Hacker News: ssteeper

New comment by ssteeper in "Google Flight Simulator"

ssteeper — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:34:15 +0000

Google Earth pro is still available for download with the flight simulator, which is much better than the new web version. I played around with it last night after being disappointed with the web version.

New comment by ssteeper in "Rendezvous with Rama"

ssteeper — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:28:44 +0000

I'm not fundamentally opposed to the use of AI to generate accompanying imagery, but in this case I think it detracts significantly from the article. The interior of Rama is misrepresented: the scale is completely off and the geometry is nonsensical. The clustered "cities" London, Paris, and Rome are not represented correctly. Too many more issues to name. Disappointing.

One should cherish one's own internal visualizations formed from reading the text; one should be cautious in viewing other artists' conceptions of the same material, lest your own model of the book's setting be tainted by unfaithful representations. When the imagery is this bad, it's a disservice to the book's legacy.

New comment by ssteeper in "Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica"

ssteeper — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:18:46 +0000

In your opinion as an AV safety expert, has Waymo already demonstrated a far higher standard of driving than human drivers in collision avoidance scenarios?

New comment by ssteeper in "Meditation as Wakeful Relaxation: Unclenching Smooth Muscle"

ssteeper — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:40:28 +0000

Very simply, meditation is an attempt at single-pointed concentration. It involves cultivating awareness of the mind's contents and the ability to let thoughts pass without fixation. "Zoning out in the shower" probably means something more like daydreaming, where any and all thoughts are permitted to exist without active control. Focusing intently on a difficult cognitive task ("flow state") is more akin to meditation than zoning out.

A lot of beginners are so bad at this that some amount of guiding back to the goal is helpful. Many can only go a few seconds without getting fixated on passing thoughts.

Practicing one's ability to focus on a single thing and reducing mind-wandering will improve one's capability for concentration.

New comment by ssteeper in "Our next-generation model: Gemini 1.5"

ssteeper — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:01:35 +0000

Ah, to be young and clueless about coinage mailing.

New comment by ssteeper in "Long context prompting for Claude 2.1"

ssteeper — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:48:20 +0000

You're saying this as if the result is unsurprising, however it is significant that the performance jumps so dramatically and it is not a fundamental issue of capability, just a bias in the model to be hesitant towards providing false information. That's a good insight, as it can allow further fine-tuning towards getting that balance right, so that careful prompt engineering is no longer necessary to achieve high P/R on this task.

New comment by ssteeper in "Drugmakers are set to pay 23andMe to access consumer DNA"

ssteeper — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 01:01:32 +0000

Yes, it is complex. I agree that providing personal data to trustworthy research programs is beneficial to the public. Do you agree that providing detailed health data to untrustworthy corporations can easily become problematic? Because so far, you've made it sound like you don't see a reason for an individual to not provide their data to 23andme.

New comment by ssteeper in "Drugmakers are set to pay 23andMe to access consumer DNA"

ssteeper — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 23:36:50 +0000

Did you intend to give your DNA to GSK PLC too? The company that bought the DNA data from 23andme is GSK PLC, the tenth largest pharmaceutical company and #294 on the 2022 Fortune Global 500.

In 2012, GSK pleaded guilty to promotion of drugs for unapproved uses, failure to report safety data and kickbacks to physicians in the United States and agreed to pay a US$3 billion (£1.9bn) settlement. It was the largest health-care fraud case to date in the US and the largest settlement by a drug company.

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

New comment by ssteeper in "Writing Is Objectively Superior to Speaking as a Communication Method (2020)"

ssteeper — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 00:17:15 +0000

This is not an objective argument, if you were expecting one based on the title. The author is making this claim as "an antisocial autistic person".

> I can't bring myself to understand the importance for such things (if it even exists.) Communication is about the exchange of information, not superfluous nonsense that contains hardly any relevance to it.

New comment by ssteeper in "Valve bans 40k Dota 2 accounts using honeypot patch"

ssteeper — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 23:15:09 +0000

I've played 3000+ games of competitive Halo Infinite over the last year while climbing to top 1% and only had 1-5 games with noticeable cheating. It's nowhere near "ubiquitous and rampant". In the singular game with blatant aimbotters, it was actually a really close and exciting game because while their aim was perfect, their strategy and game sense was atrocious. So with good communication and coordination on our side, we were able to outsmart them and win.

New comment by ssteeper in "We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot"

ssteeper — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 21:50:00 +0000

Is a startup founder looking for a big payout succumbing to greed?

These people are just following incentives.

New comment by ssteeper in "Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?"

ssteeper — Wed, 25 May 2022 18:16:07 +0000

Overcooked 2

New comment by ssteeper in "How can I get my boyfriend to stop digging his tunnel?"

ssteeper — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 19:14:49 +0000

> There are dozens of us!

New comment by ssteeper in "95%-ile isn't that good (2020)"

ssteeper — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 05:14:42 +0000

The Gervais Principle is literally a joke

New comment by ssteeper in "KFC launches 4K, 240FPS gaming console with a built-in chicken warmer"

ssteeper — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 16:46:50 +0000

If the food tastes like just salt without much else, then obviously that's not great. How is this a difficult point to understand? It's the quantity that's the problem, not simply the presence of it.

New comment by ssteeper in "Companies Use Borrowed Billions to Buy Back Stock, Not to Invest"

ssteeper — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 09:25:04 +0000

This is the standard/traditional theory of business, right? No one person decided it, it's just a theory about a capitalist markets. This theory is cited as one of the main guiding principles in corporate ethics as well.

https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2019/1/25/sharehold...