Hacker News: snk

New comment by snk in "Blood cells from 80-year-old donor become stem cells with molecular age under 20"

snk — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 01:56:00 +0000

If it doesn't matter then it is not evolution, right?

New comment by snk in "Blood cells from 80-year-old donor become stem cells with molecular age under 20"

snk — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 01:54:48 +0000

Not everything; only 93% of humans have died, for example. Past != future.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 03:11:20 +0000

Well, no. If I can get an LLM to write like Asimov, that's better than I will ever do, honest.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 03:00:02 +0000

Yeah, for some of us, that is bad advice. The version I can most safely implement is, "Be your best self."

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:56:43 +0000

If you never used any particular tool, you probably wouldn't find it useful, right?

I asked Gemini about my unicycling this morning, and it coached me on weighting the seat; e.g., looking ahead instead of down helps unweight the pedals.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:43:32 +0000

The title, for example, should likely be Nginx for Nerds, and that error was human, not AI, right?

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:40:40 +0000

So connecting with them on a call and cutting out the LLM was an error?

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:37:48 +0000

That's privacy.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:37:22 +0000

When I can get an LLM to write like Isaac Asimov, I'll consider some artificial literary experiments; there were books I wanted him to have written that he did not get around to, quitting at 458.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:34:48 +0000

Good for privacy and productivity.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:25:19 +0000

Really? How do they distinguish perfect copies from originals?

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 02:20:37 +0000

I'm quick-witted, outspoken, playful, clever, apparently intelligent; Mensa, Colloquy, like that; not quite clever enough for the triple 9 societies. Morning pages readily enough dispel the illusion. Or coding. I scanned six years of morning pages into a PDF and fed it to Claude to distill for me; apparently, I have several thoughts per year. Damn, I'd hoped for more. Asking Claude Code to critique my code is, ah, good coaching. Ouch.

New comment by snk in "Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)"

snk — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 01:54:31 +0000

Kinda. Walking the dog with me this evening, Christa saw the license plate 8531 PRI and asked me if 8531 really was prime. The 2, 3, 5 checks are automatic, and 8531-8400 = 131, which obviously isn't divisible by 7, but I would've had to check the rest of the two-digit prime factors except 97 - 8531 is greater than 90 squared, less than 97 squared, though, I reckon. So I said I don't know. But Google would know, you know? If your LLM buddy is hanging out active on your phone all the time, it can - maybe not yet, but foreseeably - answer every question, no thought required, and carry out any expressed desire.

New comment by snk in "AI is removing the middle class of software engineering"

snk — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:50:42 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_invention...

New comment by snk in "AI outperforms law professors in Stanford Law study"

snk — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:43:58 +0000

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.14372

New comment by snk in "AI outperforms law professors in Stanford Law study"

snk — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:18:24 +0000

I'll note that having countless superintelligences handy will accelerate problem-solving e.g. dystopia.

New comment by snk in "The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner"

snk — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:41:42 +0000

A couple of possibilities spring to mind. Likelier that Karen lied, but maybe the 512 page fax changed the system.

New comment by snk in "The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner"

snk — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:39:33 +0000

You mean, Karen lied?

New comment by snk in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

snk — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 21:16:57 +0000

I'm old. Back in the olden days - the 1900s - 2-ton cars were not lightweight, the so-called heavy Chevys.

New comment by snk in "Rich Hickey: Thanks AI"

snk — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 20:23:03 +0000

Writing is used to defraud people, to propagandize them, to steal their intellectual property and livelihoods, to systematically deny their health insurance claims, to dangerously misinform them (e.g. illegitimate legal advice or hallucinated mushroom identification ebooks), to drive people to mental health breakdowns via "internet psychosis" and much more. The harm is real and material, and right now is causing unemployment, physical harm, imprisonment, and in some cases death...