit.

Think about this for a moment - it takes a company of 8 people to make 3000 podcast episodes a week. It would take far more than 8 people to listen to that many podcasts. How can we possibly hope to separate the wheat from the chaff? What happens when it's 30,000 episodes per week? 300,000. What possible hope does art and craft have against an army that is effectively infinite.

We can hope that the cream will rise to the top, but I am not optimistic. I genuinely believe we are watching the end of art and human creativity as it is absolutely drowned is mass slop.

tl;dr - we're fucked.

New comment by santoshalper in "Business Owners Are Worst Clients"

santoshalper — Sun, 03 May 2026 15:58:30 +0000

I think it's simpler than that. The business owner is spending their own money. When they feel (rightly or wrongly) that they are not getting what they paid for, they will feel ripped-off and angry.

The employee is spending someone else's money - they are more likely to be rational or even blasé about losses when it is not their money.

New comment by santoshalper in "The Tech Oligarch's Republic"

santoshalper — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:09:32 +0000

There really is no sense in pretending that this is not a white supremacy movement. They are saying it out loud. Now we just need to figure out what this means and how to deal with it.

New comment by santoshalper in "F-35 is built for the wrong war"

santoshalper — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:01:59 +0000

So we should expect the Strait of Hormuz to be open tomorrow, then?

New comment by santoshalper in "Claude.ai down"

santoshalper — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:26:28 +0000

I am not sure how many people learned it the first time. To be fair, it's really hard to build a business without major dependencies. The key is to assume they will fail and have alternatives available.

New comment by santoshalper in "Our commitment to Windows quality"

santoshalper — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 22:14:48 +0000

The ecosystem is the operating sytem.

New comment by santoshalper in "Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm"

santoshalper — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:20:16 +0000

For the same reason it isn't outlawed to begin with. It makes some wealthy, influential people even wealthier. They, not we, control our government.

New comment by santoshalper in "Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm"

santoshalper — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:18:25 +0000

Only the moral obligation not to prey on the weak. Gambling addicts are sick. Taking advantage of a sick person makes you scummy.

New comment by santoshalper in "Clockwise acquired by Salesforce"

santoshalper — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:12:33 +0000

Or they may just think the clockwise team is great and is willing to pay a small premium to get them.

New comment by santoshalper in "The Appalling Stupidity of Spotify's AI DJ"

santoshalper — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:25:10 +0000

I believe the person you are responding to was being facetious.

New comment by santoshalper in "The Appalling Stupidity of Spotify's AI DJ"

santoshalper — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:24:11 +0000

I love classical music, and I am convinced that 90% of the reason people think they don't is because of people like the Charles Petzold. Deriving your self worth from being an enjoyer of art that someone else created is the high pretention.

New comment by santoshalper in "AI Gets Wrong Woman Jailed for Six Months, Life Ruined"

santoshalper — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 17:47:25 +0000

I still wouldn't let AI off the hook here. Every link in the chain has to be accountable for fuckups. You don't get to pass it along to the supposed "human in the loop" when you fail spectacularly. That's how we end up with shitty "almost works" AI.

New comment by santoshalper in "Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown"

santoshalper — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:13:07 +0000

Not really. We absolutely have the option to let things play out in Iran and refuse to intervene. There are many regimes in Africa that are as bad or worse than Iran. We seem to have little interest in "regime change" there. You should think about why not.

New comment by santoshalper in "Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown"

santoshalper — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:10:30 +0000

Pound for pound, Hacker News has the best bad takes anywhere. This is an absolutely terrible take, but at least it's very interesting.

New comment by santoshalper in "My Snapdragon Dev Kit was healthy and working fine until a Windows update failed"

santoshalper — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 03:41:27 +0000

Two bugs occurring at the same time is definitely not one in a billion, and with billions of computers in the world, weird shit is going to happen.

New comment by santoshalper in "Yearly analytics on my spaced repetition results"

santoshalper — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:18:20 +0000

I think they just enjoy memorizing things. Roughly the equivalent of meeting someone who runs 10 miles a day. They enjoy it and it has some benefit to their life as well, even though they are probably far past the point of diminishing returns.