Hacker News: smcg

New comment by smcg in "Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff"

smcg — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:24:05 +0000

Statistically, customer service bots save a lot of time that humans spend on the customer service side. A lot of them are gathering basic form information that would take up more labor time. If you want more humans in customer service then you'll have to pay a lot more for it, one way or the other.

New comment by smcg in "Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible"

smcg — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:59:00 +0000

Have you seen the lists of members of rich people's group chats? Rich people coordinate much better than non-rich people.

New comment by smcg in "Fox to buy Roku"

smcg — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:57:40 +0000

My Samsung TV sometimes auto-plays Fox when I turn it on. It's very annoying.

New comment by smcg in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

smcg — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:37:28 +0000

I read a lot of books when I was younger, but I also read a lot of magazines. They gave me something light in between books. Now devices have replaced magazines and they suck you in.

New comment by smcg in "Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post"

smcg — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:44:19 +0000

targeted, expertise, fast... pick 2

New comment by smcg in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

smcg — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:51:31 +0000

I thought this was one of the most important skills to have early in my career.

New comment by smcg in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

smcg — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:56:58 +0000

I used linear algebra to implement PageRank in my Information Retrieval class. I also used it extensively in my AI and ML classes. You can't pass a ML class without a good foundation in linear algebra. Not to mention, discrete mathematics is the fundamental building blocks of CS. Surely you were using algorithms and graphs. I hope you computed an algorithm's efficiency with big O notation. I hope you have used probability before.

New comment by smcg in "Are You Enjoying Our Linguine? (2025)"

smcg — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:54:23 +0000

Operation Paperclip sure was great at bringing a bunch of fascists to the US.

New comment by smcg in "Are You Enjoying Our Linguine? (2025)"

smcg — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:49:28 +0000

I agree with you. Fundamentally, this is an article about the effects of market capitalism. Everything can be converted from cultural terms into economic terms.

New comment by smcg in "The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen"

smcg — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:34:01 +0000

I'm sorry, what? What happens if you try to share news on Facebook? Does it bury it in the algorithm?

New comment by smcg in "Stop Ruining It"

smcg — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:18:55 +0000

Unless Seth gets the ear of some high-up executives, I don't think this article will change anything. The workers "ruining" products have to do their job, and often don't have much input into these decisions.

New comment by smcg in "Deflock hits 100k ALPRs Mapped in USA"

smcg — Sun, 31 May 2026 22:42:22 +0000

Surely one of the cameras saw who it was...?

New comment by smcg in "Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M"

smcg — Sun, 31 May 2026 22:41:25 +0000

I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.

New comment by smcg in "Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM"

smcg — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:04:22 +0000

It's very common in US private schools.

New comment by smcg in "Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM"

smcg — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:01:56 +0000

It's difficult to assess which students have a chance of success without standardized testing.

"In 2024, over 25% of the students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0".

Math 2 is the remedial elementary and middle school math course at UC SD. Lack of standardized testing plus grade inflation contributes to this outcome.

New comment by smcg in "Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM"

smcg — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:42:28 +0000

shop class and drivers ed used to be offered by schools...

New comment by smcg in "Last.fm is now independent"

smcg — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:17:06 +0000

do you know of a better recommendation algorithm?

New comment by smcg in "What color is your function? (2015)"

smcg — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:25:59 +0000

this article seems like a nice view into what things were like in 2015 but we've come along way since then.

New comment by smcg in "The user is visibly frustrated"

smcg — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:47:16 +0000

Bob forbid someone have standards

New comment by smcg in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"

smcg — Tue, 26 May 2026 16:14:02 +0000

My friends and I got yelled at for doing anything fun outside, and we couldn't go beyond our yards. Then the neighbor kid chased my friend with a knife and we really couldn't go anywhere until the little perp got committed.