Hacker News: thatcat

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

thatcat — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:46:15 +0000

So a software engineer could diagnose an illness with ai, even if they happen to be right that doesn't really prove much about how bad of an idea it could be in a long tail scenario.

New comment by thatcat in "WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants"

thatcat — Sat, 30 May 2026 04:10:41 +0000

A Thielian sea steading homeless encampment for intellectuals in international waters named Titanic II.

New comment by thatcat in "Norway's 2 petabytes of Huawei flash storage and LLM training"

thatcat — Tue, 26 May 2026 03:15:09 +0000

the models don't retain their full training data set

New comment by thatcat in "What is a Demand Coop"

thatcat — Thu, 21 May 2026 09:46:18 +0000

do you think neutral ai moderation and time limits on discussion would have the desired effect?

New comment by thatcat in "Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement"

thatcat — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:45:58 +0000

who funded his lawsuit as a part of a lawfare campaign again?

New comment by thatcat in "Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)"

thatcat — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:03:01 +0000

You build small scale modular systems at the sources of maximum power consumption to reduce transmission losses and grid requirements.

New comment by thatcat in "Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)"

thatcat — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 22:04:48 +0000

If risk and disposal is factored into coal, gas, solar power, what would be cheaper? Nuclear has recyclable fuel processes and fail safe systems available.

New comment by thatcat in "Mexican surveillance company Grupo Seguritech watches the U.S. border"

thatcat — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:48:11 +0000

The startup costs, process knowledge requirements, and logistic issues with inputs are clearly higher for large scale chemical manufacturing than mechanical. The Roi is currently lower, if that changed they would adapt easily.

New comment by thatcat in "Mexican surveillance company Grupo Seguritech watches the U.S. border"

thatcat — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:32:28 +0000

There was some model named FGC2000 which was used with short unrifled 9mm tubes, meaning the range was low and could only be used as parent described. Saw this on a YouTube video but can't find it now.

New comment by thatcat in "Industrial design files for Keychron keyboards and mice"

thatcat — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:14:44 +0000

obviously the photos and media is covered by copyright, but rendering your own probably is not.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:49:03 +0000

How would you know how many vehicles there are when it separates late? Some Iranian munitions have 80 vehicles. Maybe they don't have the fastest hypersonics or large payloads in them, but it seems like the combination of high speed + multiple vehicles + late separation poses an extreme challenge to these systems. I'm sure he's exaggerating or has biased sample data, but the missile intercept marketing team seems to be exaggerating quite a bit as well. There are many videos that seem to show them squirming around in the sky like lost sperm and then blowing up without hitting the missile and falling to the ground.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:40:07 +0000

I mean even a cursory analysis will show that it's physically impossible for it to work against multiple vehicles/decoys. They also make the "stealth" f35, their contracts for this stuff is from Jan - probably will still make money from US/Saudi, but good luck selling to Germany or Japan.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:53:52 +0000

Lockheed martin PAC3 manufacturer is down 11% this month.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:51:08 +0000

Iran copied oreshnik system, added decoys and other stuff, patriot is not effective against hypersonic, multiple vehicle missiles or decoys (which would require 1 patriot per vehicle) and is dependent on 2 radar systems functioning in the correct locations and the correct angle of attack from firing location. See Ted Postol's coverage https://www.youtube.com/live/Q2yQ3kBAQIk?si=JLvN2mVleKv64YDs. Even patriot is <5-10% effective in footage review from early Iran conflict before they started using hypersonic multiple vehicle missiles.

New comment by thatcat in "How Iran is making a mint from the current war"

thatcat — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:43:01 +0000

Pretty sure the big losers are US missile intercept systems manufactures since they've basically been outed as useless so I'm not sure who would want to buy them now. And Israel, of course, who is getting struck as a result of their over reliance on these systems. US bases are being wrecked, all the radar systems are gone, several carriers damaged - not sure that is no damage.

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 22:23:03 +0000

this is just gypsum in case anyone was wondering

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:28:17 +0000

Clover fixes nitrogen and roots help stabilize the voids in the soil. They sell seed mixes called "ground cover mix" that includes other plants and will help keep the soil from recompacting when it rains and keeps weeds at bay.

New comment by thatcat in "Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog's chip reunites with him after 11y"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:32:23 +0000

You might need something like rebar to stick in the back of the mouth and pull back when that doesn't work

New comment by thatcat in "Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm"

thatcat — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:07:44 +0000

When it's wet, but not saturated - like 1-2 days after a rain - you can decompact the soil with a strong metal broadfork and leave the soil in large block aggregates. This keeps the soil structure and maintains some fungal web connections. Add nutrients, wood chips, stick and sand below aggregates and in cracks. Cover with compost and plant clover to cover.

New comment by thatcat in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

thatcat — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:48:30 +0000

Would you say the scarcity is what starts the corruption?

Like you can't get a plumber so you have to use your personal network or there aren't enough tickets so you have to obtain one through your personal network, etc?