<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: snakeboy</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=snakeboy</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:52:31 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=snakeboy" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Supreme Court permits states to use SAVE database for citizenship checks"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Trump effectively poisoned the well against any meaningful bipartisan interest in election fraud through repeated endorsement of bad faith and ludicrous "investigative journalism" by his supporters in 2020.<p>So it basically does not matter what the heritage foundation did or did not find, or what other groups will find in 2026 and beyond.  The entire country has made up their mind already.  Thus is the price paid for Trump's first-order winner-take-all approach to everything.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:06:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849238</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849238</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849238</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Go grandmaster Shin defeats AI KataGo with a two-stone handicap"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, I can understand why absolute ratings are impossible to extract.<p>However, since the population maintains some continuity over time (players gradually enter and then leave over time), would it not be possible to reconstruct relative ratings between players that didn't play during the same era?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:14:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564173</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564173</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564173</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "New type of dice guarantees no tie when deciding who goes first"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> The search was enormous — there were more possible designs than atoms in the universe<p>PopSci journalists must get so excited every time they get to write about a math result with a combinatorial flavor, letting them use their favorite "wow factor" phrase.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:47:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562138</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562138</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562138</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Go grandmaster Shin defeats AI KataGo with a two-stone handicap"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> If you want to compare Magnus Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 in the year 2014 to Garry Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 in the year 1999, you have to know how strong the total pool of players (including all the amateurs who compete at lower levels) was in the year 2014 vs. 1999.<p>I imagine that FIDE has all of this data somewhere, right?  They don't publish more in-depth distributional analyses of players somewhere?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:41:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562097</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562097</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562097</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "The asteroid currently hitting front end web development"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> She was even able to change the text in one of their images to its new product name without having to contact the graphic designer.<p>Is that legal... ?  I admit I don't know much about graphic design is contracted.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:23:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49557246</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49557246</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49557246</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "I won't read LLM authored fiction"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Fortunately, there are enough books out there to keep one occupied for a whole lifetime without reading anything published after 2022.  The classics are classics for a reason.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:30:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49207451</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49207451</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49207451</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Bad economic policy is subtly "evil", by way of allocating finite resources inefficiently.  Usually this is unintentionally done by not appropriately taking second, third, ..., nth order effects into account.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2026 05:21:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49164600</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49164600</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49164600</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> And therefore, if an AI had more data that mirrors that experience in some way would it be sufficiently creative to create something "truly original"?<p>An important distinction seems to lie in a human having original experiences to draw from, while an AI has only "data that mirrors" experiences.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:09:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019692</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019692</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019692</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Have you ever seen transplants to a colder climate trying to navigate icy road conditions?<p>This is a valid point that self-driving cars solving the issue once and losslessly deploying the solution to it's fleet is a massive improvement over humans each individually applying the "live and learn" strategy.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 06:02:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48232532</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48232532</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48232532</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "DeepSeek v4"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Reform wasn't passed, it was forced via a technicality after riots made it politically unpalatable, and it has put France in a governing crisis ever since.<p>You can call it a technicality if you'd like, but, the article 49.3 mechanism is a legitimate tool for the government under the French constitution.  It is arguably designed to allow the government to pass pragmatic, but politically unpalatable projects like retirement reforms.<p>As for the governing crisis, it is simply a matter of Macron having used up the rest of his political capital on this reform, and he will conclude his term next year.<p>You are giving the impression that France is some kind of failed state unable to correct its course, where in actuality, the democratic process literally worked as intended:<p><pre><code>  1. Macron proposes a necessary welfare reform to start reigning in the budget
  2. People go out and protest (unsurprising, as welfare cuts are universally unpopular)
  3. Macron's government uses an unpopular mechanism to pass the reform into law, which contributes to his government becoming a lame duck.
</code></pre>
> Also, retirement in North, West and Central EU is 67+, not 64.<p>This is simply moving the goalposts of our discussion, so I will not respond.  France's reforms under Macron are real, and directionally-correct.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:33:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47889334</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47889334</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47889334</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "DeepSeek v4"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Any attempt to change those results in the country being taken hostage by rioters, thus nothing changes.<p>Your theory doesn't actually match with reality, given that Macron's retirement reform <i>was</i> passed into law despite protests.  As currently enacted, the age of retirement in France will progressively increase from 62 until reaching 64 in 2030.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:48:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887918</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887918</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887918</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I usually use free archived versions to read mainstream journalism pieces.  Seeing this convinced me to subscribe.  I've always loved The New Yorker, and am happy to support serious longform journalism (and I know that Ronan is one of the best).<p>However, it's a shame that the only way to subscribe to the print version is to pay $260 upfront for the yearly subscription.  Meanwhile the digital version is $1/week ($52 upfront) for one year, or even just $10 for one month.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:05:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47672074</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47672074</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47672074</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't need any of these statements to be true to want to divest from a US monopoly on essential software.<p>It's about decentralization, always has been.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:12:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625786</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625786</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625786</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "Afroman found not liable in defamation case"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I fail to understand why you cited ChatGPT in the first comment instead of just linking the sources in the first place.  That was obviously the critique of your comment, and it seems bad-faith to claim it was because they "just don't like the numbers".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 23:08:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447693</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447693</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447693</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "The Appalling Stupidity of Spotify's AI DJ"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The whole pitch of AI is that the model is going to be able to make exploit general knowledge outside of the local scope of the problem, just like a human would do.  So I would also expect that it would be able to transfer his knowledge of classical music learned in language training, and apply that to the Spotify database.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:11:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47386267</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47386267</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47386267</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "I don't use LLMs for programming"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> All of this capability emerging from a company (Anthropic) that’s just five years old. Imagine what Claude will be capable of in 2030.<p>I don't believe VC-backed companies see monotonic user-facing improvement as a general rule.  The nature of VC means you have to do a lot of unmaintainable cool things for cheap, and then slowly heat the water to boil.  See google, reddit, facebook, etc...<p>For all we know, Claude today is the best it will ever be.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:39:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348836</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348836</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348836</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "EU bans the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> I wonder if it will reduce risk-taking<p>I understand this argument in engineering and medical fields, but in clothing industry, does incentivising risk and innovation really matter that much?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 15 Feb 2026 17:27:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47025529</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47025529</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47025529</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "France's homegrown open source online office suite"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's the name of a french-developed open video conferencing software[0].  See the 1st prize result in TFA...<p>[0] <a href="https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/produits/visio" rel="nofollow">https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/produits/visio</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:32:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925679</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925679</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925679</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Well, nobody <i>needs</i> Google-level money...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:50:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46835430</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46835430</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46835430</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by snakeboy in "[dead]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Installation Process Enhanced by AI<p><i>Proceeds to use requirements.txt in 2026...</i><p>Old habits die hard for our LLM overlords.  But at least it sure knows how to market itself!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:46:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792252</link><dc:creator>snakeboy</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792252</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46792252</guid></item></channel></rss>