Hacker News: smolder

New comment by smolder in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

smolder — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 11:03:57 +0000

Sorry, but you're wrong that wine isn't overwhelmingly sweet. The standard is about 15% alcohol and lots of sugar that has not been turned into alcohol, because it was added after fermentation. There are dry versions, but they are rare, just like dry hard ciders are rare. Sugary shit is what sells to the fat gluttons who prop up the industry.

New comment by smolder in "California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops"

smolder — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:01:26 +0000

Wine is also sweet and sweetness is unhealthy. Part of the Gen Z crowd that doesn't give a shit about wine is correctly disillusioned with flawed culture. We don't live in a world where you can get by growing grapes and making wine at your small vineyard. It's industrial. There is no bottle of wine actually worth $1000 to anyone with a sense of pragmatism and the fact such expensive wine exists just turns people off from caring about wine. A lot of societal ills come from the fact that we have old people unwilling to change running the world. Gen Z is doing okay considering the rent-laden prison they grew up in.

New comment by smolder in "Two-tier encryption in the UK"

smolder — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:42:11 +0000

There's no government that can solve for the problem of people who are at their core antisocial and want to conquer those around them. The rest need to be vigilant, and there's no utopia where people have to be so vigilant and suspicious of each others motives. Then when vigilence against evil wanes among the well-off happy types, when people start building bunkers instead of trying to fix anything, we get this impending collapse.

New comment by smolder in "In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life"

smolder — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:51:00 +0000

Do you have a smart tv that might be getting used as a residential proxy?

New comment by smolder in "We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians"

smolder — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:11:09 +0000

Mathletes, assemble!

New comment by smolder in "Two-tier encryption in the UK"

smolder — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 09:22:07 +0000

In the US, at least, good governance has been subverted, the political machine is bought, the free press is like a caged animal, and so on. The pillars of democracy have crumbled under the weight of kleptocracy.

New comment by smolder in "Enjoy Every Sandwich"

smolder — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 09:07:18 +0000

Wanting to not want is still wanting, I suppose. But it misses the point to frame it that way. The argument that we innately have endless desire is just not true. It is a quality particular to certain people.

New comment by smolder in "Dynamic Abliteration: Non-Destructive Refusal Suppression via Engram Steering"

smolder — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:26:11 +0000

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't speak negatively about private equity firms.

New comment by smolder in "Enjoy Every Sandwich"

smolder — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:59:28 +0000

No, it isn't. Think about monks and so on. Some people live properly modest lives, not hedonistic ones.

New comment by smolder in "Two-tier encryption in the UK"

smolder — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:51:53 +0000

The problem is not democracy, it's corruption fueled by sociopaths who insist on controlling everything and buy politicians. The problem with everything in society is that many people are fundamentally broken. Plenty of people aren't broken and can get along without committing crimes or plotting to take over the world.

New comment by smolder in "Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats"

smolder — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:53:54 +0000

If we were able to find cancer cells with a precision down to 1 cell, killing them would be trivial. There are lots of cells in a person. It's possible we will get there someday. I think bioengineering is the most likely route. I.e., design a virus to specifically target the type of cancer cell you mean to eradicate.

New comment by smolder in "Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP"

smolder — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 15:29:11 +0000

My phone is not that old but it stopped getting OS updates and I stopped considering it a way to do anything banking related when my bank declared that my phone OS was too old to run the app.

New comment by smolder in "Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds"

smolder — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 15:12:20 +0000

Yeah, this is a frequent failure of science communication. Misleading clickbait overselling a paper that made real progress in some capacity. I'd be more interested in hearing the truth of the matter and about the researchers passion for their study area. Spinning everything into some high stakes breakthrough that fundamentally changes our understanding of the world just makes me feel like my time was maliciously wasted and that I shouldn't click on news about science.

New comment by smolder in "Impedance Matching (2017)"

smolder — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 07:21:07 +0000

Mass damper systems were really important in cars too before we had deep simulations of structures. Putting some loosely coupled weight in some spot to keep the whole thing from vibrating was a breakthrough.

New comment by smolder in "Impedance Matching (2017)"

smolder — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 07:37:20 +0000

I think what they're getting at, and is valid, is how the speed/torque relationship is similar to voltage/amperage. There's nuance which can separate those ideas.

New comment by smolder in "Keep Our Servers Running"

smolder — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 06:49:38 +0000

Archive.org. I watched the whole of Norm Macdonalds "cancelled" (in the "cancel culture" sense) show/podcast on there. Oddly, he died a few days after I finished it.

New comment by smolder in "Impedance Matching (2017)"

smolder — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 06:46:51 +0000

That's a pretty decent example IMO.

New comment by smolder in "Impedance Matching (2017)"

smolder — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:35:46 +0000

As someone familiar with electrical impedance, I don't like this article. It's trying too hard to sound smart.

New comment by smolder in "Keep Our Servers Running"

smolder — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:28:23 +0000

They probably have, hence the matching thing.

New comment by smolder in "Keep Our Servers Running"

smolder — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:23:46 +0000

I've watched whole video series from their archives. What are you doing to get throttled?