Hacker News: scrozier

New comment by scrozier in "Show HN: Hacker Smacker – Spot great (and terrible) HN commenters at a glance"

scrozier — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:42:40 +0000

As a boomer, I had fun trying to decode your last sentence!

New comment by scrozier in "Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model"

scrozier — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 19:55:11 +0000

> Taste continues to be the single most important thing. The vast, vast majority of AI art out there is...not very good. It's not going to get better, because the lack of taste isn't a technical problem.

This is precisely and importantly true. I just wonder if most of the world cares. I'd like to think so, but experience tells me that most of the world is satisfied with mediocre stuff. And I don't say this as a criticism; it's just a fact that artists have to come to grips with.

New comment by scrozier in "It’s been a very hard year"

scrozier — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:15:26 +0000

I'm sure author's company does good work, but the marketplace doesn't respond well to, "we're really, _really_ good,", "trust me," "you won't be disappointed." It not only feels desperate, but is proof-free. Show me your last three great projects and have your customers tell me what they loved about working with you. Anybody can say, "seriously, we're really good."

New comment by scrozier in "ADS-B Exposed"

scrozier — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:58:31 +0000

Eschew abbreviations!

New comment by scrozier in "The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million"

scrozier — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:56:42 +0000

Absolutely. And thank you for that.

New comment by scrozier in "The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million"

scrozier — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 18:14:57 +0000

Thank you. While abbreviations are handy for those in the know, it's so helpful for general readers if one takes a moment to spell things out.

New comment by scrozier in "AI Horseless Carriages"

scrozier — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:51:33 +0000

Serious question? Good literature that's not sci-fi? Hard to know where to start. For (mostly) "Western" literature, here's a good list:

https://thegreatestbooks.org/

I'm sure there are others for other cultures.

New comment by scrozier in "AI Horseless Carriages"

scrozier — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 04:52:07 +0000

Do you limit your reading to sci-fi? There is a world of amazing literature out there with much better ideas, characters, and plots.

New comment by scrozier in "AI Horseless Carriages"

scrozier — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 18:50:03 +0000

Are you saying this is what you'd like to happen? That you would like to remove the element of human creation?

New comment by scrozier in "A secret poker game you can play on the subway"

scrozier — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:13:08 +0000

I was waiting for the author to discuss actual strategies, like subtly herding new passengers toward a seat, sitting in your own row so you can get up when the right person comes along and graciously offer them your seat, saying "I think there's some spilled Sprite there" if the wrong person attempts to sit down (only if there are plenty of seats left, of course), etc.

Other ideas?

New comment by scrozier in "I've acquired a new superpower"

scrozier — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 22:38:31 +0000

The finger trick did it for me. As mentioned elsewhere, I used to do this academically (looking at protein structures), but I couldn't easily get back in the groove here without the finger.

New comment by scrozier in "I've acquired a new superpower"

scrozier — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:49:14 +0000

I spent weeks doing this, looking at stereoscopic (?) images of protein structures, while a grad student in molecular biophysics. I got so that I could see the overlapped images pretty much instantly. But I'm having a hard time getting it now, even on the easy one.

New comment by scrozier in "I've acquired a new superpower"

scrozier — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:43:53 +0000

You may or may not be aware that Andy Warhol famously quipped that, "in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes," back in the late 1960s. As media has gotten to be ever more ubiquitous and the cost of entry lower, he was clearly onto something decades before the internet!

New comment by scrozier in "All clocks are 30 seconds late"

scrozier — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:21:21 +0000

Oh yes, I grew saying "quarter past four." Probably don't anymore, but it was definitely in the vernacular in the US in years past.

New comment by scrozier in "Chocolate intake and risk of type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort studies"

scrozier — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 03:05:59 +0000

Volume…sorry, should have made that distinction.

New comment by scrozier in "Chocolate intake and risk of type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort studies"

scrozier — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:37:29 +0000

You're right about the "serving" thing. But in the US, at least, a cup in a culinary context means precisely eight ounces.

New comment by scrozier in "How Chordcat works – a chord naming algorithm"

scrozier — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 16:34:13 +0000

Allowing that I'm simply not sophisticated enough to understand this, I think he's overthinking things. :-)

I mean, B3 D4 G4 in isolation probably does sound like G/B to western ears, and maybe the overtone explanation is acoustically relevant, but it seems like there are not too many other things that those notes could be, and the spelling clearly spells a Gmaj triad.

New comment by scrozier in "How Chordcat works – a chord naming algorithm"

scrozier — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 19:42:29 +0000

This is one of my favorite categories of HN posts. But hey, if it engenders some interest in ______ (fill in arts category), then it's all good.

New comment by scrozier in "How Chordcat works – a chord naming algorithm"

scrozier — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 19:40:06 +0000

(semi-professional piano player here) That's interesting. I've never heard that...not even sure what "lowest fifth" would mean. I would think that the root and the third contribute the most, right? The fifth is sometimes even omitted. I'm very curious how this might work. Do you have any examples?

New comment by scrozier in "Passport Photos"

scrozier — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:52:27 +0000

In the US, anyone can take the photo, including yourself.