Hacker News: sb057

New comment by sb057 in ""They're made out of weights""

sb057 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:29:00 +0000

It continues to astound me that no one has given LLMs the full Derrida treatment.

New comment by sb057 in "We don't know why Malawi is poor"

sb057 — Fri, 15 May 2026 17:46:29 +0000

Rwanda has prospered for the past three decades while Malawi has floundered because Rwanda is run by an effective dictator engaging in developmentalist nation-building. Malawi has no equivalent power center, and certainly none with the beneficence to try and raise up their countrymen.

New comment by sb057 in "Metal Gear Solid 2's source code has been leaked on 4chan"

sb057 — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:48:15 +0000

https://www.deltaheadtranslation.com/MGS2/DOTM_TOC.htm

New comment by sb057 in "New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag"

sb057 — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:42:59 +0000

Had this statue been erected in 2006, it would’ve been an immortal masterpiece. Had it been sculpted in 2016, it would still have been a great statue but flawed. But it was made in 2026. Alas, what can one say?

New comment by sb057 in "LLMs consistently pick resumes they generate over ones by humans or other models"

sb057 — Sat, 02 May 2026 15:59:26 +0000

Well yeah, LLMs generate resumes (and other text) that they judge as superior to alternative plausible texts. Why would that judgement change just because a different instance hasn't seen it before? To anthropomorphize it, it's like having a hiring manager write a resume, get amnesia, and then have to judge it among other resumes.

New comment by sb057 in "I won a championship that doesn't exist"

sb057 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:13:07 +0000

I mean, the name of that whale is now Teresa T. You gave it that name.

New comment by sb057 in "Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930"

sb057 — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 06:48:47 +0000

The idea of using the moon as a weather satellite is rather ingenious.

New comment by sb057 in "Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics"

sb057 — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:40:19 +0000

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that it took over two years for this data to be released after it was collected.

New comment by sb057 in "Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call"

sb057 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 01:52:51 +0000

>which makes buildouts difficult without significant state support

Which is why I said to subsidize it as state policy in the original comment.

>cost to build is significantly higher in the US because land is privately owned

Which is why I said there should be liberal use of eminent domain in the original comment.

New comment by sb057 in "Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call"

sb057 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:42:03 +0000

The U.S. spends $500 billion a year on electricity[1]. $2 trillion dollars worth of bonds to lower the price per kWh is modest, especially given that it would enable new tax revenue from manufacturing and chemical production, where electricity is usually the highest input cost, even in China.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62945

New comment by sb057 in "Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call"

sb057 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:45 +0000

I am speaking from a position of total ignorance, so this is probably a dumb take, but I don't see why rich nations[1] don't simply subsidize mass nuclear energy production as state policy. The two main issues with nuclear are unit cost (solvable if you build dozens/hundreds in serial production) and financing (a reactor with a 30 year payback period is much more viable with 3.5% sovereign financing compared to 8% private bonds). France did it 50 years ago with more primitive reactor designs. China is currently doing it somewhat halfheartedly. I bet if the U.S. committed to $2 trillion to one standardized design and heavily used eminent domain, America would have knocked electricity costs down by half within a decade.

[1] Honestly probably only really viable in China and the U.S. plus maybe South Korea; nuclear is unpopular in Japan after Fukushima, and I doubt the E.U. would be able to coordinate everything. Everyone else is probably too poor outside of petrostates, which have the whole petro thing going on.

New comment by sb057 in "Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline"

sb057 — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:41:42 +0000

Just delete the model file?

New comment by sb057 in "What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves"

sb057 — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:36:00 +0000

See also: public school teachers. You either need to be insanely passionate or incredibly stupid to take ~$55k/year for long hours as an educator that is also a babysitter. And insanely passionate teachers are in short supply.

New comment by sb057 in "Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years"

sb057 — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 22:31:50 +0000

Also in the pipeline: elimination of jury trials

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2x01yne13o

We've freed Cookie's Bustle from copyright hell

sb057 — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 20:14:18 +0000

Article URL: https://gamehistory.org/cookies-bustle/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47238279

Points: 143

# Comments: 37

New comment by sb057 in "Seed of Might color correction process (2023) [pdf]"

sb057 — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:22:43 +0000

> They've pushed AV1 (and other) encoders forward substantially.

AFAIK fansubbers were the first to adopt 10-bit video, way back in 2011.

New comment by sb057 in "Operational issue – Multiple services (UAE)"

sb057 — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 20:25:47 +0000

Looking at Google Maps, there's Al Dhafra Air Base a couple of miles to the datacenter's south, an oil refinery a bit to the east, ports to the north, and a military academy to the west.

The Subject Supposed to Know Nothing: Lacan and the Large Language Model

sb057 — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 06:44:41 +0000

Article URL: http://thecombedthunderclap.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-subject-supposed-to-know-nothing.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098121

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by sb057 in "New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers"

sb057 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 01:39:31 +0000

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/23/ban-sales-po...

New comment by sb057 in "New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers"

sb057 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 01:36:12 +0000

Counterfeiting money is bad, and should be illegal (the wisdom of forcing such software into printers notwithstanding). Manufacturing your own products is good, and shouldn't be illegal.