Hacker News: streptomycin

New comment by streptomycin in "Goodbye Google"

streptomycin — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:54:02 +0000

My kids are too young for that, but my nephew is applying to college now. I told him that anyone who says they have any great insight into how he should be thinking about his future education/career is either wrong or lying.

New comment by streptomycin in "Goodbye Google"

streptomycin — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:49:01 +0000

If tons of people thought advertising was going to lead to the extinction of humanity, then probably more people would be extremely worried about advertising.

I understand that some people think AI is completely 100% safe, but you guys also have to be aware that a lot of people disagree with you, otherwise you're going to find their actions very confusing.

New comment by streptomycin in "We must pace the frontier"

streptomycin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 17:17:14 +0000

Probably thinks he has a better chance negotiating with China now than with misaligned AGI in the future.

New comment by streptomycin in "We Must Pace the Frontier"

streptomycin — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 16:36:27 +0000

Indeed, as Dario wrote in this post:

> This could be seen as analogous to the SALT treaties — capping the number of missiles limited the potential for destruction while preserving each country’s deterrent

Losing control of AI is the plan – by Kelsey Piper

streptomycin — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:40:29 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/losing-control-of-ai-is-actually

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49657428

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by streptomycin in "Where did all the public bathrooms go?"

streptomycin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:22:40 +0000

Not ruined, just diminished. If too much of the $0.25 is taken by fees, then make it $0.50, or $1, or whatever. In many places, there'd be plenty of business still.

New comment by streptomycin in "ElevenLabs, TwelveLabs, ThirteenLabs"

streptomycin — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:12:32 +0000

Reminiscent of 22 Savage <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIz1HGNlTA4>, 23 Savage <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8JKly7sXpU>, etc.

New comment by streptomycin in "Ask HN: Is Reddit trying to kill old Reddit?"

streptomycin — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:29:12 +0000

If you mod a subreddit you can see stats. On the biggest one I mod (35k subscribers) 2.5% of the traffic comes from Old Reddit, compared to 41% from New Reddit and 16% from Mobile Web, and the rest from mobile apps. Unsure why they differentiate Mobile Web from the others, since it's possible to view either Old or New Reddit in mobile browsers. Regardless, Old Reddit is not very popular.

New comment by streptomycin in "Firefox 153.0 Beta"

streptomycin — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:47:32 +0000

I hope they do the same for the file system access API!

New comment by streptomycin in "Vite+ Beta"

streptomycin — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:57:49 +0000

The initial selling point was performance, but then they gradually realized that a lot of the slow cruft in Jest was necessary for correctness, and now it's about the same performance as Jest (obviously may vary in some specific situation).

However vitest is still great! Selling points now are stuff like:

- shares config with vite

- works with ESM out of the box (I think Jest still doesn't)

- integrated browser testing mode that is very nice

- overall just has a ton of nicely integrated features

New comment by streptomycin in "window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world"

streptomycin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:04:43 +0000

Well there is a permission dialog and you need to select the directory to grant access and common sensitive directories are blacklisted.

A malicious ad would probably have an easier time tricking you into downloading and running an executable, which is something that has actually happened many times IRL. Worry about that before worrying about theoretical exploits that nobody has actually exploited in an API shipped in the world's most popular web browser for the past 6 years.

New comment by streptomycin in "window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world"

streptomycin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:14:13 +0000

So what should I do if I want to make an app with this functionality? Do I have to tell users to download and run some executable? You can imagine a case where that is a bit riskier than a nicely sandboxed web app with permission to access one directory.

New comment by streptomycin in "window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world"

streptomycin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:31:44 +0000

It's been in Chrome for 6 years and I'm not aware of any problems it's caused.

New comment by streptomycin in "window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world"

streptomycin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:30:19 +0000

That is similar to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_System... except AFAIK that does not allow any way to access it as a normal directory outside the browser.

New comment by streptomycin in "window.showDirectoryPicker opens up a whole new world"

streptomycin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:48:52 +0000

This isn't new, the API has been around for several years. Unfortunately Mozilla and Apple say they are never going to implement it because of security concerns https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/154

It is a great API though, I wish the other browser vendors liked it! Because currently us PWA developers are really limited when trying to make apps that work with local data, at least in non-Chrome browsers.

New comment by streptomycin in "Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left"

streptomycin — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:08:55 +0000

The only thing I miss from Gmail is a "send and archive" button to save me a click when replying to emails.

Can AI produce writing that we want to read?

streptomycin — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:36:24 +0000

Article URL: https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/can-ai-produce-writing-that-we-actually-want-to-read

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48370112

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by streptomycin in "It's Not Just X. It's Y"

streptomycin — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:54:11 +0000

https://fakewriters.onrender.com/ is a good example too

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

streptomycin — Thu, 28 May 2026 22:40:57 +0000

That's exactly what they did at my college (non-California state school) 20 years ago. Special program for students from poor high schools who otherwise wouldn't be admitted, where they came in the summer before freshman year and had to pass some prep classes first. IDK what the actual long term results were, but seems like a better idea than nothing.

New comment by streptomycin in "The AI zombification of universities"

streptomycin — Fri, 15 May 2026 02:21:06 +0000

The tests will be made by AI as well, because professors who spend less time on making tests can spend more time on research and get hired/promoted more. For the same reason, professors won't care who is using AI to cheat on the test that was made by AI. Maybe some people will care, but not enough to do anything about it.

(Cheating was already rampant in many classes 20 years ago when I was in college, I can't imagine what it's like now.)